Have you ever kept defending something long after it stopped feeling true? You feel it in your bones that it no longer fits who you’ve grown to be, but you keep going because you chose that path. You did it to yourself. If you change your mind now, what does that say about you?
I think there are times in our lives – small moments and life-changing ones – when we realize we’ve been sticking to an ideal that we’ve outgrown. We’ve learned something new, seen something differently, or lived enough life to know the way we’re showing up no longer fits. We no longer feel like we belong in our own skin.
But we resist that change. Often, we would rather feel disconnected from ourselves than risk what it might say about us. Changing your mind sounds simple, until it feels like it says something about who you’ve been. We’re taught to value certainty, consistency, and conviction, but nobody teaches us how to revise our thinking.
There’s a fear of being wrong, of being seen differently that keeps us the same way longer than it should. So instead, we stay. We keep the same opinions, the same plans. The same version of ourselves. Not because they still fit, but because we’ve already committed to them. We think of it as integrity, being consistent, holding true. But at some point, it’s no longer about the decision itself; it’s about protecting the version of you who made it. This is a type of inertia that snowballs while keeping us in the same place for the sake of commitment. It’s fear dressed up as consistency.
That’s not integrity at all. That’s self-sacrifice.
You feel obligated to stay the same instead of empowered to choose who you are. You don’t feel aligned with your values, you feel caged by the illusion of them.
That lack of alignment, the fear of being wrong, is often the first sign something in you is already changing. It means you’re paying attention. You’re learning and growing. You’re willing to update instead of defend. Rigidity is a way to hold on to your identity, possibly one that you’ve outgrown. Maturity responds to reality, where your identity might change several times over your lifetime based on your stage of life, your relationships, and your experiences.
My Own Experience
In college, I was in a long term relationship that changed me in many ways. I was always a very malleable person and often changed who I was in the moment for someone else. During this relationship, I slowly became less social, more isolated, less free. I shaped myself around his way of being, spending all of our time together and leaving no room for anyone else. At some point I realized I wasn’t happy, but I had let myself become this person – he hadn’t forced me to do so. I had done it to myself.
In grad school, I was required to choose sites to complete the clinical portion of my curriculum. There were many options near my school, but also several options all over the country. During my first year of a 3 year program, I chose my top sites and all of them were out of town. I told myself this was because I wanted to travel but when I was finally honest with myself, I realized that I chose those sites because, even back then, I wanted some freedom from that long-term relationship.
It took me four years of gradually losing myself to find the nerve to end the relationship. I knew this wasn’t the person I wanted to be, but I had never been taught how to communicate that or to disagree with someone or to change my mind. I didn’t know what it meant to evolve into someone who could be happy on her own. I only knew that I no longer felt like myself — and I couldn’t keep doing that.
Because underneath all of these emotions, there’s fear. If I change my mind now, what does that say about who I’ve been? If I’m not the same easygoing, agreeable person I’ve always been, who am I now?
The truth is, the only thing it means is that you’ve evolved. Life experiences change you, some slowly, some all at once. Growth doesn’t invalidate your past, it builds on it. You were working with what you knew and had…and now you know and have more.
The goal isn’t to be the same. It’s to stay in relationship with yourself and with what’s true for you now. The version of you who made those decisions got you here. You don’t have to stay here.
You’re allowed to revise your thinking and outgrow your own decisions. You’re allowed to become someone your past self couldn’t have predicted.
Changing your mind isn’t the problem.
Staying the same when you know better is.
Always in progress,
Ila