It is a strange thing. Most people want to win – move forward to the next level and do more with their lives, reach their potential. But they want to do it while keeping everything in their lives exactly the way it is now. 

As humans, we naturally resist change. Even with compelling evidence and impending doom, inertia keeps us stuck. We would rather maintain the status quo, we would rather hope that things stay stable and the sand doesn’t shift beneath our feet. We see this trait every time our favorite social platform or app changes its design, or every time a known brand changes its logo. Half the time there is outrage and hot takes from people who absolutely know they would have done better. 

But, if you desire and expect different results, you cannot keep doing the same things. That is the definition of insanity. If you want to reach your potential, whatever that is, it means you have acknowledged that you can be and do more than you are doing right now. Which means that you would like your results and experience to change. But things do not magically change. There will be no outside force, move of God, magical unicorn rainbow that will come and do it for you…at least not in the way that you will like. If you want change, YOU have to change.

Change precedes change.

And that is the hard work. Changing on the inside first. Changing our minds, the way we think, the way we perceive and interpret the things that happen around and to us, the way we react, the way we act. 

Our present results are a consequence of our past choices. To get new results in the future, we need to make new choices now. You don’t have money because you choose the pleasure of watching movies and playing video games over the pain of hard work and hustle. You are not fulfilled because you choose that cushy comfortable job over the uncertainty of incorporating purpose and meaning into your life and career. You don’t have the body you want because you choose to eat haphazardly and never exercise.

Sure, you have valid excuses. You are too busy, you have too many people dependent on you. You don’t believe in yourself. Your friends don’t support you. Your family doesn’t understand. All valid excuses, but you have still made the choice to let those excuses stop you instead of using them to fuel you.

The person who grows the fastest and goes the furthest is the person that embraces change the most. Even the act of walking forward is an exercise in change. Every step takes you to a position you were not in before. You literally change position. 

And even if you don’t want to change. Even if you resist it all and try to keep everything the same, that is a fool’s errand. Because life itself is change. You can’t resist time. Things WILL change, you WILL change. You will grow older, your body will change, the people around you will change, the world around you will change, technology will change. A lot of things will stay the same sure, eternal principles and all that, but most of it will change.

Change is not a thing to be resisted. It is a thing to be considered and embraced because it is inevitable. 

To embrace change and harness it towards reaching your potential, you have to have a fluid sense of self. You have to have a growth mindset. You have to be able to update your identity. It is an understanding that you don’t have to be what you have always been, and that it is never too late to be who you might have been. 

That means you don’t have to be lazy anymore. You don’t have to be anxious. You don’t have to repeat your self-destructive patterns. You don’t have to be unhealthy. You don’t have to be a novice. You can learn. You can grow. You can adapt and change. 

Once you embrace that fact, truly embrace it. The doors begin to open for you. 

It is funny, remember how much outrage is spewed when the platform changes its UI, or when that brand changes its logo. All that dissipates within a week. People get mad, and then get over it and months down the line, they don’t even remember the previous design.

Same with you. There is the initial noise of change. You do new things. You try new things. You fail. But you learn. You stumble, but you persist. Until one day, the things that were hard are now easy. You have shed your old skin and grown a new one. You hardly even remember the person you used to be. 

And what’s more, you have new results. Your account is fatter, your experiences are doper, your relationships are stronger, your body is snatched, you are more fulfilled and productive than ever. Your life has changed because you embraced the pain, because YOU changed.