This is part one of a series on how to create positive change in your life based on what has worked for me, what hasn’t, and what I’m currently learning. Rather than write one of my usual 4000+ word monster articles I’m breaking it down for you into more manageable chunks.
This is going to be a very important series if you’re ready to arm yourself with some powerful tools in the battle for happiness, success and contentment in your life, so get ready. Here we go…
This Is Who I Am
As a blogger you are at times more open with your thoughts and feelings online than you might be in person, even with your closest friends and family. Despite knowing that thousands of people read this blog every day, I find it easier and I’m much more succinct, when I share my thoughts and ideas here, at least when it comes to certain subjects.
One of the wonderful, if surprising at first, experiences as a result of being open with people through a blog is that eventually you gain some kind of notoriety for being good at something. When I started Entrepreneurs-Journey I wanted to share my business experiences simply for the sake of sharing and to see whether other people found what I had to say of value. Some people did find what I had to say valuable, so I kept saying things, and more and more people found me and started listening.
Eventually my perception online became that of an “authority” in my niche, at least to a small sub-segment of the population. I became a “someone” rather than an audience, in one little corner of the universe, in this case as a blogger who talks about entrepreneurship, marketing, and personal development.
This is a great event for all kinds of reasons, but the most important reason, and be sure to underline this, is that with authority, more people actually read what I write. With the attention that authority gives me, I enjoy the privilege and honor of being able to influence people. This is power and it’s something you have to be very careful with as power is trust, and you don’t want to abuse people’s trust.
What’s a little strange for me is that I’ve not really done anything to earn my position other than tell you what I think and do. I haven’t been officially trained to do this in any way, I didn’t go to school to learn to blog (I started one instead), nor was I instructed along the way about the right way to do things. In reality I’m pretty much exactly the same as you are right now, except I’ve spent the last five years sharing aspects of my life through this blog over and over again, week after week.
The Challenge That Is Changing Yourself
One of the most interesting subjects, one that I’d like to tackle with you now, is the concept of whether it is really possible to change, especially in a proactive, self-determined manner. This isn’t about fate or destiny, this is going after and getting what you want.
When I say change, I mean real change. I mean the kind of change that takes you from where you are now, to where you really want to be, although using a phrase that relates transition to a destination or a time isn’t quite complete. What I’m really talking about when I say “be” is the state you are in. It’s the change of state, the way you think and consequently act and thus experience, that I refer to when I mean change.
This is the kind of change where you feel like you’re not the same person you were before, and everything around you has changed as a result of this. You might be living in a different place, associating with different people, you might have a different lover, or several, you might be financially wealthier, or maybe you’ve lost or gained weight, or you no longer do something you wanted to stop, like drinking, or smoking.
All these things are symptomatic of change, to say they are the change isn’t quite accurate. It was something about you on the inside that changed, that caused a physical change to manifest in reality. It was YOU who changed.
When you experience this kind of change you know it, because when you realize the change you stop yourself and go “wow, I’m actually feeling what my previous self wanted to feel back then“. I’m living what I previously wanted to live. I am what my past self wanted to be in the future, if we include the element of time. I am now where I wanted to be back when I was somewhere else, if we include the element of location.
It’s this idea of change, and it’s change for the better that we want, or at least what we perceive as desirably better today (it may not actually turn out to be so, but we assume it is for now since we don’t know yet), that intrigues me. The idea that you are in charge of your own “personal development” is powerful. Imagine being in charge of claiming what you want in your life?
Yeah, it sounds good doesn’t it, but let’s state a truth – change is hard.
Significant change takes effort, and often so much effort that by the time we get what we wanted or arrive where we wanted to be, our value system has changed too, so you may not even want what you were working so hard to acquire. That I believe is a clever built-in motivation tool nature has given us so that we’re always striving for more. If we got everything we wanted instantly and easily then the value wouldn’t be there and we’d stop striving to make ourselves better.
Consequently, the lessons we eventually take away from any dramatic change in our lives are these, which many people come to understand as universal principles if they live long enough…
- We should live in the moment,
- enjoy the journey,
- understand that what we want isn’t what we really want and,
- that we will always want more until we decide we don’t.
Tricky isn’t it.
Is Change Even Possible?
I remember as a child listening to my mother on the rare occasion she hosted a party at her house. My mother is not the most social person and while she loves sharing ideas with other people, she’s closer to hermit than socialite. That doesn’t stop her from talking her mouth off when she’s had a glass of wine and the people around her are saying things she feels a need to respond to (nowadays she doesn’t need any alcohol to get her started!).
