If You Don’t Change, the Results Won’t Change

Change is hard. We find our comfort zone and we want to stay in it. But the very nature of change is that we cannot stay where we are, we must venture into something new.

Change is a natural process that happens due to biology, time, and encounters with others. Some changes are the result of biology and the passage of time, within the natural cycle or order of things. Other changes are self-generated, under our control and willful effort, or dependent upon encounters with others. These are the changes to be addressed within this article.

What do you want to accomplish?  How will you define success? Do you even believe that it is possible anymore?  Look around!  Are you overwhelmed by the numbers?  How have some succeeded while so many have failed? The answer to all these questions is primarily deliberate change.

If you talk with most people everyday success is hard to come by.  The odds are against you.  You can work hard, do everything right, follow so-called expert advice, and believe in yourself but the odds that you will succeed are slight, if not non-existent.  But the fact that some have made it is the hope that continues your search.

When all is said and done experts tell us that it all comes down to two main things.  Before sharing these, however, we need to talk about one more thing and it leads me back to the original questions. What do you want to change?

What do you want to accomplish? What are your goals?  I will write more about goals in another post.  The bottom line here is that you must set some level of accomplishment that you can measure and obtain as a means of determining success. And you must have a focus on what it is.

Accomplishment of your goals and achieving success depends upon being intentional and consistent.  It is about doing the right things every day.  The right things are actions we take that are fundamental to our success.  Repeating these things daily is what makes the real difference. 

This process has been called the “Rule of Five” and it has become a practice of some of the most successful people we know today.  Variations of it were developed by John Maxwell, a leadership expert that has written over 110 books, and Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. 

The Rule of Five is simply a series of activities that you do every day that led to your success.  The activities performed or the steps taken will differ for each person.  The key is consistency in doing them every day.  It does not necessarily mean a set amount of time doing it, just that you are consistent in the doing.

The Rule of Five is illustrated through the act of cutting down a tree.  If you swing something at the tree a minimum of five times daily, it will eventually fall.  There are several circumstances that determine this result such as having focus on where you strike the tree, the use of the right tool (an axe as opposed to a ball bat) and taking the action each day. If you hit the tree with the axe consistently (daily) you can and should expect results.  The size of the tree, how sharp the axe is, and how hard you swing the axe will also determine how long this might take, but it will eventually fall. The same illustration of drops of water on a rock might apply.

The key to change, and the point of this illustration is, what are the five things you must do every day to become successful?  Are they clear and somewhat easy to do? Can you identify daily how you accomplished the task?  Do strategic decisions you are making clearly align with your Rule of Five? Do you have them clearly implanted in your life?  If so, find your tree and swing away daily! Change will occur.

If we do not change, change will be forced upon us. By our very nature, change is the one thing we fear the most, but desire constantly. Often it is because we focus on the wrong things. Often it is because we focus on the wrong things. We focus most on what we cannot change and not enough on those things we can. We are often heartsick because of deferred hope, which results from trying to control what’s outside our control. Discipline yourself to work on things that are in your sphere of influence.