4/5 Resilience in ACTION: Navigating the Bargaining Phase of Change 🔄
There is a specific kind of bargain we strike with ourselves when change arrives uninvited. If I just work a little harder, maybe things go back to normal. If I keep one foot in the old way, maybe I won’t have to fully let go. If I make this one deal, maybe the discomfort disappears. That’s the bargaining stage — and it’s the one I think trips up the most capable people, because it doesn’t feel like resistance. It feels like effort.
This is Part 4 of 5 in the emotional-stages-of-change series. We’ve moved through denial and anger; bargaining is the negotiating table we sit at next. In the video above I walk through why this stage is so seductive, and why getting honest about it is the hinge that turns the change curve upward.
Bargaining is negotiation with reality
The change curve traces the emotional journey people move through when they’re hit by a significant change — a model rooted in Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s work on grief and later adapted for organisational and personal change. Bargaining is the stage where the shock has worn off and the anger has cooled, and the mind starts hunting for an exit that doesn’t require us to actually change.
It shows up as what-ifs and if-onlys. If only I’d done this sooner. What if I just keep the old process running alongside the new one. Maybe if I promise to be twice as disciplined, the universe lets me skip the hard part. It feels productive. It looks like problem-solving. But underneath, it’s often a way of staying busy so we don’t have to accept the thing that’s already true.
Change is inevitable, suffering is optional. Bargaining is where we volunteer for extra suffering by refusing to put the old version down.
The trap of the effortless half-measure
In the book I keep coming back to one line: what’s effortless to do is just as effortless to neglect. Bargaining is full of effortless half-measures — small, comfortable concessions that let us feel like we’re acting while we quietly avoid the real move.
This is where the effort → effortless lens matters. Real adaptation is hard at first and only becomes second nature on the far side of repetition. Bargaining tempts you to skip the effort and jump straight to a deal that keeps things easy. But a change you negotiated your way out of isn’t a change — it’s a delay with a nicer story attached.
The honest question to ask yourself: Am I solving this, or am I building an elaborate reason not to?
Bargaining lives in all eight spheres
This stage isn’t reserved for big dramatic losses. It shows up quietly across the eight spheres of life the book is built around:
- Business — running the old workflow “just in case” instead of committing to the new system.
- Finances — promising to budget next month while this month’s habits stay untouched.
- Physical — “I’ll start properly on Monday” as a recurring, never-arriving deadline.
- Relationships — offering to change one small thing to avoid the larger conversation that actually matters.
- Mental & spiritual — bargaining with a setback instead of sitting with what it’s asking you to accept.
Same stage, different costume. Naming it is half the work.
What to actually do at the bargaining table
Bargaining isn’t a flaw to be ashamed of — it’s a normal stage, and a growth mindset (Carol Dweck’s framing of abilities as developable rather than fixed) reframes it as information, not failure. The goal isn’t to skip it. It’s to move through it deliberately.
Three things you can do this week:
- Name the bargain out loud. Write down the exact deal you’re trying to strike with reality. “If ___ then I won’t have to ___.” Seeing it on paper strips away its disguise.
- Separate the negotiable from the non-negotiable. Some of the change genuinely is open to terms; some of it simply isn’t. Bargaining gets toxic when you negotiate the parts that were never up for negotiation.
- Commit to one real action, not a clever workaround. Remember: commitment beats interest. The half-measure feels safer today and costs you more tomorrow.
If you want structure for that, the free toolkits at /gbr/ include trackers and frameworks I use to turn a vague intention into a committed move — exactly the discipline bargaining tries to talk you out of.
When you’ve watched the video, head to the Watch page for the rest of the 5-part series, and if you want the full blueprint across all eight spheres, the book is here.
The way out of bargaining isn’t a better deal. It’s the willingness to stop negotiating and start.