One of her favorite subjects as I recall, is whether change is even possible in the first place. She steadfastly believes people can change on a fundamental level, and we are talking about the tiniest of individual personality details, all the way up to global consciousness. Some people didn’t agree with her, they argued that no one could truly change, which is why as humans we will always have the problems we have, in some shape or form.
I remember listening to her passionately explaining her viewpoint on this subject, although from my recollection as my mother’s son, I felt more uncomfortable that here was my usually soft-spoken mother becoming more animated than usual, resulting in me wanting to be somewhere else (parents are, like, so embarrassing!). I generally preferred to find a way to be in another place when adults where drinking and talking loudly, but no doubt my mother’s viewpoint on change has impacted my own perception of whether change is possible, so credit where credit is due.
I Haven’t Quite Mastered This One…
As I stated at the start of this article, sometimes as a blogger you have to get personal. It’s one of the most powerful tools we have to engage our audience. However, in the case of this subject, I have to admit I don’t feel quite as comfortable as I’d like to when talking about my own perception of how to change.
Normally, as the authority, it’s smart for me to assume a tone in my blog posts that I know what I’m talking about, and to a certain degree with many subjects that relate to marketing, I do, at least comparing my own skill level and knowledge with my audience’s. I know just enough more than my readers so that I can provide value.
Marketing in so many ways is a science. Talking about how to make money, or relating a story of how you did something to get a result is simple enough. The concepts we are dealing with there are straight forward, like pieces of a puzzle you just have to arrange in the right order.
Concepts like change are much more fluid and complex. Most personal development subjects are that way because we’re dealing with some of the fundamentals of life. As a result, I’m best teaching by revealing the aspects of my own journey, even though I may not have figured it all out. Writing an article like this isn’t just for you, it also helps me, as I come to a greater realization of my own place by sharing with you. As they say, the best way to learn is to teach.
Here, discussing how you can go about changing your life for the better, I feel the need to make note of where I’m personally at with the topic because, well, I’m not quite there yet. At least I’m not where I want to be, so there is still more change to make.
I expect this is likely the state I will remain in for most of my life because as far as I can tell, no human ever masters change or remains content with how things are permanently, unless they are enlightened or dead. I don’t exist in a perpetual state of enlightenment (nor am I convinced that’s what life is all about if you consider the practical world, not just the spiritual world, although they can overlap if you become self aware enough), so I can only imagine what it is like.
For the sake of making this applicable to you, I’m going to assume you still have a strong desire to make changes in your life too and you’re not quite enlightened yet either. At least we’re coming from the same place 
.
This is part of the reason why this subject is so compelling. Being comfortable that life IS change is one thing, and I’m all for going with the flow, but taking a proactive interest in determining what changes in your life is a different story. You want to be the driver in your life, even if you can never be sure where the road is taking you or what you will pass through on the way.
Coming Up Next: What I Can Teach You Now
Coming up in the next part in the series I’m going to review what I know so far in terms of how I’ve been able to realize growth and change in my own life. There are some very strong repeating themes in this, and I’m seeing a pattern that I’m still trying to come to terms with myself.
If you want to know what that pattern is, read on to part two of this series –
What I Can Teach You About Getting What You Want
Yaro Starak
Changing
I forgot who said it, but it’s a great quote and i think it’s been referenced a couple of times already in the responses above. Here it is again, and I quote:
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
The way we think and feel are generally a collection of ‘thought habits’ based on memories of past experiences. It is only by breaking ‘negative thoughts’ and replacing them with ‘positive’ ones, that there is any real chance of changing for the better.
All habits are hard to crack, some more so than others, but all habits can be removed and replaced with better ones, but only if you want the change bad enough, and that will require mindful and persistent commitment.
Believe it or not, but some folks actually enjoy wallowing in self pity and failure even if they deny it. It’s what they know best (familiarise with), and therefore it gives some kind of warped comfort. I know that sounds daft, but it’s true.
Such individuals will only be able to move forward when they want to improve MORE than they want to stagnate. Even if that desire for change is only slightly greater than the option do nothing, they can, and will, form new habits that will inevitably change both their attitude and their outlook on life as they see it.
Aitch
Yaro,
This is wonderful. Thank you! I recreated my coaching business after 20 years of doing leadership coaching in the corporate world. I found that my client’s biggest frustration and greatest pain came from trying to change what they were doing and how they were being in the corporate environment. They found change hard and usually, at first, blamed the culture, their boss, or some other external factor. What they discovered was that their lack of success was, as many others have mentioned, their fear of the unknown, an unconscious desire to stay in their comfort zone (we say we’re willing to step outside of it but, when push comes to shove, we retreat to safety), and, the biggest barrier of all: habits. We do what we’ve always done, because, well, it’s what we know to do. We live so much of our lives on autopilot, we don’t even know what we’re doing and therefore can’t change it. And, of course, the definition of insanity is to continue to do what you’ve always done and expect a different result. So, I ramble… think I’ll go write my own blog post about this… I do think change is possible… it occurs from the inside out and it requires structure, support, accountability more than willpower… and, it opens up worlds of possiblity. Once the genie is out of the bottle… as you so wisely said, it isn’t about the specific change as much as about the sky rocketing self confidence that comes of making it.
