What Makes You Change

Everyone, no matter how much you say you don’t, has a routine, a schedule, a ritual, that they do every day. It could be as simple as checking emails each morning, or as complex as flying a plane four times a day, but each one of these rituals exists to attain and maintain some feeling by fulfilling some need. The feeling may not be directly created through the ritual, but the ritual itself will be a part of the attainment of it later on. Saying ‘I love you’ to your partner every day may produce a feeling on the spot, whereas working a job 8 hours a day may not, but the paycheck (and what you do with it) probably will.

In brutal honesty, everything that you do can be broken down into rituals that exist to create and maintain some feeling you enjoy. So creating a lasting or permanent change in your life must take into account the major needs that are being met through whatever ritual is being done. No amount of motivation, inspiration, therapy, or riding roller-coasters to shake things up, will ever create a lasting change in your life unless it accomplishes one simple thing; it makes you aware of a better way to achieve the result of the ritual (and maybe get more of it).

What makes you change is finding a better way to create, maintain, and grow a feeling you know and enjoy. Nothing else has as much power as this simple process when it comes to changing your life. This knowledge is what can make the difference between a perpetually depressive existence of inaction towards more of the same, and a life full of action steps towards a perpetually compelling future.

Think about it. Most people (maybe even you) constantly want more of what they don’t have. Yet everyone is very good at getting what they actually need, and keeping what they actually use. Because of this, you can only ever expect yourself to attain and keep what you know is going to fulfill a need that you currently have. This principle goes as far as how ingenious you are at creating new alternatives in your life. Have you ever stopped to question why you know how to get what you need, but don’t know how to get what you want?

What you have in your life, right now, has meaning to you. It gives off emotion, it has feeling for you. You understand it because you feel it. You know what response your mind and body has towards it. What you have in your life serves a purpose for you. So to change anything in your life, to have more of a new thing or less of an old thing, there must be a purpose for the change and that purpose must fulfill one of those preexisting needs. Your capacity to change, to alter your course, to take the necessary actions to change your life, is tied directly to how much purpose you can see in the change and how it can help you fulfill those needs.

Let’s say that one of the rituals you may do, watching television, for example, you do to relax, and that one of the things you really want in your life is mortgage free home. You’ve wanted that for 5 years, but your money saving ability is being spent elsewhere and your actions keep you on the couch to relax. You can probably agree that this lifestyle isn’t going to change any time soon. But, if you considered the many ways how having a mortgage free home could help you relax, and increase your ability to relax, and make relaxing that much more pleasing to you, and give you new opportunities and new ways to relax, you might find yourself motivated, inspired, energized, interested and active in making a change.

Any new idea for any human being that isn’t implemented immediately, isn’t planned for, and isn’t a daily or hourly priority, isn’t going to happen. It wouldn’t take you 5 years to call your friends if you had something important to share with them. That importance equals purpose. The more important it is, the more purposeful it is, and the faster it gets done, without question. There is no ‘how do I’ or ‘how can I’, there is only ‘I am doing’ and resulting action.

It’s fair to say then that you will change your life when the result of that change is really, truly important to you, because it works for your current needs. Truthfully now, why would you want more of what you don’t have? You don’t even know what that feels like! Why would you want more of what you don’t have when it’s not fulfilling a need that you must have filled? Unless you know, and can feel it, see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, and comprehensively own that the change would help you and is in fact life-threateningly necessary to fulfill your needs, to ever greater spheres of feeling and potential, how can you expect yourself to really go after it?

You have total capacity to change your life. Take account of all the rituals, all the routines that you do every day, every week, every month. Start looking at why you do these things and write down your answers. Be specific, be real, and be honest. Find out what your top needs are and understand that these are the primary motivators that drive everything you do. Whenever you want to change to get more of a new thing or less of an old thing, make sure that you clearly see and feel how that change will help you accomplish those needs in an easier, more effective, more efficient, and ‘better’ way than what you do now, that increases your potential to do more that fulfills those needs. Start becoming friends with your prime motivators and you will become friends with change.

Stephan Gardner is a Human Emotion Specialist with a master understanding of the causes and effects of human emotions. His wisdom on the subject spans nearly 12 years of personal reflection, education, research and nearing a decade of training under Dr. John Demartini. To learn more about Stephan and how to change your life, visit www.stephangardner.com.