All change comes from within
A lot of us fear change. We don’t like change. We enjoy things the way they are. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I’m not one of those people. I love change. I love improvement and I strive to change and be better everyday. I see change as growth. And if you want to live a better life, then you’ll need to embrace change too. And the thing is, all change comes from within and it all starts with you.
This is your journey and it’s you who needs to take action, take control and steer the ship towards your destination. You are in charge of your own life. You are in charge of your own actions. You are in charge of your fate.
When I’m coaching people, I often have them write down these words:
I (your name) am in control of my mind, my actions and my destiny.
I will take action daily because I deserve to live a life of abundance.
What many people struggle to realise is that they are the main protagonist in their own hero’s journey. And if you’re not aware of the hero’s journey, it’s a type of story telling popularised by Joseph Cambell and is commonly adopted by Pixar in their films as well as films such as Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings.
You are the hero in your own hero’s journey. Have a look around and see if you can spot your mentor and guide. If you’re looking for a guide or mentor, then I highly suggest mindset coaching.
I’ve been on my own hero’s journey over the years. In fact I’ve been on many. The first couple of times, it’s all new and you don’t recognise the pattern. However once you’ve been on the journey multiple times, you learn to see it, embrace it and enjoy it.
You will hit walls, there will be challenges and you will fail along the way. This is normal. This is expected.
Why? Because failing means growth. Failing means learning. And by failing forward, you will come out the other end as a stronger better person.
The hero’s journey is never easy. Nothing worth doing ever is. The answers won’t just appear and they won’t be given to you. You’ll need to follow the process and you’ll pick them up along the way.
Now as you see in the image of the Hero’s journey above, there will be challenges and temptations. You’ll get to do things that are hard. You’ll find resistance in yourself and you’ll try and avoid moving forward. Oftentime you actually physically feel this resistance and you tighten up. This is where the growth and change happen. This is likely what you’ve been putting off for too long and it’s where you need to push and challenge yourself and dig down deep.
And that’s when you’re in the abyss. And when you manage to dive deep and push through you’ll have the breakthrough. You’ll go through death and rebirth. The point at which this happens is different for everyone and it will happen I can assure you. After this you’ve got your transformation. This is where the obstacle becomes the way and you return back to the start as a better, stronger and changed person. And maybe you’ll go through the whole cycle again.
What I’ve found with both myself, those around me and the people I’ve coached is that there are two main differences that separate out the mediocre from the super successful. The first of those is taking action. How many self-help books have you read and then not taken action and followed through? I seen it all before. You’ve got those perpetual self-improvement types that read all books, do all the courses, watch all the videos and they never see change or results because they never take action.
And taking action is only the first step. You’ll want to ensure that you take action fast. This is called the speed of implementation has this has been shown to be what the most successful CEOs in the fortune 500 do. They learnt it, and then they went ahead and tried it.
And we know that when we try new things and put into practice what we’ve learnt, that we will fail. It’s inevitable. And that’s ok. We need to get comfortable with failing. Failure is simply a lesson you’re learning. The reason I have personally succeeded and the reason for many othe people’s success are because there is a trail of failures behind them.
Finally, in order to get true behaviour and personal change, you can’t just read and learn all this stuff. We’ve been conditioned from school that if we memorise and learn something we can improve but we know this is not the case. So the best thing to do is share what you’re learning with others. Learn by sharing and learn by teaching others. Even better if you can take action, implement it as quickly as possible and then teach your friend, your partner or family what you’ve learnt. If you do this you’ll be improving your mindset in the process and going on that journey.
The bottom line is that you are on a journey. And this is your journey so take control of it and take action towards achieving the life you’re after.
Finally, I leave you with this quote.
‘If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable.’
Seneca
Have a ponder about what that means.
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This article was written by Stuart Munnich. If you’d like to know more or receive notifications for future articles, please head over to the Agoge Project Website or subscribe to updates right here!
