I have decided that I am sick and tired of my life staying the same.  What is it that Einstein said and my husband keeps reminding me about:

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

 

So what are we to do then?

The answer seems bafflingly obvious: change our way of thinking.

This task always seems simple enough, and believe me I have read every self help book going.  The reality is, it isn’t.  When we look at everything we have ever done, all we have ever been and then go “right, I’ll just change all of that and become someone new” then it seems like a more daunting task.

 

I have lost count of the number of times I have read the latest self-help book and decided that I’m going to talk to myself better, etc , etc only to fall at the first hurdle.  When I try and change and my life doesn’t immediately I feel somehow short changed and I give up and revert to type.

Now obviously this does not lead to any real change and then I question why my life is not really any different.  Or why this latest exhibition I’ve been included in has not led to my being “discovered”.  Then I begin to feel upset.  I worry that my life will always be this way and that I am the problem.

 

This morning though I had a thought (I was going to say “epiphany” but my husband says I use that word far too freely).  It dawned on me that they were right, it may be that easy to change your thinking.  Except that they are selling us an unobtainable notion…. it is, I believe impossible to change your entire thinking in one go.  I don’t hold with the idea that you can undo years of damaged thinking in a brief moment.  If it took time to get you to that place then it is going to take time to get to somewhere new.  The problem is we live in a world of instant gratification, where we want it now and countless sources have led us to believe that that is possible — why else would many A-listers meet someone, get married and have kids in almost as long as it took to make their last film/album.  The reason is because we want it now… all of us, even those we think have it all are desperate to cling onto things that make them happy that they think will make their life better  NOW.

 

So what is the answer I hear you ask and why am I qualified to give it.  Well the answer is very simple.

Change One Thing

That’s it.

Every day just change one thing.  Now by that I don’t mean put the milk back in the fridge on a different shelf.  I mean something you’ve wanted to do that have never had the confidence to do.  A phone call that may change your life that you’ve been putting off etc……..   Just one thing everyday.  One day it could be starting on that manuscript you’ve always wanted to write but were too scared to do, the next clearing out your wardrobe…….

My thinking is that eventually your brain will rewire itself.  You are doing something positive, it can only have positive results.  In the short term your script may not get picked up, that guy you fancy may not give you his number.  But by casting your net wide, doing something new, or different every day you are maximising your chances for change and by doing something different you are opening yourself up to possibility.

So with this in mind today I have done something I have never done but always wanted to do, too afraid that I wasn’t good enough and would get rejected.  I have submitted my poetry to a literary magazine. Now I probably won’t get published; most poetry magazine get 7000 poems a year and only publish 150 but that doesn’t mean I’m rubbish, I may just not be a fit for them.

I am going to try this new way of being for the next year and each day I will blog about that one thing I have decided to do differently and keep a record of any changes in my life as a result.