Does change have to be hard work?

Picture 1. The in credible life of the butterfly (image source: Wix media)

In my opinion – yes!

Allow me to clarify my position here. I am talking about changing something fundamental in your life. It could be a habit or behaviour, it might be your health and physical body, or it could be your career and financial prosperity. Essentially it matters not what you desire to change, it all takes effort in one form or another.

Let’s take the example of changing your physical body in the first instance because it speaks from my comfort zone (I used to be a personal trainer) and helps to demonstrate the necessary processes. Your body is a physical manifestation of your daily exercise, activity, nutrition, and general lifestyle. It looks the way it does because of the things you physically do (or don’t do) day after day, week after week, month after month and so forth. All the cells in your body are dying and being replaced by new ones, and generally most cells have been replaced at least once within a 90 day period.

So let’s assume you would like to build bigger muscles. In order to do this you have to give the muscle a stimulus to grow. This comes from lifting heavy weights. Asking the muscle to work hard. Challening it, overloading it, breaking it down, and ultimately asking it to build itself up. The lifting of the weights by its very nature takes energy, a lot of it, and it can feel like hard work. This hard work has to be repeated again and again consistently over time and eventually (with proper rest and nutrition) your muscle will grow and get stronger. Some people enjoy the “hard work” of exercise because they like going to the gym, they work out with friends, or sometimes they just like looking in the mirror. Whilst other people don’t like the initial discomfort, pain, and effort required and give up very quickly to return to their usual lifestyle.

Your body, and ultimately your life, is a representation of the thoughts, words, and actions which you repeat (consciously or unconsciously) over and over day after day. It takes effort, either physical or mental, to change these patterns one time, let alone again and again until they become the behaviours you live your life by.

I was once privileged to train a very famous Formula One driver, and then to design training programmes for young aspiring drivers. I used to teach those young drivers that their idol didn’t become World Champion one day a year when he was presented with the trophy but rather he had to be a World Champion in every moment of his life, every time he got in the race car, in the simulator, trained in the gym, chose what to have for breakfast etc. It was the detail in his thoughts about being World Champion, talking about being World Champion, and doing the things that he had to do to be World Champion which ultimately enabled him to achieve being World Champion.

Picture 2. Lewis Hamilton is incredibly focused on what he wants to achieve in life

(image source: Clayton Green personal picture)

So yes. Change is hard work every time. It doesn’t have to be unpleasant work – that depends on how you perceive the process. But it does require effort to change what you have always done and get something you have never had. Most people never change, not because they cannot, but rather because they choose the path of least resistance, the one that they know and are already living.

I hope I have got you thinking about change, and as an aspiring life coach, if you would like to explore this and other concepts further then drop me an email on here.

Good luck out there!