It is normal to oppose changes, even when they have a clear net benefit. Ideally, you will develop sufficient faith to make all changes that result in increased net benefit, as long as they don’t displace something with even greater net benefit. While you are developing that faith, you can increase your willingness to make improvements by increasing the accuracy of your cost / benefit calculations.
It is exceedingly common that apparent improvements will yield long-term net benefit far greater than initially expected. More time spent in analysis can make the best choices more obvious:
- Detail what you will change, as humans tend to inflate the cost of ambiguous or undefined actions.
- Compose a detailed, plausible plan to achieve the change. A single step is much less overwhelming than an entire process.
- Define the outcomes of the proposed improvement. Humans tend to fixate on the cost of change outside of the context of the benefits brought by the change.
- Enumerate the short- and long-term costs of remaining the same. What opportunities will you miss? What problems might occur?
The time commitment for this process suggests you use it for particularly confusing or important improvements, but you will find that the more you do, the faster you can complete it and the more broadly you can use it.
As important as it is to learn to take the time necessary to make important decisions wisely, some people get caught in the trap of taking more time than they should to make decisions. In these situations, never-ending analysis provides a synthetic but unhealthy substitute for action. A very simple but powerful tool to prevent analysis paralysis is to stop when there is no new information to consider.