My eclectic cognizance urges me to learn from nature, lessons too vivid for words to express and books to withhold. As I attempt to verbalize a few of these lessons in my pursuit of inspiring some of you to break the shackles holding you from starting off with a new adventure or initiating positive change, I recommend you to spend some time in unlearning what the books teach you, so that you can know what is relevant.
Living in a valley, I have learnt how not to be afraid of the hugeness of mountains. Yes, many an aspiring hiker let go of their passion because the mountains seem to be too high. Some give up at the onset while others at the first signs of fatigue. These mountains represent the change you are wanting to make in your life. You can either look at the extent of effort the entire task commands and put it off for a later time, which will never come, or start a journey in earnestness and adapt to the changes that follow to make your way to the peak.
Initiating change requires going against a normal pattern of thought, sustaining it requires you to shed your old beliefs for new ones. The difficulty lies in the reversibility of the process. If you manage to get over the hurdles of initiating change then sustaining it becomes a bigger challenge.
This generally forces you to choose stability over risk, normality over adventure, comforts over the unknown, stagnancy over changes. But at times, the mundaneness of normality will urge you to take flight into the realm of the unknown. Where all theoretical knowledge becomes irrelevant. You will understand that practicality outshines bookish wisdom and spontaneity overtakes logic when you enter uncharted territories of the unknown. Here are 6 steps which will not only help you initiate and sustain change:
1. Be comfortable with discomfort– You are too charmed with comforts, any variability from the obvious scares you. Hence making changes takes such a big effort. Social insecurities, fears, embarrassment, are all self imposed resistances. Once you manage to live in discomfort, adapting to the randomness of change and hence changing becomes easy.
2. Kick resistance where it hurts and then kick it again– Resistance comes in forms beyond our imaginations, It either doesn’t allow you to initiate change or forces you to quit too soon. Resistance has to be stomped repetitively, it has the uncanny knack of regenerating. You have to keep a strict vigil and not allow anything to come in between you and your pursuit of change.
3. The only thing the world does is opine, you chose who to listen to– Another form of resistance is lending to the views of the audience. Just because people cant fight their own demons they discourage you when you fight yours. Only keep an ear for compliments and constructive criticism. The rest can swallow a half boiled ostrich egg.
4. Choose spontaneity over excessive planning– If you over think you miss the bus. Initiating a change means stepping into the unknown. You cant make plans for randomness of the unknown, you have to adapt along the way. Practicing spontaneity consciously is a difficult task as you are conditioned to scrutinize every situation. But if you start living for the moment and trusting your instincts you would go a long way in initiating and sustaining changes. Good instincts empower you with the courage to face new situations that making a change will bring your way,
.5. Either win or learn a lesson, don’t give up– At times you face failure, no matter what you do. Don’t be taken aback by this failure. Don’t lose your confidence, learn your lesson and try again. Failure is inevitable, it is impossible to live a life where you don’t face failure at all, but failure doesn’t matter, your response to it does. While trying to initiate and sustain a change you will face many setbacks. But if you start taking these setbacks to heart, you will not try again. Thus, you will take away any chance that you might have of succeeding. If you don’t give up you will never lose. Every new attempt will be better than the previous one until the desired outcome is achieved.
6. Make it public– The fewer the number of people who know about a promise the easier it is to break. When you are trying to change a part of your life, it will be great if you make a public statement, Declaring what you are aiming at and setting yourself a timeline. This would help you initiate and sustain the change through the tough patches, where you would be most likely to give up, just because you want to live up to your declaration.
Take flight. If you keep planning, you never will
You only wish to relinquish your comfort zones if the rewards for the change are certain.Otherwise you prefer being stuck in your daily routine. But you should understand that if your routine was any good you would have achieved greatness by now, or at least wouldn’t have been complaining. Change is inevitable, instead of being the victims of change you should be the ones making it.
The most unavoidable distractions surface the exact moment when you initiate change. The first excuse is your ticket back to your comforts.
It is your responsibility to sustain the change once you have initiated it. If you only plant seeds and expect that you will have fruits in no time, then you are kidding yourself and wasting seeds. These seeds require patience, nurturing and protection. Just like your attempts of making any positive changes to your life. If you are willing to have patience, adapting to all obstacles and nurturing your aspirations with dedication and hard work then your changes you pursue bear fruits as well.