Path to Your Destiny

For most people, “change” is regarded as one of those seven dirty words you can’t say on TV. Why? Because change can be a really terrifying ordeal to work through! Who wants to change when everything can stay the same it is now? Why should we even bother with improving our lives? Of course, these two questions are for each person to decide for his- or herself. As for me, I’ve always regarded change as something vital for my life. Change is definitely something I look forward to!

Change can either be gradual or sudden. Gradual change would be along the lines of starting an exercise program and carrying it out for six months. You would see a few immediate results from your workouts, but the fruit of your labor would come later on down the line. Other examples of gradual change would be learning an unfamiliar musical instrument, writing a romance novel, or reading five books on your favorite subject.

People are usually accepting of gradual change. Why? Because it’s controllable! Using our above example, you can totally decide if you want to hit the gym or not. (And, well, for most people, the decision is obvious!) When you have a degree of control over something - anything - if change happens, it’s suddenly not so bad. You can always revert back to how you were at the drop of a hat, and nothing would be too different than how you started.

Sudden change, however, is what drives people mad. Sudden change is - you guessed it! - sudden changes in your life that normally involves circumstances out of your control. If the sudden change is in your control, it usually involves an incredible lifestyle switch. Examples of sudden change would be divorce, a death of a close friend or family member, or relocating to a new city. Sudden change is heavily characterized by sweeping emotions, new role learning, and total life adjustment to new circumstances.

Sudden change is scary! No wonder most people don’t like change! If you had to deal with the aforementioned changes every single day, life would become unbearable. It’s for this reason that people outright reject all change to their lives, instead wishing “everything would always stay the same”. To them, change is the epitome of death to themselves. If their world changed, they themselves would change, and to change themselves would mean to change their life. That’s something these people don’t want to do, at all costs.

But is rejecting gradual and sudden changes really a way to live? To me, that’s the #1 way to completely stall out your life. Myself, I believe change = growth. A life changing experience - which can be anything from the birth of a son or daughter to becoming more healthy to learning a foreign language - is something that can promotes growth as an individual. It makes life richer, more rewarding. Constantly tackling changes in your life head on can make life an incredibly fascinating experience.

Without change, there can’t be any growth. If everything constantly stayed the same, your life would literally stagnate. Your earthly existence wouldn’t get any worse, of course, but it wouldn’t get any better either. And that’s okay! Some people choose to keep the same job for 40 years. It’s their choice. Some people don’t move out of the area where they grew up; some people keep the same friends they’ve had since high school or college; some people hold on to their childhood values for dear life as they grow older. That’s fine - you are completely entitled to do that.

But can you really grow if you stay in the same area, hold onto the same values, and keep the same job you have? You can, to an extent. There’s some wiggle room in there for improvement, and you can definitely learn a new thing or two. But you can never experience real growth if you don’t bash through your comfort zone and change your life completely every once in a while.

Shake things up! Read a new book on an obscure subject. Travel to a place you’ve always wanted to explore. Write that country song you’re itching to get out of your brain. Start up a blog on your favorite subject. Join a brand new religion for the thrill of learning how it functions. Do something that changes your life.

It’s up to you to embrace a life of constant change, excitement, and thrills. What’s your decision?

“Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.” - Mark Twain

Action, action, action! Personal development skills all revolve around that one word - action. Whether it be installing a new habit, starting up a new lifestyle, or even taking the guts to quit your unsatisfactory job, if you don’t take action towards your goals, those goals are worthless. Hopes and dreams take you only so far; you have to add in the last few steps to make them a reality.

Speaking your mind and actions are something that go hand and hand with one another. Often times, people are able to dish out their opinions and advice on a multitude of subjects… sometimes when the person doesn’t even know anything about the subject. Of course, this leads to major incongruence. Apparently we speak our mind, but rarely take our own advice.

In late December / early January, lots of person development bloggers wrote on the subject of “New Years resolutions”. Everything from why your resolutions will not fail to keeping up with your resolutions was covered. Consequently, I wonder how many people’s resolutions failed because they didn’t take action on what they truly desire; I also wonder how many of those same personal development blogger’s New Years resolutions failed themselves because they didn’t take their own advice.

Advice is great. This website has a multitude of advice for you, from motivational pieces to pieces that I hope can change your life in some great way. But this website - and all other websites similiar to it - can only do so much. It can’t push you to take action on your plans. This website can motivate, can inform, can change, and can mold you into a brand new personal, capable of amazing things. But motivation, being informed, and changing and molding yourself is only part of the equation. Action is the missing piece.

You can have the most perfect, detailed plans on how to get exactly what you want, but without action, those plans are better used as birdcage lining. You can be the most motivational speaker out there, but if you refuse to take action to share your talent with the world, what good is your gift? Action is the key to unlocking your destiny.

And it doesn’t even have to be the right action to begin with! Lots of people start out on one path, turn around, then start on a brand new path when it didn’t work out the way they expected. That’s fine! Too often we get in this phase of action paralysis, when we decide we can’t move on because we have to “explore all of our options and decide what to do”. That’s not proactive. That’s not living. That’s excusing yourself from making real progress towards your dreams. I’ll be the first one to say planning is essential in any endeavor. You need to know exactly what you want and a fuzzy idea of how to get there. But to use planning as an excuse to stay stagnant is for losers. (You’re not a loser, are you? I hope not!) Just pick a path and go down it. It doesn’t matter if it’s exactly what you want or not. Your life is going to go by anyway - you better make the most out of every day. Find out later that’s the wrong path for you? Ditch it and start a new one. You have nothing to lose!

Nothing to lose at all. What’s the absolute worst that can happen? You go down the wrong path and end up back where you started? You go down another wrong path and end up worse off than you started? So what! Just pick a different route and go down that! The worst thing of all is no action, because if you don’t take action, you’re no better off than where you are now.

I know a lot of you who read this article are personal development fans too. But be honest with yourself. A year from now - when you’ve all but forgotten your New Years resolutions for 2008 - are you going to be staring at a bunch of empty goals and plans from the past year, neatly typed up and printed out? I hope not.

Take some action today. Decide on a goal, get a basic plan written up on how to achieve it, and move towards it! And whatever you do, don’t give up. Don’t ever stop taking that action to get what you want.