Open Yoga Journal

When we start working on self-improvement, we may experience the resistance of our mind to the changes that we want to bring into our lives. With great willpower, we can overcome any difficulties. And if we know the right method to work with the mind, we can achieve the desired results with minimum loss of strength and attain a state where we are not subordinated to the mind, but are in the position of a skilled manager.

How does  the mind react to change?

By applying our willpower, we can quickly give up on old useless habits and develop new, useful and appropriate ones for a given period of our life. But this is not always easy. Alternatively, we have the strength to do so for some time, and later, the mind comes up with justifications and we fall back to the earlier habitual lifestyle. We all know how sustainable a habit can be if it has been developed over the years.

Experience proves that many of us find it difficult to make quick, volitional changes. This attempt requires a more paced and reliable approach that diminishes the likelihood of rollbacks. By its very nature, our mind does not like radical changes and reacts with resistance to them. However, if changes occur gradually, and the results are stretched over time, then our mind may not even consider these changes and will take them easy. Thus, consistently and moderately pursuing the intended results might be a faster and more effective strategy than sporadic leaps forward with periodic rollbacks to the starting position. Such an approach will allow us to abide by the second principle of yoga — the principle of efficiency and common sense.