This could not be more true than it is today. The world is a crazy place. That is something we can all agree on. Many people stand on the corner cursing out the way things are. Instead of that, why not try to focus on building things the way you wish them to be? Personally, I would love a world that is more tolerant, accepting and loving. Through these posts, and in my personal life, I do my best to be that.
I am not telling you to stand up against what you feel is wrong. Quite the contrary. What I am suggesting is to approach the situation with understanding, compassion and most importantly, a solution. One that does not marginalize or hurt others. One that is constructive and brings peace and positivity to the world. That is what is most important in these trying times. Build a world we love and celebrate.
Has anyone ever told you, “You have changed.” Usually, it is not a good thing. They are attempting to bring to our attention that a behavior or attitude that we used to have is changed. That makes most people uncomfortable. This holds true if our new behavior or mindset is contrary to the one they knew us to have. Perhaps you used to be the life of the party. You could drink a few beers, slam a few shots and would just take the next day off of work. Now, you drink water, are focused on your fitness and show up to work on time. If the person hung around with you before, it might make them uncomfortable to deal with the change. This is even more true if they have stayed the same.
Many people fear being left behind by friends who evolve. In some cases this fear is legitimate. If you are looking to change a behavior, it is quite helpful to no longer associate with individuals who engage in that behavior you are looking to leave behind. If you were formally close to that individual, it can be a little painful for that to happen. If you are the person worrying about being left behind, it can not only be painful, but scary as well. That is why they will tell you that you have changed with an attitude of making you feel as though you are not being authentic to yourself. Part of this is them transferring their fear and disappointment in their own progress on you.
A greater reason for people using the phrase, “You’ve changed.” is our inability to communicate our feelings. There really should be a class taught to us when we are young on how to properly say the often difficult things that we feel. Just yesterday I heard it said that “They tell you that you have changed because they do not know how to say you have grown.” That is something we must understand, growth takes change. If we stay the same we can stay stagnate. The picture above captures it beautifully. To become a butterfly, we cannot remain a caterpillar. Growth can be painful and many may accuse us of changing who we are, but just remember that is because they do not know how to tell us that we have grown.
Oh to be young and invincible again. When I look back at my life and all of the crazy things I have done, I sure do regret a few. What many of you may not know, is the fact that I wrote an autobiography. In recalling a lot of the partying, physical stunts and sleep deprivation, I am beginning to understand some of the problems I have today.
Depending on what age you are when you read this, you are either nodding your head in agreement or thinking it can’t happen to you. Our life can be equated to one of those giant cruise ships that sail in the Caribbean. One day I’m hoping to be on one. They way in which one of those ships and our life is alike is how they change course. You can’t turn one of those ships on a dime. No, it takes time and a good deal of planning.
Our life is like that ship. We can change direction, but to turn it all around takes some time. It works in both the positive and the negative. We saw examples of the negative above. The same is true in the positive. You want a good body? It can start today, but it takes time. We can change the direction of our life today with the decisions we are making. Where will the decisions you are making take you in ten or fifteen years?
There are so many people who are afraid of change. While it is true that change can be a little unsettling, do you know what is worse? Not changing. No growth. Stagnation. Imagine living a life like the movie Groundhog Day. How long before you slip from frustration into insanity. To become wealthier we must change. To become happier and healthier we must change. Even what seems like negative changes in these arenas can be the catalyst to help us make positive changes. A job loss can force us to polish our skills and pursue a career that is more personally satisfying. Yes, it may be lean for a while there, but in the end we will end up with a more fulfilled and happy life. It is often after experiencing the greatest health challenges that people finally adopt that healthy lifestyle they ‘never got around to’. It is as if the universe is asking us, “Can you hear me now?” Even significant moments of emotional sadness or loss can remind us of blessings in our life that we formerly took for granted.
Another point that this brings up is the meaning we give change. Like the examples listed above, we have the opportunity to make any change a positive one. We could stop and look at a job loss, the end of a relationship or passing of a loved one and think how terrible this change in our life is. Those situations are not pleasant to be sure. Still, we have the chance to use these circumstances beyond our control to our advantage, or let them define us. The choice is ours.
Once again, Stoic philosophy helps us understand this. Our strength is not in controlling outside events, which we will never be able to fully do, but in controlling our reaction to them. That includes what meaning we assign to them. This job loss, does it mean I am destined to be poor or that the world is pushing me to do something more aligned with my sense of purpose? Before you say that this is a ‘glass half full’ argument, let me tell you it might be. Just as in the case of a glass that can either be viewed as half empty or half full, change in our life can be viewed as holding us back or pushing us forward. Notice the facts have not changed. Our belief system has.
