“My life is a mess” Henry said softly.
“Yes, it is,”Jones agreed, “but only up to this moment.”
The younger man looked up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you can change. Now. You can change how you do business, how you treat your family, and how you treat the people whose working lives have been entrusted to you. You can change how you treat them. Right now.”
Jones peered carefully into the eyes of the younger man as he continued. “Most people think it takes a long time to change. It doesn’t. Change is immediate! Instantaneous! It may take a long time to decide to change… but change happens in a heartbeat!”
This quote is from the story, The Noticer . The link is a link to a book review I did of this story and I recommend you check that out at some point. However, this post is all about YOU and CHANGE.
I decided to make a change after I had a difficult summer in 2009 and a relationship of 3 years was ended. I decided that I needed to take a look at myself and who I was becoming and make a difference in who I was becoming. My change started on September 7th, 2009 when I decided to listen to a Tony Robbin’s cd instead of go out drinking at the bar to drown my sorrows in a way that I was all too familiar with up until that point. After listening to the audio, I decided that on that day, I would change my life. It’s been quite a journey and I’ve changed a lot about me, limiting drinking, working out daily , eating healthier, and making the biggest change in my business. So enough about me…
The real question…. “What’s it take to change?”
One second is all it takes to change your life. However, actually living and staying with the change takes commitment and hard work. You can get through hard times and prosper. Everyone who has ever become anything has gone through difficult points in their life. Those difficult moments caused them to look at themselves, the place they were and to declare to themselves that they were going to make a change for the better. You hold the same power inside of you to make any change that you want.
The thing to remember
We are exactly where we are meant to be in this moment. No matter if you are a salesperson at a car dealership, a cook at a restaurant, a CEO of a major corporation, or a kid working as a dishwasher(my first job) you are exactly where you are meant to be at this moment.
You may think “but what did I do to deserve this life…” and you may be right in thinking that. However, you need to realize that it was our past decisions that brought us to our present moment. The great thing about this is that since we are in the present, we get to choose which decisions we make that will impact our future!
If you want to make more money you need to be either working during your free-time or educating yourself on how you can make more money in the current job that you have. There are millions of books out there that teach you any type of skill that you could ever imagine. If you are passionate about something, there are books written to teach YOU how to become an expert from someone’s who’s done it. If you want, you can learn to CRUSH IT!
We live in a time where information can be delivered to you instantaneously thanks to the Internet and if you want to get a book, you can head to your local library and rent a book for free or instantly download it in 60 seconds to your Kindle(affiliate link to buy a kindle). However, you can’t just read a book, you need to take action and apply the principles that are being taught in the book.Otherwise, you’re just wasting time and you don’t want to waste time!
Change is all about making the commitment.
As a man, commitment is hard as hell for me to grasp(typical man hehe). However, I’ve learned how to make commitments to certain things. One of these things is the concept of Kaizen or continuous incremental improvement and I have made the change to continuously improve myself in all aspects of my life.
I have found throughout my life that whatever is hard to accomplish is usually more than worth the commitment. If you want to be successful, you better be ready to fail and fail miserably at first. However, failure is temporary and if you commit to improving everyday, you WILL succeed. It’s just how life works, crazy I know but that’s how it is 
The BIG question… Are you ready to change?
If you are serious about wanting to improve yourself you must make the change. There’s no if’s and’s or but’s about it. You can change and it is in this very instant that you must make the decision.
Here’s an exercise to help guide you along on your journey of changing.
- Take out a piece of paper
- Write what you would like to change
- Set out achievable goals to help you along your journey of change
- Specify time periods to when you want each of these goals to happen
Simple, yet SUPER powerful….by writing down your goals you are making the commitment to making a change.
If you don’t follow through on what you have planned it is no ones fault but your own. I’m not going to tell you that because you quit you are going to succeed. I’m here to be a little in your face and say that if you fail…there is a reason and that reason is YOU. You alone can control your destiny. Are you going to continue living life saying “What if?” and “if only I would have worked harder” or other BS things that people often find themselves saying when it’s 10 years down the road or are you going to say “man, I sure am glad I listened to Chris Hughes’ advice and made a decision and stuck with it”?
I recommend that you take my advice and make the changes…
Change is yours, TAKE IT!
Michael Phelps wouldn’t be where he is at right now if it wasn’t for the hard work and perseverance he put in in his past. He’s a great example of what can be accomplished if you work hard enough.
Feel free to share this post with anyone who might need to change and needs a little kick in the rear to get on the right path. Please share your comments and concerns as well! I’d love to help you with improving yourself!
