Think about the last five years of your life. If you do not make any changes, you can be somewhat confident that the next five years of your life will be very similar to the last five. Of course, events beyond your control might have happened, such as the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or a spouse-initiated divorce. But if such an event occurred in your life, it forced you to make changes instead of you purposefully making changes.
For other events, ask yourself if you are pleased with what has occurred in the last five years and if you want the next five years to be more of the same.
Perhaps you are comfortable with your job, your relationships, your condition of health, or your financial status. Perhaps you have no desire to improve them because you are content and satisfied. And perhaps you are kidding yourself. Most of us want to make changes in our lives. We want to eat better; exercise more; make more money; get, improve, or maintain our romantic, platonic, and familial relationships; learn new skills or improve current ones . . . we want to make changes that will improve the quality of our lives. We want to live well!
Such changes don't just happen. You have to do something to make them happen.
What has been preventing you from adding more fresh fruits to your diet? What has stopped you from taking that certification course?
The answer to those and similar questions relating to your own personal desire is YOU!
Perhaps you don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers or make waves. For example, maybe your spouse is trying a low-carbohydrate diet that requires eating a lot of meat and no fruit, while you want to add fruit to your diet. Will you not do so just to avoid an argument about bringing fruit into the house? Delve deeper for a solution. One solution is that you get one refrigerator drawer for your fruit and your spouse gets one for his or her meat.
Maybe you don't want to spend the time and effort that are necessary to make a change. For example, suppose you want to take a course to improve your earnings capacity, but you think, "I can't afford it." Do you want to keep your current position and hope for a decent wage adjustment at review time, or do you want to be able to earn a lot more by becoming certified? If the latter, delve deeper for a solution. One solution would be to take a part-time job in the evenings to pay for the course.
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