Change for the Better

Are you someone who embraces change as full of new possibilities for a better life, or do you find the idea alarming at the best of times and terrifying when you can’t avoid it?

A rut can be a very comfortable place, things are bobbing along nicely, nothing much is happening and you can feel cosy and safe, and as if it will always be like that. That’s great if it’s working for you, but what happens when the same old same old starts to drive you mad, or you get that wake-up call that makes you face the fact that the rut isn’t actually as comfy as you’d tried to pretend? That’s when life can become downright uncomfortable if not actually depressing.

We can carry on for years with our rose coloured glasses on and the wool firmly dragged down over our eyes and then suddenly you realise that you rarely smile anymore. You can’t remember the last time you bounced out of bed really looking forward to the day ahead.

You’ve lost the young person who left school with a world of possibilities at their feet, and replaced them with someone who keeps their head down, their nose to the grindstone and tries not to notice how dull or unhappy their life really is.

The trouble is you know the answer lies with you but you don’t know what to do about it. Everyone else around you seems to know what you should do, but none of those answers feel right to you. The more people tell you or encourage you to do something about it the more confused you feel. The longer you take to make the changes the more frustrated your friends and colleagues become, and the more stupid you start to feel. It all becomes a messy vicious circle you can’t seem to escape from.

To make changes in your life you need to be in the mental and emotional position to make them. If you’re exhausted or beaten down by a difficult relationship you won’t have the energy to take the action you know you need to take however much that action might be needed.

If you haven’t spent time looking into your heart to decide what really makes you tick, what you really care about and what is your heart’s desire, it’s likely that you won’t be able to move forward either.

To move forward in life you need to know who you are, what you want to do next, and be in the mental and emotional position to get started; because you are the key to your life.

It’s hard to write about this subject without risking coming across as self oriented, but one simple truth is that you are the only person in your life and the only person feeling your feelings. No one else knows what you’re going through except you and no one else will suffer more than you if you don’t live a life that suits you.

We all live as part of a social group and therefore kindness, consideration and compromise are an absolute necessity. Making changes that you want made regardless of the affect on people around you is selfish and inconsiderate, and will rightly land you in a world of trouble.

However, there are times that we just have to make those changes because otherwise we won’t have a life worth living. No matter how much you love other people and how desperately you don’t want to hurt or inconvenience them, you have a right to a happy life as much as the next person and sometimes you do just have to go for the changes and do your utmost to handle things well.

So having acknowledged the importance and existence of others, and their right to happiness, we have to come back to the only person living your life – you.

This means, of course, that it’s you who has to make these changes. You who have to work out what you need to do and you who has to take action.
Getting inside yourself and working out how you tick may be one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do – believe me I know – but it will also be one of the most rewarding things you ever do if you have the courage to do it.

Digging into our darkest corners or ripping away the screen that conceals our weaknesses isn’t a pleasant thing to have to do, but to gain true inner understanding it has to be done. You will even discover some amazing strengths and abilities along the way. Of course you won’t be focussing on them you’ll be worrying about your negative points won’t you?

It’s important to remember that everyone in the world has strengths and weaknesses, which means that you have strengths and other people have as many weaknesses as you do. It’s also important to remember that you don’t have to take out a full page advert in a national newspaper to advertise all your messy bits; you can keep it to yourself.

Facing your weaknesses may sound horrible, but once you’ve admitted to them you will find that you can use your strengths to counteract your weaknesses, and you can also compensate for them. You can learn to understand yourself and make adjustments for situations you know you find difficult to handle, and you can also read, take courses or attend workshops and find ways of learning to deal with things to your own satisfaction.

However, a word of warning, don’t get so hooked up on the inner journey that you don’t have time to sort out your life. Too much navel gazing takes your gaze away from the present and the future.

Don’t get too hooked up on the past either, if you’ve had a fairly normal past then you will have had bad relationships, horrible jobs, childhood issues with your parents, and all the normal life stuff. Don’t start believing that any of that has fundamentally damaged you and you can’t get past it, after all “Living well is the best revenge” (George Herbert; 1593-1633). Don’t give the past power over the rest of your life.

