Use the change to make a fresh start…

November 21, 2023

The graphic today, like so many this time of year, focuses upon change and challenges us to make changes in our lives to achieve a new beginning.

Making a fresh start does not have to mean abandoning everything in your life to start anew. It does, however, mean making some meaningful changes in your attitude as well as your daily routines. It is important that these be conscious decisions made out of the understanding that the old direction of your life was not taking you where you want to be.

Making a fresh start may mean having to increase your education level or learning new skills. It may mean not only changing your job but pursuing an entirely new career. It may mean leaving old relationships behind, especially if they were toxic and holding you back. It almost always means venturing into unknown territory. Because of that change will be a little bit scary, but it will also be exciting.

There is a tendency in many to understand that change is happening all around them and to decide to just “go with the flow” and allow those changes to dictate the direction of their life. They are like people floating down a river on an innertube, satisfied to let the river decide where they will end up. Others actively resist the flow of change, becoming luddites, resisting the changes of technology and modernization. Still others get swept up by the change, sort of like being caught in a tsunami wave, and are carried along to change. That often happens when entire industries or industry segments become obsolete and are replaced by new industries.

What is inevitable for all is that changes in our lives will happen. How we react to those changes, or the opportunities for change, is up to us. Deciding to use those changes to make a fresh start may be just one choice, but it would seem to be the best choice. That means seeing change not as a threat but as an opportunity. How do you see the changes that are taking place in your life?

Make a fresh start.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Keep renewing and improving…

August 28, 2023

From The Best of Jack’s Winning Words comes the post below that was originally penned by Jack on September 23, 2020. “Jack” was Pastor Jack Freed who  posted words of wisdom and encouragement five days a week for many years before passing away on Dece4mber 20, 2022. His son now reposts the best of Jack’s posts over the years.

“I’m not who I was yesterday.” (Alice in Wonderland) I’ve read that our body cells are continuing to die and be replaced, so that we are never who we were yesterday (a complete change in 7 years!). There’s a button you can wear: PBPGINFWMY.  It stands for: Please Be Patient God Is Not Finished With Me Yet. Every day is an opportunity to improve the self that we were yesterday. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to have a chance at improvement. 😉  Jack

While the physical aspects of our bodies renew themselves at the cellular level is interesting, it is the mental aspect of renewing and growing each day that Jack emphasized, and which gives us the continual opportunity to be a better person than we were yesterday.

Jack’s post mentioned that our bodies completely renew all of our cells every 7 years. The good news is that you don’t have to wait 7 years to renew and reinvent yourself mentally. You can do that by examining things that have become habits and discarding those that are injurious to your well-being and introducing new, good habits. Studies have shown that it takes an average of 2 weeks for a new behavior to become a habit.

The impact of stopping bad, old habits can be instantaneous, but some habits are harder to just quit than others – witness all of the stop smoking ads on TV. Here are a few things might help you make your desired changes in your life:

1, Break it down – There is a saying that “He bit off more than he could chew”. One of the most common mistakes is trying to do too much too fast. Making major changes in your life can be a big task, so break the change down into smaller, achievable steps. In the movie “What about Bob”, that was called taking “baby steps”. So take baby steps in the new direction that you want your life to go.

2. Be accountable – Of course you are accountable to yourself; however, many people find it helpful to have an “accountability partner”, someone that you meet with regularly and with whom you share your goals and to whom you report your progress. Ask that partner to hold you accountable for making progress towards those goals and to call BS when you try got make excuses.

3. Forgive yourself and move on – You will have failures and setbacks. Do not wallow in self-pity or give up just because you had a setback. In many cases, you may have to forgive yourself for having made a poor decision. Don’t beat yourself up. Forgive yourself and move on towards your goal. If nothing else, view your mistake as a learning experience.

4. Don’t do it alone – While you may have an accountability partner, they will not be expected to do it with you. Making small or even major changes in your life is a very personal thing. That does not mean that you must do it alone. Calling on God’s help is one of the most personal things you can do and one of the most rewarding. Get out of the loner mentality of “I’ve got this” and into mindset that “We’ve got this” with God and you will feel an immediate sense of empowerment. After all, the Bible says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)

5. Be patient and persistent – Our short attention spans often turn to frustration when things don’t happen as fast as we’d like. Change takes time and you must give it time. Patience and persistence build character and wisdom, both of which are good things.

6. Celebrate your victories – No matter how small the steps that you take may be, take the time to celebrater and reward yourself for the small victories that those steps represent. Repeat to yourself the line from Alice in Wonderland – “I’m not who I was yesterday”, and that’s a good thing.

Jack mentioned a button that he saw somewhere – PBPGINFWMY.  It stands for: Please Be Patient God Is Not Finished With Me Yet. Maybe you should wear a button that instead says INFWMY – I’m Not Finished With Me Yet.

