Article #2
by
Karen
Change
With New Year’s just being slightly behind us now, I
decided to share what I have learned about Change for this week’s column. New Year’s symbolizes “out with the old and
in with the new”. A
time for resolutions. A time for changes.
How many of you are feeling “stuck”? How many of you have been doing the same
thing over and over and feeling like your life has become a bore, like your
life is unexciting or un-fulfilling?
Raise your hands! Ah....I see
there are quite a few of you. ;)
That is exactly what was happening in my life. I had become so accustomed to getting up in
the mornings and doing the same ol’ dull routine over
and over each and every day. You
know....get up....go to work....put in 8 hours....come home....tend to
household/family needs.....then go to bed at night and start all over the next
morning. Perhaps your daily routine is a bit more full,
but you get the picture. It’s that
feeling of not having anything to look forward to each day, other than the
occasional event that may happen to come along.
I knew I needed to change something....anything....to
get out of that “stuck in the muck” feeling.
The amazing thing that I found out is that just changing ONE little
thing does wonders for getting you motivated to make other changes along the
way. It’s like that kick in the butt
that many of us feel we need at one time or another.
Change isn’t always the easiest thing for many of us
to grasp on to. There are so many of us
that have become accustomed to living in a comfort zone with the way things
are. Many of us are reluctant to change
because we fear, for one reason or another, that change will somehow not
benefit us. Perhaps we are afraid of
change because we fear that we may make the wrong decision or choices. Perhaps we fear that if we change something
about us, others will not approve or will not like the modifications that we
have decided to make, which btw, is their stuff, not
yours.
I personally knew that I had to change something because
what I was doing, was not working. It
occurred to me that I was wasting a lot of time doing the same thing over and
over again and expecting it to come out differently. I guess for me personally, I had come to
realize that maybe if I changed the way I thought about what it was that I
needed to change, it may turn out differently.
So, there was the first step in making a change. In fact, I realized that I had started to
change already because I began to change the way I thought about certain things. It was a change in perspective and as
I discovered, that just by changing my perspective, I was already in the
process of change! I had already begun
changing just by changing the way I thought!
By changing the way I thought, my attitude towards
certain things began to change as a result!
Before I knew it, I was changing the way I would set out to accomplish
the goal I was aiming for! It was quite
interesting to see how that first little change in “thought” began to create a
chain reaction in the way the rest of the process would play out. It created a “domino” effect. Each part of the process following the first thought
played out differently than it had before when I would do the same thing over
and over again without that change in perspective. It was remarkable! Once I realized that change could be
accomplished merely by making a small change in perspective, the rest was
easy. It just naturally fell into place. It just naturally altered the final result...
(cause and effect).
Taking that first step to changing your perspective
isn’t always an easy one. Some of us
aren’t able to step into the fear of changing our perspective on things because
of past history. Some of us aren’t able
to change our perspective of things because of our core beliefs. Maybe for some of us, it may be a matter of
not being open minded about how things are supposed to be or not be.
I discovered for myself that it was a matter of being
so comfortable inside my own little box, that anything outside of the box was
unsafe and/or uncomfortable. I had
become so guarded with certain aspects of how things were supposed to be or not
to be. I had built walls around me to
keep me safe. I had put up barriers that
wouldn’t allow others to hurt me or change me.
I had confined myself inside my comfort zone so well, that the things I
was hoping and longing for became so distant to me I was no longer in the
process of having them. I became stuck
in the process and was going nowhere fast.
Today I am on a journey of breaking down the walls and
smashing through the barriers. I am
learning to become more open minded and looking at things from other people’s
perspectives. This helps me to really
change my own perspectives that I had once thought were the right way to do
things. I have discovered that my way of
thinking isn’t always the way things are.
I have discovered that my way isn’t always the right way. In any given situation, there is more than one
way to get things accomplished.
There are many ways to reach the goal the right way
and there are many ways to reach the goal the wrong way. Does this mean that my way is the only way to
get there? Absolutely not! Does this mean that my way is the right way
or the wrong way? This can only be
answered when you try your way and see what happens. Sometimes it is the right way and sometimes
it is the wrong way. It’s about whatever works for you, but if you discover
that it is the wrong way, does that mean you have failed? Again, absolutely not! It only means that you are in a process of
learning. It helps you to discover new
ways to expand on your thinking and the way you set out to accomplish your
goals.
Life is all about learning lessons. I believe that we go through the same thing
over and over again until we learn the lesson.
I like to call these my “2 x 4” lessons.
I picture myself getting hit on the head with a 2 x 4 (the lesson, the
problem) until I learn what is needed to be learned from the reoccurring
lesson. It’s my process of getting to
the “Ah...now I get it!” moment....those “aha!” moments that we experience now
and then. Some of them are easy. Some of them I look back on and think to
myself...”D’oh!...why didn’t
I see that sooner?” What I have
discovered through this process is that it is okay to keep trying until you get
it right. It is okay to make the
mistakes along the way and it is human to do so. If we didn’t we wouldn’t feel a sense of
accomplishment. We wouldn’t feel pride
in ourselves when we finally reached our goal.
We certainly would not be able to experience the feelings of
accomplishment if all we ever did was succeed.
What can you compare that feeling to if you have never experienced the
opposite side of that spectrum? This
holds true to every feeling we have, whether it be accomplishment/failure,
love/hate, joy/sadness....I think you get the picture.
So, go ahead and try new things. Step outside your box and do things
differently than you have in the past.
See what happens. The worst that could
happen is that you find that the new way doesn’t work for you. Remember, that’s
perfectly okay and not only that, it is perfectly normal. It’s the way things are supposed to be. Try a different way! That way may work...it may even work
better! Don’t be afraid of change. Embrace it and grow from it, learn from
it. If nothing else, you will discover a
whole new world out there and a whole new way to reach your goals, perhaps even
ways that are easier for you than they were before. Perhaps you will discover that the new ways
save you precious time and energy.
Perhaps you will discover new ways to improve yourself! The list is endless and so are the
possibilities.
I’d like to end with one of my favourite quotes, and
that is....”If you want to change your life, change your mind. The rest will follow.” Think about that....
Karen