You know it is hard to often break away from patterns, but it is even harder to break away from the patterns your family know you to have. It is almost as if these patterns give you an identity, a uniqueness, and a personality. When you’re in a culture that expects you to do things and behave in a certain manner than to be unique is seen as a threat. The minute you start changing or choose to change you will see eyebrows lift. The minute you do something out of the norm (out of the box) you will notice a change in others towards you. This usually applies to most people around the globe. This my friend (what I highlight in black) is the real reason why people are scared to change or scared to go after what they truly in their heart feel they want.
Change is something a lot of people fear and often one doesn’t need to explain why they’re choosing to change something i.e. be it a pattern they’ve formed in their relationships, perhaps the way they communicate to their partner, change certain habits to lose weight, and the reasons are infinite… Why do people want to change or change something in their lives? So that they can have a better quality of life.
It isn’t you who usually makes change complicated it’s usually others. Anything you want to do in your life someone will have something to say and if you have controlling people around you then someone will have something to do with it. Most people want to protect you. Protection is a double-edged sword that can hurt you either way. When it comes to protection my formula is to tell the person why you’re concerned and what you fear could be the outcome for them. Then I leave it up to them without judgement. Whatever happens after don’t say, “I told you so,” and support them through it. I mean it’s always better if they did what their gut feeling told them.
What people really need is someone to support them no matter what decision they’ve made? Whether they’ve failed, embarrassed their family members by mistake, got short-term consequences or long-term consequences, or made the best decision of their life, they simply need an ear, a shoulder and support, be it through happy or sad times. After all, no one on earth is perfect. Understand trying to convince someone who is really headstrong about something can leave them having a feeling of resentment towards you later in their life for a once in a lifetime chance they’ve had and never got to do it.
Why people fear change:
- Because they’re comfortable how they are and the minute someone is changing it’s alarming. It’s almost like they have accepted they are feeling a certain way and that it’s okay not to change and to continue living like that. Seeing someone do something about it and succeeding at it can create jealousy, resentment or fear.
- They’re afraid they’re about to lose something. This could be the control or losing the person. It’s almost as if you’re changing because there’s a real big problem… Damn right there is! This is your life we’re talking about.
Understand that if someone loves you and wants the best for you, they will give you room to search for and change what makes you feel unhappy and we all know that sometimes we need other people’s habits to change because it’s overlapped our lives. This is usually in the case of relationships. You both must want the same thing and that is each other and your family as a whole unit.
The ground around you and under you will shake and complaining isn’t going to solve the problem being adaptable and able to change in the positive direction keeps things light-hearted in life. It is the complaining, the resistance to change in difficult times, and simply making it difficult that will keep situations negative.
If you’re looking to change something in your life, then learn about it and make yourself aware of the journey one could face along the way to help you take the right steps in achieving what you want in a healthy fashion.
T. Dench Patel
Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support by either purchasing one of my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.
The audiobook for The South African: True Colours is available on iTunes, Apple and Audible. The South African: Roamer and Light will be released soon.
Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to reevaluate them.
