Are You Afraid To Change Your Life?

Copyright (c) 2011 Willie Horton

Google 'financial freedom' or 'change your life'. Do a search for 'weight loss' or 'self improvement'. There are millions of websites offering all kinds of ways for people to change their lives. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that most of us are unhappy with something about our lives. The job you hate, the shortage of money, the clothes that you can't fit into, how shy you feel when you want to make an impression, the bad habits you so badly want to break. There's an endless list to the ways in which normal people's lives are crying out for change. But ' and this is a really strange but ' how are you going to making any change in your life if, like most people, you are actually afraid of change?

We are creatures of habit. That is how we are built. By the age of two months - yes, months, not years - we fall prey to what psychologists call habituation. When we get used to someone or something, we become immune to it, we stop paying it attention - the novelty has worn off. And by the age of two or three we have become aware of the dangers of seeking out new adventures, new situations, new people. By the time we've 'matured' (and I'm not sure that that's the right word given the kind of behaviour we see every day) into adults, we've become enshrined in our own little cocoon. We call it our life - but we're really just going through the motions.

One of the key consequences of habituation is that we stop paying attention to the things that we do regularly in our lives. However, sooner or later, everything becomes routine - so, in the end, we don't pay attention at all. But here's the crucial point. Neuro-psychological research has determined that your potential for happiness and success - and, here, I'm assuming that the changes that you want to see in your life would lead to your happiness and success - is directly related to your ability to pay attention.

The result of our inability to pay attention, the result of our repetitive behaviour and the impact of our understanding that there is inherent danger in new or unfamiliar things boxes us in to an existence that is a pale shadow of the life that we could be living. But ask the next person that you meet how they're doing and the chances are that they'll cheerily reply "Not too bad" or "Not so bad"! In my view, not too bad is not good enough - what is the point of going through life in a kind of comfort zone that you're not too uncomfortable enough in to do anything about?

The point is that you want to change your life but you're afraid of change! Now, there's no reason that you should feel upset about or trapped by this conundrum - because it is the human condition, it is the way we are. But that doesn't mean that it is the way you must stay. Why should you settle for an existence when the joy and excitement of a life truly lived are before your very eyes, if you'd go to the trouble of opening them? I've already mentioned that, as normal adults, we pay attention to nothing. I also mentioned that paying attention is correlated to your happiness. You've got to re-learn the skills that you used, as a child, to pay attention to what is actually going on here and now.

Ever heard the well worn saying that you've got to stop to smell the roses? Well, that's exactly what you've got to do. The routine of daily life numbs the mind - we end up wandering through a senseless existence. In order to break that mindless cycle, you've got to come to your senses. I mean this literally - you really do have to stop and really smell the roses. You've got to really stop yourself in your tracks - get off that normal train that's going nowhere - and encounter the wonderful reality that is actually going on right in front of you. If you do, you will discover that your daily life is overflowing with the opportunities and possibilites that your otherwise numbed mind could not perceive. You've got to feel the heartfelt happiness of a special moment that the normal mind believes to be routine. You've got to wake up.

When - or if - you do wake up, you will realize that there is no such thing as fear and that the change you want in your life is something that you should openly look for in the detail of your everyday life. In finding it, you will realize how easy it is to actually change your life. What do I mean by this? Well, your life at present is the composite result of every little thing that you've done, half done or mindlessly not really done at all - stretching all the way back to your late childhood. Every single little thing that you've ever done in your life has brought you to where you are now. The point is it's the little things that you do that will change your life - not some big awe-inspiring, frighten-the-life-out-of-you daring change that you have to make. In other words, there's nothing to be afraid of.

So, if you want to change your life, here's a simple pointer. Make small changes first. Small changes disrupt your habituation and require that you begin to pay attention to what you're doing - however routine you might have thought what you're doing to be. For example, you could brush your teeth tonight with the hand that you don't normally use. Mess with your mind, your mind has been messing with you all your adult life - and it's got you to a far from ideal place. If you come to your senses, start paying attention to the little things in your life, you will find yourself effortlessly - yes, I said effortlessly! - beginning to make the bigger changes that you would normally otherwise fear. And once you start changing, you place yourself in a whole new world that, though there all the time, will open your eyes to life's possibilities and opportunities.

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