It's February and if you're like most people, by now you are probably sick of New Years resolutions that make the whole business of change seem quick and easy. The fact is, making a lasting change in your life is hard work. Real change doesn't magically happen overnight. In fact, scientific studies claim the odds of people successfully implementing a positive change in their lives are 9 to 1. Those are pretty daunting odds.
If I could inspire you with one message for you in 2015, it would be this:
Change or die.
I know, those strong words don't sound very inspiring. Before you get excited, let me explain.
The fact is, I'm not trying to motivate you to live your best life by scaring the crap out of you. Fear is only a useful tool when life needs to give us a good kick in the pants. Fear that wakes us up to the bare facts that we've been comfortable too long is a good thing. That's when we can finally start to see that the place in which we have been living is in reality a danger zone.
When I say 'change or die,' what I really mean is this: every time you choose to resist the call to change, there's a part inside you that dies.
What is that part of you? It's the part of you that's as big as life itself, that longs to set out on one bold, fearless ADVENTURE. If you're like most people, however, you silence that Voice by choosing to stay small.
Because most of the time you pay attention to the other part of you.
That's the part of you that's been beaten up, trampled on and tossed about by the storms of life. It's the part of you that is terrified to change because change would mean confronting the deepest, darkest parts of you that are terrifying to face, the parts of you that experienced shame, abuse or abandonment.
This is the Small You. If you pay attention, she speaks to you every day in an endless, repetitive loop telling the same small story in your mind, "I wish I could be more bold, fearless, and adventurous but I don't have what it takes. I'm too small. I've gone through bad experiences and now I've got to keep myself safe."
What follows then is her long list of reasons to justify why it's so important for you to resist change in the first place:
"You can't follow your dreams, you don't have a job. You don't have support like other people have. Your heart has been broken too many times. You've been abused. You can't seem to make enough money. You have health issues that will probably never be healed."
But remember, there's another part of you, the Hero inside who longs to transform your sad story into one soaring epic, into a tale so big it can only be sung. If you but opened the door just a little, you would begin to see that everything you once believed to be true about yourself, that you are insignificant, unworthy, or just plain unlovable, is simply not true.
It's time to start paying attention and honouring the still, small Voice. That's the Voice that sends you a thrill of excitement about leaving your job and starting your own business or packing up all your belongings and moving to a new place that feeds your soul. That's also the time when the Small You rushes in with a pang of fear and with a thousand reasons why you might fail if you even tried.
Come with me and let me take you on an adventurous journey to discover your Hero within. But first, I want to share my story with you. It's my own Hero's journey that tells of the time when I finally left my safe, small world and began to listen to the Bigger Voice inside me.
Are you ready to leave behind your small story? If so, then, let's go! It's time to bring your Hero to life, set sail into the unknown to follow your call to one epic Fabulous@50 adventure.
Stay tuned and in the coming weeks, I will share my story about how a trip to Italy turned my world upside down.
Annie Pool is the director of the Victoria Fabulous@50 division. To read more about Annie click here.