We have become conditioned to believe that change is hard. That is not always true. For example, we do not even think about the change we made from lying down to rolling over to sitting up to crawling to standing to walking to running. It happened so naturally that many of us do not even remember when we did not have the requisite skills to perform any of those activities.
Ah, you say, but that is different. Perhaps. But is it really? We explored, discovered, and practiced new behaviors until they became so natural that they no longer required conscious thought.
So what is different about those changes from the ones we move from one state to another? The primary difference between those changes which seem to be natural and those which are imposed upon us, either by ourselves or by others, is that we accepted the fact that the change was happening. Once we accepted that reality, we gave ourselves choices and options.
For change to be easy, follow this four step process:
First, you have to focus on yourself. The emphasis here is on your behavior. Change is like charity, it begins at home. If you want to change others, begin with yourself and your approach to the world around you.
Second, you have to want to change. Note, I did not say you have to like the change; you simply have to want to change. Your reason for changing really does not matter, as long as you want to change. Change without purpose is not sustainable.
Third, you must involve your whole person. You will need your imagination so that you can recreate yourself. How do you do that? Model the behavior of someone who has done it successfully. Scrooge, Richard Nixon, Al Gore. Find a model, fictional or real life, and study HOW that person did it.
Fourth, get or create the opportunity. Look at these letters and break them into a four word sentence:
opportunityisnowhere
If you found that opportunity no where, then you have retired from life. If you found that opportunity is now here, then welcome to world of choices and decisions. You may not always like the consequences that come with the choices open to you; but the choice is still there.
If you want to create opportunity, it helps to know what you want. It’s the “purpose thing”, and it makes change easy.
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