A Love/Hate Relationship With Change

 

I recently watched a TED Video that inspired me to start doing things I have been procrastinating about.  The video is called “Thirty Days”  and the speaker was a man named Matt Cutts, a man who describes himself as someone who used to be an out of shape man spending all of his time in front of a computer keyboard.  He knew that his life lacked dimension but he was struggling to make positive changes until  he decided to take the ‘Thirty Day Challenge.’ Basically, a thirty day challenge meant that he had to commit to trying one new thing for thirty days.  He  said he decided to try it because it seems less intimidating when he committed to “making small sustainable changes."  As a result, one change led to another and  his life changed for the better. 

"Ultimately we know that on the other side of every fear is freedom." - Marilyn Ferguson

As for myself, I have a love hate relationship with change so committing for only thirty days is appealing because there is a beginning and there is an end.   It isn't the fear of change itself that inhibits me from taking on a change more readily.  I tend to procrastinate because of the fear of failure, the fear of being too vulnerable, the fear that change means giving up something I am comfortable with, or just the fear of the unknown.  In most instances I will embrace the opportunity to change but only after analyzing it thoroughly first.  However,  I just push past the fear if there is somewhere else I need to be or want to be in life.  In other words, the desire to get there must be greater than the fear.   Whatever my motivation is, making the first effort toward change can be difficult. After musing about this for a while,  I realized that facing the fear of a new challenge is like getting out of a warm bed on a cold morning.  On cold mornings I will lay in bed for a few additional minutes because I dread the very act of getting up and starting my day. In reality, the worst part of the entire ‘getting out of bed experience’ can be condensed into those few seconds when I take my feet out from under the warm covers and put them on the floor.  Once I am out of bed it’s all good and I end up wondering why I spend fifteen minutes worrying about thirty seconds of change.

Over the last few years I have found that change is the only constant. Just as I get comfortable with my routine, I am propelled into a new one.  More and more often I find myself in situations that make it impossible for me to hide behind the scenes.  After a lot of whining, I decided that hiding from the things that make me uncomfortable isn’t working.   I took the thirty day challenge and signed up for a social group to practice mingling with people I don’t know, I joined a public speaking group, and I might even try karaoke.  For some people all of these experiences probably sound like simple challenges.  I agree that they are simple, but simple is relative to the person and the circumstances.  For example, if I had to dig a hole in the ground that is 10’ X 10’ and 10’ deep the task isn’t that difficult depending on the tools available, the circumstances, the physical ability of the person doing the digging. Sitting next to a loved one is a simple task but sitting next to a loved one as they lay on their death bed is not an easy thing to do.  Society uses the words simple and easy interchangeably but the two words do not always mean the same thing.

"...let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." Franklin D.Roosevelt

 

Everyone is unique so what frightens one person may be easy to another. The first day on a new job can evoke as much fear for one person as the first kayak trip down a raging river would be for someone else.  Any challenge, big or small, should not diminish the feeling of accomplishment we get from having the courage to take the first step past our fear. Whether someone is starting their first job in many years, uttering the first sentence of a speech in front of a large group, taking the initiative to say hello to a stranger, or singing in public for the first time it isn't always as easy as it sounds.  The very act of moving from fear to the first step of change is a personal victory.  What is more important than success or failure is having the courage to start.   I am ready to make my next 30 day commitment to change.  Even though I am a little nervous, I try to remember that one step usually leads to another and, before I know it, I am wondering why I spent a few hours worrying about a few minutes.