The Single Greatest Change You Can Make
July 5, 2010
ready for change
Ready for a leap in self development? Ok here it is. Make a list of your top ten worst traits. That’s right, stop and do that right now.
Now sit that list right in front of you. You should feel a cringe inside your gut like, “Oh jeez I wish that wasn’t me.” If you feel that, then you’ve got the right list.
If you feel like, “Oh that’s not so bad,” then you faked yourself out the first time and you need to write it over. This time write the REAL list. The one you don’t want anybody to know about.
Now that you’ve got the real list let’s begin. With the list straight in front of you picture yourself at 80 years old. Imagine all those traits on the list as getting stronger, firmer, less yielding and more set in stone, like granite. Ok really picture yourself at 80 with those traits having hardened into being who you are today.
EEEEKKK!
If you feel that eeek! then we’re on the right track. This means that those traits are exactly who you never want to become right? If you want to amp up this exercise, go back and list the top five worst traits of someone whom you judge a lot.
Again add them to your set-in-stone 80-year old personality and you’ve got all the makings for a big change coming on right now! Ready?
time for change
All you have to do is to take seriously the fact that if we are not pushing ourselves to change then we’re not changing.
I have watched every one of my older relatives, friends, colleagues become less kind, less loving and more unyielding as they’ve aged. It’s a shocking conclusion about life that no one ever tells us about and and I’m not sure why not.
Our negative traits are like weeds that grow and take over if we don’t pull them out.
I watched my favorite aunt become nasty and brittle in her old age, a former boyfriend who instead of became self-centered and inward and I notice myself that if I’m not careful I wake up in the mornings like a grumpy old lady.
EEEK AGAIN!
We must run away from these traits and constantly keep that negative image of our 80 year-old selves right in front of us. Is this negative conditioning? Yes it is. But in this case, if we don’t keep an image of what we don’t want right in front of us, we will slide downhill right towards it.
I’m not sure why but it seems a fact of human destiny, that if we don’t change on purpose, we tend to deteriorate in body, mind and spirit as we age. We’re not just getting older, we’re getting more crochety! But we don’t have to.
The negative image in this case is really a positive way of heading towards what we really want. Because the cool thing is that when work against our default nature, we actually reveal our real and beautiful selves.
The diamond is right underneath the crud. So get digging.
Don’t be afraid to dig out your absolute worst traits and keep them in mind everyday as you go about your life. With each nasty part of yourself that you undo, you shed just a little more light on the world.
Mine for today was to wake up out of grumpy and into gratitude. Ah, what a beautiful day and how blessed my life is. How about you?
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A great piece, Annie! And I can just see/hear you saying EEEEKKK!
Thanks for the wonderful story! Keeping in front of our eyes what do NOT want to be should reminds us what we want to be and move us away from the previous. We should do it each and every day so it becomes second nature to move to what we want to be and become more focued on it