Why we sometimes prefer to stay as we are: the hidden benefits of old patterns

You resolve to say no more often, and then say yes again. You want to stand up for yourself more, and still prefer to stay in the background. That is not a character flaw. An old pattern often has a good reason: it gives us something we do not want to lose. Knowing this hidden benefit helps you understand yourself better and choose more freely.

How conflicts on the outside become inner patterns is described in our article Inner conflicts. This one is about why these patterns are so persistent.

An old observation

Sigmund Freud already noticed that people hold on to problems they suffer from. He described how such holding on can bring an advantage, for instance as the most convenient way out of an inner conflict¹. Psychoanalysis has called this secondary gain ever since. Here we deliberately apply the idea to everyday patterns: even a habit that bothers us can protect us at the same time.

Why staying feels safer

The psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman showed with Jack Knetsch and Richard Thaler that losses weigh more heavily than gains of the same size, roughly twice as much according to their data². This leads to a measurable preference for the current state of affairs, known as status quo bias².

With change, the balance is especially unfavourable. What we give up is certain and familiar. What we might gain is uncertain. No wonder the old often wins, even when we actually want to leave it behind.

What a pattern protects

The German psychotherapy researcher Klaus Grawe, long a professor at the University of Bern, described four basic psychological needs: attachment, control, pleasure and the enhancement of self-esteem. If they are neglected for a long time, our inner balance is thrown off³. Many patterns can be understood as an attempt to secure one of these needs, even if another one loses out.

The need to belong is especially strong. In a major review, the American psychologists Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary concluded that the desire to belong is a fundamental and extremely pervasive human motivation. People form bonds easily and are reluctant to give them up⁴.

Three examples show what this looks like in everyday life:

• Always saying yes. The gain: harmony, no confrontation, feeling needed and belonging. The price: your own wishes lose out, and at some point exhaustion grows.
• Always being the nice one. The gain: being liked and avoiding rejection. The price: anger gets swallowed, and closeness often stays shallow because your real self stays hidden.
• Staying the weaker one. The gain: others take care of things, responsibility lies elsewhere, and failure hurts less. The price: you trust yourself less and less.

A classic experiment by the American social psychologists Steven Berglas and Edward E. Jones fits the last point. People who were unsure of their abilities chose far more often, before a further task, a substance they believed would impair their performance⁵. Research calls this self-handicapping: if you do not compete at full strength, you cannot truly fail. It protects self-worth in the short term and costs success in the long term.

Competing commitments

Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey of the Harvard Graduate School of Education developed a memorable model for this phenomenon⁶. People often sincerely want to change while unconsciously investing energy in a competing commitment. Behind it lies a big assumption that is rarely spoken aloud, such as: “If I say no, people won’t like me any more.”

Their suggestion: first just observe this assumption, then look for counter-examples, understand its history and finally test it in a small, safe experiment⁶. “I must never say no” thus turns into a question you can check: what really happens if I say no this one time?

Understanding rather than weighing up

With motivational interviewing, the American psychologist William R. Miller and the British psychologist Stephen Rollnick developed an approach that treats ambivalence as a normal part of change: you want to change and, at the same time, you don’t⁸. A paper by Miller and Gary Rose is revealing here. It shows that neutrally weighing pros and cons can actually lower readiness to change in people who are still undecided. It is more helpful to draw out their own reasons and values for change⁷.

For the question about benefits this means: it serves understanding, not bookkeeping. The point is not whether the old pattern is good or bad “on balance”. The point is which need it meets, so that you can find a better way to meet exactly that need.

Four questions help:

• What do I gain if I stay as I am? Honestly and without judgement.
• What does it protect me from? Which worry would come true if I did it differently?
• What does it cost me? In daily life, in relationships, at work.
• How could I get the good part another way? Belonging, for instance, even when I say no once in a while.

Our ideas for MindMotion

MindMotion is not therapy and does not offer it. The app is a tool for psychological self-reflection, closer to coaching. From the findings above we derive ideas, some of which are planned and will be tested with users.

• “Does this have upsides too?” Once the Mind-Check has made a pattern visible, the app gently asks what this pattern gives you. Without judgement, with examples to tap.
• Gain and price at a glance. For each pattern, the app shows what it protects and what it costs, in your own words. No points, no balance sheet.
• The assumption behind it. The app helps you put into words the sentence that carries your pattern: “I assume that if I …, then …”.
• Mini-experiments as Moves. A small, safe test of the assumption, such as saying no kindly once, followed by a short review: what actually happened?
• Meeting the need another way. The app asks how you could meet the same need, such as belonging or safety, in a new way, and links this to your values.
• Your pace matters. If you notice that you do not want to change (yet), that is fine. The app does not push but stays with understanding.

Which techniques help resolve inner conflicts is covered in Resolving inner conflicts, and why change takes time in Change takes time. And if you want to see which patterns are at work for you, try the Mind-Check.