Sounds strange, but it’s not. We really don’t have to change in 2018 if we are happy with our lives. It’s not a contest each year to see who succeeded and who failed. It’s just a general constraint usually covered by a personal development motto. Anybody puts it on their wish list for the New Year, as if it should be a must. But it’s not! In the end, it’s just a matter of perspective, of choosing an illusion instead of a so-called cruel reality or a failure.
The trick is, failure does not exist! It’s just a way of looking at the experiences that are not giving you something you have wished for so long. But that’s not failure, it’s just a different step towards a new achievement. Let’s think for instance at kids learning to walk. They don’t have the notion of „failure”. If they knew failure, they would stop walking, and that would be a new reality for all of us.
So, not having on your To Do List for 2018 a point saying „I will change that…” it’s not a tragedy. The tragedy might arise when you have it there, but you don’t believe in it. This can lead to un-satisfaction and lower self-esteem and you don’t need that in your life, trust me.
I did change important things in my life over the years, but none of them were on my To Do List at the beginning of a new year. And you know why? Because change will happen when you are ready for it! And I am talking about changes that are coming in your life to stay for a long period of time. This kind of changes are not suddenly done. Time and other small changes will lead you to transform an important behavior or make a certain decision and stick with it.
In 2010 I quit smoking. It was for real at that time. I did it twice before 2010 but after some months or years of good practice, I changed my mind and started smocking again. Why? Because when I started to smock, I did it during a though period of time, thinking that smocking would make me relax and forget my sadness. And that thought became an axiom of my life. So, every time I had big issues like losing someone dear from the family, the first thing I used to do was lighting up a cigarette to relax a bit and suffer less.
In 2010, I took a two weeks’ vacation. I was really down and I felt the need to take a break. Two days later I profoundly understood I was living a huge lie. The reality is that smoking doesn’t calm you down, but increases the anxiety. I had known it for ages, but I had never felt it inside as being true. That morning, in Greece, I said to myself “I am not stupid. I know I can relax better without smoking and I did it so many times before”! And that was the beginning of a new change that still lasts 8 years later. I did small steps in between, it’s true, but the major one was done when I felt deep inside what my mind was telling me every time I tried to quit smoking.
Basically, you can write down tons of wish lists. However, everything will happen when your entire being, including your mind, your body, your soul and your heart wish for the change to happen. And this will occur whether you have it on your To Do list for a New Year or not. In fact, we often publish on social media channels quotes like “The only constant in life, is change”, yet we are rushing to do big changes when we are not ready for them, and fear change when it’s entering uninvited into our life. That’s why I think we should take out the burden of these lists that are becoming more and more a Must, like eating or sleeping, and just be present each moment of our life, trying to make it better for us and the people around, and be more conscious about the fact that we might do small changes each day, leading us to important changes tomorrow.
The funny thing is that the well-known “change management” programs for big companies are following the same paradigm, but I will tell you more about this in my next article. So, stay tuned and follow our page for more insights.