Change Yourself to Change Your Life

Sitting around waiting for your life to improve is the strategy of a fool. I know because I tried it long enough. Waiting for the universe to shower us with goodies is incredibly lazy – worst of all it doesn’t work. If we want out life to be different, we have to become a different person.

Have You Ever Considered the Possibility You Might be a Bit of a Gobshite?

I remember years ago sitting in a pub and complaining to one of the other barflies about my bad luck with women and friends. I kept on meeting the wrong type of person, and it all seemed so unfair. My drinking associate listened patiently enough, but when I stopped talking he had this to say – “did you every consider the possibility you might be a bit of a gobhite?”

I felt so angry with this guy for suggesting I might be full of shit. I’d opened my heart to him in the hope of a bit of encouragement, but he’d used my hard luck story as an opportunity to insult me. If I hadn’t been such a coward, I probably would have hit him. The thing that stung me the most was the knowledge he did have a bit of a point.

I also remember this friend of mine in London who kept on getting beaten up. He seemed to be incredibly unlucky until I began spending more time with him. It turned out these attacks had nothing to do with him being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The real cause of this string of bad luck was his habit of insulting complete strangers for no reason.

I’m not going to pretend there is no unfairness in the world – bad things do happen to good people. Overall, I’d say we mostly get back what we put into our life. It is unrealistic to expect to be able to stay in our comfort zone yet keep getting more and more. If we remain the same, we can expect life to keep serving up similar experiences.

You Don’t Have to Become a Different Person Overnight

There are plenty of wise old saying but ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’ isn’t one of them. If this were true, millions of us would be better of going for a long walk on a short pier. You can create dramatic changes in your life, and it can all begin by just making some minor tweaks.

The truth is we are all changing all the time anyway. The problem is that this tends to happen in a linear fashion – sort of like same shit, different day. It’s like when I moved here to Thailand back in 2002. I completely changed my environment, but my life still involved all the fun and games associated with being a drunk.

I’m not suggesting you change your life by getting a new job or moving to a different country. If you do this without changing who you are, the chances are you are still going to attract the same shit into your new life. Real change involves becoming the kind of person who gets the type of things you want.

If you enjoy the benefits of being a successful entrepreneur (as an example), you have to begin modelling the behaviour of a successful entrepreneur. This is not as simple as just acting like them, you have to be willing to do what they do and think like they think. You need to do your research and make becoming this type of person your number one priority in life.