Earlier this week, I found myself thinking, “This is really frustrating. I wish somebody would tell me what to do.” Minutes later, in a completely different situation, I said to myself, “I don’t want anyone else telling me what to do.” Huh? How can we resolve conflicting messages such as these?

On a beautiful morning at Magnuson Park, I struggled with the conflicting messages warring in my mind.
On a beautiful morning at Magnuson Park, I struggled with the conflicting messages warring in my mind.

Ambivalence Is Normal

Wanting one thing in a certain area of your life but something else that apparently conflicts with it in a different area — like my pseudo-desire for guidance — is totally normal. Just like you can have a fixed mindset in certain areas of your life but a growth mindset in others.

Ambivalence comes from craving something different, but also wanting things to continue as they are. Sound familiar?

Think of a situation in your life where you have tried repeatedly to change but you just haven’t had the success you’d like. Maybe you lose a few pounds one week but gain it all back the next. Or you make fantastic progress one week and fall into a slump the next. You know you should be moving forward — after all, who doesn’t want to be healthy, happy, and successful — but you just can’t get consistent.

Decorated building near Magnuson Park's Promontory Point.
Decorated maintenance shed near Magnuson Park’s Promontory Point.

Can you be okay living with ambivalence, at least for a short while until you’re ready to change?

Key Words for Change

Sometimes clients think they “should” want x or y, but then they don’t take any actions toward them. Maybe they sabotage themselves or fall into “when X, then Y” thinking. I’ve written about that pesky word “should” before. How if you’re using it often, write it big on a piece of paper and then scribble over it. Remove it from your working vocabulary.

The simplest answer is: it’s not what they really want. Yet.

Whenever you have a big enough reason — a big enough why — you will find the motivation and courage to change. The desire to change must come from within. And even when we succeed at changing, we’re still not completely immune to backsliding. We need to develop self-compassion and recognize that even during struggle we are human and worthy of love and respect. Whether we are stuck or moving forward.

This is a perfect example of going nowhere, fast. These stairs at Promontory Point were so overgrown with branches that we had to turn around to look for another path. Just like in life, sometimes we must try something, get lost, reach a dead end, and try again. A coach can help you speed up the process.
This is a perfect example of going nowhere, fast. These stairs at Promontory Point were so overgrown with branches that we had to turn around to look for another path. Just like in life, sometimes we must try something, get lost, reach a dead end, and try again. A coach can help you speed up the process.

Coaches at Precision Nutrition use the key phrase, “ready, willing, and able.” If a person is not ready, willing, or able to do certain things, not even the best coach with the perfect program and advice will be able to get them to change.

So what are we supposed to DO in order to change? Suffer in silence?

Tools for Understanding Conflicting Messages

As Precision Nutrition coaches, we’re taught the importance of facing discomfort in order to grow. Here are two tools you can use to try to better understand where those conflicting messages are coming from and what they are trying to tell you. Because while our habits start out supporting us, once we outgrow them it is time to change.

Magnuson has something for everyone: sports fields, off-leash dog park, and wild birds habitat. It also has plenty of areas to explore.
Magnuson has something for everyone: sports fields, an off-leash dog park, and wild bird habitat. It also has plenty of areas to explore.

Two Voices In Conversation

This exercise resembles role play with yourself. You can think of the mature, wise, and compassionate voice who has all the answers as your “adult self.” The stuck, confused, frustrated, and perhaps scared voice is your “child self.”

Feel free to give a name to each self, or even think of them in terms of mentor/mentee, teacher/student, wise/novice, or coach/client. Whatever relationship resonates most with you. I have named my 6-year-old gremlin “Gooky”, a smash-up of “great” and “cookie” that I created when I was battling to give up sugar. She is my voice of resistance. And she is doggedly determined to keep things exactly the way they are.

Four years ago I was still baking something every few days. Once I realized how much better I felt without gluten, sugar, and dairy, the change made itself. I was furious about giving up each thing. Now I don't even notice.
Four years ago I was still baking something every few days. Once I realized how much better I felt without gluten, sugar, and dairy, the change made itself. I was furious about giving up each thing. Now I don’t even notice.

You can write (or type) what each voice says. Or if you prefer talking through problems, set two chairs facing one another. Allow the stuck self to have three minutes to say whatever it likes. Pause for a minute and jot down whatever comes up.

Then switch font or ink color (or chair) and give the wise self a minute to summarize what the confused self has revealed. Think of the wise self as you in fifty years, if you like, looking back at now. For two more minutes, the wise self gets to offer affirmations, love, understanding, and possible solutions. It then asks a question of the stuck self.

Promontory Point at Magnuson Park.
Promontory Point at Magnuson Park.

After each voice has had a chance to talk, continue the dialogue until each side has been heard. What did each voice say? What insights did you gain from listening to each voice?

Examine Previous Changes

The second tool is to examine your past and make a list of any large changes you’ve made. Examples might include graduating from college or graduate school, getting a promotion, entering a long-term relationship, starting a family or business, or traveling. Everyone alive is capable of profound change.

The important thing to recognize is that change is scary, but you have within you all the tools you need to do it. What skills come to the surface? Maybe you were really resilient. Perhaps you loved the planning aspect of it. Or it could be that you had a partner help you get through. Write them down as a list of your unique change tools.

The only constant in life is change. We are all capable of change. But it takes examining our own process and what works best to move forward.
The only constant in life is change. We are all capable of change. But it takes examining our own process and what works best to move forward.

