Change for the Better
I’ve heard it said over and over again, the human condition is adversant to change. Change is the natural enemy of habit, and since we are all creatures of habit, change is very threatening to us. The problem is that without change, improvement is impossible. Let me repeat that for emphasis: Without change, improvement is impossible. Now I can almost hear people everywhere say to them selves “duh”! Oh sure, on some conscious level, we all know that we have to keep improving in order to move ourselves and our lives and our families forward. And improvement in and of itself is change. But I’ve said it before and I’ll keep repeating it, knowing and doing are two completely and entirely different things.I know that I need to excercise for my health, but do I do it? Of course not. Why? Because I am a creature of habit and as such, I reluctant to change. Yes, of course I want to improve my health, but at what price? So I bargain with myself and I end up exchanging thirty minutes a day of excercise for an hour or two of television viewing or something equally non-productive. In my case, my routine for physical laziness is a bad habit that intellectually I know I need to change in order to enjoy the benefits of better health. But I don’t. Part of the reason that I don’t feel the need to change anything is because I don’t feel the urgency. After all, I “feel” reletivity healthy. For a 51 year old anyway. How’s that for rationalization? Rationalization is one of our best natural defense mechanisms that we have for staying in our ruts and routines.
It’s been said before that we could rationalize murder in our minds if we had to. I really believe that. We are so dis-inclined to admit our weaknesses, that we have developed a natural defense mechanism of rationalization which prevents us from seeing ourselves the way others see us and allows us to easily convince ourselves about how smart we really are. If we could quit rationalizing why we don’t need to change and start using our rationalization to help convince us to change, that would go a long way. We can always find reasons not to do something but how about searching just as diligently for reasons to do them?
So here’s the only reason that you need to rationalize your way to accepting change in your life. Without change, there is no improvement. Think back in your lifetime about your biggest life’s victories. Nothing that you ever accomplished was done without change and improvement to yourself. As Einstien said, “The significant problems that we have cannot be solved at the same level at which we created them”.
Education, reading, writing, research and even excercise and playing are pursuits to self-improvement. Exposure to something new and different is the key to changing your routines and habits. It only takes 20-30 days to create a new habit. The hardest part is the first few steps. Once it becomes a habit, it becomes just as hard to stop doing it as it was to first getting started. It’s the old law of inertia: “An object in motion tends to remain in motion, an object at rest, tends to remain at rest.” Life is motion, you can rest afterwards. So get out there and move it! Set a goal to change one thing about yourself that you don’t like. Change for the better!
