Positive Change requires responsibility — Personal Power Mastery
Positive change requires responsibility — Personal Power Mastery By Douglas Vermeeren
I meet a lot of people that want to make changes in their lives at the seminars I host. People come wanting changes in their feelings of self-worth, changes in the financial situation, changes in their relationship status, changes in their appearance, change sin their habits, changes to the weight, changes in their occupation … you get the idea. Anything that could be changed I’ve seen people who’ve wanted to make that change.
Because change is such an important topic and most common reason people come to me I want to share a few things I’ve observed about change that you might not have spent a lot of time thinking about.
1)Change is inevitable. — People most often experience their current situation and circumstances because of what they’ve chosen in the past. Your past determines your present. And your present determines your future. However most people never recognize how much control or power they actually have over their future. They often settle for what happens to them rather than intentionally create the outcomes they prefer. Most often they have simply lost the vision of what they really want because they think its unrealistic or the society/situation they have grown accustom to provides security. Well, I’ve got news for you. There is no such thing as security. I love how Hellen Keller put it, “. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.” In fact, I am not even going to suggest that change is possible — it is inevitable.
The world around us is changing at a pace faster than we have ever experienced before. Our choices aren’t about whether we will change but rather how fast we can. Those who embrace change and live on the edge of it are those who can create more success and achieve more. If you can’t change you are obsolete. We must embrace change.
2) Change equals work. There are those who resist change. That is a choice. And there are those who claim they are staying that same. That is also a choice. But whether you want to or not change is taking place. You are either involved directly through your choice or you are involved as change leaves you behind. It has been interesting for me to observe that whether you choose to embrace change or resist it there is work to do. For those who choose to be ahead of the curve they do their work as change unfolds. Often they are considered innovators. They are rewarded as early adopters and considered proactive. On the other end of the spectrum it appears those who resist change don’t have as much work to do. but the truth is that their work is actually much more heavy, stressful and intense. And that work comes later as they struggle to catch up. Recently I saw a good example of these in the financial life of two different friends. The first one was always quick to make adjustments in what was happening to his business. He implemented new technologies and learned as much as he could about industry trends and customer behavior. It wasn’t easy but he was a leader in his industry. My other friend on the other hand resist adopting new innovations. He often labels things (like the internet and social media for example.) as fads that wouldn’t stick round long. He waited and watched and claimed he was being cautious to make sure something would stick around before using it.
My innovator friend worked hard in advance and was able to take advantage of opportunities that appeared. It made him very wealthy. My other friend on the other hand always seems to be playing catch up. He has been forced to pay premiums to get up to speed, he has had to rush harder to catch up and he has also lost many customers because he simply couldn’t service their needs.
There is an old saying that says, “Pay now and play later with interest. Or Play now and pay later with interest.” This is definitely true int his case.
Work that you decide to do upfront is easier than work that is forced upon you later.
3) You can’t what you won’t own. For change to be effective you must own and take responsibility for your situation. You can’t successful change anything if you seek to blame the thing you wish to change on others. This goes for behaviours as well as company activity. When a person takes personal ownership everything can change for the better. this include relationships, finances, company culture, sales and even self esteem. All things can be improved once the decision is made to take ownership and personal responsibility.
Recently I had a person attend one of my seminars and their reason for coming was that they wanted to improve their relationship with a significant other. As I worked this person it became apparent that they did not have any feelings of responsibility. Anything that was negative int he relationship was allegedly created by the partner and completely outside of this persons influence. This is a difficult place to be in for she had literally given all her power to the other partner. If he would change, the situation would change. This victim like behavior is very reactive. All moods and situations follow outside influences. (We can either choose to take action or we can choose to let the actions of others determine our outcomes.) This is what she had chosen to do.
The truth is that no one can take our power away unless we let them. We can take ownership for what’s going on in our lives and make new choices. We can raise our standards of what we will accept and how we will act in return. As I spoke with this lady we observe that 1 + 1 will always equal 2 unless something happens. And that something is that one of the 1’s needs to change. It can become a 2 which makes a new outcome of 3. Or it can become any other number which again changes the outcome. But the insight is that it doesn’t matter which number 1 choses to change.
When you start with you — the outcome changes. And in fact, it can only start with you. We all have our own freedom to choose and makes changes. We can never productively force a change to occur for someone else. If we own it we can change it.
Exercise for today: Consider what changes you would like to make in your life. How can you take ownership of these changes and make them by choice rather than waiting until you have to do something about it.
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