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“We anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does... Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so…”

-- Blaise Pascal
17th century French philosopher,
mathematician, and physicist

Change is a necessary part of living. Change happens.

Many of us use planners to lay out the course of our day. Then, plans change — someone cancels a meeting, or the car won’t start, or the kids get sick. You couldn’t predict that something else was going to happen, but it did. So, you adjust the plans of the day. Move the doctor appointment; reschedule lunch – whatever you need to do to make it work.

Making it work means that you go back to living your life. But what you actually have done is continued to live life but with a change.

Most of us can look back and see how certain decisions have brought us to where we are today. But then there comes a point in our lives where we sense that something isn’t quite right — that we have lost some of the happiness we once had. We begin to take a different look at our journey and start to see some of the paths leading in new directions. We find ourselves at a Crossroad – a defining point of our lives where we need to make a major life decision.

The Fear of Change

We often look at our problems as a whole instead of as a sum of its parts. It’s no wonder we fear taking a new path.

By breaking down change into smaller, easier-to-handle steps, you can focus 100% of your attention on solving each part of the problem. Each time you solve a portion of the problem, you take another step forward. You gain confidence; you become familiar with working through change by tackling the simpler tasks. And you can take a look back and see that progress has indeed happened, and you are beginning to live life with change.

Living Life Closer to the Moment

As you begin to live life with change, you are learning to live life closer to the moment. The huge problem that you were once facing has become a series of steps to take. Each step is taken within its own time. If you are focusing on accomplishing just this one step, doing your 100% best to get it done, you are spending less time living in a future which hasn’t happened.

You begin to see your future as the next moment in your life; you break away from trying to predict the end result of many layers of a major lifestyle change. What you experience in each of these moments will determine how you handle the next moment.

Faith in Ourselves Replaces Fear

Faith begins to replace fear. We begin to have faith in ourselves, and our beliefs, and our ability to make it through. As a result, we start to battle less, which eliminates stress and anxiety from our lives.

Our lives start to come into alignment and we begin to feel free. Once we believe that we have done everything we can in the best way we know how, the only action left to do is to leave it to God. We have no attachments to the past. There are no fears of the future.

By going through a change in our lives, we may have to suffer a loss. But the loss is replaced with something else which often turns out to be better than we imagined. We start to enjoy what we have and count our blessings. We finally begin to realize that what we have and what we have experienced is exactly what we are supposed to live through.

Fear of Change: Being Stuck at a Crossroad

If we are not ready to take a new direction, or we don’t understand which direction to take, we can often become stuck at a Crossroad. We know a change needs to take place, but we are afraid of facing a new course. Even when we know which Crossroad to take, we still often choose the path of less resistance.

But that same Crossroad that we avoid keeps coming back along our journey. It becomes a familiar Landmark. Often something dramatic happens in our life which makes us decide to change directions. As we begin to journey down that one road which will change our lives, we begin to realize that we can, indeed, live life with change. So, embrace the power of change. It’s up to you to decide which direction to take.

Learning How to Live in the Moment

Learning how to live in the moment will help you deal with the Crossroads you encounter. Think back to times in your life when you received either joyful or tragic news. These are the profound instances in your life where you can recall all of the details of a moment. Describe where you were, how you felt, why, etc.

Do you remember standing at a Crossroad? Having to make the decision about which direction to take? Did you make the decision that was right for you?

This article was excerpted with permission from the book:

The Zing
by Ronald P. Villano, M.S., ASAC

Reprinted with permission of the author, Ron Villano LLC. ©2006. www.ronvillano.com

Click here for more info and/or to order this book.

About the Author

Ron Villano, M.S., LMHC, ASAC is a psychotherapist, life coach, speaker and author of The Zing: The self-discovery guide to help you go from living life to loving the life you live. Ron is a dynamic inspirational speaker and a highly successful leader in professional life coaching and personal counseling. He has evolved from living life to loving the life he lives as a result of working through incredible experiences and unthinkable tragedy. Ron speaks throughout the country, delivering his motivational message to Embrace the Power of Change no matter what life brings your way.

More articles by Ron Villano.

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