Change isn’t scary. It’s terrifying. Radical change even more so. We are hardwired for consistency. We take the same route from home to work and back again, telling ourselves it’s because it’s the shortest path. Not true. We are not agents of change even if we pretend to be sometimes. We are agents of consistency. Agents of repetition. But should we? What if that which feels most comfortable and natural to us is bad for us? What if the change, a radical change, is the best thing we can do?
It’s been said the opposite of remarkable is very good. Why? Because very good keeps us docile. It keeps us stationary.
Very good enables us to continue resisting radical change. Being very good at what you do will get you paid well. It will get you a very good job for a very long time.
Even God in the Bible says He prefers people to be hot or cold, not lukewarm. Hot in this case would be our remarkable. Lukewarm, you see, is the very good.
At very good, but not remarkable, we just keep the cogs turning. We show up the way we showed up the previous day, the previous month, and the previous year repeatedly for as long as we can until something else interrupts us. There are many very good people out there. You’re probably one of them. I’m one of them. Yet, being very good is not good enough.
A while back, I had the idea to start a business consultancy. Here’s the kicker though. It failed. It failed miserably. I began the business in January and closed the business in December of the same year. I was far, far away from very good.
Interestingly enough, being awful showed me a lot. Being awful forced me to make radical changes. If I was very good, I would likely still be doing it. But I shouldn’t still be doing it because what I realized is that I didn’t enjoy it.
I thought I would love it. I thought it would all fall into place. I thought I’d have a bazillion ways to make it work. And nearly out of left field, halfway through the year, I realized I didn’t want to keep it up. I learned that I didn’t enjoy managing multiple social media accounts to target my content for that specific business mindset niche. I found out I didn’t have as much to say on the topic as I previously thought. And ultimately, I discovered that the experience, though valuable and exhilarating, was not my passion.
Because I wasn’t being enamored by the very good rewards of being very good, I was able to see clearly. I saw this experience as one I could cross of the list as being my thing to do.
Maybe you’re in the same boat. Maybe you’re very good at what you do. Or, maybe you’re able to clearly see that what you’re spending your time doing is not your passion. It’s hard to change. It’s hard to try something new. It’s hard to be radical.
Yet, is it harder than staying put? Is it harder than doing nothing? Is making a radical change harder than living a life of regret?
Let me know in the comments. What radical change have you made? What change do you want to make? Need to make? Have to make? Or is everything just going swimmingly all is very good?
Let’s turn this into a passion thread. In the comments below, tell us what you’re passionate about. We’ll support you and encourage you. Maybe even motivate you to take the radical steps necessary for change.
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