The benefit of adopting a more empowering belief system is a life that is less stressful and more fulfilling. If we believe change is destined to hold us back we will feel one way and make certain decisions and take certain actions. If we believe that change is pushing us in a new direction and will ultimately take us somewhere better we will certainly feel differently and make different decisions and take different actions. This will not only have us feeling happier and more at peace as we go through life, but will also end up with a different reality.
Life will go a lot better for us if we embrace change and take advantage of the power we have over it. Note these words from Darwin and Marcus Aurelius. Use them to remind you that change can be a catalyst to benefit our lives. It is up to us and our mindset.
I am sure hoping this is true of all of us. As we go through life we learn more and are exposed to more. If we are healthy, and have an open mind, we grow. This can often come with a change of mind. It does not mean that we were necessarily ‘wrong’ before. It just means we have more experience, knowledge and wisdom to make an informed decision with. If we never change our minds or behavior, that would mean we have not learned a single thing throughout our lifetimes! That is not the kind of person I would like to be known as.
One of the fun things about learning is that you can always become a better version of yourself. At home you can become a better spouse, lover and parent. At work you can become a more productive employee and more supportive coworker. At the gym you can become more efficient at working out. You could become a more informed and healthy eater. There are so many ways in which we can change and improve. That is not a negative reflection on who we used to be. It is a positive reflection on who we are. How about you? What things do you say or do differently now than you did in the past?
So many times I will here people who are trying to change make deals with themselves. “I’ll start tomorrow.” or “I will give myself a break on the weekend.” While I am all for doing whatever will help you achieve your goal, this type of thinking leaves us with a little problem. Believe it or not, it reinforces the identity that we are not what we are striving to become. You are actually tripping yourself up by doing this.
There are 2 reasons that jump into my mind. First, it makes the thing you are trying to get away from a ‘reward’. If I eat good during the week, I can then tackle the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet every weekend. That creates the feeling of only being able to be yourself on the weekend. Thus, reinforcing the identity of someone who does not eat well. By looking forward to filling your face, and your stomach, with high calorie sauce pie, you create more a feeling of dread for the week of healthy eating. When you dread something are you more or less likely to do it?
Many of you may counter that ‘looking forward to something’ will allow you to make it through the week of good eating. This may work in the short term. How do you think your brain will react to having a hit of dopamine every weekend as you swallow many pieces of cake. It will begin to subconsciously tell your mind, “This feels good. Eating healthy feels bad.” This will only make it more difficult to identify yourself as someone who is now a healthy eater. Instead, you will be a bad eater struggling to eat healthy. It may sound like splitting hairs, but there is a big difference. Especially if you want the change to last long term.
Think of how your actions shape your identity. Not only to others who are watching you, who will reinforce that identity, but most importantly to yourself.
This is one of the many thought patterns that I use to help me live an amazing life. Allowing situations to be what they are is so key to reducing stress and increasing productivity. So many people spend their energy upset and complaining about why a situation is not to their liking. The only effect that this has is to raise their own stress level. We all know what a prolonged raise in stress can do to us both mentally as well as physically.
Allowing situations to be as they are does not mean you allow yourself to be victim to those situations. Quite the opposite. Fighting against the reality of the situation is like swimming against a current. You may certainly wish the river was flowing in the opposite direction. You can even complain that it is not. Neither of these will change the situation of the river, or more importantly, your situation. Conversely, accepting the river is going in the opposite direction you may want to go, and then making the best of it, may be getting out of the river and walking on the shore. Sure, it might not be as quick as if you were in a river flowing in the right direction, but it will be a lot less stressful, and a lot more productive, than swimming against the current.
In your own life, there are many situations that we wish were different. Accepting them for what they are, followed by asking ourselves how we can make the best of them is a secret to an amazing life.
This is an important message for today’s world. We need to shift from placing blame, to creating solutions. They only way to do this is by working together. It can be simple to say, but I know it is not easy to do. Hurt, years of oppression, violence, and division have been going on since the dawn of man. How can we hope to reverse this trend?
If you listen to what you hear from politicians, world leaders and the media, it is as soon as we Conquer the opposition. That is a lie. The solution lies in forming mutual respect with the opposition. This requires both sides to admit the wrong they have done and pledge to work together to create a solution to prevent those wrongs from occurring in the future.
What does this have to do with you and I? Plenty. We cannot wait for world leaders and those running out country to remove their thinking apparatus from their sitting apparatus. That may never happen. We have to startwith us. Work on eliminating our prejudices. At the very least, stopspeaking hate and division and start thinking of solutions. Vote for those who do the same instead of those running on a ticket based on fear, blame and revenge. Most importantly, raise children who respect others and want to make a difference in the world.
It is not to late to save the world and the people who live in it. The change has to start with someone. Why not let it start with us and why not start now?
In life, there are certain things that we all go through. One of those things is change. We all face it in many areas of our life. When things are going great and we are happy, change can seem like a terrible thing. When we are struggling, change can seem to never come. Yet, come it will. No matter how certain things may seem, change will come. If the pandemic and the last few years of chaos have taught us anything, it is that things can change when we least expect it and do so quickly.
