What does it take to live the life that we desire? How do you and I get from where we are to where we want to be?

The answer to these questions can be summed up in one word.

Change.

In order to live the life of our dreams, in order to achieve what we desire in life you and I must change.

As someone once said "If you do what you've always done you will get what you always gotten".

If you and I want to experience something different we must do something different . We must change.

I know, you're thinking "Easier said than done Mike! Change is hard! True. Change can be difficult but it doesn't have to be that way all the time.

No where is it written in stone that change "must be hard and difficult". As a matter of fact we can make change much easier if we understand and apply cetain fundamentals fo making changes. 

The Fundamentals of Change

Fundamentals are important. The word fundamental is defined as "of or forming a foundation or basis. Relating to what is basic and essential" The fundamentals of change refer to those essential and basic skills that form the foundation for effective change. Making changes in our lives requires skill. The better we get at mastering and using these fundamental skills the easier it is for us to make changes in our lives. The changes that enable us to live the lives we desire.

What are these skills?

Skill # 1: Knowing specifically what it is that you want to change. Are you clear about what it is that you want to change? Are you specific about it or are you vague?In the coaching that I do with people I will often ask "What do you want?" People will often give me answers like " I want to be happy" I want my marriage to be better", "I want to stop being so depressed". The problem with such anwers are that they are not clear and specific about what the person actually wants. They are too vague. I once heard someone say "Where their is clarity of vision there is acceleration towards a known goal" When we get clear about what we want we are able to move towards what we want much more quickly because we know where we are going. The skill of clarity and speficity is crucial to making desired changes in your life.          

Skill #2: Knowing how to prepare for change. When you set goals for yourself, when you write down at the beginning of a New Year resolutions for change do you take time to prepare yourself for those changes? Most of us don't. Instead  we make our resolutions, we set our goals and we take action! At least for a while. Then we stop. We don't follow through. And another goal falls to the wayside. Why? A major reason is that we don't prepare ourselves for the actions and changes we need and want to make. In the Bible we read "Prepare your mind for action..." ( I Peter 1:13a The NIV Bible).  We need to prepare our hearts and minds for the behavioral and life changes we are about to make.  Before any athlete or team plays in a game they first make preparations for that game. They practice. The preparation of  the practice helps to ensure peak performance during the actual game. The preparation before the game helps them to perform in the way they desire during the game. To succed and follow through on our goals we need to prepare ahead for success. Preparation Skills are essential ( preparation skills will be covered in a future article).

Skill #3 Knowing how to employ your emotions in making the changes you desire. This is in my opinon one of the most neglected area in making changes in ones life. And it is one of the reasons why making changes in our llives is often so hard. Think abut it for a moment. Why do we often fail to make changes or follow through in the changes we make? Is it not often because of how we feel? We don't feel like taking action- so we don't. It feels to hard or difficult to make the change -so we leave things as they are (leaving things as they are feels so much easier). We often don't chnage because change may mean acting contrary to how we feel -and acting contrary to how you feel can make changing very difficult. But what if you could get your emotions to support you in making the changes you want. What if making a change was more enjoyable and pleasurable? Would that make changing easier? Absolutlely! Developing the skill of employing and utiizing your emotions in making the changes you want is a must have skill for sustaining the changes you begin. And it makes change more enjoyable which also makes it easier.

Skill # 4 Knowing how to effectively deal with and respond to failure. Let's face it. At times we are going to fail. They will be times that we will not follow through, when things do not turn out as we have planned and prepared for. There will be times when we don't achieve a particular result. That's life and that's being real. What do we do when that hapens? Do we give up and quit? Do we decide to never set a goal again and thereby avoid future disappontment? No! The problem with failure is not the failure itself. The problem with failure lies in how we respond to it. In order to make the changes we want so that we can live the life we desire we must learn how to effectively deal with and respond to events of failure. We must learn how to maintain our motivation and enthusiasm in the face of failure. Winston Churchill is reported to have once said " Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." The skill of effectively dealing with and responding to failure is an extremely important and fundamental skill for making changes in your life.

Skill #5 Celebrating your successes. This is another skill that often gets neglected in our desire to change and improve our lives. Do you celebrate the improvements and changes you habe made, no matter how small, or are you waiting for the big success? Change and success are a journey - not a destination. Ar you enjoying the journey or are you waiting until everything is just the way you want it to be before you will allow yourself to be happy? Celebraing your success and enjoying the journey is a another key fundamental skill in the process of change. Knowing how to do this creates and nutures the motivation and determination for ongoing change and improvement. And it also helps to make the process of change more enjoyable.

Summary

To live the lives that you and I desire we must change - and change requires skill. By developing the five fundamental skills for change we can make change much easier and much more enjoyable. In the next series of articles we will explore each skill in detail and how we can practically apply and put them to use in creating the life we desire.

So stay tuned!

Mike Davis

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