The secret to change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
Socrates
How to change my life around? How do I turn it about all for the better, improve literally every sphere of my life and transform myself into an unrecognizable human being? Have you every asked yourself these questions?
Probably.
And I’m guessing you already know the answer to the question beforehand. It’s very common and very talked about. It’s the law of nature. Change. And change is the ultimate truth, the end product of everything. Whatever you’re trying to do, trying to accomplish right now, it’s going to end up in a change, and whether that change is for the positive or not, is solely up to you.
That’s what my father told me when I was in fifth grade and had our sections changed and I had to leave all my friends behind. I was legit crying, worrying that I won’t be able to form new friendships.
And yeah, that’s the thing, I did build new friendships.
If only you focus on building the new…
The secret to changing yourself is not some huge and epic knowledge available to only a selected few. It’s just that there are only a few who choose to act on it.
But there is a proper way to go about change, whether you’re changing yourself or changing the world. You don’t just wring it. That’s not allowed.
Just so you know, this post is part of an ongoing blog series My Formula for Changing the World and even though you don’t need to have read them in order to read this, you could check it out, if you’d like.
Let us build on this.
The Secret to Changing Yourself
Change is not to force your way through old, traditional systems that have been thriving since ages, but to build your new ideas on the existing foundations to create the world into a better, far better place.
So many of us are under the misconception that we need to break old patterns of life and only then can we begin to take any worthy steps to change our circumstances.
We can start building right now even if everything isn’t set yet, even if we aren’t sure yet, even if we don’t know everything yet (spoiler alert, we never will). The very first condition of change is to believe in that change, believe that what you are doing is needed indeed.
If not, if you’re just doing something for the worse, then you’re not changing anything, per se. You’re just adding your own contribution to the dozen other bad things that are already persisting in the world. You’re just adding to the impurities, hatred, evil, malice. You’re not changing anything. You aren’t writing history at all. People are gonna remember you for that, but only like how we remembered all the bad people in history, take, for example…the dictators. The cruel leaders. Nothing more. Nothing less.
So how do you do this—build new patterns of life instead of trying to break or destroy the old ones that are already set in your personality and have been since years?
The Secret to Change is to Focus…Here
Override.
No habit that you’ve got is bad (unless it’s, you know, some harmful ones). They’re just unnecessary. Many of our habits are unnecessary. Watching too much TV, not bad, just not necessary when you’ve got a life to live, assuming you really want to do something big.
These habits are just things that we do, maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously, but all they do is hold us back from getting closer to our goals. At least indirectly.
Distractions, as you’d call them.
And we do these things everyday. Suppose we have to let go of any one of your necessary habits like this:
You are doing it until a particular point of time, and then one day you decide to just not do it. Now, you are determined not to do it. Like, nah, whatever happens, you won’t binge this stupid show for that momentary rush of dopamine. Is it okay, then, to waste our time sitting idle, if that means that we don’t have to do it, at any cost.
Instead of this, how about we say I’ve got to do some other thing, some other thing, accomplishing which I can actually put my time to good use. How about this? Instead of breaking old patterns, focus more on building the new ones.
How about you focus your own energy on building a new pattern that’s ultimately going to override the old pattern one day or the other because of this new one being more productive, more useful, not making you feel guilty etc.
I know this advice sounds very generic, but if we apply this formula to every sphere of our life—to all the areas we need changes in, we use stronger and more effective systems to override the previous ones, we might end up realising how easier it is to bring this whole change in our lives.
And that’s true—the secret to changing the world lies in changing yourself first and then changing your environment and then changing the whole—if you know what I mean—generation.
The secret to changing yourself lies in changing your behavior, daily routines, what you say everyday, do everyday, whom you meet everyday. It’s always playing a role in the kind of person you are becoming everyday.
And if you want to change the kind of person you are, you don’t have to necessarily always condemn and degrade your old self. The person you were literally brought you to this stage, evolving into the person you are.
You have to empower and inspire your old self, let your new personality override your old personality, your new thoughts leave no space for the old self-destructive ones.
That is where the secret truly lies. The secret to changing yourself, changing the world. Building something new. That’s why art is changing the world, artists change the world, teachers, writers, all dreamers change the world.
Anyone who’s creating something in order to create themselves, changing something in order to change themselves, change the world.
Liked this post? You’ll absolutely love this detailed guide on how to get your life together.
