Change is not hard. Make it a happy New Year!
December 31, 2009 by Will Marre
As we are thrust into a new decade, it’s tempting to focus on our frustrations, fears and uncertain times. Many have had a very tough year. Some even tragic. It’s easy to get red-hot angry over politics, special interests, jobs, taxes or people who hate so much they light themselves on fire in airplanes headed for Detroit. And if the big picture issues don’t light your fuse there is plenty of personal drama to frustrate us. Relationship problems, career dissatisfaction, debt and job uncertainty are all plagues that give us chills and fever throughout our lives like some seasonal flu. Except this year the financial and emotional flu has been epidemic.
So what should we do? Deepen our focus on our dreams! No, I am not kidding. The best way of overcoming anger, frustration or a sense of drifting in a rubber raft swirling in a toilet bowl is to:
- Get clear on our soul’s desire.
- Engage our design to go after our desire.
- Ignite the energy of our most noble drives to keep us fired up against setbacks, obstacles or fatigue.
Many, many people I’ve coached or counseled over the past decades are too confused about their life, jobs or relationships to know what they most deeply desire. As one 40-year-old hard charging V.P. put it two weeks ago, “I wonder if what I’ve become is simply the result of trying to fulfill the expectations of others.”
“Well stop,” I said. “If you even have those thoughts you are probably over busy achieving someone else’s goals.” I know from experience that does not produce inner satisfaction or take you where you want to go. I have worked with scores of people who focused their lives on meaningless work and made foolish sacrifices in hopes their stock options would become worth something or they would please an unpleasable manipulator only to be slammed with being laid off, betrayed or discarded. Our world responds to people who are clear on what they most deeply desire. I don’t mean relief from stress or a life of ease. I mean something much more important.
Just imagine for a minute that your design, your traits, talents and track record of success (experience), are all perfectly aligned to support you in pursuing the life you will find most fulfilling. What if the biggest positive difference you can make for others is also the most satisfying thing you can do for your own happiness? What if you could change your life right now to accelerate your progress toward both self-determination and beneficial impact on others?
Well now is the time to act on those questions. This past year I have witnessed a torrential flood of injustice as greed soaked bankers and self-absorbed politicians destroyed the economy, evaporated life savings and wiped out jobs like a hoard of barbarians trampling peasants. This has produced individual and family tragedy in the millions as hard working responsible people have lost their way of life, their assets and their future through no fault of their own. Meanwhile these bankers who sold the world value-less loan derivatives are currently enjoying a distribution of 14 billion dollars in bonuses.
But my point is simply this. We need, all of us, to make ourselves less vulnerable to the “man” in 2010. All of us have dreams. It’s time to wisely pursue them. If the world is going to change it’s because we, you and I, change it. Our choices as consumers, workers, parents, students all matter. Most of all, I believe each of us has a Promise to keep. That Promise is the difference our life can make. Who and how we love makes a difference. How and for what we work makes a difference. How and where we live makes a difference. It’s past time to choose the best life we can imagine and begin to live it. The question before us is what can we do now to insure that by this time next year we will be much further down our road of destiny instead of sidetracked in a snake filled jungle controlled by others hoping to be rescued.
Stop doing things you know you should stop. Change is not hard. It’s deciding to change that is.
Listen to the voice of your own soul. Get clarity on what your soul desires for your relationships, your work and your lifestyle. That’s your Promise. Commit to it.
Start. Imagine the best thing you can do today and just start doing it. When you change your world, the world changes.
Make it a happy New Year.
Recently I heard an interviewer ask Barry Gibb (The Bee Gees) when he knew that he had become a Super Star. Barry responded by saying that he never became a superstar. He said he had always been a superstar and he always knew it. He went on to say that you don’t become something until you are something.
Earl Nightingale, the father of motivational tapes and famous motivational speaker once said that the eternal truth is that “we become what we think about”. Earl called this The Greatest Secret and his recording of it won the first gold record for a non-musical recording.
Barry and Earl both expressed the same truth and it is one that I hope each of us carries into the New Year: If we realize that we are the embodiment of what we think about ourselves we will find that change is not necessary. In fact, no one wants to change. But, we want to improve.
My wish to everyone is that this 2010 is the year in which each of us improves who we know we are.
Will,
You’ve touched a nerve with this post. I’m a few months into changes that include my current job to adapt to the how I can try new niches. I’m also hunting down training classes offered through some of the government stimulus. The courses that I’m most passionate about; are in the growing field of sustainable energy and other resource reduction. I’m working toward the highest level of certification, “LEED-Accredited Professional” in this possible new career path. Just being willing try change and pursue what I want to do has helped myself and those I care most about. Thanks for your coaching! Jim
Will, I’ve enjoyed your perspective for some time. Thanks.
You’re right, change, like riding a bike, is indeed not hard, but it takes practice to get the hang of it. Having become accustomed to doing what is expected of me for so long, I found it a challenge to exercise my desires. It also takes some courage because, unlike riding a bike, pursuing personal desires carries a social stigma.