Motivational Interviewing: Beat Conflicting Messages

Finally, once you have a better understanding of what’s causing your ambivalence and a list of your change tools, reread what you’ve written. If you find yourself using a lot of words like “just” or “but”, you’re facing resistance. Again, normal.

Precision Nutrition has a wonderful piece about Motivational Interviewing that goes into far more detail about ambivalence and resistance. The key point is to recognize that resistance is just as much a part of making a change as ambivalence. You are normal!

If you identify a lot of anger and defensiveness in your dialogue, embrace it. Question it. Be curious about it. And by writing it down you can examine it more closely when you’re not as emotionally charged.

Homemade rice flour tortillas. Delicious and gluten-free. Quite the change from what used to make me congested, inflamed, and ill before. I'll take it!
Homemade rice flour tortillas. Delicious and gluten-free. Quite the change from what used to make me congested, inflamed, and ill before. I’ll take it!

Convert Terrified into Ready, Willing, and Able

I mentioned struggling to launch our Total Health track until my husband and I created a list of tiny steps to take to inch forward. Some only took me five minutes. But the more tiny steps I took, the more forward momentum I gained, and the more confident I became.

You, too, can turn terrifying into “ready, willing, and able”. Please share in the comments whatever you’re struggling with. Our readers have plenty of unique experiences. And as part of a change community, we’d love to help.

Published by Courtenay Schurman

Co-author of The Outdoor Athlete (2009) and Train to Climb Mt. Rainier or Any High Peak DVD (2002), author of Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills/conditioning chapter 4 (3 editions), and Peak Performance column for the Mountaineers Mag (2014-present). Member of PNWA, SCBWI, EPIC. Served on the steering committee for WOTS (2019-present). Completed UW Certificate program for Children's Literature and Memoir. Co-owner of Body Results, Inc. in Seattle. Climb leader with Seattle Mountaineers for over 15 years. Volunteer at Woodland Park Zoo since 2014.

2 replies on “How to Resolve Conflicting Messages”

  1. A good discussion and another opportunity to “look inside” and understand better why we do what we do. Not to mention trying to find ways to do it “better”, meaning optimizing the perceived value we draw from our decisions and actions. You are definitely not alone being puzzled by the contradictory messages we seem to send to ourselves now and then. My first reaction is actually “Thank God I am not consistent!”. Of course, this is uttered in a playful and deliberately provocative voice. Wanting help in situation A and not welcoming external advice in situation B seems to be a good sign of an independent and adaptative mind… something to be proud of, not something to be disappointed or troubled by. At times, consistency feels only one-step removed from rigidity. Of course, as you point out later in the post, the messages “flip-flopping” can also happen when thinking about a single situation: losing weight, changing jobs, working on a relationship, etc. I think that you do give a key in your statement “Whenever you have a big enough reason — a big enough why — you will find the motivation and courage to change”; I feel that I have, at any time, too many “I WANT” for me to be properly focused on going after them all. I will use my time and energy better if I do my best to be clear about the reason (the value) of each and every goal. This is how I got unstuck wanting to leave the country of my birth and coming to the US (my “value” here was both feeling free-er to pursue life and work opportunities AND living close to some of my favorite places on Earth – yes, these were BIG reasons). It also got me unstuck when, past my mid-fifties, I wanted to learn how to backpack solo (the value seems obvious here). In both of these previous cases I discovered something I am still occasionally puzzled by and not incredibly proud of: one catalyst of my “taking the leap” was the realization that NOT changing was becoming more “painful” and “hard” than changing. My inner critic voice sees this as “you basically just chose the EASY – easier – way forward, nothing to the proud of” – how amazing we are at self-sabotaging! Looks like my “child” voice is that of a bully. Rather, as you state from the Precision Nutrition framework, I see these stages of becoming really dissatisfied with the status-quo as finally reaching the “ready” part of ready, willing, and able; that is something to be proud of. You are so right about the Second Tool (“examine your past and make a list of any large changes you’ve made.”). The two examples I cited above, plus the countless personal challenges I had to face when long distance hiking, are something I often go back to when thinking about new and uncomfortable changes; it works! Also, I love your pointing out that “You’re normal”; guess I’m not the only one either to think that everyone around me does a better job at all these life-events I am often so scared of. Well, I used to think that, but after looking a few times under the bed and seeing no boogeyman, I do believe that I am indeed normal… meaning imperfect, scared at times, failing about as often as I succeed, changing my mind when I thought it was made… in other words NORMAL.

    1. Thanks so much for the thoughtful comment, Gerard.

      It’s an interesting word, “normal.” In this day and age, I think we all want to be extraordinary at times; and at others, we just want to be invisible or “fit in.”

      But the inner voice — or bully, as you put it — so often asking, “What’s WRONG with you? You say you want X, but do nothing to get it?” That seems to be “normal.” If we can come to the realization that change involves some “sitting on the fence” — ambivalence — as just a part of the process, I think we can cut ourselves some slack and DEVELOP MORE PATIENCE with ourselves.

      Yes, whenever we feel enough pain in the current situation (love how you put it as “you took the easy way out, nothing to be proud of”) we will eventually make an effort to change. Whether it’s a miserable job, too much weight, congestion we can’t kick, what have you — our “why” has to overpower the desire to remain in the status quo and then BINGO, we change. That’s how it has worked for me, every time.

      We are all imperfect works in progress, scared and flailing, but mistakes are how we learn. More on that in coming posts. Appreciate your contribution to the conversation!

Comments are closed.