Why do I act the way I do? How can I change this?

By dougnau on Oct 21, 2008 in Consciousness, Life Coaching, Lifestyle Change

Have you ever wondered ‘Why’ you act the way you do when your actions seem to contradict what you feel you really want? If so, you are definitely not alone. As a life coach and wellness coach, I hear this comment on a regular and frequent basis. I’ll admit to you up front that in this article, I’ve got no intention of answering this question for you, however I will offer some food for thought and self exploration that may help you move past this question and onto a more meaningful question - how.

Answering the question why

Isn’t the human brain amazing? In the past couple of centuries, our advancements in science and technology have been so miraculous, that we feel as if we can decipher and understand just about anything – given the right tools and time for study. Our incredible brains have opened up the world to levels of comprehension that were unthinkable even 100 years ago. Asking the question ‘why’ has brought about many solutions and has led us to believe that we can solve just about any question.

With respect to understanding the answer to the question ‘why’ when it comes to human behavior, the limited mathematical algorhythms we have access to simply are not yet sophisticated enough to accurately provide a response. We have only empirical evidence that evaluates the trends of stimulus and response we see in the most commonly evaluated situations (ie: relationships, finances, homicide etc).

The answer to the question ‘why do I act the way I do’ is as unique as all the life experiences that forged, inherent traits you’ve developed, and chemical makeup that have created who you are. When you ask someone else to solve the questions relating to your own life you are surrendering your ownership of those actions. You are seeking an explanation outside of yourself. You might think that if there is a ‘reason’ it must be OK.

Sometimes that surrender is the best way to move forward, and the explanation someone else gives you may resonate with you enough that you are able to take the advice, make it yours, and move on accepting what that person has told you. Other times, you see more clearly that you are unique, and that even an experts advice might not fit with what you are thinking.

Regardless of how you approach finding the answer to the question ‘why’, notice where the focus of your attention is as you are pondering these thoughts. Are you stuck in the past or poised and ready to move forward to the future? How will it improve your life or the life of others to know the answer to the question why? If your answer sounds like some variation of ‘it gives me an excuse for what I’ve done or what others have done’, then you are trudging down a dark and lonely path.

Moving past why and on to how

Sometimes, when something big has happened, we find it impossible to move on if the event we are pondering is too big for us to comprehend. We need support, and simply having friends, family, a shoulder to lean on is enough to help us move past why. A professional psychologist can help you out if you feel that you simply can not move on given the actions that have taken place.

If, however, your persistence with the question why is more of an infatuation rather than a problem, consider how a life coach would move your forward and subtly shift your attention to a more meaningful question. Replace and reform any sentence including the words ‘why do I’, with the words ‘how can I’. Immediately this changes the game. Rather than thinking why do I act the way I do, you can consider ‘How can I change the way I act?’. Shift your perspective from digging up the muck of the past, to resolving the problems of the future.

You’re going to be spending energy thinking about either question – why not make that energy expenditure productive. Use the key phrase ‘How can I’ to turn around any seemingly dark and detrimental thought process.

The I don’t understand bucket

I recently heard an author speak about a mental bucket that he maintained called the ‘I don’t understand bucket’. It was a sort of filing system he kept in his brain that he simply decided not to expend energy on. I like the idea and think we can all benefit by keeping an I don’t understand bucket in our cerebral cortex that we can quickly discard items with no seeming resolution for in.

I don’t understand all of the technical details of my website, and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will not figure out why some of my page layouts don’t appear right in firefox while they do in internet explorer. I am not committed enough to take the potential years that it may take for understanding these subtleties, so this question has been delegated to my I don’t understand bucket. I can defer this question to an expert when I decide to hire someone. Similarly, I don’t understand why my family acts so differently than I in so many ways, but its not causing any family despair, so I’ll chalk that up to the I don’t understand bucket. Its just not worth the effort of pursuing something that will bring no apparent resolution.

Some ‘bigger’ topics also get chalked up in this bucket. I could ask why did I get cancer at 29 and why are so many people starving? Consider though – isn’t it more interesting to know how I can prevent cancer from re-occurring, and how could I help out at least one starving family? These are the questions I choose to empower.

Our capacity to answer the question ‘why’ for so many difficult and challenging questions has done its part to take away an aspect of our naiveté. We are less imaginative, creative, and willing to accept that we can’t always have the answer that we want. We feel as if we are entitled to an answer, when the answer simply is that there are still mysteries of life we can choose to embrace and move forward with, or potentially allow to overwhelm us. You get to choose which path to pick.

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Be Well