Tag: Believe it and Become it

we are all Creatures of HAbit ambliNG through lifE with fervor

When change is afoot, I move slowly with intensity cross checking all the angles, anticipating the bumps or sharp curves while trying to solve problems that haven’t occurred.

I connect dots. All the bases are covered.

If I overlook something detrimental, I press on and figure it out as I go. Unfortunately, not all change can be methodically planned or even in our control. It lands at our feet and it’s either get on board or stay behind at the dock.

The ship leaves now!

blue boat on gray wooden dock
Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

Routine is critical to supporting our best selves because that is how we improve and perfect. Convenience abounds and change is a growing brick wall that gets harder and harder to scale. We decide something can’t be done long before embracing the effort because change is difficult.

I have hit the brick wall at full speed in my life to ultimately embrace the needed change, more often, much to my advantage.

Why do we bump up against change with such obstinance? Will the world crumble right under our feet if we deviate one iota from our conditioned and patterned life?

computer graphics wallpaper
Photo by Scott Webb on Pexels.com

Patterns and habits are the comfiest of blankets even when they don’t keep us warm anymore. As we cling to the very last thread, kicking, screaming and complaining our way to Change declaring it is ‘so outrageous, it could never work.’

David Bowe, Ziggy Marley, Michael Jackson, and Taylor Swift sing about change. We employ change agents, life coaches, and other positive influences. They abound evoking change and yet settling in our comfort zones seems the preferred pattern.

Is it the unknown? The fear of failure? The fear of deviation?

All of the above.

In business, Change = Innovation and change agents work to indoctrinate and implement change to the masses. A quick google search defines the characteristics of a change agent as, a lifelong learner, flexible, trustworthy, organized, excited by new ideas or opportunities, creative, courageous, experienced. They are good collaborators and mediators.

They get shit done and herd us where we need to go.

How do we become our own change agents to streamline and facilitate our best directions? Not everyone has bold ambition, or they might be quite comfortable right where they are, and rightly so.

There is a time in life to coast and a time in life to scale.

When I decided it was time to leave Chicago the only thing I knew for certain was I didn’t want to live in the city anymore. I moved there on a whim with my 2 best friends from college, blinked my eyes a few times and found 27 years had passed.

An odd series of seemingly unrelated events occurred, the sale of my business, a new relationship, and the sudden death of my sister-in-law’s father.

His funeral took me home to Northern Michigan to say good-bye and spend some time with my family. After my week home, I solidified a direction I hadn’t anticipated taking and decided to trade city chaos and over stimulation for a comparably reclusive life filled with peace and quiet.

Five months after my trip home, my house was sold along with most of its contents, and well 10 years later here I sit, happy as a clam burrowed in the sand.

We are all Creatures of HAbit ambliNG through lifE with fervor.

 A few words from the wise.

“Turn and face the strange…” – David Bowe

“We all want our dreams to be real…” – Ziggy Marley

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror…” – Michael Jackson

“These walls that they put up to hold us back fell down…” – Taylor Swift

RIP Sam S. Affendikis – February 6, 1928 – May 27, 2013

Thanks for the nudge.

The Last Time I Said I Can’t

At what age do we really start thinking for ourselves, making plans, setting goals and believing those outcomes are ours to achieve? If it is as simple as shifting our mindset, when and how do we know to do so?

My Hungarian father and his parents’ sacrifices cast a brilliant light on what resilient and perseverance meant and the tenacity with which they approached survival and hope for a new day. They were worthy examples but as an adolescent how could I associate the direction I needed to take with that of people who left their lives behind for freedom.

Through their example, I grew to see my life as limitless. It was simultaneously encouraged by my parents, but how and when could I put it into action?

Reflecting on that now, to pinpoint a pivotal moment in time when the light went on, it was my senior year of high school on the basketball court.

Something changed, forever.

My coach towered over my 5’9” lanky body and persisted in challenging me to a close jump shot through her outstretched arms. With absolutely no effort, she repeatedly swatted my shot away before it had any hope of success.

“Again,” she commanded, as my teammates watched, grateful not to be standing in my shoes while I continued to struggle.

“Again!”

After the fifth or sixth time, I muttered “I can’t.”

“What did you say?” She was as shocked by my response as I was by the tone of her question.

Gulp, “I can’t.”

Her next words changed my life.

“Don’t you ever say I can’t,” she screamed as she slammed the ball down on the court, promptly spun on her heels and returned to the locker room. Practice over.

Naturally, she was pushing me to think outside the box and do something differently to enable my success, but I threw in the towel and just gave up. I quit.

I can still feel that feeling today. My humiliation was overshadowed by an inordinate sense that I needed to shift my mindset. Verbalizing my negative thoughts allowed me to quit, give up and stop trying.

One of many quotes from Eleanor Roosevelt that I love; “Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’”

Think about it. Believing you can’t is a cop out, a way to avert failure, an excuse that enables quitters. It’s Superman’s kryptonite.

Combining ‘I can’t’ with any hope of accomplishing something we set our minds to are opposing forces. The up and down of the seesaw has no prospect of finding balance in the middle. I knew in that moment; I could talk myself into something just as easily as I could talk myself out of it.

It became a forever mindset granting me the time and space to believe in myself, to push beyond where comfort lived and to color outside the lines. With time and maturity, it developed my critical thinking skills and furthered my confidence and pride. Attributes that were earned and not given.

After that day, I knew the sky was the limit and my life was mine to live. Sink or swim, I had control. That afternoon on the basketball court was the last time I said or believed, “I can’t.”

Thank you, Coach Nancy Paige.