The Thing That's Stopping You Might Be Trying to Protect You
- Radostina Dancheva
- Jul 9
- 3 min read
Every now and then I read something that doesn't simply teach me something new.
It changes the way I think.
This week, it was Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey's article The Real Reason People Won't Change.
In September, I'll begin working with schools as a mentor in Bulgaria's national project Competencies in Focus, supporting teachers and school teams as they develop more effective teaching and learning practices. Naturally, I've been spending part of my summer reading about professional learning, school improvement and what actually helps people change.
I expected to come away with new strategies.
Instead, I came away with a different question.
The authors use a powerful metaphor. They compare our psychology to the body's immune system. Its job is to protect us. Most of the time, that's exactly what it does. But sometimes the immune system mistakes something harmless for a threat and reacts anyway.
Kegan and Lahey suggest that our minds can do something remarkably similar. Sometimes they protect us... from change. Not because change is dangerous, but because we experience uncertainty as if it were.
That idea stayed with me.
Not because it explained schools.
Because it explained me.
Like most people, I've promised myself more than once that this time things would be different.
I'd finally exercise regularly.
Delegate more.
Write consistently.
Say no more often.
Sometimes it worked.
Often it didn't.
My first instinct was always the same:
"I just wasn't disciplined enough."
But what if that's the wrong explanation?
What if the problem isn't that we don't want to change?
What if we're committed to two different things at the same time?
One part of us genuinely wants to change.
Another part is working just as hard to make sure we don't.
Not because it's lazy.
Not because it's weak.
Because it believes it is protecting us.
Once I started looking through that lens, I realised I'd seen the same pattern in schools for years.
Imagine a teacher who genuinely wants students to become independent learners.
They know that productive struggle is part of learning.
They know students need opportunities to think, make mistakes and find their own way.
And yet, every time a student hesitates, they step in.
They explain.
They demonstrate.
They rescue.
From the outside, it looks inconsistent.
From the inside, it makes perfect sense.
Kegan and Lahey argue that behind many of the behaviours we struggle to change lies what they call a competing commitment. Beneath the visible goal often sits another commitment that feels just as important. And beneath that, a deeply held assumption about how the world works.
Perhaps the teacher isn't only committed to developing independent learners.
Perhaps they're equally committed to never letting their students fail.
And beneath that sits an assumption:
"If my students struggle, it means I haven't taught well."
The teacher isn't resisting change.
They're protecting something that matters deeply to them.
That is a completely different conversation.
It also explains why trying harder so often doesn't work.
When change doesn't happen, we usually look for another strategy.
Another course.
Another book.
Another technique.
We keep changing what we do without asking why we keep returning to the same place.
If one part of us is pressing the accelerator while another is quietly pressing the brake, more effort simply creates more friction.
As I prepare to begin mentoring schools, this may be the biggest lesson I've taken from the article.
Perhaps my role isn't to convince teachers to change.
Most teachers already want to improve.
Perhaps my role is to ask better questions.
What are we trying to achieve?
What do we keep doing instead?
And what might we be protecting by behaving this way?
Because once we understand what we're protecting, we can begin examining the assumptions underneath it.
Not by arguing with them.
Not by replacing them with another strategy.
But by testing them, one small experiment at a time.
I highly recommend reading the original article by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey.
It didn't give me another strategy.
It gave me a different way of thinking about change.
And perhaps that's where meaningful change begins—not when we discover a better method, but when we finally understand what we've been trying to protect all along.
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