Hello friends and welcome to another weekly episode. This week’s topic is more of a statement and realization more than anything. MY WORLD WILL CHANGE TODAY.
I remember seeing a t-shirt once that had the words: THE CRITICAL SLIDE printed on it. Whether it meant what I took from it or not, it brought clearly to my own mind, the slippery slope of criticism and aimed skepticism.
What I mean by that is simply this: Your own bad attitude will never solve for someone else’s incompetency. It’s an easy path for certain to react or to act out. In fact, often times it’s a reactionary coverup for the familiarities brought on by the procrastinated efforts of personal change.
Outburst deflection comes in all shapes and sizes. For some, it’s easier to avoid than to act. For others, it’s far too easy to criticize openly in an attempt to assemble a diversionary army for personal avoidance. While it’s easy to find fault in another’s actions or lack there of, it’s far more difficult to identify one’s own opportunity for change. That critical slide, as I’ve defined it here, leads nowhere. It’s an empty path filled with anger and pent-up frustration that will continue to find a dead-end as it destroys every relationship in your life.
The opportunity for growth comes handily with each moment of choice. Choice to act rather than react. Choice to build rather than destroy. Choice to own the impact possible, rather than flee from the influence we seek. All choices we’ll each face, and ones that have the power to shape our world.
Why then, if we realize the choices in front of us can have a lasting and positive impact, do we persist with old habits and taking a road already taken?
As we study some of the cognitive strategies around avoidance and deflection, we find that the common models we are accustomed to that protect us, are derived in fast thinking and not necessarily reflected upon intentionally. In the space of personal change, we operate way too fast. Recognize that the work of change and progression is messy. It is slow. It is volatile. It can have significant costs and barriers.
Erich Bühler said, on the persistence of old mental models: “We generally stick to old mental models until new ways of thinking appear. During the change process, however, we tend to see the new only through the old lens. When the first motorized vehicles were built in the nineteenth century, cars looked more like carriages than automobiles. This was because people imagined them as an extension of horse-drawn transport. New ideas, concepts, and words were introduced, but old ways of thinking continued to be used to analyze and solve problems.”
So how does this tie in to the evolutionary change of each day? Each of us will enter our day in one of three ways: reactionary, complacent, or intentional. Each day will happen to us and for us. We will exist in it, whether we plan to or not. It will pass by us or through us. Knowing that doesn’t change anything really. The world will be changed as a result of how we show up each day. Our own world will shift as well. Forwards or sideways for even what seems backwards at times, it will see an impact by and through our presence in it. Under this premise, how then will we show up?
A friend and colleague said recently in describing the dichotomy of inspiration and subsequent action: “Inspiration without integrity doesn’t buy much.” - Richard Condon. What Richard was teaching us, in short, is just because you feel a change is necessary or that you feel and want to do things differently and have a larger impact, it doesn’t translate into anything unless you are willing to hav the integrity of action taken in the pursuit of better.
If you want to make a mark in your life and in the lives of those who count on you through your legacy, let this thought sink in: No one remembers easy!
Own your actions and attitude. Let it reflect the change you seek in the world as opposed to a pessimistic view of reality and the easy detour away from the change you seek.
Enter each day with the acknowledgement that in deed, your world will change. Will you be there for it?
Remember that GROWTH is always a choice.
Until next week my friends, make it a great one, and remember to always…HONOR.THE.GIFT.
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