Change is Hard, But Misery is.....Miserable
“Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman.” Maya Angelou
So many of us love to have a routine. We may not love our own routines, the things that we feel like we have to do, day in and day out, but we often love knowing what’s next. Predictability can give us a sense of comfort, but is comfort what we need? Do you want to go through life being comfortable or do you want to set the world on fire? If it’s comfort, you’re looking for, I’m not the right person to help you get there.
If you want to light the world up, what are you waiting for? Change is hard. It’s emotional and it’s scary. Who wants to go from making a steady income to thinking about doing something different that has the potential to lose money? Who wants to go from being a boss on the job to a novice? Who wants to walk away from tenure and seniority? I’ll tell you who. It’s People who realize that misery and the toll it takes, outweighs the fear. The thought of never knowing how it would feel to try, and possibly succeed at being who you believe you were put on this earth to be, is the road to freedom. That is your permission slip to step out on faith, to do something radical, and get out of your comfort zone.
Imagine, for a moment that I’m describing you in the following scenario. You’ve been in your field for 20 or so years. You are amazing at what you do. People look to you for guidance and support. You are well known. Your role is prestigious, but instead of feeling power and esteem, there is a feeling of what if. What if you spend the rest of my life doing this work, not feeling fulfilled, and even worse dreading every day that you have to get out of bed to do this job? There is an emotional drain on your body that causes a physical drain. In some cases, the physical impact could be a lot worse as a result from the stress and anxiety. You have a choice to make. You don’t have to remain in misery, you can choose opportunity.
The first choice is about how you want to show up. Define the feeling that you want to have. Let’s say the feeling you want to have is excitement. You want to be excited about your life’s work and wake up most mornings energized and looking forward to what lies ahead of you.
The next choice you can make is about when you will show up. You can be excited right now or you can choose to prolong feeling the way you want to feel. When are you going to want to feel excited? Now, tomorrow, in 7 weeks, or in 2032? The choice is yours. When do you want to be excited? I’m going to assume you want to experience excitement right now, at this very moment. Okay, so go do it!
Is it that simple? Well, yes, it can be, but in order to do that we have to operate in a different way. We need to shift our energy and thus our thinking to a more anabolic (uplifted) state. When we can shift our thinking, we can begin to see opportunities where we saw struggle. We can turn inward to our values and our intentions, and emerge from victim to victor. Moving from comfort to setting the world on fire doesn’t always mean that you need to make some grand external change, like quitting your job. It could, but the first step is actually working on the internal forces; our perceptions, our thinking, and our energy.
This week, if you feel like you’re stuck in the comfort zone, reflect on what it is that you feel is missing. I want to hear from you and help you make shifts that bring passion back for you. I want you to wake up feeling alive, excited about how you can set the world on fire. Next week, after you’ve had some time to reflect, I’ll cover more on this topic, and what to do if you realize that you do need to make a drastic change.