“We keep on waiting, waiting on the world to change…” – John Mayer
It’s commonly said that the two most definite things in this life are death and taxes. I would add change to that list. The world is constantly changing. The way people communicated and lived just a few decades ago is almost unimaginably different from how we live now. It was the management guru, Peter Drucker that said we live in the era of “constant change and increased competition”. If you are not anticipating change, you are going to be left behind.
I think we all accept this notion in varying degrees. For things to get better, they have to change (again in varying degrees). It is interesting to observe that we spend a great deal of time working on implementing improvements and changes in our work and we believe that in order to get the edge over competitors, we have to do something, we have to change or enhance some aspect of our work or products. How often do we apply this principle to ourselves, to our characters? Jim Rohn once said that in order to be successful “you have to work harder on yourself, then you do on your job”. We seem to miss the point that for things to change, we have to change. We are, for the most part, a product of our habits. Our daily processes predict our performances. Yet we wait until the world around us makes it easier for us to make a change or we insist that others need to change before we will make a change.
Making meaningful change in your life really comes down to ownership. Typically, when you own something, it’s under your control. If you own a business, it’s your business and it’s under your control. The issue is that we don’t own our lives enough to take control and make the necessary changes we need to make to have better health, relationships or careers. We say,” it’s because of this time in my life or because of these people that I can’t change” …” I am where I am because of him or her or because this happened to me”. You have no power unless you have ownership. You can’t vote for the direction a business should take if you don’t own at least a portion of the company. Again, you don’t need an MBA to understand this principle but those that are unhappy, unfulfilled and stuck don’t look at their lives this way.
Ownership holds the power to change.
Your life is your life. What your life produces is your product. The seeds you plant in your life produce the fruit of your life. If you want to see different fruit, perhaps it’s time you started investing in planting new seeds. But that is up to you. You decide what comes in and therefore you are responsible for what comes out.
Don’t live reactively or passively. The world around you will always be a better place when you are taking pro-active steps to make the most out of your talents and resources. The world is constantly changing, there is no value in waiting for something that has already happened. The power to change is something that is more possible than you realise. You don’t have to start big, we always seem to underestimate the power of small “tweaks”. Remember a small rudder steers a large ship. Small changes everyday can change the trajectory of your life.
So, own your life, make the changes and watch the value and satisfaction of your life soar.