Keep renewing, keep changing, keep improving.

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Posted by Norm Werner

What will you change today?

November 8, 2022

I recently collected a number of quotes on change and think that a few go well together for today’s post. Change is happening all the time and all around us. Just think of the changes that today will bring in our political environment. We spend much of our time reacting to change, but today’s quotes focus on being pro-active about change.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” — Barack Obama

“You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.” — Roy T. Bennett

“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.” — Abraham Maslow

“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.” — Georg C. Lichtenberg

We must start as President Obama states by deciding that we are not going to sit around and wait for change to come to us. We are the change agent. Change starts with us.

Next, we must acknowledge that we may be resisting change because we are unwilling to leave our comfort zone, to take the chances that change involves as Bennett advised. We become to comfortable with the safety of staying put and do not even try to move forward.  We let our safe routine become our prisons, trapping us as if we were a mime in his imaginary glass box. Yet if we do not advance and grow, as Maslow puts it, life will leave us behind.

Finally, we need to understand that change is not always going to result in things being better, just different and if we make enough things different, we will eventually get to the better place that we desire.

So, the question becomes, “What will you change today?” What things can we change in our day-to-day life that will challenge our comfort zone and allow us to grow?

Maybe we can decide to greet strangers differently; not trying to remain safe by avoiding interacting with them, but, rather, greeting them with a warm “Hello, how are you?” and a smile. How did that make you feel? How did that change you?

Perhaps you can try a new place to have lunch, perhaps someplace with an ethnic food menu. You will experience new tastes and see new people that you don’t normally meet. Was that an interesting experience? Did you like the new flavors that you experienced? Did you meet some new people? How did that change you?

The point is to acknowledge and become more aware that what you think of as your daily routine is, by definition, your comfort zone. Staying in that comfort zone means staying as you are and not growing as a person, not being all that you could be.

You may be thinking, “I’m happy where I am, why should I disturb things by making changes?”  Maybe two more quotes from my collection will help answer that question.

 “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” — Henri Bergson

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” — Harold Wilson

Quite simply we cannot stop change from occurring, nor should we try. Instead, resolve to the agent of change in your life rather than being a by-stander and always reacting to the changes that are inevitable.

But what should you change?

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” — Maya Angelou

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” — Wayne W. Dyer

Maybe what you need to change today is your attitude.

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Posted by Norm Werner

What will move you to take that chance?

November 2, 2022

As happens many times, a post to the Jack’s Winning Words blog this morning provides the inspiration for this post –

You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.”  (Zig Ziglar)

Pastor Freed often uses quotes from Ziglar in his blog. This quote seemed to go nicely together with the headline from an article that I saved –

Which is Stronger – Outside Pressure to Change? Or your Internal Drive to Transform? (Headline on an article I saw recently)

Outside pressure to make changes in our lives is a very strong motivator, whether that change is something like how we act, some bad habit that we have, or maybe even how we look. Most people have a desire (some might even say a “need”) to be accepted by their peers. If we become conscious of disapproval from those around us, we are forced to at least look at what it is that they don’t like about what they see.

The recognition of that disapproval from those around us can provoke our “fight or flight” reaction mechanism – sometimes both at the same time. I suspect that the whole Goth movement in youth is both a rebellion against main-stream peer pressure to conform to peer group standards for body image and appearance style and a flight into the acceptance of an alternative lifestyle group.

What Ziglar was pointing out is that we all must make choices about things in our lives that represent inflection points – points at which change will redirect the course of our lives. Most of these decision points have both external and internal forces at play. If there is no external reason to change, no peer pressure or societal law or standard to consider, it is totally up to our internal desire for change. Career changes come immediately to mind, although some “careers” such as being a drug dealer have strong societal disapproval as external factors.

One’s internal drive to transform is usually strongly influenced by what we call our “good conscious”, our ability to distinguish between right and wrong and our desire to be on the “right side”. Most of those decisions aren’t given a lot of thought because we just “know” what the right thing to do is and do it automatically.

Some things, like quitting smoking, have both components in the decision process. Society took a dim view of smoking some time back and there was certainly enough proof of it bad effects on us to give pause to any smoker for self-reflection and the need for change. We continue to see external factors at work today in on-gong ads that now are also influencing decision on things like Vaping and alcohol and drug use.

A good time for self-reflection and to consider taking the chance to change is every morning while you are getting ready for the day ahead. If you start your day with morning prayers, maybe add this to those prayers. Take a moment to consider that you have yet to commit (or submit) to your normal routine today, which may contain some bad habits or pre-dispositions that you’d really like to change. Resolve to change something about yourself today that will make you a better person. Ask God for His help if you are praying (I usually just ask God to help me make petter decisions during the day). Then set out to make a conscious effort to effect those changes.

