Become a change agent in YOUR life!

I believe that human beings are incredibly resilient and enabled with many internal resources to help us get where we want to get and experience positive feelings, we want to experience. Sometimes we can get lulled by culture, family, peer groups, corporate environment or media to believe in things that can actually hold us back from realising our potential, feeling happy and fulfilled.

We often see or hear some stories that have a good foundation and intent in its core. Those can either inspire us to be proactive or tap into our procrastination mode. It depends on how we choose to perceive it. For example, some popular movie stories feature a hero, a ‘‘knight in shining armour’’, who saves the world and everyone else with it. We love it because it promises a happy ending, when good and fair triumphs over the evil and unfair. That’s great and makes us feel good. After all, we can do with some positive reinforcement!

These stories can also be appealing because they can infer that someone else will make decisions and take the responsibility. It may resonate with us, when the task appears to be insurmountable, painful, tedious or out of our depth. So why even try and do our bit? Have you ever experienced that temptation? Where could it lead us, if we succumb to it on a regular basis? It can lead to the habit of procrastination and feeling dis-empowered. Sometimes we hope that just by pure serendipity someone will come along, make decisions and solve the problems, without us looking for help and seeking out the options for the solution. When the hero doesn’t show up or things don’t get resolved easily, we can get frustrated and perceive people as unfair, finding it difficult to perform, communicate effectively and enjoy what we do on a daily basis.

Think about it, when things don’t go according to our plan at work or at home, do we actually:

· Seek out support and understanding by sharing our concerns/thoughts/ideas with someone who can help us

· Step into other people’s shoes to see their perspective (that alone might change our own perception)

· List the options of what and how we can actually do it

· Take an action and/or adjust our perspective

· AND keep pursuing it!

Let’s face it, life isn’t always fair, and things don’t work out exactly the way we want them to. How do we respond? Do we stay silent and just keep on waiting and hoping, or do we find the courage, take responsibility and do our best to make changes? When we take action and actively pursue something, there’s still no 100% iron-clad guarantee that life will change 360 degrees straight away, or that we will live a ‘‘happy ever after’’ life with no problems. So why do it? When we practise making or not making decisions, being proactive or inactive, what changes is WHO we become and the state we live in daily. It’s up to us! Do we want to feel empowered or disempowered, courageous or fearful, fulfilled or unfulfilled? When we become that person, who takes the responsibility and consistently acts, the chances for profound and lasting changes within and around us, increase. It can also open the magic door of serendipity.

Serendipity does happen and it favours those, who have done some ground work prior and are prepared to recognise and take on the opportunity. As for the ‘‘knights in shining armour’’, they like turning up, if we are wearing the armour of courage ourselves.

To get things moving in the direction we want, let’s gather our courage to start the process, seek out help and support, brainstorm the options, bring forward new ideas, use mistakes and failures as clever improvement tools to redirect and refine our approach.

We can become change agents in our own lives, when we choose to!

‘’Be the change you wish to see in the world!’’

- Mahatma Gandhi

Anya LyudmilinaMay 31, 2019