What Are You Changing? 

 What are you changing?

Where are you moving your cheese to? What a wonderful read Who Moved My Cheese is, a story on why change matters and will always matter. Just started getting used to it.

I was speaking to a grade 12 class and I was trying to give an example of how we resist change. I picked up a desk, moved it 3 feet over. I went on and finished the presentation, the bell rings, students start leaving and a few students start entering the class. Do you know what the first thing they did when they got into that class? Moved the desk back. 

With no prompt, no asking, no reminders, a student was so well trained they felt the need to put the room back to where they were comfortable. We’re taught to seek comfort at a very young age.

The problem is life doesn’t always give you perfect rows of desks. Life doesn’t let you plan things out perfectly. Life is rarely “comfortable”, I would argue life tries to frustrate us, push us, and test us to the point where we want to give up. Most people give up. Most people have to deal with so many desks out of place, at one point its not worth it anymore, and they give up.

Don’t.

Don’t be afraid when the desk is out of place, let it be. If you aren’t annoyed by the little things and embrace change, life gets better. The next time a desk goes out of place you won’t be so worried, you won’t be so over come with fears about the desks “looking” out of place. Embracing change early in life helps you deal with change later in life.

How are you keeping your mind fresh? How are you getting outside your comfort zone? That’s where you learn best you know.

How will you stay out of the monotony of routine? The day you let go of your control and default to your routine is the day you’ve given up. The day you wake up and want an easy day, a day of nothing (this includes mindless TV watching) is the day you begin to go backwards. When we don’t challenge ourselves and hone in on developing new skills we begin to fall back on our skills that aren’t as refined as they could be or plain old aren’t useful anymore. We make excuses like “I’ve always done it this way” usually referencing a moment where they were praised for something a long time ago.

Times change. Stop hanging on past praise, start figuring out what your next big thing will be. 

We resist change because staying the same is easier. The status quo takes no effort, same old same old, that means your brain doesn’t learn anything when we go status quo. Despise the status quo like the plague, refuse what’s easy, do what matters most.

What are you changing?