It's the DO that counts.

I'm don't see myself as a wise or particularly strong person. I'm often lazy, judgmental, and arrogant. When I look in the mirror it is my faults that stare back at me. It isn't having faults that bothers me, it's the fact that these seem to be the same faults I've dealt with all my life. No matter how hard I fight or work to improve myself, I always seem to fall back to my old habits.

So I suppose, if I were to name one fault in my character that I would alter it would be my inability to change. Which is a paradox of sorts. The fault I want to change is my inability to change. I wouldn't say that I have a fear of change. I actually consider myself a pretty adaptable person. I can pretty much find happiness in any situation. It's the change within that is difficult to grasp. Growing up I was told that anyone can change, they simply have to try hard enough and want it bad enough. I do, honestly believe that. So what is my problem?

Perhaps it is my approach to change. A wise woman once told me a story about a football player, a kicker, who wanted to improve his playing. Specifically, his coach wanted him to learn to kick the ball properly. The conclusion was made that the reason the kicker wasn't kicking straight was because he was kicking the ball off the side of this foot, instead of straight on. No matter how hard the kicker worked to improve, he still kicked the ball off the side of his foot. Finally the coached asked him "What is going through your head when you go to kick the ball?" The player replied that he was telling himself "Don't kick the ball off the side of your foot! Don't kick the ball of the side of your foot!" "That," the coach replied "is your problem. Instead, try looking at it from a different angle. Don't concentrate on NOT kicking the ball to the side. Focus your attention on kicking the ball straight. Focus on the DO not the DO NOT." The light bulb lit. The player, now thinking "I will kick the ball of the front of my foot!" (focusing on the positive instead of the negative) could kick the ball straight every time.

But is it enough tell yourself you are going to DO something different? Isn't letting go of something that is holding you back a necessary part of change? Anatole France, the french poet and Pulitzer Prize winning author said that "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."

So, if what France says is true, we must find what is holding us back, leave it behind and move forward, while, of course, constantly remembering to "focus on the DOs and not the DO NOTs." As always, I suppose it comes down to balance.

Finally, I believe it is not enough to simply want to change. The need to change is the only motivation strong enough to move one forward. There come moments in every one's life when they simply can not continue living the way they live. View these moments as blessings. They are opportunities to change and grow and be better. After all, perhaps these moments of forced change aren't coincidence, but fate. Perhaps you are not the only one who wants you to change.