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
