“Unfortunately Alan, there is no magic wand that can fix all of your problems for you in one go”
I sat across my school counsellor, wondering what I could do to end what seemed like eternal despair. I was 16 years old with a lot of self-esteem and mental issues, and after seemingly exhausting all possible options to reach out for help, these words were not what I wanted to hear…
When Change Is Hard…
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to wave a magic wand and change your circumstances instantly once in a while?
Coming from different family upbringings, socioeconomic statuses, genetic pre-dispositions, and personality types, it’s unfortunate but true that there are those who have it easier when it comes to achieving the personal and career goals that they’re after.
Whether it be for your career or yourself personally, if you’ve ever found it difficult to change, then you’ll know what I’m talking about:
- Perhaps, you aspire to work in business or be an entrepreneur but no one you know in your family does anything related to business. Not to mention, all your friends and family believe in climbing the corporate ladder in big and ‘established’ companies.
- Or maybe you’re shy and introverted, but your dream job requires speaking and inspiring thousands of people on stage about a particular topic for at least 2 hours straight.
The possibilities are endless.
No matter what your obstacles toward your goals may be, there’s no question that when it comes to personal change and disruption, your environment plays a very big factor.
Does This Mean You Have A Pre-Destined Path?
Certainly not. And you probably already knew that – that’s why you’re here reading this 🙂
Just because your personal circumstances are not ideal doesn’t mean that you have no hope of changing for the better.
Whether you:
- feel like you’re falling behind in terms of your personal or career development
- would like to get ahead of your peers
- or just want to grow, develop and reach your goals as quickly as you can
It’s definitely possible.
Despite what circumstances you may have, here are 4 effective ways you can accelerate personal change and disruption:
4 Effective Ways To Accelerate Personal Change And Disruption
1. Surround yourself with people that support and grow you
Do you ever feel like the people around you are dragging you down? Questioning your actions? Making you doubt yourself and your abilities?
There’s a common saying that “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” by motivational speaker Jim Rohn, and it’s something I could not agree with more.
Whether it’s about being able to express yourself fully, progressing further towards your career goals, or fast-tracking your learning and growth – surrounding yourself with the right people is vital.
It could be in the form of a friend or a mentor. Ideally you want people who:
- Encourage your personal and professional goals and ambitions
- You feel safe around to trade opinions and share ideas with
- Care for you enough to tell you when they think you are going in the wrong direction without judgement
- Ask you questions all the time and provide different perspectives on your issues or ideas
- Celebrate your successes, cheer you on as you smash through milestones, and support you in your failures
- Give you their time
- Are relentless workers themselves
- Have positive attitudes
- Have similar goals in mind
- Share the same values and perspectives
- Are better than you in the areas of life you wish you to improve on
In short, you are the sum of the people you spend your time with. Make sure that they inspire and motivate you to be more and do more, and support you in times of change and personal disruption.
When you have the right support network, you’re able to bounce back from failures much more easily and continue charging on with the pursuit of your goals.
NOTE:
- This doesn’t mean you have to ditch all your friends and family in one sweeping go. You can slowly transition to another, more supporting group if you feel that’s the right direction to go.
- You don’t necessarily need to have only 5 people. Don’t take the quote literally. Just be mindful of who you spend your time around and whether it’s affecting you in a positive or negative way.
- As you grow and develop, you might change your inner circle of friends and colleagues – that’s just a part of life. It also depends on what you’re looking to work on at this point in time.
- Sometimes the people who ‘drag you down’ are people you can’t really avoid hanging out with (e.g. family). In this case, it’s very important to find a support network outside of home.
2. Step outside your comfort zone
I’ve once been told by a mentor of mine (shoutout to Mr. Williams – my first inspiration in becoming a professional speaker and educator) that “When you start to feel fear, get excited. Why? Because that’s when you know you’re about to learn and grow.”
Here’s a diagram that he drew for me that briefly explains that concept:
Basically, the concept is that we all have this bubble around ourselves that we call our comfort zone. And every time we step outside of it, we get scared.
You’ll relate to the feeling if you’ve ever had your palms sweaty, knees weak and arms heavy (and maybe mom’s spaghetti on your sweater already).
But by pushing through that fear, eventually you’ll reach growth.
Do this enough times, and eventually you’ll grow to where you need to be to achieve the success that you desire.
NOTE:
- Go outside your comfort zone, but within reason. There’s no need to push yourself to do dangerous things that put your life at risk.
- It’s also important to be realistic with discomfort and uncertainty – no point taking on 5 unpaid internships on top of your university studies if you’ve got rent and bills to pay. We all have the same limited number of hours to a day and there is only so much we can work on during a single period of time before we inevitably burn out.
