What do you want to change?

Where will this change come from?

Some believe change has to come from outside , or even has to be imposed, because people aren’t strong enough to bring about change themselves.  The problem is, external or imposed change runs the high risk of bringing about conformity – which wipes out creativity – or it produces resistance or defiance.

For five years, I had a role with the mandate to come alongside organisations wanting to do things differently.  I found that whilst they often wanted to be told what to do, they then, unconsciously, took a position of resistance to any suggestion.

So maybe change begins with curiosity and questioning – beginning with our inner worlds?  Where does the anxiety we feel come from?  Wherefore the itch to do something different?  Why our reaction to “that kind of person”?  Until we understand these things, we cannot be free – the thing we’re trying to move into (autonomy).

Part of this inner journey towards change will bring us face-to-face with our limitations … so we might accept and even embrace them.  It might sound like the thing you want to avoid but this makes for significant change and freedom to do the thing we love to do.  If I look more closely at the roles I’d been trying to fulfil – and am now am very happy to admit I failed in – I realise they required skills I had not developed, but,more, I wasn’t really interested in developing these skills.  Once I saw this, I could better see the skills I do have and, developing these, I’m more fulfilled and satisfied in my work than I can ever remember.

Lots of words begin to line up when we go to our inner world, embrace our limitations (stopping doing the things which de-energise us so we can do the things which do energise us): freedom, flow, wellbeing.

Another way of saying it is, listen to what your life is saying to you.