Doing the same thing over, and over, and over while expecting a different result is insanity. Why on Earth would the results change if the application of effort does not? That, my friends, is truly living on a hope and a prayer. We tell ourselves, “This is how it should work!” And yet, it doesn’t. So the next day, we do it again. Instead of considering how things “should work”, let’s consider how things “do work”. What I’ve found is that success, the kind of success we are feverishly after, is often times just a tweak away.

A tweak is a change. Success may be only one change away from the way in which you are doing things right now. Or, maybe success is 3 tweaks away. In either case, doing the same old thing over and over isn’t getting us where we want to be. But making little changes, little improvements, or radical changes and radical improvements truly takes us to a whole new level of possibility.

The other day, my wife told me she’d like our fireplace mantel painted white. I thought she was crazy and proceeded to tell her so. I didn’t know what it would look like. We hadn’t done it before. The current, working fireplace mantel was a a dark stained brown with rock underneath, bordered by a glossy black trim. I didn’t know if the paint I had would even stick to the rock. I didn’t know if it would look good painting everything. I just wanted to keep it all the same because at least that way I would know what to expect.

She took the kids out for a day of fun to give me some time to work on the ever growing list of house chores. I took a good look at that fireplace mantel and while channeling my inner Mr. Robinson (we’ve been reading Swiss Family Robinson in the evenings), I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. I had a can of leftover 2-in-1 paint and primer, semi-gloss white that I’ve used on some of our trim and baseboard molding. I got to work and threw caution to the wind.

Let me tell you what. It was bold. It was beautiful. And the look on Mrs. Robinson’s face when she walked in the door (not knowing I was going to cross that off the list) was worth every drop of of paint I got on the floor.

We have been marveling at our new, gorgeous fireplace mantel for days. I keep asking her, “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” It looks that good and it was that easy. Goodbye old, dark, brown, ugly fireplace mantel.

The reality is, change is scary. Change is hard. Humans naturally resist, run from, and despise change. But many times, change can be a wonderful thing. The little tweak we made to the fireplace, has massively changed the look and feel of our living room. It’s changed our ambitions. It’s caused us to wonder what else would be possible if we only tweak something just a little.

Success is like that. Blogging, writing a book, illustrating, starting a new business. In every pursuit, we are face to face with whether or not we’ll change. Whether we will take the road less traveled and try something new or keep doing the same thing over, and over, and over again.

Rather than waiting for someone to take us away to the psych ward, let’s be open to making some tweaks. Success may just be right around the corner.

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