Changes: Assess/Reassess

Change is hard and laborious. It is frustrating and frightening. True change is impossible; leopards can’t change their spots. Heard this? Believe it? Why?

Why is change any harder than anything else? Is it harder than learning to walk, as a child? Is it harder than learning kickball in the first grade, or soccer in the seventh? Is it harder than making a new friend? It’s just choices about behavior. You choose to do one thing over another. It isn’t difficult unless you put emotion (feeling) into it.

Don’t wait to feel like making a change; you will never feel like making a change. Force yourself and just do it. Change your thinking (oh look, change), change your attitude, change your life. We think of change as having to be BIG: all or nothing, stellar or dismal. It has to stick and happen right now. Whose law is that?

Change is a progression. It is assess/reassess at a basic level. Experiment. Try something, check the response. Did something bad happen when I introduced myself to a stranger at a group meeting? No? Then I try another person, and another, and eventually, I don’t think of myself as shy and having nothing to offer in a conversation. Sometimes people will walk away from you, but that’s about them, not you. If I try to go for a 20 minute walk every day, and I don’t, does that make me a failure? Instead of giving up, go for a 10 minute walk, or walk two blocks to mail a letter or buy a cup of coffee. Anything and everything counts.

How did you feel after the walk, or the exercise, or meeting a new person, or whatever change you are attempting? If the response is positive, continue doing that. Maybe add more challenge. If you can walk 10 minutes, how about 12? If the response is negative (that person dismissed me when I tried to talk to them), try someone else. But don’t give because you didn’t succeed the first time.

Change is always changing. Two steps forward, three back, six forward, and so on. Let’s take the negative off change. Let’s stop treating it like it’s awful, fearful, a disease and start embracing change like it’s an experiment and an adventure. Life is either predicable or a challenge. Give me the crazy people; the dull ones can complain to each other.

That’s Aging Intelligently.