“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
We’ve all heard that saying before, and Albert Einstein often gets credit for saying it. There’s a good chance that Einstein never actually said that, but no matter who said it, it’s true. If you want to change your results, you have to change what you’re doing. Even more important, you need to change how you’re thinking.
When it comes to making changes in our lives, we have three options:
Change Yesterday
When’s the best time to plant a tree? Fifty years ago. The second best time? Today. With that in mind, if you have a time machine, go back and make the change you want to experience in your life. For the rest of us, with no time machines, we have to resist the urge to look backward with regret. “I should’ve” and “I could’ve” serve no purpose other than fueling disappointment and bitterness. Neither of those will help you get where you want to go or create the change you want to experience. Moving on…
Wait Until Something Bad Happens
It can be easy to wait until an accident, catastrophe, or meltdown to make a change. Then, once it’s too late, we make our move. We wait until a health scare to change our diet and exercise habits. We wait until a divorce to make changes in how we do relationships. We wait until we’re burnt out in our job to think about what comes next. That’s a terrible strategy… waiting until there’s enough pain in your life to motivate you to adjust course. This leads us to the third option – the option that will force you to decide how badly you want change in your life.
Start Today
You can’t go back in the future, and none of us wants to wait until that crisis moment occurs. The only alternative we have is to start creating the change we want in our life today. Instead of waiting and watching, we need to choose right now to start doing the work required to alter the path we’re on. For many, this means stepping off the road everyone else is on, where we’re following the crowd, to forge our own path. Often, that new path will require us to cut through unpaved terrain and get uncomfortable.
That’s the choice we all have to make. Remember..
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
How badly do you want different results?
The Takeaway
Do with this what you want. Toss it aside or take action and start changing the path you’re on. No one’s coming to do the work or make the change for you.
I’m going to be sharing some powerful tools in the next few weeks. First, the 2022 Snapshot will walk you through taking inventory of this past year. Then, the 2023 Goal Planner will guide you in setting your new goals for the year to come… and set you on the path to new results. Follow me here, so you don’t miss this… and start changing your 2023 right now.
You can also listen in to my Grit Meets Growth podcast here or on your favorite podcast platforms. Episodes are also available on YouTube here.
Make it a great day! – John