On Adaptability and the Danger of Doing Things Because "It's What We've Always Done"

In pursuing excellence, we tend to assume the path to our goals should be linear: we have a dream, build a vision, and set goalposts to check off one by one on a strategic plan. Yet reality doesn't always cooperate with our carefully curated idea of how the path forward should unfold.

Building something big – a project, a company, a championship – does require a clear vision, a strategy, intermediate milestones, and honest ongoing assessment of how we're doing along the way. None of that is in question.

But when we get too attached to what the path should look like, when a rigidly defined strategic plan becomes unchangeable, we risk losing one of the most vital ingredients of long-term success and genuine innovation: adaptability.

In my work, I keep noticing that the healthiest and most successful people share a strong capacity to adapt. This doesn't mean changing their end goals on a whim or abandoning a sound, purposefully built strategy at the first sign of difficulty. But it does mean staying open to new ideas, fresh perspectives, and different routes that might still lead to the outcome they want.

So what makes someone more willing, or more able, to adapt than someone else? What lets certain individuals take risks that look reckless or unrealistic from the outside? Often, it comes down to personality.

The psychology behind "we've always done it this way"

A leader's underlying character traits shape how open they are to change, to risk, and to ideas that deviate from precedent. People, and the systems they build, gravitate toward the known. We like homeostasis, even when the status quo we're protecting is dysfunctional or inefficient, because it's how we manage uncertainty.

But when the goal is innovation, when the whole point is to reach somewhere new, that same instinct becomes the danger: a mentality that runs on "we'll do it this way because that's how it's always been done."

In my clinical work and research, one trait shows up again and again as a strong predictor of a kind of adaptive capacity: openness to experience. People high in openness are more curious, more comfortable holding ambiguity, and more willing to sit with an idea before deciding whether it's good. They don't necessarily take more risks, but they tolerate the discomfort of an unresolved problem long enough to find a genuinely better answer, rather than reaching for the first familiar solution just to make the discomfort stop.

Rigidity is rarely really about the plan. Often, it's about intolerance for the anxiety that surfaces when the plan is in question. Many people who struggle with uncertainty may simply pull toward a firm, unambiguous answer – any answer – over continued uncertainty. Consequently, high-performing individuals and organizations with a low tolerance for ambiguity may intuitively grab onto "how we've always done it" – not because it's the best path, but because it's the fastest way out of not knowing.

Adaptability, then, isn't only an intellectual skill. It's an emotional one: the ability to sit with "I don't know yet."

With some awareness and inner work, greater adaptability can be built. It starts with separating the vision from the method: treating the destination as fixed and the route as negotiable. It means building in real checkpoints for honest reassessment, not just progress reports that confirm you're still on the original road. And it means noticing when "that's how we've always done it" enters a conversation and asking, honestly, whether it's the best answer or simply a reflex against discomfort.

None of this is an argument against structure, strategy, or discipline; those remain a necessary foundation of any serious pursuit of excellence. It is, however, an argument for holding that structure with an open hand: to establish a greater willingness to let the plan change shape while the goal stays the same.