You may not (in most cases will not) be completely successful in changing your life in one day, but you can be successful in nudging it off the path that you were on and heading it in a slightly different direction – celebrate even that slight change and increase your resolve (your internal drive) for tomorrow.

Take the chance to change today. You are on the way to a new you. You will find more acceptance in society, and you will feel better about yourself. It’s a win-win.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Can’t stop it…gotta love it…

October 24, 2022

I received this graphic today in a daily feed that I get for my real estate business. I have to admit that the word “love” is not the first thing that comes to mind for me when confronted with change. Fear, maybe. Anxiety, certainly. Excitement, maybe. But love – not really.

I’m not sure that I’ll ever see change as beautiful; however, I am trying to deal with the inevitability of change is a better way than fear or anxiety. Perhaps the excitement factor of change is the aspect that would allow us to love it. Heading into unknown waters with a sense of wonder and excitement allows us to put aside our fears and refocus on making the real-time decisions needed in the moment. The old saw – Live in the Moment- is essentially living through the changes, big and small, that are constantly occurring in our lives.

If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that life without changes can get boring pretty fast. We need changes to keep us challenged and motivated. We also need it to keep learning. Life is not a boring straight line. It is full of twists and turns, of things unexpected and things not turning out as planned. Many of those things can be humorous (witness the success of the America’s Funniest Home Videos TV show) and all of them provide learning opportunities.

walking man

Changes may take old friends out of our lives, but they also bring new friends into it. Changes may redirect our careers, sometimes ending one only to provide the start to another. We may see changes as good or bad but in reality, they are just things that are different. We can’t stop changes, so we might as well get used to them and get on with our new lives. We might not love change but we can’t stop living due to change. Maybe we should start each day with the thought, “Well this is different. What good can I do with this?” Seeing change as an exciting challenge each day may help you get over your fears or anxiety and help you focus on meeting those challenges and you’ve got to love that.

Change. Can’t stop it…gotta love it!

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Posted by Norm Werner

Take the chance to change today…

October 17, 2022

It’s Monday, so you have a new chance to, and a new week in which to, change your life. Every day and every week start with a blank map to where you will end up. Each change that you consciously make changes the trajectory of your life, no matter how small.

There was an attention-grabbing story in the new recently about the crashing of a small spacecraft into a huge asteroid in order to see how that might change the trajectory of the asteroid. The experiment was conducted to see if we might be able to prevent a collision of an asteroid with earth by altering its path. The experiment was deemed a success and pointed to a way to protect Earth from possible cataclysmic asteroid strikes like those thought to have killed off the dinosaurs.  

I bring that up because people often think that they must make big changes to their lives all at once in order to change their trajectories. That is not true, but it prevents many from even trying. The fact is that we can effect big changes by doing a series of little things, each of which provides a nudge away from what seemed to be our old destiny.

I think a key is found in believing the message in today’s graphic that each day brings a new opportunity to change your life is some way, no matter how small. Those changes will add up over time.

Perhaps the change that you make will be to smile and say hello to a stranger today. That doesn’t sound like much, but that smile, and greeting could make a big difference in that person’s day and you making the effort will make a difference in your day. That difference will nudge you in a new direction.

Just taking the time each morning to think about making some small change in your life will result in changes to what might have happened during the day. It also changes you from being into reactive mode to a more pro-active mode. That in itself will change your life.

So, take the chance to change today. Think about it and then make it happen. Welcome to the new you!

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Posted by Norm Werner

Who are you becoming? Keep your hopes alive.

July 24, 2022

I saw this quote recently and just loved it, because it is such a great positive message of hope –

“I have hope in who I am becoming.”  (Charlotte Erikson)

Shortly after saving that quote, I got this graphic in a daily email that I get –

What a great message it carries, too.

I don’t think that you necessarily have to come to a cathartic event, such as entering the chrysalis state like the caterpillar does when it turns into a butterfly, in order to change and become the butterfly that you hope to be. The point is to consciously decide to make the commitment to the changes in your life that will alter the trajectory of it. Commit to turning into the new you.

Women may find the illusion to changing into a butterfly easier to accept than men, but the point is not one of changing one’s outer beauty so much as the inner you changing to become a better and more beautiful person inside – a person that others want to be around and an example for others to follow.

Maybe you can start each day with a little prayer such as,” God give me the strength and perseverance to become the person that I know that I can be.”  Just putting yourself in that frame of mind each morning will make each day better and get you one step closer to who you are becoming.

So, have hope in who you are becoming and welcome the change; not into a butterfly, but into the new and improved you. It’s a beautiful thing.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Change you and change the world…

July 15, 2022

In today’s post to his blog, Jack’s Winning Words, Pastor Freed used this quote – “We’re told that ‘You can’t change the world.’, but the world is changing every day.  The only question is…Who’s changing it?  You or someone else?”  (J. Michael Straczynski)

That quote almost immediately brought to mind the quote, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” That quote is often mistakenly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi; but, according to Quote Investigator, what Gandhi actually said was:

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.”

