Break the Cycle

As the year slowly draws to a close, I appreciate that reading personal development style blogs starts to slip down the priority listing for many people.

And yet, as we prepare for a temporary interruption in our day-to-day routines, this is without doubt the very best time to sow the seeds for positive, meaningful change in our lives.

For many, the end of the year brings with it an almost obsessive focus on trying to complete unfinished tasks and a sudden rush to put right the effects of procrastination earlier in the year.

It’s also a time when many, particularly those in the southern hemisphere where the summer holidays beckon, start their preparations for taking some time out from work and their normal obligations.

For those who desire more than just temporary relief from the ‘rat race’ this time of enforced change is the perfect time to plan to break the cycle!

[box type=\”shadow\”]“All things are difficult before they are easy.”

– Thomas Fuller[/box]

 

Break the Cycle (continued)

If you want more

If you want a lot more from life – and who doesn’t – that’s what you need to do.

Ask any truly successful business person, sports person, artist or parent what separates them from regular people and somewhere in the answer you will find a reference to ‘breaking the cycle.’

They may well use a somewhat different term but essentially all genuinely successful and, for that matter, happy people will agree on the fact that attaining this state comes from adopting a different mindset and taking some bold action to go beyond the mediocre.

The saying: “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got” is well known to most of us – but how many of us take it to heart and manage to ‘break the cycle’ of the life that we are used to?

Far too few, I believe.

The fear factor

The reason is quite simple: Fear!

I’ve mentioned it before in many previous posts. We humans are conditioned to avoid change wherever possible.

In the early hunter gatherer years, survival was a need that dominated man’s existence. Taking unnecessary risks or following   untried or untested ways could literally result in a nasty death at the hands of a competing tribe or one of the many savage beasts that roamed the earth.

Real pain replaced by perceived pain

Today, most of us are fortunate to be able to take our survival for granted.

Avoiding the physical pain of being savaged in the wild has given way to a need to avoid the perceived pain that we associate with losing face, being ridiculed or seeing our status in the community diminished.

We cultivate our sense of personal identity from an early age and, because of the materialistic world we live in, that identity is inextricably linked to what we possess in terms of  community status, influence and material possessions.

The threat of change

The main threat to that carefully crafted personal identity is posed by sudden and significant change. Such change holds the threat of depriving us of everything that contributes to our current state of self importance.

As this is the very foundation of our ego, it raises a red flag whenever the idea of change is contemplated; a red flag in the form of a well known emotion – fear!

Is it any wonder then, that we find it so hard to embrace change of any magnitude?

Break the cycle

And yet, as students of personal transformation will know, the only way to true happiness or authentic success (which is judged by how we feel and not what we have) is to break the cycle of mere day-to-day existence.

In other words, to find true and lasting joy, we need to break free from the trap that we ironically call our ‘comfort zone’ and boldly pursue the change that, deep down, we know we need.

First the mindset change …

But before we can take this leap into an exciting new world, we need to bring about a change of mindset, for we cannot bring into our reality a life that we cannot properly envision.

For most of us this is the difficult part.

Routine, predictable lives foster routine, predictable mindsets.

It is difficult to see beyond the day to day struggle to hold together what we have. So we carry on with more of the same and consign the future of our dreams to the realms of hope, a stroke of good fortune or divine intervention.

And yet, with a little intent and determination one can bring about a change of mindset relatively easily.

It’s not necessary to pretend that today’s reality does not exist. But by simply fixing your attention on the state you desire, rather than the current state, you begin to build the reality you really want.

… Then the behaviour patterns

With a fresh new mindset, it’s time to alter your behaviour patterns. This needs to be done slowly but progressively.

Do things differently. For example:

Wake up half an hour earlier than normal and do a little exercise;

If you’re not normally a breakfast eater, have breakfast for a change;

Take a new route to work or to drop the kids off at school;

When you sit down at your desk take five minutes to read an inspirational writing before you start work.

Moving in the direction of your dreams

All of these little things contribute to helping you break the cycle and feel more confident to take bolder and bolder actions to move you in the direction of your dreams.

 

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