Whenever the subject of change comes up, there are mixed reactions. Where we are in life, what we’ve experienced and our relationship with change will influence our response. Even to the word! But we didn’t start that way. In fact, in our beginnings, change was the goal!
Travel back in time with me to when we were young. Think about what got applause in your life: First sounds, first words, first sentences! First roll-over, first crawl, first steps! We progressed and that is change. Change is about progress. It is about growing. All change. Even the change that at first seems like it’s stopping you ultimately is just pausing you and for a purpose.
It can be tricky though to always embrace that idea and to go back to our earliest relationship with change. And it definitely will not happen in an instant. Like other “conditioned” responses in life, we have to do a bit of re-programming. And that can take some effort. But it can also be fun and the start of a life encompassing adventure.
Ready to get started? It’s easier than you think. Let’s go back to childhood and try a few oldies but goodies on for size. Here are my top five favorites to help turn your battle with change into your dance with change:
1) Try a new food! Remember this one? How long has it been since you tried a new vegetable? Even a new salad dressing? A new kind of fruit? Take a trip to a Farmer’s Market in your area and find something new and try it. Ask the wait staff at your favorite restaurant to recommend something new for you to try. Try a new taste!
2) Try some new music! This one is perhaps one of my favorites. Are you a single genre kind of person? Or maybe you don’t have music in your life at all. Get some music in your life and mix it up. Think you hate classical? Think again. Try listening to some renditions from modern musicians like The Piano Guys. You’ll hear things you never heard before. What about some jazz? Not sure what’s out there? Ask your kids or grand-kids. Or just spend some time on iTunes. If you’re more visual, try YouTube videos in different genres. The key is to give your brain a different beat to hear for a bit. Soothing or salsa – it’s all great for the mind & soul. And can be great for the body if it inspires you to move!
3) Try some new words! It would probably be a tie for me for this one with music because I do love language. But think about your progression of knowledge as a young person. Vocabulary was a big part of that. We even had a minimum number of words a week to learn! Not sure where to start? Register for some of the word of the day messages. My granddaughter and I had great fun with this one. We both registered so we got the same word each day for a few months. We so enjoyed coming up with ways to use those words. It made us both better communicators.
4) Try a different activity! When was the last time you broke your routine? Does one day run into the next because you basically do the same things every day? Why not introduce something different? What is something you’ve been wanting to try? Or just begin again? Make a commitment to introduce a new activity into your schedule and then do it! It can be something as simple as walking every day. Or beginning to journal. The key is to do something that you already have the skills and resources to do. Get creative. Maybe you always eat out. Try cooking one night a week. Or maybe for you it’s the reverse and you need to break the routine and get out more. Another idea is to switch up how you spend your time off, even lunch hours. One of my clients began going to an art gallery or museum once a week. It really had a domino effect and before she knew it, she had a whole new circle of friends and a vibrant social life that filled a void for her.
5) Meet someone new! This one should be simple today given how much technology helps us reach out to people but we seem to still be pretty set within our circles. Quite often, just changing our network can be the fundamental stimulus we can have for bringing significant growth into our lives. Are you going back in time on this one? Remember the fear and hope as we started each new “year”? Who will still be there? Who were the “new” kids? Remember hearing about the influence of who you were “hanging out with”? Guess what – it’s still true! It is said that in any area of our life, we will not consistently achieve more than the average of the five people we spend the most time with or has the most influence over us. When we change our circle of influence, we change. And as a result, so does our life.
Five very simple things you can begin right now. It doesn’t take any more time. Time is time. It does mean you will use your time differently. It doesn’t take any more money. Not really. But it could mean spending your money differently. But isn’t that the point? We can’t expect our lives to change if we are not willing to grow and change. Start with you. And start where you don’t have to be afraid. Start where change is about adventure and adding interest and color into your life.
Be sure and come back and share your experiences with us here. You’ll be an inspiration for all of us!
