"So you want things to change.
You’re sick and tired of the way things are, and you just want a fairy godmother to wave her magic wand and fix everything in your life.
Ah, wouldn’t that be wonderful!
This is where I tell you that there is a fairy godmother, but she’s you, and you already have all the magic you need inside you.
And if that makes you want to slap me, I totally understand.
We’ve got so many responsibilities already. Is it really fair to add “responsibility for changing everything that’s not working in our lives” on top of that?
But there’s a REASON that change feels like such a struggle…
And this one might surprise you.
You may not lack the willpower or discipline or motivation you think you do.
Instead, all you may be lacking is one stroke of insight…
What’s Really Holding Us Back
I want to ask you something…
If you already know which issues are holding you back in your life, what’s keeping you from making a change?
Is it that:
- You don’t know what to do?
- You know what you should do but lack willpower?
- You’re too busy to have the time?
- You don’t have the resources?
Those are the things we tell ourselves, and they’re all valid.
But we often overlook the biggest reason of all:
The status quo is sticky.
The status quo is like this 10-ton giant who is not going to budge. This is where he’s standing, and no one is going to make him move.
You can yell at him, you can hit him, you can try to convince him…
But he’s a giant and he can just ignore you.
The Status Quo is Easy – Change is Hard
It takes enormous effort to change the status quo. The status quo does NOT want to be changed.
One of the ways that the status quo makes sure it stays in place is by making all other possibilities seem too hard and unappealing.
The mental effort it takes to come up with a different way of doing things, plus the emotional effort of trying this new way, knowing there will be growing pains…
Plus the physical effort of having to overcome your usual habits and manually figure out what you’re doing…
Well, let’s be frank. The status quo is right. It is too much.
When you’re already tired, and you’re emotionally overwhelmed, and you’ve got too much on your plate, change is TOO MUCH to ask of you.
It requires more than you have to give.
Will Setting Goals Defeat the Status Quo?
Some people say the answer is to set SMART goals. (Specific, measurable, achievable… you know the ones.)
But I’ve never found that goals all that work for me.
Goals feel so STRICT.
The minute I tell myself I “have” to do anything, I no longer want to do it.
And maybe that comes from past experience. One summer when I was a teenager, I set myself a list of 10 goals, which included growing my hair long, getting contact lenses, and losing 10 lbs.
Did I achieve them all? No!
I just remember feeling embarrassed afterwards, looking at that list, thinking about how much I’d wanted to achieve and how little I managed to do in the end. The list felt like proof I was a loser.
What I eventually learned is that I’m not a goal person.
I’m the kind of person who needs to retrain my brain.
Think Differently
Have you heard that famous quote that says you can’t fix problems with the same kind of thinking that created them?
That rings true for me, because I often find that the way I am thinking about a problem IS the problem.
I am the one creating the barriers I see. I am blinding myself to possibilities.
It’s my thinking that’s holding me back, not the problem itself.
Self-help folks often say that 95% of our thoughts are repetitive. We think the same things over and over again.
No wonder it feels so hard to make real change! We’re trapped by our thoughts.
When I have something I’d like to change in my life, what I do is try to figure out what I’m not seeing... what I haven’t considered… what I don’t know or understand yet.
My mind is going around and around on these well-worn grooves, and I won’t see a solution until I break out of my rut. I know to look for new information or a new insight that will spin me off in a new direction.
Where Has Your Thinking Become Repetitive?
There’s so much of our lives we’ve never questioned.
We’ve never asked ourselves whether it makes sense to do the things we do.
We’ve never asked ourselves whether it makes us happy to do things the way we do them.
We’ve never let ourselves consider that we might have other options.
We spend so much of our lives on autopilot. We eat the same foods we’ve always eaten. We drive the same roads we’ve always driven. We entertain ourselves in the same ways.
But maybe the foods you eat aren’t the foods that would bring you the most pleasure and satisfaction.
Maybe there’s a different route to work, down different roads, that would make your drive so much more pleasant.
Maybe spending your leisure time scrolling on your phone or watching TV isn’t actually making you feel gorgeously relaxed and happy to be alive.
If you want to create change in your life, you don’t need more discipline and willpower.
You need to address your autopilot, the grooves in your brain you’ve traveled so many times that you’ve worn a rut.
And what challenges your autopilot?
Learning something new that changes how you look at the world forever.
Novelty Defeats the Giant
Busting out of the status quo requires exposure to new things that challenge our habitual way of thinking and doing things.
That’s why travel is so good. That’s why education is so good. That’s why new experiences are so good!
Every time we’re exposed to something new that doesn’t make sense given our current vision of the world, we’re forced to rethink what we know and what we believe.
And if we’re open to change—rather than stubbornly stuck in our ways—the world starts to change itself for us.
New possibilities open up. Old problems no longer seem so hard.
It’s like MAGIC.
Are You Open to Seeing Through New Eyes?
That’s why I don’t tend to teach a lot of” tips and tricks” here at Your Brilliance.
I’m much more interested in giving you new information that challenges your model of the world.
We are learning so much every day about the human mind and the human heart.
Research is exploding old myths about what makes us love and what makes us happy.
If you’re open to changing your mind, and rethinking the way you’ve always seen things, a new life is effortless.
You CAN’T go back to the way you were. You can’t un-see what you have seen.
This is who you are now, and it’s so much better than before.
So try it. The key to defeating the giant:
Open yourself up to the possibility that you’re missing SOMETHING that… once you learn it… will change EVERYTHING.
[1]Amy Waterman, M.A., is an international speaker, author, and love expert. Her work has appeared in over a dozen online courses, including The Pleasure Principle, Save My Marriage Today, Connect & Commit, and How to Be Irresistible to Men. With over 15 years of experience in love advice, she knows that the search for love is at the heart of the human experience.
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