FranklinCovey Blog

Rule 1: Embrace Change

Monday, August 31st, 2009 | Transformational Change | 3 Comments

Embracing change begins with desire. Without the desire to change it is inevitable that change will not occur. Desire is the first step in the 7 rules for positive change (more about the remaining rules to come.)  This desire needs to spring up from you and you alone-no one can do it for you.  It lies deep with in the recesses of your own heart and soul.

I have found that desire can come from:

1. A bold vision of a better future

2. You’re unhappy with where you are right now (emotional pain)

3. Learning from your behavior and evaluating the results (trying to get better)

Let’s explore each of these.

A bold vision of a better future:

What will be your life long contribution be?  What talents do you have?  Where are your passions in life? What opportunities are within your grasp? What do you love to do?  How can you leverage your talent, passion and market opportunities to make money and thrive in your life?  

Spending time deeply thinking about these questions will eventually give you the “the long view” or the vision you need in order to change.

Remember, you and you alone have certain skills and talents you can develop to reach your full potential and make amazing contributions in life, regardless of your race, economic status, or interest.

Your vision should be strong enough to ignite your desire to change and do things differently.

You’re unhappy with where you are right now:

Pain, over time can numb the senses and cause great sorrow and a loss of direction.  Wanting something different than you have right now can be a great motivator to change.

This can lead to important self-evaluation or pinpointing your exact location in life.  Every journey to change has a beginning, middle and end.  With a clear starting point and a vision of where you want to go, putting together a plan to change can start to work.

Transform your pain into something productive by evaluating where you are at now and explore possible long-term opportunities or ways to overcome your trials or obstacles.  Take an inventory of your life right now of where you are. Consider your current status: physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Learning from your behavior and evaluating the results:

We tend to be perfectly aligned to the results we are getting in our life.  If we are not happy with our life results we need to change our behavior.  Want new results, well it requires new and better behavior.

We have the choice to learn from life’s experiences or to ignore them.  In the mist of troubling times we can “call out” what is happening to us, label it, and then choose how we act because of it and what we will learn from it.

Everyone has challenges, suffers and makes mistakes. However, not everyone learns from their mistakes.

Make learning a life long journey.  The greater your learning the greater your awareness and the greater freedom you have to choose and ultimately change.

How have you learned to create a vision? What helps you when evaluating your current state and motivating yourself to change? What have you learned from your life experiences?

I would love to hear your insights.

Take care and  engage.

Author: Sam Bracken, Global Director of Product Management Marketing, FranklinCovey

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3 Comments to Rule 1: Embrace Change

Peter Murray
September 2, 2009

I generally agree – desire is a good motivator for change. However I want to raise a couple of points.

Having desire as a motivating source for change can be dangerous. Genuine desire for improvement can bring about positive change. On the other hand, it could lead to depression if the desire to change is outside one’s ability to affect that change. Another danger is that uncontrolled or unselfish desire can lead to greed, lust or jealousy.

While having a dissatisfaction with the status quo can invoke desire and bring about positive change, there is also value in suffering and perseverance through difficult situations. Sometimes external change promotes growth in people contrary to what they desire at the time. The right change for a person may be the opposite of their desires. For example, being content and consuming less instead of being unhappy with what one has, may have more intrinsic value for oneself and greater extrinsic values for society – think sustainability and interdependence instead of independence. Great leaders (Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela) often sacrifice their own desires to produce greater and more significant change.

Chrysula Winegar
September 2, 2009

I believe Ghandi, Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela I intrinsically, intuitively went through these processes in their quests for wholesale social shifts.

I think Mr Bracken, you are saying we (mere mortals?) need to do this in a conscious way. Certainly each of these great leaders were motivated by a bold vision for the future with its inherent and deep desire for fundamental change – not just to themselves, but an entire system.

Mr Murray, you are wise to point out that desire can indeed run amok. But I see the desire being spoken of here as something more core, less base, something quite visionary. It can be applied to entire societies. Or applied to the one. Either way, we can engineer our own change, even on a massive scale if the driving force is sufficiently motivating to lift us above our fear.

Sam Bracken
September 3, 2009

Peter and Chrysula

Thanks for your comments – my focus on this entry was that desire is where change begins assuming it is a positive type of desire for improvement and personal growth. We are all different and igniting desire for change may be different for different people.

When we are evaluating ourselves and want change, focusing on what we actually can affect can help us avoid depression. Sometimes, in their desire to change individuals spend to much time focusing on things outside of their immediate control.

The journey for positive change really begins inside of ourselves.

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