Accept Who You Are In Order To Change

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself
just as I am, then I can change.”
Carl Roger

I reached a point where all I wanted to do was change.

Nothing was going right. Everything seemed to be going against me. I wasn’t living in the right place. My relationships weren’t healthy. I didn’t enjoy the work I was doing. I wasn’t happy.

I wanted to change, and I wanted it fast.

But even when I stated making changes, I noticed things weren’t happening the way I wanted them to. I didn’t like my neighborhood, so I moved. But even with the move, I didn’t venture too far out of the community. I stuck with the same area so that I could use the same services and businesses. I saw the same things in pretty much the same way. Sure, I changed the four walls I lived in, but nothing else changed.

And that’s where I went wrong.

Because when you know you need to change, you can’t make easy, superficial modifications just for the sake of change. They may start the process, but they won’t complete your evolution.

You have to make giant leaps for real change to occur.

See, in a lot of ways, I wasn’t ready for the real change I was looking for. So I fooled myself into believing a small change would do the trick. I knew I wasn’t in the right community for what I wanted my life to look like. I wasn’t surrounded by like-minded people. I wasn’t in the right place for my new life to begin unfolding.

Yet still I knew action was the key. So I moved from one home to another, just a few blocks away.

It started the process. It gave me the courage I needed to continue. It gave me the ability to spread my wings and try something new.

I reverted back to a lot of the same habits. I wasn’t living in the right place. Some of my relationships were strained. I couldn’t attract the business I saw in my mind.

I wasn’t happy.

I knew it was going to take an even bigger step.

Because my dreams were big. I saw them. I had them written on paper right in front of me. I knew what I wanted to accomplish. I knew what my goals and dreams were.

But what I lacked was the faith I needed to see it through.

Then one day I thought back to something a mentor had told me years before.

“If you aren’t happy with your life today, you’ll never find happiness. If you have to strive for something in order to be happy, you’ll never reach your goal.”

If you’re happy in the moment, it means liking where you are. Getting rid of the little things that are holding you back, making the best of the things around you.

Yes, you can and should strive for the next step. You can create to-do lists to help you take the action to put them into place. But when you see where you’re going, and like how the process is affecting you, that’s where the journey really begins.

You fall in love again.

With the people that mean the world to you.

With the place you choose to call home.

With the things you do every day.

With your contributions to the world.

And only then do you realize you can have and do whatever you choose. Because it’s always a journey, and you don’t have to accept how your story was told up until today.

Kill off the old. Let it fade away.

Turn the page. Start a new chapter. Add new characters.

And see the new materialize right before your eyes.