What is it that holds us back from making
the changes we want to make in our lives? Once we have
acknowledged the need to alter our present situation, what makes us
delay taking that all-important first step toward bringing about the
necessary change?
The most likely answer is fear: Fear that
we will fail or somehow fall short of reaching our goal, fear that the
reality will not measure up to our imaginings, fear that our situation
will somehow be made worse by our attempts to change it. Fear that we
can't really have what we want or, worse yet, that we don't truly deserve
it.
Fear of personal change is nothing more
than a barrier we set for ourselves. It is a fiction, a mere figment of
our imagination. It is a lie.
I used to work with a person whose motto
was, "The devil you know beats the devil you don't." I never believed
that was true, and I still don't. In fact, I have come to understand it
as nothing more than a copout, an excuse for taking no initiative at all
to fix the problems you see around you. Far easier to sit back and make
little or no effort to solve the problem; more fun to criticize the
efforts of others and then play Monday-morning-quarterback by saying such
helpful things as, "I could have told you that wasn't going to
work out." Much safer, too, not to stick your own neck out by trying to
improve the situation.
Perhaps you don't need to work with
someone like that, however, to hear those words in your head. Some of us
play our own version of Monday-morning-quarterback with ourselves. Before
we can take action, we talk ourselves out of taking positive steps to make
the desired changes. But why live with any devil at all? Accepting that
you are simply stuck with a bad situation is a bit like choosing to live
with that particular 'devil' every day of your life. Is that really what
you want to do?
If this sounds familiar, try a little
re-programming of your inner computer to remedy the situation. Read some
books on positive thinking
; listen to
self help tapes
on the way to work or
before you drop off to sleep at night.
You already have within you all you need
to create the life you want to live. You already are the person
you would like to become. If the desire for change is in you, so is the
power to bring it about.
"You must be the change you wish to see
in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi
For more on this subject see Phoebe's column titled
Choose Courage,
Not Fear.
