Change... It happens, but it works better with intention...

Change... It can be good or bad, or intentional.   Hmmmm, that is an odd statement and I agree.  Let me explain what I mean by that.

I have heard it said the only people that like change are babies. ;)

Change is inevitable for everyone, we will get older and less limber.  You may decide to slow down and take it easy as your time passes you by day after day.  Or you may want to go into a new field or try something different.  Many people hold themselves back from trying something different because they are not "smart enough", "talented enough", "young enough to try something new", "I have this health issue".
Curtis Spolar (http://curtisspolar.com/) said, "Whether it's an excuse or a reason, the results are the same."

In the Magic of thinking Big" chapter 2 by David J Schwartz talks about "excusitis" the failure disease.  This is where Dr. Schwartz talks about people choosing to accept their results because of a particular excuse that they hang on to.

Best selling author and Leadership guru Orrin Woodward (http://orrinwoodwardblog.com/) talks about the scoreboard in his book Resolved.  You can see them at sporting events, game shows and shuffleboard matches. Yeah, I get it JB, keep score.  What does that mean though? It fits nicely into the change topic because your scoreboard will show you where you are at in your development process.  When you follow a self-directed education, you begin to create benchmarks along to the way to rate/track your progress.

Let's say you have a habit of using bad language, and you wish to eliminate this habit from your life.  My grandfather was a great man and owned lumberyards for most of his life. The language wasn't always the best around the lumberyard, and he realized that he had grandchildren and teaching them the language he had learned in the Marine Corps and lumberyard probably wasn't the best idea, so he decided to stop using bad language. What ensued was hilarious. He would make a statement that he wanted to stop swearing, then in the next sentence he would let one bad word slip and then proceed to swear about it. However funny it was it was a perfect example of scoreboard. He had set the goal, and when he fell short of it he was upset with himself.  He wanted to change, but was being so hard on himself that he was creating a feedback loop in his behavior.  That is a whole different blog on re-framing.  Attitude makes all the difference in your journey. See here!

The scoreboard would be your way of tracking it. Ben Franklin created a system of virtues in which he created a "scoreboard" in a notebook and he would rate himself on the virtue he was working on daily. If he felt he had not lived up to the virtue he would place a black mark in the box indicating that he needed to work harder on it. He would go through the thirteen one per week and continue to rotate them throughout the year.

Orrin Woodward has made the statement If you want to change some things, you need to change some things.

Time for action!

What in your Life would you like to change? Why would you like to change it?  What would your life be like if you had successfully changed it? What sign posts are you looking for along the way? How will this help you in getting closer to your dreams and goals?

God Bless!