Change requires change

An intimate look at the challenges of life

Someone has said that the only constant is change. Albert Einstein is accredited to having said that unless people are prepared to change their results will always be the same. Many torture themselves with the idea that they want something different in their lives, yet they will fight to the death to defend their way of life and will insist that they will continue to do things the way they have always been done. Sorry to disappoint you, but change is inevitable and the only way to keep things the same is to constantly adapt to change.

If it wasn’t like this then life would be easy. But because nothing remains the same life tends to offer challenges and present us with obstacles or throw a spanner in the works. This is how I experienced change over ten years ago.

I thought life was good and that it would stay that way. After all we had been blessed with four sons and I had a well paying job and God was blessing us. What could go wrong? But then it happened, something changed. Actually several things changed. One, my health was challenged and I ended up in the emergency ward at hospital. That should have been a warning, but I wasn’t ready to accept change. Two, a few years later my religious beliefs were challenged to such an extent that life would never be the same again. Three, the company I was working for closed down, leaving fifteen professionals without a job.

That was when change had caught up with me so much that I had to listen. What had changed? What had remained the same? What changes would I need to make in order to adapt to the new circumstances?

I needed to change my thinking. This was the most drastic change I had to undergo and the one which took the longest. In fact this is an ongoing process. Yes I had to make other changes, like uproot our family home and move closer to a new work opportunity. That work meant becoming self-employed, another change. The new thinking led to me joining various coaching programs one of which trained me to be a life coach. I then embarked on a journey to become a coach and made several attempts to do this online. You’ll even find my latest course linked on this site (Shape Your Future). But that wasn’t me. Yes I was helped and yes I do see how many can be helped through coaching programs, but it wasn’t really me.

So there I was at the end of 2012, coming out of a financially dry period, not having found my purpose even though I had created programs and written a book (Wings of Change) about finding one’s purpose. Change had knocked me clean off the shelf of sameness and into the abyss of discovery and choice. I had plenty to discover and I had to choose.

Isn’t that the hardest part of facing change? Whenever we face changing circumstances or are challenged through desire to have different results, the big obstacle holding many back is choice. For some the desired results are a better job and the choice is to pursue re-education, but many fail to move forward. For others the desire is better health and the choice is less toxins and healthier food, yet here again many fail to break habit and make the proper choices.
My choice was easy, once I had finally accepted what I loved to do, and you, dear Reader, are participating right now in reading my writing. I am a writer. Three years before coming to this choice realization I had struggled to complete a fiction novel. But once I had made the decision and the choice to BE A WRITER the book was completed, reviewed, edited and self-published in May 2013. That book is Pursuit, a story of dragons, dreams, discovery and destiny, and the continuation of that story is well on its way to completion.
Change is inevitable. Nothing stays the same. We can adapt to that change or we can prepare for it. So I am a writer. Is that it? Will this stay the same now for always? Not a chance. Change happens. New challenges come about. But if we want things to look different then we must also change.

Many are expending great effort to keep life the same. They push though changing circumstances and years of change trying hard to keep life as it has always been. Some succeed but are exhausted. Others don’t succeed and are forced to make new choices. Some will struggle to keep things the same yet yearn for something different. They want change without wanting to change themselves. Give it up. Either stop the self-delusional dream or begin making choices which will bring you closer to your desire. Use the “I am” phrase to describe who you are. I am a writer, not I hope to be a writer, or one day I will be a writer, or even I wish I was a writer, but I am a writer. Be the change you want to see.