Be in Control and Own Your Change in Any Life Aspect!
This post is about the basic types of changes, what a change usually involves, and what we can do to gain control in a situation of change, be it outward or inward.
Basically, there are changes that are imposed on us by other people or by certain events, and then there are changes we willingly undertake in order to create opportunities for what fits our perception of a better life.
While adopting outwardly imposed modifications to our lives and belief systems can be a challenge (for a wide variety of reasons), the changes we make based on our own decisions can, in fact, seem just as hard to start, endure, and bring to completion. Yet, when done with proper focus and self-discipline, they’re also the ones that help us deal or cope with those other changes, the ones imposed on us by others.
How is this possible? It is possible because, if we are able to implement a change of our own accord and persevere through it, we get a better understanding of the nature, sincerity, and strength of our choices and we have more power to stand our ground and defend these choices if need be.
The pattern of change implementation is oftentimes pretty straightforward. Ironically, this is the case regardless of whether you feel enthusiastic about the change or dread it. While your initial feeling matters in terms of mental predisposition, remember that even those who react with enthusiasm when introduced to a new idea may start on the path to change only to give up in two weeks or three months when they realize that the change involves more work than they truly bargained for.
Each goal has to be attained by performing a set of action steps. In ninety percent of cases, especially when considering goals that seem ambitious to us per where we are in life at a given moment, nobody can really tell you how many steps you will need to complete before your goal is achieved.
If you are the type of person who gets quickly bored or discouraged at the finding that there is more work to be done than you initially deemed necessary, you will soon lose sight of your final destination. This happens because you begin to question the value of your goal once the challenges on the way to its completion start revealing themselves to you, be it in the form of new skills to be learned, more time required for this learning process, more money upfront than you budgeted for, or reaching out to people you weren’t planning on seeing.
While we work on a goal, multiple tasks come up and events happen unexpectedly – unwanted tasks and events that appear distracting, dragging, and annoying. We have a hard time appreciating these because of the incessant, nagging feelings of urgency and dissatisfaction with yet more and more unplanned for action steps popping into the picture. Having set up a goal-completion deadline in your mind surely doesn’t alleviate the situation; on the contrary, it pretty much always seems to aggravate it. However, a timeframe is an essential part of any worthwhile goal, so you should have it primarily for its irreplaceable value when it comes to personal accountability.
In the case of major life changes (such as switching careers, adopting a whole-foods organic plant-based diet, developing and sticking to a demanding fitness routine, or building a solid investment portfolio, to name just a few examples), the appreciation for all the effort and struggles could come three to five years after you start working on your life-changing goal.
Indeed, our appreciation for all efforts involved will come years later, once we are able to point to a solid, measurable result. You know you’ve mastered a goal when you’re able to talk about the hindrances on the way to its achievement and laugh at the same time. It is much harder to see the humor in a challenging situation while it is occurring, because you have all these uninvited problems to figure out and resolve.
The strongest and most in-control people are those able to see through the whole picture of a challenge while it is happening to them, detect the irony and promptly spot the details they can laugh about, and take advantage of their perception by staying in good spirits as they resolve the issue at hand. Admittedly, for most of us, this amazing ability comes with some experience.
To gain experience, you must take the risk and dive into the challenge, whatever it takes. You can try and learn as much as you can from others by reading or listening to what they have to say about their experiences, but keep in mind that hardly anybody will have come across the same exact situation as yours. And, to acquire the unique experience that will help you solve your specific needs now and in the future, you need to stop using the uniqueness of your situation as an excuse not to start and you must not give up once you hit the steep part of any new process or learning curve.
You also need to resist the temptation of jumping from one novelty to the next, just because the next opportunity seems easier at a glance. Understand it only appears that way because you have no clue what you’d be getting into. Own your new goals and walk every step of the way to learning and applying the knowledge towards consistent growth and lasting prosperity.
To keep yourself properly accountable, always measure your results. Have the integrity to admit when there is more to be desired and the strength to get motivated time and again rather than become discouraged, like the average people do. After all, if you want beyond-average results, you must show beyond-average commitment. This implies calculated risk and sacrifice.