I’ve been recently wondering why villains in movies are often so much more interesting than the heroes. Maybe it’s because they follow their dreams (albeit unethical and occasionally diabolical ones).
Change is not hard. However the support system against the change is well meshed into life. Change happens only when this support system collapses as it has happened now. The systemic collapse in economy, business, politics, and the general well being of the nation is a good portender of change. Change is not going to be quick either. The biggest obstacle for change is internal. When our minds get locked in the loss of the past or worry about the uncertainty of the future, we become paralyzed. Change then grinds on with the friction of paralysis. Only when the pain of the slow grind exceeds the tolerance threshold, mind gives up resistance and accepts the change. Then and then only, the new equilibrium is attained and change becomes the norm.
Hey Will,
I echo your comments. I am certainly awakened to making a difference, and that difference does not have to have a physic cost or drain mentally.
It is a spiritual and soul investment into my future and the future of my family, friends and this planet. I am looking forward to enlivening and enriching experiences during 2010, and know that the support will be available for me to fulfill my most wild dreams.
Here is to a blessed New Year for all souls traveling the path of enlightenment.
In Spirit,
Greg
I couldnt agree with your thought process more Will. Positive thoughts promote positive actions, I have always believed.
Now if it were only that simple after the lunacy of the last year of OBama’ism, the economy and life altering decisions that we havent had much control over.
I think even the positive thinkers has been tested on this one
Einstein said the most important choice you ever make is whether you live in a friendly universe, or a hostile universe.
Thank you, Will for writing about this very important topic: “Change.”
As I grow older, I learn that most people don’t want to change. Change is scary, uncertain and most of the time difficult to pursue. It’s easier to stay safe and do nothing even at the expense of our own happiness.
It’s when we are put in a situation where we have to make a decision that changing something in our lives might occur. Change doesn’t take years and years of planning - it happens the moment we make the changing decision and act on it.
Thank you, Will. My husband and I are both working toward positive change in our lives, personally and professionally. Yes, it is a challenge, but all we need to do is take a close look at our 6 y.o. daughter and realize that effecting change isn’t just a good idea…it’s vitally important for all of our futures.
Thanks so much for all your good work, Will. Here’s to a happy and healthy 2010!
Thank you for this wonderful article - your timing is amazing !!
My mother spent the entire holiday telling me (I’m 47) to stop planning my future and to start living my future now. To leave this job that causes so much stress and find one doing something I truly enjoy… To leave this area that I live, to move to my most favorite place on earth. Things will work out - they always do, WHEN you are truly doing your life’s passion. You will work harder, be happier, live longer and smile much more often!! Don’t wait until “retirement” to live your life, believe in yourself and start today -
I am starting today and I have a 12 month plan to make all the appropriate chages in my life - I already feel like a huge burden has been lifted from my soul… I can once again breathe…
Happy New Year and Thank You
To quote the previous Steve, yes even the positive thinkers have been tested on everything that went on last year and is continuing this year. And to be realistic, I believe that was just a basic test and that the advanced level test is still to be administered. So all of you life spectators better make plans to either evacuate the stadium and find a good place to hide or become an active life participant and really raise the level of your game by determining your purpose and goals and then executing your plan.
As someone once said, there are three kinds of people in the world: those that make things happen, those that watch things happen and those that wonder what happened. Don’t you ever wonder how the majority of people survive from day to day by never changing anything about themselves or their lives in a constantly changing world? As Epictetus said, “We never step twice into the same stream.” Well, what may have been possible when times were relatively good will only allow you to fail faster in today’s global, disaster convergent world. Doing enough to get by and “just being good enough” will not be good enough for survival. We must, as individuals, break the malaise and brain deadening programming of our political/entertainment/media obsessed world that keeps us hermetically sealed in ignorance and passivity and get back to the basics of truth, honesty, purpose, empathy and caring and set forth with a True North approach to a new road map to the future, if there is to be a future that is not going to be worse than what we already are embroiled in.
Proactively invest the time to think deeply and creatively for your own benefit and that of your families and loved ones. The responsibility is yours, no one else’s. If it is to be done, it is up to you. No victim, no fault, no blame. Just do what you have to do to live your life according to your potential and not according to your past history. Wipe the slate clean from this day forward. The past will only be the future if you don’t make a choice for it to be otherwise. Don’t wait, the conditions will never be “perfect” and there is no such thing as security as long as we are alive. Begin now, take the first step followed by another and another. Adjust your course as you navigate towards your dreams and desires. Your future is in the seeds you plant in the present moment, select and cultivate them well.
Thanks for the continuing inspiration Will.
A few questions to get you started on your changes for 2010.
Who are you trying to become?
What are you trying to achieve?
How are you going to accomplish both?
How important are thinking and reading to you and investing time in each?
Live in the moment and go for it!
Thank you all for your amazing thoughts and commitments…
here’s to new future.
[...] to be better than 2009, especially if we all go out into the world, in the days and weeks to come, holding that intention in our minds and in our hearts. Spread a little compassion, a little joy, a little happiness. Here’s a start. [...]