- At the end of the day, how far outside your comfort zone you go is entirely up to you. You have to ask yourself the question “How much discomfort am I comfortable with?”.
- My own personal philosophy is “As long as the discomfort is related to an area of your life that you want to improve, it’s good.
3. Change Your Physical Environment
Whether this means your bedroom or flying to a completely different country, changing your physical environment is one very effective and powerful method to accelerate the personal disruption process.
Putting yourself in an unfamiliar environment where nobody knows who you are is the closest thing we have as human beings to a reset button for life.
Why?
Because when you are in an environment where nobody knows anything about you, your background, your previous experiences, you are no longer held back by any limiting beliefs that you might have about yourself.
Not to mention, you don’t have the people around you who are used to seeing you a certain way (whether that be others or yourself) hold you back. For example:
- When you’ve always been the shy and quiet introvert, it’s hard to suddenly “break out of character” and become a more outwardly expressive person in front of your friends and family
- If you’ve always been seen as the person who is “fat / dumb / lazy etc.”, It can be hard for others to take you seriously when you outwardly announce a journey of change
- You’re quite comfortable with the people around you at the moment, but realise that in order to grow, you must do something different. But at the same time, if you do something different, there is that fear that you might distance or lose your friends and family.
- It feels weird to be “networking” and hanging out with people who are 10, 15, or maybe even 20 years older than you, because all you’ve done so far is hang out with people your age
- You’ve never seen yourself as someone who can pitch to a panel of investors who question everything you’re saying
When you remove yourself from the environment that you’re used to (whether that be overseas, interstate, or even just your home), you free yourself up to the possibility of cultivating huge personal disruption.
If you’ve ever gone on a holiday overseas and noticed that you treat things a little bit like a video game, where you:
- Let yourself go
- Take more social risks in doing things you normally wouldn’t
- Have a playful mindset towards exploring your environment
then you know what I’m talking about.
The truth is, when you’re not on home turf in an environment that’s familiar to you, you no longer have people telling you not to do XYZ because it’s stupid, or you might look silly.
You are able to fail without worry. After all, chances are, you’re not going to be seeing these people in a week or so anyway.
And because of that, you’ll be able to push yourself outside your comfort zone in a more positive and playful way, and along the way, discover something different about yourself that you never previously knew existed.
NOTE:
- For those who don’t necessarily have the financial resources to go away to another location all the time, you don’t need to go overseas in order to achieve the same effect.
- It’s about how much you get away mentally. For me, travelling within Australia is enough.
4. Find opportunities that provide all of the above
It’s one thing to know about the ingredients that make up fast and effective personal disruption, but it’s another to go out and do all of the above by yourself.
Change is never immediate, and in many cases is a long and arduous journey.
Change is hard enough as it is, and to put in the effort to make your surroundings congruent towards the change you desire requires a lot of effort, time and energy.
For example,
- Finding the right people who can support you and with whom you trust with your deepest fears is a challenge. Not to mention, finding mentors who are invested in you can be extremely difficult.
- To do so would require you to head out and be involved with many different social circles, meet up groups etc.
- Not to mention, it’s not like once you find someone suitable, that they’re willing to take you on as a mentee just like that. You must prove that you are worthy of being mentored first.
- There are ample opportunities to step outside of your comfort zone, but how often do you force yourself to do so?
- It’s always tempting and easy to leave things “for another day” when you’re in your comfort zone
- How likely are you to force yourself to work with people you don’t get along with, or to step up on stage and pitch a solution to a company after only 3 days of preparation with an entirely new team of people? In most cases, not very likely.
- Changing your environment can be as easy as buying a plane ticket and going on a holiday…
- But do you have a plan in terms of what you’re going to develop or how you’re going to get there? To do so would require a lot of thinking and pre-planning ahead of time.
- Who are you going to speak with? Who is going to be there to support and guide you along the journey while you’re there?
- Would you take the risk to step outside your comfort zone while on holiday? Maybe, but how often are you really going to push yourself to grow?
And that’s why, I highly, highly recommend that you take opportunities that provide all the necessary ingredients for effective change.
Whether it’s by:
- volunteering for a not-for-profit organisation that’s all about youth leadership development
- joining MeetUp groups related to your goals for change
- taking up positions of responsibility in your university clubs and societies
- joining a dance crew that forces you to be better with expressing yourself
- or joining an intensive program/ retreat filled with similarly minded individuals
by taking up opportunities that provide you with a catalyst for change, you can accelerate your personal disruption journey much more quickly.
Not to mention, it’s also a whole heap more fun and enjoyable. 🙂
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