I came across a number I can’t stop thinking about.

When high-risk heart patients are told they will die if they don’t change – diet, exercise, medication – only about one in seven actually follow through.

Six out of seven don’t.

I’m not making this shit up.  One of the studies is sited here.

The evidence clearly shows:

That it’s not about intelligence.
It’s not about access to information.
It’s not even about the desire to live.

So what are we missing?

Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan has a provocative answer.

In Immunity to Change, he argues that when we don’t make the changes we want – or need – it’s not weakness.

It’s a competing commitment.
A hidden one.
One that’s working hard, underneath the surface, to keep things exactly as they are.

He tells the story of a man in his late 50s prescribed daily medication to prevent a stroke or heart attack. When asked how compliant he’d be, the man said 100%. The question almost offended him.

A year later? He’d taken it about half the time.
When asked why, his first answer was “I don’t know.”
Then: “I got busy.”

Kegan asked a different question:

What would it mean about you if you took this medication every day?

That’s when things shifted.

Taking the medication meant he was old. Like his father. No longer in his prime. Not the strong, capable man he believed himself to be.

The issue wasn’t information.
It wasn’t motivation.
It wasn’t even fear of dying.

It was identity.

This is what Kegan calls immunity to change.
We’re not resisting the new behavior.
We’re protecting an old story.

And that story is running the show whether we know it or not.

So instead of asking why aren’t I changing? – which usually produces “I don’t know” or a list of excuses – we need a better question:

What is my current behavior preserving?

Because it’s always preserving something.

I’ll go first.

A few years ago, I had to get honest with myself about why I kept avoiding exercising regularly.

I told myself it was about flexibility.  Going to the gym when I had the time and skipping it when I didn’t.

But when I asked myself Kegan’s question – what is this behavior preserving?  – the answer surprised me.

Committing to a trainer. To a schedule.  To showing up on someone else’s terms. This meant admitting I needed structure. And I’ve always seen myself as someone who doesn’t.

I’m someone who is self-directed. Free spirited and not constrained.

Growing up, I didn’t feel like I had a lot of choices. So somewhere along the way, I made a quiet vow to myself: I would always give myself options. I would never lock myself in.

A fitness commitment felt like a lock.

My competing commitment wasn’t laziness. It was protecting my sense of autonomy – freedom – the one I’d been guarding since childhood without even knowing it.

The question shifted from Why won’t I commit? to Who do I want to be now? And that’s a much more interesting question to answer.

So the next time you find yourself wondering Why do I keep not doing the thing I say I want to do? – don’t ask what’s wrong with you.

Ask instead:

What about that change feels threatening to who you believe yourself to be?
What are you holding onto that you haven’t named yet?

They’re not comfortable questions. They’re not supposed to be.

But they’re the ones that reach past the excuses – and make real change possible.
Until next time,
Margalit