EXCUSES WON’T CUT IT ANYMORE

Some hold onto the excuse “it’s just my karma” to validate their reasons for remaining static, they feel this is a good enough reason to stay exactly where they are. To be blunt, this is a poor excuse for inaction. And my word there are so many more…proclamations along the lines of “Oh well, you know nobody in my family ever achieved much, so I guess I’m just going to accept that I won’t either” or “I tried further education years ago when I was a teenager and when it didn’t work-out I felt like a failure, I’m sure playing it safe from now on” and “It’s not my fault I wake every day lacking in energy and motivation, it’s just my lot in life” or the classic “I’m too young, old, short, tall, unqualified, overqualified, beautiful, unattractive, unconventional, shy, (delete as appropriate)!” every single one of these are frankly garbage excuses to throw right into the trash where they belong!
I have to share with you this one extra special example of an excuse I had personally said to me in all seriousness “well you know, I would love to stop smoking cigarettes, but I meditated on this and I now know God intends for me to be a smoker”. This woman really felt she had come up with the ultimate validation to keep right on doing things the way she always had…I mean what an excuse, wow!

FEEL THE PAIN
The fear of avoiding the consequences of not changing can be such a powerful motivation to finally leave a comfort zone. The discomfort of potentially facing personal humiliation or future pain gives us a proverbial kick-start straight into action like nothing else!
As with the example of Ian we talked about in Chapter 3 LAYING FOUNDATIONS earlier - the prospect of him falling back into his previously limited pattern of life (after he had experienced the pleasure of a different paradigm) caused him so much hurt he was literally prepared to do anything it took to avoid his old reality.
Avoiding the consequences of emotional hurt can powerfully motivate us into rapidly leaving a comfort zone. We are not talking here necessarily of actual physical pain, although in some cases it can be – avoiding a feeling we never want to experience again is about as raw a reason to get healthier or take financial control of our lives as we will ever get!

THE EASIEST WAY TO LEAVE A COMFORT ZONE
This applies equally if we are afraid of going for promotion, dating, public speaking, visiting the dentist, travelling to another country, ballroom dancing, mountain climbing, spiders, getting physically fit, having our own business, further educating ourselves, skiing, writing a book and any of the thousand and one things which can cause us to break-out into a cold sweat at the prospect of.
Is there something else you might have always wondered what it was like to do, but your falsely self-imposed limitations seemingly rendered it impossible?
This can be from practically any starting point.
Personally, since early childhood I possessed an irrational terror of large ships. As an adult tracing back through my own timeline I realised this originated from a children’s picture book I read in year one of school about Titanic and other shipwrecks.
Finally, about twenty years ago I chose to undertake a day-trip on the very source of my fear. A large passenger ferry to visit France, in quite rough seas as it turned out to be on the day – only to leave myself with no other alternative but to have to repeat the same journey in reverse, in even rougher seas coming back home later that day in the evening. This experience sure cured me of that one!
You can do the same with anything similar in your own life and mentally tick off another supposedly impossible task completed.
At sixteen years old, in my second job within two months, my boss instilled in me from day one (when he had me rather tentatively phoning potential customers to pitch within an hour of arriving for my first day at the office) it is fine to make a few mistakes, that is the only way to learn. And oh boy did I ever do exactly that with those first few phone calls! After a week or two though I began to understand what to say and how to say it to get a higher percentage of the positive responses rather than all those turn-downs.

The fastest way to leave any comfort zone…is to walk right ahead towards whatever is limiting you…confront that inner demon…tweak it on the nose a bit…then face your fear head on and actually do it!

I can promise you the feeling is incomparable, the boost to self-esteem and confidence is worth all the temporary pain and angst, better still you have permanently removed another barrier from your life.
To radically change life for the better certainly does not require us to radically change as a person. Quite literally all that is needed is a shift in our awareness of what can really be brilliantly possible then consciously choosing to go out there and make that possibility our reality.
This simple shift in feeling makes all the difference.
What this entire process aims to do is place your future directly into your own hands, then any changes are measured and intentionally calculated…by YOU!

DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT EACH DAY
Routine is a killer to ambition…repeating the same pattern day in day out puts us into a passive mindset of limitation.
Doing something different each day instead places us into the mindset of accepting our life can also be different.
Something different can be as small as driving past the usual slot we always park our car, to go and park someplace else on the car park. Taking a slightly different route on the same journey we habitually do every weekday. If we always head left out of the door from our place of work to go buy a bagel for lunch, turning right to sample something we have not had before.
If we constantly wear black, putting on a red top or indeed any of the millions of small variations in our daily routine which lead us into unchartered waters. Getting into the habit of doing something different each day will usefully also make dealing and coping with any unexpectedly stressful situations way easier for us.

Committing to even one small change in routine daily ensures our subconscious becomes habitually used to variety, then as we gradually leave behind any limiting discomfort zones, positive change happily becomes our expectation from life.

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