Why is change so hard?

So you want to change?

You want to change your job, your wife, your husband, the way you look, the way you live, or any aspect of your life?

So what stops you from making the change?

There is always a consequence of change or in other words a price to pay but we all know this.

Are you prepared to pay the price?

Here are some of the excuses I’ve used so that I don’t have to pay that price and therefore I don’t have to change.

It’s too hard.
I don’t know how too.
I will end up alone.
I’m scared of the unknown.
I will lose my friends and family, what will other people think about me?
I will lose who I am (my identity) and everything I have worked for.

So let’s look at these excuses.

ITS TOO HARD

How do you know how hard it will be, You haven’t even tried yet?

Let’s be honest, change usually does involve hard work. I’ve never met any successful person yet who didn’t have to work hard.

There is an old saying that says, “success is accompanied by the smell of sweat.”

However, if you enjoy what you are doing, then you will actually enjoy working hard.

Pick a path, if it turns out to be the wrong path, you can always turn back or pick another one.

Not choosing and going around in seemingly never ending circles, is like choosing a path to insanity.

I always feel better when I am taking action compared to when I am procrastinating.

Human beings are basically lazy, we look for shortcuts, we look for the easy path and quick answers.

I haven’t found any easy paths or any quick answers, I have found lots of charlatans who have offered me these things but they never seem to work out (funny that).

So to the statement ITS TOO HARD, yes it’s hard but it’s definitely not too hard, it’s doable and you can do it, just as thousands of others have done before you.

I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO

This is an easy one to dispel. We live in an age of information, you can find out about almost anything on the web.

There are literally thousands up on thousands of books, DVDs, You Tube clips etc. on every topic under the sun.

You can go to life coaches, career coaches, counsellors, psychotherapists, gurus, hypnotherapists and so on ( be careful who you choose).

You can do online courses, Skype courses, telephone consultations.

Once you decide what it is you want to do then the help is there in abundance.

Making the decision is the hard bit.

In my experience most people know what they want, but for the very reasons that we are mentioning they don’t make the decisions, it’s usually down to fear.

Fear of not being good enough, fear of what other people will think and a fear of change.

I WILL END UP ALONE

People stay in the poorest of life scenarios, usually ones that they hate rather than face being alone.

In my therapy work being alone is one of the biggest fears that my clients mention.

People even seek out destructive relationships rather than being alone and they know they are doing this.

We are social creatures and society also encourages us to be social, which is a good thing.

There is a stigma about being alone, about being left on the shelf.

With so many people being scared of being left alone and so many people out there looking for someone, the chances of it happening are very slim.

However there are times in life when it’s nice to be alone, to reflect or recharge, especially if you are an introvert.

Other people have a fear of being alone which comes from feeling abandoned as a child.

I encourage my clients to experience being alone, to sit with their own thoughts, to start to like their own company, to learn to like who they actually are at a deep level.

After all if I don’t like being alone with me why would anyone else want to be alone with me?

Balance is a great word and balancing being alone with being comfortable around other people is the goal to aim for.

I’m ok if I am on my own but I’m equally ok if I’m not and its a great feeling to have that choice.

I AM SCARED OF THE UNKNOWN

This is a biggy, most of us are scared of the unknown and because of this fear we try to control the future.

Some people are so scared of the unknown that they try to control everything and everyone around them.

Quite often by being so controlling they not only imprison the people around them, they also imprison themselves because prisoners need a 24 hour guard.

The ironic thing is we live with unknown every second of every day.

None of us know for sure what will happen next, we might like to think that we do but we don’t.

Every day the news reports tell us of unexpected tragedies and the people involved didn’t set out that day knowing that this tragedy was going to happen.

People go to sleep and never wake up.

Good things happen unexpectedly as well as bad things but the point is it’s pretty much all in the unknown and all we really have is now, this moment.

There is a lot to be said about planning or setting goals but there is also a lot to be said about letting go and having faith that everything will be okay, as long as you keep doing your part of life’s bargain and keep turning up day in day out, it really can be a wonderful life.

How do you make God smile? Tell him your plans.

I WILL LOSE MY FRIENDS, MY FAMILY AND MY IDENTITY

When you change its true that you may well lose some people including friends and family.

We are creatures of habit and people don’t like change, they often don’t like to see other people change.

You may even hear some people say, “remember it’s you whose changed not me” as if to say it’s your fault for daring to change or grow, they believe that they are ok because they are still the same person that you met 20 years ago.

As to what other people will think of you, how do you know what other people are thinking?

It’s common knowledge that everything starts with a thought, how I think will dictate how I feel and how I feel will dictate my behaviour.

So if my thoughts are negative, I feel flat and that comes out in my behaviour, I stay home instead of going to my friends party.

Being responsible for my own thoughts and how I feel and subsequently behave is hard enough.

But being responsible for other people’s thoughts is ridiculous.

Look at it this way, if how I feel is dependent on what you think about me, then I am in big trouble.

If you are having a bad day because of your thought process, that now means that I am having a bad day, my feelings are in your hands, they are your responsibility and that’s one heck of a lot of responsibility for someone to have.

My happiness is now down to you.

I am capable of having my own good and bad days, I don’t need how I feel to be dependant on how your life is going.

You are responsible for your own thoughts, feelings and behaviours and I am responsible for mine.

Do I care how you feel? Of course I do, but am I responsible for how you feel? No I am not and that goes both ways.

I am a big believer in energy, I believe that human beings are a form of energy, which is very good news.

Let me explain, Albert Einstein said that energy cannot be destroyed, it can be changed but it can not be destroyed.

You can change water from a liquid to a solid (ice) or a vapour (steam) but you can not destroy it.

The good news is that when we die we just change we don’t actually disappear, how cool is that?

I haven’t got a clue what we change into but at least we change into something, we are still around somewhere!

Going back to the living, when you change, you change your frequency or your energy and those people that were on your old frequency no longer resonate with you, which in some ways is very sad and it’s why you may well lose them.

However the good news is that there are lots of people already on your new frequency who will be drawn towards you.

You will make new friends and acquaintances and it’s not that they are any better, it’s just that their energy levels vibrate at a different frequency.

You have created your present identity and you can keep it, change parts of it or create a whole new one.

If you are serious about changing, you will need to work out what it is you want to change and why.

The why is very important, Viktor Frankl said “a big enough why will overcome any how”.

Make a plan or set a goal.

Get help from a friend, coach of therapist, we all need guidance and it’s OK to ask for help.

Take small steps but keep moving towards your goal.

Everything you do ask yourself is this taking me towards or away from my goal?

Expect to have doubts and fears, this is normal, it’s part of being human, there is nothing wrong with you.

Believe in yourself and have faith.

Practice proper selfishness, in other words don’t be scared to put yourself first. It doesn’t mean that you don’t care about others or that you stop helping others.

It just means that you value your own worth as much as you value other people’s worth, this is not being selfish.

Don’t live your life based on the opinion of others, it’s your life don’t die with your best songs still in you.