Identifying What Stops Adults from Learning

Have you ever wondered why people keep making the same mistakes and don’t seem to learn?

It may be a person who spends way more than they earn or save. 

Or the person who spends way too much time gaming. 

Or the person who drinks too much and knows its not good for them,. 

Or the person who stays stuck in a job they don’t like but wont do anything to look for something better.

Or the person who keeps cheating on their partners. 

What do all of these behaviours have in common? 

Well, they are neurotic, unhealthy and avoidant, but there is more to solving it than just identifying the general problems. Just understanding the problem wont help us find a solution. Look a little deeper  and you will find that all of these people distort reality. Its their subjectivity that keeps them stuck. The main ways people distort reality are;

1. They justify their behaviour by blaming others, blaming their stress or anxiety or depression, blaming circumstances, blaming their parents, and so on.  
2. They minimise the problems
3. They deny a problem exists at all
4. They don’t spend time reflecting on themselves
5. They keep revising history to deal with their failings
6. They keep delaying change, saying now is not the right time
7. They think everyone else is doing it so its not a problem
8. They avoid all uncomfortable feelings
9. They avoid all forms of conflict and confrontation
10. They lie
    

How many of these do you see in yourself? The more times you can see yourself on the list above, the more stubborn your mind is. Its your fragile ego that keeps lying to you in your mind. That voice in you that does you no good. I sometimes call it the child voice because it just doesn’t want to listen to reason. It just wants to do whatever they like and they don’t want to grow up. We all have a child inside us. Its how we treat it that holds the key to change. That is, the relationship you have with your inner child is a major determinant of your happiness.

In summary, the biggest problem stubborn people face is the unhealthy way their minds work to perpetuate the problems they have.  Change starts by questioning your reality. You might have been wrong, and admitting this brings you closer to change. And then the next few steps involve being more honest with Self, holding Self to account, setting new goals and bargaining reasonably with Self about how to reach those new goals. 

My method of coaching guides you through these stages of change, which does not necessarily need to take much time. 

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