I consistently run into people who dislike their life
Usually with a passion.
And yet, they make zero changes.
They do the same things over and over again.
As if their life is written out for them and no matter what they attempt, they are stuck living a life they hate.
This is patently false.
We, you and I can always change our life. The problem is that change is often hard
Change is often very painful. Even desired change.
Most people resist that pain choosing rather to wallow in the pain that they are familiar with over the potential pain that they do not know. This resistance to pain of any kind becomes muscle memory and it simply becomes easier to avoid it.
But this resistance to pain comes at a new price. The person becomes stuck in their life that they hate. But stuck is the wrong word because it implies some sort of outside force keeping them from achieving their desired outcome. Most of the time, the outside force is us.
There are three simple questions everyone must ask of themselves if they want to experience change.
- What do I want? This is the most basic question. What do I really want? Often we want competing things. That is to say, we often want things that cancel each other out. We want to be heroic but face zero danger. We want to spend money indiscriminately and grow our savings account. This is why we need to make priorities.
- What am I willing to pay? We often want things without having to pay for them. We want to own a successful business without putting in the hours required to be successful. We want to lose weight without sacrificing foods that we like but that are bad for us. We want to get better sleep but don't want to pay the cost of going to bed earlier. So often, people get stuck because they decide the price of change is too steep without adequately measuring the cost of staying the same.
- What am I willing to risk? So often people want to achieve something without risk. This is impossible. The person who wants to expand her circle of friends will have to risk rejection. The man who wants to experience true love will be forced the risk the loss of that love. The person who wants to experience change, will have to risk the possibility of set backs and failures.
And so I say to my children, and you…indeed to myself, if we don't like the situation we are currently in, we are free to change it. Always.