I hear a lot of people tell me, “Neil, I just don’t like change.” For anyone, that is only half true. You do not like change to things you know, like and are comfortable with. If there was something that caused you pain or inconvenience, you would not mind that changing at all. That is the first thing we must consider. Without change, none of the things we dislike would ever improve. That wouldn’t be too much fun would it? How about never getting a raise? We wouldn’t want our salary to change now would we? Never getting a new car? Wouldn’t want to change what we are driving. I think you get the point.
What about when it is something we like and are familiar with? We know how to do our job and do it well until some bigshot decides it should be done differently. Maybe that bigshot decides they don’t even need us doing the job anymore? Then we find ourselves out of the street. Not the type of change we enjoy. How about the change of someone we love passing? Probably the most painful change we have to endure. What do we do then? It takes a realization and a change in perception to deal with these changes. First, we must realize that change, like the law of gravity, doesn’t care if we like it or not. If we hate the law of gravity and throw a ball off of the roof, it will still go down, no matter how much we complain about the law of gravity. Same with change. It will always come, so complaining and getting upset will only cause us undue stress and wasted energy.
If change is not going to stop, and some of it really sucks, how can we still live an amazing life? Think of ourselves as a sailboat. What?! Yes, a sailboat. When a sailboat is trying to get from point A to point B and the wind changes, what does it do? Does it complain about the wind and say, “Well, I guess I am going in this other direction now.” I think you know the answer to that is no. What does it do? It adjusts the sails. Ah, there is the key to using change in our own life. Let us say, hypothetically of course, you are an author who wrote a book you hope will inspire a lot of people. You sell many copies and wait for the reviews to come in. Then you wait and wait some more. None come. Do you just say, “Well I guess that was a failure.” You could, or you can hire a PR firm and do your best to get yourself out there. You must adjust your sail. Maybe you have a job you thought you would retire from and the company goes out of business. You could complain about the change and tell everyone how it wasn’t your fault. Keep doing this and they will come and take your house away. You could also maybe go back to school, look for a job in a field you would enjoy more or find a job that better aligns with your purpose. Adjust your sail.
Change is constant for everyone. The better we learn to work with change instead of complaining about it, the more successful we will become. Think of your life as that sailboat. You are the captain. When the winds of life change, what are you going to do? Are you going to let your boat get tossed in the ocean of life, or are you going to grab hold of the helm and adjust your sail?
I was listening to Les Brown, one of my favorite speakers today. He said something I think we can all relate to. He said, “In life, you are either going into a storm, in the middle of a storm or just came out of a storm.” That may sound a bit negative, but that does not make it any less true. It seems the storms of life seem to come one right after another. There are moments of sunshine between them for sure, but another one is always around the corner if we wait long enough.
Much like the meteorological storms, we also try to predict the storms in our life. Just like they do on the weather channel, we gather information. We look at patterns and past performances. Much like the conclusions on the weather channel, they are right…some of the time. We might be able to predict the storm, but that does little, if anything, to change the fact the storm is coming. They never try to change the weather on the weather channel. You never hear them say, “Everyone point your fan in one direction so we can pull up warmer air.” Trust me, I have thought of this. Why, in life, do we try to change the weather? We fight against the storms with other people. We fight against change itself. As if we can stop these things from happening.
We can spend an entire life doing our best to avoid or run from the storms in the ocean of life. They will find us or catch up to us at some point. That time would be much better spent learning to swim. What do I mean from that? If you know that eventually you will be in a storm, you really have two options. You can hope that the storm is easy, or that it passes you over entirely. Hope is a redeeming quality, but seldom a good strategy. Your other option is to learn skills that can help you not only survive the storm, but thrive in it. In other words, you can learn to swim.
Many of you might be thinking, “Ok, that makes sense. Next time that I see a storm coming, I will work on the skills that will help me make it through.” Let us return to our analogy of the weather. Does mother nature ever call you to ask, “I plan on raining this week. When would be good for you?” I am not sure how it works in your life, but mother nature must think the time I enjoy rain is when I have an outdoor activity planned. Just like the weather, the storms of life can pop up unexpectedly, at any time.
While being interviewed for the show Positively Milwaukee, I asked the question, “When is the best time to learn how to swim? When you are on the shore or when the boat is sinking?” Little did I know, only a year later I would benefit from my own advice. I had to undergo emergency open-heart surgery. The healthy lifestyle I had been living went a long way in helping me make it through that. Had I waited until I was told that I needed surgery to start living a healthy lifestyle, it would have been too late. The same is true in any challenge of life. The longer you wait to start preparing for the storms of life, the chance it will be too late increases. Start developing your skills today. The storm could come tomorrow. Take that swimming lesson today.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 