Yaro. Thanks for an outstanding first article on change. This helps me put my own change in perspective.
What I have found over the past few months is a complete paralysis to the action needed for real change, happiness, and success in my personal life. I want it. That isn’t the trouble. The trouble seems to be with my mind. It is resistant. It is resistant to the possibility of success and failure. I need to engage the clutch and get out of nuetral and begin driving my own change. Ain’t no one gonna do it for me.
Thank you. On to article two.
Hi Yaro,
Change is living. If we go through life always doing and being the same, there is no growth to our lives. New experience provide change, new people in our lives provide change. We learn from each other.
Living in our comfort zone stops growth. You are one of the lucky people in the fact that you are not scared to get out of your comfort zone and that is wonderful.
You are very good at teaching people how to blog and have great authority. It is no wonder that now you are getting into the field of self imporvment. There is a great need for it and everyones input helps another person.
Debbie
Hey Yaro,
I like the sounds of your mother – I too prefer the more hermit like existence over socializing, and yet… You get me around folks and push-come-to-shove, I am plenty opinionated! Now… if only I were to educate my opinions:-)
Some years back, I had a dream. Scared the be-jeebers out of me. Course, I had it coming since the night before, near despair, I asked for clarity. Gloooory be!
Everybody dreams, nobody remembers ALL of their dreams, some remember many and some (me) rarely remember any!
You said – “You want to be the driver in your life, even if you can never be sure where the road is taking you or what you will pass through on the way.”
Ha! To this day, nearly 4 years later, I still remember that dream quite vividly and I am still kicking and screaming and dragging my heels or often, I am being dragged. I am most definitely not the driver – not yet anyway.
Looking forward to reading the other articles on this topic.
You picked a doozy!
Clare
I agree, the difficulty is to find the exact direction for change, the what-is-it that “my previous self wanted to feel oh-so-much back then” as you call it.
I started a blog a couple of year ago about my work and had lots of hits for little effort (it was very technical and not much info was available for free on the net), but since it is not moving me it is now dying from lack of interest and investment.
Having family responsibilities is what generally what stops us from changing, but I feel strongly the urge to satisfy the corner of myself who once was a little boy who wanted to help. I have now started a new blog about people who are working to make a better world.
I don’t know where this is going to lead me, I don’t know if I can monetise it, but I know I have a lot more interest in that than in my sit-in-the-office-with-a-tie current job.
“no human ever masters change or remains content with how things are permanently, unless they are enlightened or dead”
I kinda like your word here Yaro..
as in my perspective, people live only once right..so why don’t we make the best of it in every step we take..
Deny
It’s interesting how we are often are called to teach that which we want to know. its sometimes the the preparing to teach someone else makes us sit down and do the work that is needed to make it to the next level.
Hi Yaro,
I really like your series on self development. One underestimates how important it is to look at oneself before you can add value to others – understand oneself before you can understand others.
The practical approach works really well for me and brings the message home so much faster and applicable.
Thanks for sharing such a personal experience it’s very much appreciated.
The way is the goal.
Keep it up and thanks Johanna
Hi Yaro,
Just to answer the title personally, yes it is possible.
I think change in inevitable and we all have to get used to it. It’s not easy but when you get to the bottom and the main purpose of the change, it’ll be less hard.
This is one of my favorite topic to discuss and I’m honestly enjoying your thoughts about it.
Cheers,
Jane
Thank you. I am very grateful for all that you share.
I love learning about self-grown and have been reading and learning about this for a few years.
I actually stumbled on a few things here and there and love everything I have read so far.
I created my own blog and learning to write from my heart and allow audiences to come if they want to learn about proposal writing.
Again, thank you.
Hi Yaro
Taking personal responsibility for the changes you want to make in your own life is a great start. Often individual beleive that it is up to others to change and they spend their time complaining about it. I spend a lot of my time helping people to accept that if they want to create chage in their lives it is soley up to them. What stops people from change and doing and being exactly who they want to be is often the fear of change itself. Its take determination and committment to change.
Well done
see http://www.handsup.ie
Kind Regard
Mel
http://www.melclifford.com I have just started bloggong with you help and advise. Thanks again.
for me it is possible…. you are the only one that can change your life….
