Your capacity to change is the most important skill in your arsenal and the most critical to develop. It will determine the quality of your life now and in the future. Creating the life you want is dependent on your ability to make changes in your behavior as well as your perspective. Change is not an outcome – like becoming thin and fit. It’s a process – designing, engaging in, and finally reaching your goal. Where diet and exercise are concerned, embodying a healthy lifestyle that fits into the structure of your life and meets your needs is a deeply meaningful outcome of the change process.
Almost everything that involves growth requires the capacity to change and the more skilled you are at transformation, the better your chances of accomplishing your goals. Yet most people avoid change whenever possible and fail to change effectively when they do make attempts. This is the bottom line: without skills in the art of change, you will not achieve your full potential. Nor will you successfully alter behaviors that impact your health and well-being.
Unfortunately, precious few of us are directly taught how to navigate change and even fewer are lucky enough to learn the art implicitly through role models. So most of us muddle along, doing the best we can when forced into change, without the benefit of a guidance system. We’re operating in the dark, the blind leading the blind.
Thankfully, there are strategies for change that work reliably and can be taught, practiced, and mastered. These are learnable and teachable skills that you can use repeatedly and pass on to others. Most notably, any healthy changes you make can transfer to your loved ones, increasing their health and well-being along with your own.
Are You Insane?
A quote attributed to Albert Einstein suggests that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” A more contemporary interpretation is: “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.”
These quotes eloquently express the problem most of us face when attempting change without acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills. When people want to make lifestyle changes but feel stuck, it starts to drive them a little crazy. You’ve got one toolbox, so you use the tools available to try to create change. But, like the proverbial man with a hammer who only sees nails, you’re repeatedly using tools that you’ve already demonstrated don’t work.
