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Did the title draw you in? Are you at a place where you want so much to go from crappy to happy? Have things been kind of tough for you lately? Are you reading this because you are fervently hoping I will provide some sort of easy answer. “I definitely want to go from crappy to happy”, you think. “Please make it snappy, and don’t give me advice that’s overly simplistic and sappy”.
Unfortunately, nobody can sprinkle magic dust over you and create dramatic changes in your life. You are the one who has to commit to the changes and do the work that will get you there. Sure you can pray about it, if that fits your belief system. Or you can cast a spell and mix potions that will create a cloud from which your dream will mysteriously take shape and rise up in front of you, if that’s your thing. Still, real changes that make your life different and very much better, are pretty unlikely to just show up for you, if you don’t begin to do the work.
There have been a multitude of studies that show that some people are just too risk-averse to want to make big changes and to try something really new and different. It feels safer for them to stay in the same old rut, doing the same old things, and maybe even being miserable with the results. You can be risk-averse about money matters, but also about other areas of life. They don’t always go hand in hand, though sometimes there is a correlation. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman wrote, “For most people, the fear of losing $100 is more intense than the hope of gaining $150″. This can be translated into accepting your current situation regardless of how unhappy you are, or how much pain it is causing you, rather than facing the uncertainties that come with new ways of believing and living.
Are you one of those people? Do you just sit back, prepared to either suffer or to exist in the rut that you or your circumstances have created for you? I hope not, but I believe you can change that too. It won’t be easy, but once you figure out why you are stuck, why you believe the things you do, you can learn to respond differently to your fears and habits. You don’t have to go through life having knee-jerk reactions.
Even if you have decided once and for all that tomorrow, next month, or next year is when you are going to do something about ___________________________________________________(You fill in the blank, please), you can’t really begin your project without doing some planning or goal setting.
If you know that, but you manage anyway, to keep pushing back the thoughts of how you are going to get started, what will you do about this procrastination? Will you sit down with your pad and paper, or begin typing at the computer and get distracted? Will you decide to tackle the pile of papers on your desk instead? Will you turn on the TV and start binge-watching that series your friends are always discussing, but you have never seen?
Then how is this behavior going to help with that crappy to happy transformation?
We have only one day left in 2014. If your life is exactly the same at 11:59 tomorrow night as it was at 12:01 on January 1st of 2014, then there’s a pretty big message there for you. Pay attention, please! What do you want to be different in 2015? Are you ready to stop talking incessantly about it but doing nothing? Don’t just make empty resolutions.
Get help if you haven’t met your goals, or your old dreams have crumbled, or you don’t even remember what they were because you are too busy, or because you hurt too much emotionally. Go ahead and take a little risk! Be bold and throw out the old. Start working on constructing something new.
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Want to talk to me about your goals and what you need? I want to help. Why not drop me an email at
ir**@vi*******************.com
. We can set up a time to talk, free of charge.