Change can be scary and unwanted (as post #28) mentions, and change can be difficult in a couple of aspects: breaking away from habits is always tough and achieving certain goals can take time … but in both cases you have to set your mind to move forward (there is nothing to it, but to do it).
The beautiful thing about change is that you “always” grow and improve from it. Of all the experiences I’ve had in my life I would not change any of it as you are who you are because of it.
Without change you become a one-sided person. We need experiences/change to shape who we are.
I appreciate your open-ness. I am a fellow blog writer and find it easier being open in text than in person also. I also agree teaching is one of the best ways to learn. Looking forward to reading the next 4.
Jack
Change is definitely achievable. I think many people are comfortable with who they are and in their own comfort zone. Great article and I look forward to reading the other articles in this series!!
This is an interesting post. I like your series on personal development topic.
I love your articles on personal development Yaro. I think change is possible in anyone. But, that person has to want it bad enough. When we want to make a change a lot of times we are unsure if what we think we want to do is what we really want to do or right. This causes us to never take that first step in what would be a change.
We all have an absurd amount of fears, but if you are able to dominate those fears then change becomes a whole lot easier. Being able to make smaller changes along the way allows for those bigger changes to take place as well.
Time to read part 2!
Yaro,
Creating change is much easier than most of us think. The problem is we’re fed so much “Oh don’t do this”, “It will never work” by people (friends and family) who have never do it. I know – enter stage right my family!
Yes, they only want to protect you. The irony is your body and unconscious mind does that for you anyway. What they really mean is I wouldn’t do that or I don’t want to do that or it will not work for me, so you had better not try it either.
There are so many techniques to help you get over your own self doubt, limiting decisions, negative beliefs and emotions etc. Yet the faster I’ve found and APPLIED so far without a doubt so far has to be EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique).
EFT is so quick, easy, pain free, no time off work, you can do it on yourself. It even helps me write articles and blog posts and complete a recent article challenge. You know when you have article writing paralysis.
Happy Travels
A
http://www.eftmagic.com/
Reading your post about what truth is made me want to revisit this post. I agree that significant change is hard to accomplish, but if we really want something related to that change, we’ll work hard for it.
But there will be times when our value system would become different, so when we’ve acquired what we wanted, our minds may have wanted something else already. I nonetheless think that the lessons we got from this type of experience are valuable and can help us develop our own personality.
Hello I loved reading this article and i will definitly read on. Thank you so much or taking the time to think and write this article on Change. I too am stuck in change…I am currently a male and for years ive felt like tha wasnt right.physically i am a male but not my inner body or spirit. My spirit is a female(yes strange i know). I feel like a female trapped inside a male body without a chance of escape. But I do not wish to remain as such. Im young…only 18 but my mind is very addapted to this chance. By now those reading are thinking “why not surgery?” but you must understand I do not resymbol or look like the girl I am on the inside as I physically do now. I wish for this change…I pray for this change…this change to become the girl I feel I am on the inside. To look like her physically. Honestly I don’t care if people remember who I used to be or not. I truly wish that I could change and remain in the same life I live now just with my physical change but I have come to terms that if I do change that I may not continue the life I once lived. I know that I could lose the love of my life, my mother father and whole family, my friends, school and life I lived and I understand that and have once again come to terms with that. but I feel I will never be truly happy until I have had that great change. I pray that I will sleep tonight and awaken wit my change a reality. I mean hey “change is possible” in my own beliefs and thats what matters to me. please read and post comment back or e-mail me at dot.hack4225@yahoo.com
I think you can create whatever you want…you just have to make the decision. It’s really that simple!
Your latest blog post led me back here, and I am sitting down and reading through the whole list today. Your work really resonates with me, and I am learning a lot from reading your blog. One just doesn’t expect a make money online type (especially a successful one) to have a serious spiritual bent….
Thanks for this Yaro! I love reading your blog and change in our life is something everyone could use. This definitively set me on a track forward.
Well, I am feeling quite discouraged at this point
I think life should be changed with times gone by.Maybe you used to live a life without any passion,desire or dream,the life is boring but you can’t do anything to change it.If you live this life,you should change your life into a better one.At least you should fight for something,for family or just for yourself.
A positive life can make your life happier,so can you.
So,it is really necessary to create the change you want in your life.Hope everyone can get what he really wants.
Good luck to everyone.
Greetings Yaro -
After a lifetime of worry and fretting over just about anything and everything, it has finally occured to me that many of us waste far too much time with issues or concerns that amount to meaningless junk.
A healtier mindset now allows me to simply question the validity, or relavence of any negative thinking that may creep up on me. How important will this issue be in a week, a day, or even five minutes from now? The results of this simple new mindset are terrific and truly life enhancing
.
All the best,
Jon