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If you Don't Know Where You're Going

Any Road will Do!

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"To change my life, I have to make a change in my life." This made so much sense to me when I first came across it! One of my goals was to change my life and, since you're reading this article, I guess it's one of yours too. My list was rather long, how about yours?

You want life to become more desirable. Yet to change your life, you need to see change as a good thing! What do you want to change?

Write down your List of Desirable Changes

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Make a list of the changes you want in the future. Put some energy into this, the more energy the better. The secret of success is to write them down, write it all down. As they say, "If you don't know where you're going, then any road will do!"

Why write them down? Because this focuses your mind on both what you want and where you are now. Yet there's a lot of truth to the aphorism saying the real value is in the journey rather than the goal.

Change is Inevitable

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You say your hair has not changed in years. Yet this morning when you woke up, you looked in the mirror, saw that your hair was a mess, and changed it back to the way you usually have it. That's TWO changes.

You breathe in and out. You change location. You're thirsty so you have something to drink, wait a bit, relieve yourself, and then drink some more. You age continually, although these changes where your body is continually replacing its cells are not so noticeable.

Most everything changes on an ongoing basis. Change is inevitable anyway, so you might as well get used to it. It may look as though nothing has changed, but that's only because changes can be minuscule over short time frames.

Yet many see change as undesirable. If you're one of them, perhaps you only want things to change for the better. This is understandable, since you want things to improve, rather than get worse. The problem is determining what is better, and what is worse. It's not just one or the other, it also depends on the time frame.

Is it Better or Worse?

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Suppose you want more money to spend, more disposable income is a common goal. Then investing in your own home will decrease your disposable income in the short term, yet gives you more to spend later. So would this change make your life worse or better?

If you like feeling physically good, then you need a fit toned body. But getting fit can be a tough job, your body feels uncomfortable when you start working out. Again short-term pain gives long-term gain.

You know many ways to get fit, perhaps join the gym and go regularly. But the reason gyms are viable is because many pay the membership fees but don't go! They self sabotage, they don't have the internal resolve to stick with it through the initial painful steps.

Judgments

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Do your judgments always serve you?

Your judgments can hinder you from seeing the world clearly. You judge something as good or bad, better or worse, and then insist it is this. And it is - but only to you - because you've added the meaning. But since everyone else has had different experiences in life to you, the meaning they add is different to yours.

The big mistake is assuming that because your judgment gives you your personalized meaning, then it should mean the same to everyone else. But it doesn't - the cause of many an argument.

To change your life, the effort takes personal power. No matter how much you have to start with, more is valuable and will benefit you. But how do you increase your personal power? A very good question, we'll explore that in the next article in this series.

Food for Thought

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"When coasting in our comfort zones, we don't grow. We continue to do more of the same. ... Maintaining a comfort zone can, paradoxically, lead to discomfort in the long run ... if we avoid important life issues. ... Eventually, as both internal and external pressures for change persist, the 'comfort zone' ceases to serve us."

- Eric Allenbaugh, Ph.D. (Organizational Behavior), leadership coach, author

This article was originally published at: www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/if-you-dont-know-where-youre-going-any-road-will-do-part-5-in-the-change-my-life-series-5980201 .html

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