Why Change Is Hard
There’s a short video called The Backwards Brain Bicycle (from Destin Sandlin’s YouTube series Smarter Every Day) that offers a surprisingly clear illustration of how slowly real change happens in our brains. It helps explain why so many people end up thinking:
“I know better, but I can’t stop reacting the same way.”
“I’ve worked on this. Why does the same thing keep happening?”
“This is just what happens when I get stressed.”
At first glance, the concept of the video seems simple: it’s just a bike with a small mechanical change. When the rider turns the handlebars to the right, the front wheel goes left, and vice versa.
BUT, that one change makes the bike almost impossible to ride.
What the video demonstrates is a powerful illustration of how our brains actually learn, and why changing long-standing emotional and behavioral patterns takes a lot more time than we tend to expect.
Before reading on, you can watch the 8-minute video to make these ideas feel more concrete, or come back to it later:
Knowing Isn’t the Same as Doing
One of the most striking concepts in the video is this: the rider knows exactly how the bike works. He can explain it clearly. He understands what he needs to do. And yet, his body won’t cooperate.
Each attempt ends the same way: wobbling, frustration, falling off. His brain keeps defaulting to the old, well-worn pattern that worked perfectly on a normal bike.
This mirrors what so many people experience in therapy.
You may know that you want to respond differently to conflict.
You may understand where your reactions come from.
You may be deeply motivated to change.
And yet, in the moment, your body reacts before you can think of that new way you wanted to react or respond.
That doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means your brain is doing exactly what it was trained to do.
Automatic Responses Are Learned. Unlearning Takes Time!
Our brains are incredibly efficient. Over time, they build automatic responses to stress, fear, tension, and connection. These responses were often adaptive at one point: learned early, practiced repeatedly, and reinforced over years.
The problem isn’t that these patterns exist.
The problem is that they become automatic.
In the backwards bicycle experiment, the rider eventually does learn to ride the bike, but it takes months of consistent practice. And even then, when he gets back on a normal bike, he struggles again. The old and new pathways interfere with each other.
This is exactly what emotional growth can feel like:
You practice responding differently
It feels awkward and unnatural
Old reactions resurface under stress
Progress feels slow or inconsistent
None of this means change isn’t happening.
It means your brain is rewiring.
Why Change Feels Harder Than We Think It Should
We often expect insight to create instant change. But insight is only the beginning.
Lasting change happens when new responses are practiced enough times that they become automatic; not just ideas we hold, but pathways the brain trusts.
That’s why early change often feels:
Uncomfortable
Effortful
Emotionally clumsy
Easy to “mess up”
Hard to maintain
Just like learning to ride the backwards bicycle, the discomfort is not a sign you’re doing it wrong. It’s a sign you’re learning something new!
A More Compassionate View of Growth
If you’ve ever wondered why you keep reacting the same way despite wanting something different, the backwards bicycle offers a gentler explanation:
Your brain isn’t resisting change.
It’s protecting familiarity.
With time, repetition, and support, new responses can become the default. But the process requires patience - and often, far more compassion than we initially offer ourselves.
Change isn’t about flipping a switch. It’s about practicing something knowing that it takes time for the new pattern to feel natural.