When I work as a Life Coach I use The Four A’s of Problem Solving©. They are Awareness – I have a problem. Analysis – what is the problem? Acceptance – it is my problem. Action - what am I going to do about it?

Even if the only thing you can do is to change your attitude towards a problem you can make a big difference to how you feel by learning not to let it affect you. Never forget the cliché that “attitude is everything” – it really is. Don’t underestimate the power of your mind, if you decide that something someone else does is not going to affect you then it won’t; it really is as simple as that.

The acceptance issue can be a big one. We often feel that other people are doing things to us, but even if someone else is doing something to you it is your choice to let whatever it is continue. Plus there is power in saying that “this is my problem” because when you own it you can deal with it, whereas if someone else is the problem you’re stuck with it until they say otherwise.

For example, you may have an unpleasant boss who is making your life a misery at work and yes, that person does have a certain amount of power over you – all the time you choose to work there. If however you decide to leave then where is that person’s power? It’s gone.

Problems in personal relationships are hellish, particularly when there are children involved and especially when you are afraid that you’ll land up penniless and with nowhere to live. However, if your children are being brought up in an unhappy environment they will find it difficult to thrive and there will be long-term emotional effects. So ending up in a smaller home with fewer possessions may not be the worst thing that can happen to your children long-term. Remember, they need your love more than any computer game or designer sweatshirt.

Some people like to approach change as a leap into the dark, and that’s fine, go for it if that’s true of you. If, however, you’re a person who needs time to make up their mind and to plan for the future then there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, you probably drifted into your current lifestyle and problems so there’s nothing wrong with taking control of your life from here on in.

You can think of it as living your life mindfully and deliberately rather than mindlessly and by accident. Of course young people don’t know who they are and what they want and of course they drift from one thing to another whilst they find out. Yet to me there must come a time when you stop drifting, take the world by the throat and start living your life intentionally and deliberately. Add in some intentional and deliberate fun though won’t you.

As a person who has tried to live their life spiritually for the past 27 years I will say that I have found spiritual thinking to be extremely freeing and it has given me more flexibility in the way I live my life.

For me spirituality is about kindness and consideration towards others (amongst other things), but it’s also about kindness and consideration towards me. I don’t rampage around the world putting myself first in all things, what a horrible idea, but I do know when I can’t go any further down the giving route and I don’t feel guilty when I pull back or pull away. If someone else is compromising my ability to be happy I will side-step and move on.

Since I’ve started along this path I haven’t become a quitter who gives up immediately the going gets tough, but by the same token I’ve learned to stop doing things that make me unhappy a lot sooner than I used to. I’ve learned that there is no nobility in misery, it’s just miserable. I’ve learned that I’m the captain of my own life and I have to live it, make it work, make choices and take responsibility for those choices.

I’ve also learned that when it goes wrong I have to face myself, accept what happened, and then move on. I don’t spend ages beating myself up when I make mistakes, I take responsibility, put it behind me and get past it. There’s no nobility in a hair shirt either, it just itches.
At the end of the day change for the better needs to be driven by you because you know that you deserve a happy life. Choices will have to be made and you will need to take responsibility for those choices, good, bad and indifferent.

If you make mistakes and people laugh at you, well they’re not very nice people, and at least you’re out there trying to do something to improve your life. So have a little laugh at yourself and then go back and get on with it.

If you land up living a happier life full of excitement and abundance will you care about the mistakes you made along the way, or will you see them as part of the learning curve? If, however, you choose to stay where you are because you’re afraid to try to change things how will you feel about yourself in 5 or 10 years time?

Don’t let fear hold you back. Don’t let fear of being laughed at by other people stop you giving things a whirl and seeing what happens. Just remember that this is your life and you have a right to make the changes you need to make in order to be as happy as possible as often as possible.

Change for the better may be uncomfortable occasionally, but unhappiness is uncomfortable for as long as you put up with it.
 

© Deb Hawken - First published in High Spirit Magazine in January 2009