Our identity is going to change well before people take notice.
And that’s why we get strange looks and odd questions.
One day we are one thing to someone and then randomly, almost like it’s out of the blue, we become something different.
If our car was stuck in the mud how would we get out of that situation?
We wouldn’t keep spinning our wheels and cursing the world for putting us in this situation.
We’d assess where we’re at.
We’d look for resources.
We’d call for help.
If you asked me 15-years-ago I was going to be one of the best PGA Teaching Professionals in the country.
Golf was what I knew and it was the only thing I was highly excited about.
At 15, I was thinking in days.
At 25, I was thinking in years.
By 35, I was thinking in decades.
I’ve never felt more present each day because of that mindset change.
Discover a purpose and you can live it for the rest of your life.
Don’t fall for the misdirection, the rabbit being pulled out of the hat, the flash mob.
We are often blinded by the “vocal minority” and the “dog and pony show” that is going on.
It dominates the narrative but we can’t fall for the trap of getting sucked into it.
What have you changed your mind on in the past year?
Growth isn’t about doubling down on our beliefs and digging our heels in but recognizing that there is a big world out there filled with new ideas and different perspectives.
When I was 30 years old I was:
Entitled
Complacent
Unorganized
Undisciplined
Closed-minded
In loads of debt
Some people slow down running toward 1st base.
Others run full speed straight through the bag.
Knowing who we are can inform us where we are starting from. It doesn’t mean we can’t change if we want to.
This New Year let’s not say “New Year, New Me” because change doesn’t happen like that.
Change happens by moving intentionally and incrementally forward.
It’s building one good habit after another.
Just because we’re different doesn’t mean we’re wrong.
Chances are as we are trying to live our best life we’ll be exploring new ideas and it may waiver from what we’re known for.
Keep going.
When we’re young we are told that if we make bad choices we could end up in jail.
What is never explained, however, is that while we may not end up in a physical jail for committing a crime, our decisions could lead us into a “mental jail” that might be just as bad, in some cases.
We actually don’t need to make monumental big changes. That’s a common misconception.
It’s the small changes that matter. The ones that are incremental and barely even scratch the surface. The ones that almost no one would notice if they looked at us or our work.
We want people to accept the updated version of ourselves when we put ourselves through the work to change.
This is the new me, we shout! Embrace me. I’m different than before. Give me recognition!
But we have to remember that others are going through their own transformations. They may not be talking about it as much or sharing their journey for all to see. But we might notice some changes.
Perfect doesn’t exist.
We’ll make mistakes. We’ll fail. We’ll embarrass ourselves.
Something is bound to go wrong.
Why does a Monarch butterfly do the things it does?
Here is a caterpillar, crawling around the earth and living just fine. Then, for reasons we can’t possibly fully know, it decides to create a cocoon and after a short isolation period, boom, it now has wings.
We either believe we have the ability to change our surroundings, circumstances, relationships, etc or we don’t.
We all want to do something we are not currently doing. From big to small, it doesn’t matter what it is, all of us have things sitting on the “to do” list that for whatever reason are not taking priority.