“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol
If you don’t like the way things are for you, you have the power to change them. Of course, physical changes can’t always be made overnight, but you can instantly change the way your life is going by changing the way you think.
When you change the way you think about things, you change the way you do things, and doing things differently will bring you different results.
You can change what you bring about by changing what you think about.
Change is always possible, but making changes is not always easy. You might recognise that you want change in your life, but making change happen is going to mean stepping out of your safe familiar comfort zone. Thinking differently and doing things differently is going to mean stepping into unfamiliar territory, and a fear of the unknown can stop you in your tracks.
Fear can paralyse you and prevent you from making the changes you need to make to change the way things are for you. You’re stuck. So, let’s just think about this fear for a moment. If you fear the unknown, what exactly is it that you’re fearing? If it’s unknown, you can’t know there’s anything to fear, right? Well, the problem is that fear leads to inventing things to be afraid of. When you fear taking the first step out of your comfort zone, your mind begins to invent reasons to be fearful. Your thoughts become negative and you think in terms of, “What if I can’t do this?” and, “What if this all goes wrong?” These negative thoughts fuel negative beliefs, meaning, “What if I can’t do this?” becomes, “I can’t do this. It will all go wrong because things never go right for me. I’m a failure.” Clearly, this line of thought is going to negatively impact any actions you take, and most probably hold you back from taking any action at all.
Without action, and different action, nothing can change.
Change can happen, and it begins the moment you change your thoughts. When you change, “What if I fail?” into, “What if I succeed?” you instantly generate positive thoughts of what it would mean to you to make this change happen, and those positive thoughts fuel positive beliefs. “What if I succeed?” becomes, “I can succeed” and then, “I will succeed,” and this positive line of thought instantly gives you the drive and the confidence you need to take the first step out of your comfort zone. It’s no longer stepping into the unknown if you can see in your mind’s-eye where that step is taking you and it’s somewhere you want to go.
The bottom line is that staying where you are will keep things the way they are in your life. If you want things to be different, you need to do things differently, and doing begins with thinking.
Don MacNaughton is a High-Performance Coach and has worked tirelessly to help clients achieve success in the world of sport and business over the past 15 years. The next, highly popular, NLP Diploma and Life Coaching Certificate course starts in April 2019. Click here for more information or to sign up.