Far too often, even knowing all this, we will not change. In most cases, it is because we do not want to change. We have an investment in keeping things a certain way, viewing the world and other people a certain way, and if we were to allow these things to change, it would, in our opinion, make the past and everything we know pointless and meaningless. When this is so, we develop a resistance to change.
The way we view change is: if I change, it is an admission that I was wrong in the past. It would be saying I did things wrong in the past. In short, we “beat up” on ourselves. Change is our enemy.
We view change as just another way of being told we are “not good enough”. We were “not good enough” in the past, and we need to do “better”. Given this viewpoint, it is no wonder change and personal growth are so hard to achieve.
This happens because we are taking what we are learning here in the NOW moment, and we are retroactively applying this information to events which happened in the PAST. We are using new information and skills as a way of proving we were “not good enough” in the PAST because we did not know then what we do know now.
“I don’t want to change because it shows me what I did wrong in the past. I don’t want to change because it points out my past failures when I didn’t know about this.”
Excuse me, it is time for a very serious REALITY CHECK: We did not know what we knew before we knew it, so how is it possible to apply it to something which happened in the past?
Using such illogical logic can keep us forever trapped in a continual loop of never being good enough. There will be something new we learn tomorrow, which makes what we know today, “not good enough”.
I could use such logic this way: “If I were to take the skills, abilities, and resources I presently have, my knowledge of those skills, abilities, and resources, and my opportunity to use them, back in time to a year or two before my divorce, I could save my marriage!” How stupid could I have been not to use then what I have now? This, of course, also means that the skills, abilities, and resources I had available to me then were “not good enough” and what I did then was “not good enough” — based on what I know today.
The challenge with such logic is that I developed the skills, abilities, and resources I have available to me today as a result of, not in spite of, the divorce. I do not get here without having been there.
I contend change is the natural outgrowth of life, and that there is no such thing as Failure. There is only Feedback, another opportunity to learn. It is all in how we view it. We can have Failure in our lives, or we can have Learning Opportunities.
Most of us were far more persistent as children when we were learning to ride a bicycle or skate than we are as adults. When we were children, every time we fell down, we got back up and kept going until we mastered the skill we wanted to learn.
As an adult, most of us seldom do so. We are afraid of looking silly or stupid the first time we do something. We are afraid of what other people will think of us. We quit right away if we feel we are not getting the maximum desired result at once. We did not get it “right”, so we turn and walk away, a “failure” once again. The fact was, it was all in how we Perceived it.
Given, some learning opportunities will be more optimum than others; however, we are “learning”, it is impossible to fail. In order to FAIL, we must reach an outcome past which nothing will ever happen, and past which nothing will ever change. If we are allowing ourselves to “learn” and “change” and “grow” from what is taking place in our lives, there are no “final” outcomes, no end points, and we can not fail at anything.
This article is excerpted from the book The Possible You, ©1999, by Charles Frost.
CHANGES are never fun… But if CHANGE can help you to accept more challenges and opportunities do you want to do it? Simple Mind Power techniques can help you out. Just put your mind into an alpha level – removing all stresses and analysis where by you do an effortlessly consciously do the change and just encast it for 30 days.. PAINLESS way to making changes.
Good thought.