Why Your Difficult Change Is Not Impossible
Change sometimes feels impossible. The obstacles too big, the chances too small, and the time required not worth it. Confronting a difficult change is not impossible when you have a good plan.
What is your plan?
Where to Start
When we need to straighten up the closet, clean out the garage, or make a positive change in our life or career we may decide that we don’t know where to start.
Not knowing where to start doesn’t mean the change is impossible. It doesn’t necessarily mean the odds are stacked against you. Time may be required but appropriate patience and balance will bring it to fruition.
Too often people stop before they get started. They visualize the obstacles, the roadblocks, and the pain and effort required. The gap seems too broad or the road too long.
Difficult Change
There are three simple rules to learning how to get started and how to make a difficult change become a reality.
- Vision. A well-defined vision or goal works best. What will things look like in the end? What does it feel like and where will you be? Tidying up a closet is different from discarding eighty percent of the contents.
- Steps. When we see the challenge in steps it helps bring the reality to life. The bigger picture is sometimes too far away, it feels impossible. For the closet, we may consider one shelf at a time, or hanging items first. Apply this same logic to any change.
- Persistence. Many people talk with me about writing a book. They just don’t know where to start. By creating a vision and breaking it into steps they are underway. Replicating a little effort each day or each week adds up. In the early stages, count accomplishments more than the gap, as the gap closes shift reflection to what remains.
There is a big difference between difficult and impossible.
Leaping across the Grand Canyon in a single bound may be impossible. Getting to the other side is not.
-DEG
Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and corporate trainer. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.