Gandhi passed away in 1948, and Quote Investigator went on to report that the first sources of the abbreviated quote appeared many years later in 1974 within a self-help book chapter written by educator Arleen Lorrance. It was called the Love Project and stated:

“One way to start a preventative program is to be the change you want to see happen.”

Quote Investigator wne on to state that it took a couple of years more — until 1987 — when a Santa Fe, New Mexico Newspaper article about a self-help group organized by Mary Lou Cook was quoted as saying that the inspiration to form such a group came from a statement by Gandhi: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

The attribution of that quote to Gandhi has stuck ever since, even though he never said it in that way.

Even so, Gandhi’s thought that we control the change in the world by controlling our reactions to those change puts us back in control of the change that is going on in the world. Change happens every day all over the world and you see or experience only a tiny bit of it. The key to the impact that you will have on the changes that are occurring is your conscious effort to react to them. One can benignly accept the changes that are occurring or one can choose to do something about them – either in a positive and reinforcing way for changes that we agree with, or with a negative and resistive effort to fight against those changes with which we disagree.

So, how you “be the change that you want to see in the world” is that you react to those changes by making changes of your own to your own life. You become an activist, rather than standing passively by and watching the changes occur. Maybe you take up a sign and join a march for or against something. Maybe you volunteer to work for the election of someone. Maybe you donate to a cause to join a fund-raising effort for that cause. The point is that you react to those changes and by reacting you cause change in yourself and in the world.

So, it turns out that you are the change that you were hoping to see in the world. Start with you. Change your attitude to the things happening in the world around you and you will see the world differently because you changed. Additionally, the world will see you differently.

Change you and change the world.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Take a moment to reflect and appreciate, and then move on…

June 3, 2022

A quote that I kept from the Jack’s Winning Words blog seemed to resonate this morning – “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves.”  (Anatole France)

Anyone who has ever changed jobs, had a friend move away or lost a loved one understands the feeling of melancholy that France refers to. It is the loss of relationships, in lobs or other areas of life that are changing that usually causes those feelings. We don’t necessarily miss the actual job so much as the people with whom we have worked. There is a comfort in seeing the same people day after day and sharing the good and bad of the situation with them. One doesn’t commiserate or celebrate by themselves.

The feelings of melancholy can be especially strong if the thing coming to an end or changing is something that we are heavily invested in emotionally. The failure of a company (and thus the job) that we might have fought valiantly to make successful is an example. Another is the closing of a play or theater production in which we had a role. When one has been pouring their heart and soul into an activity for a while (no matter how short the time) and it ends, one cannot help but be melancholy.

But life is fully of these moments. One might even say that life is made up of a series of these moments. It is critical to one’s mental health that they be able to accept these events, find a place for them in their memories and move on. Being able to reflect on the time and emotional intensity that you committed to the events or people involved is important.  One needs to sort out the proper place in their memories for those events and people and then accept that those moments and relationships are in the past. You might maintain contact with your old co-workers, but the relationships will never be the same as it was and that’s OK; that’s life.

walking man

If there are lessons to be learned from the time that you spent, tuck those away for future use, too. For, while we leave behind a part of ourselves in those memories, they also helped us grow and become the person who now faces the future. There will be new friends to make, new job and life challenges to meet and new things to which to devote yourself. Perhaps you will stop and fondly remember someone from the past who taught you a life lesson that you are now applying in your new situation. That will not be a melancholy moment so much as a moment of joyful recollection and appreciation. Savor those moments and move on.

The only constant in life is change. The better we can accept change, deal with change, and use change to grow, the better our lives will be. Yes, the play is over, the old job is gone, an old relationship has ended; but you are still here. There will be new plays. There will be new jobs. There will always be new people to meet and new relationships to form. Take a moment to reflect and appreciate what was and then move on with the here and now.

Don’t get stuck in the melancholy of the past, there are too many exciting things and people ahead today.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Be the difference…

December 11, 2021

You can add to the message of the graphic that it not what you say but what you do that makes a difference. Knowing that something is wrong and even saying that something is wrong does little to change things. Taking action to bring about those changes is the only thing that counts.

Very often the things that may bother us as being wrong are much larger than just something that we can personally fix or right, and there is a tendency to let that put us off doing anything at all. Your actions may take the form of joining a protest march or writing a letter to authorities or maybe to your local paper. Change is often brough about through educational efforts to point out the wrong and making suggestions for fixing them.

The important things is not to let the size of the problem overwhelm your inclination to help. Food insecurity (we used to call it hunger) and homelessness are big, widespread problems, but they manifest themselves locally in smaller groups that you can impact by your own actions. Volunteering at your local food bank or at a local shelter helps with the problem in your neighborhood. If every neighborhood had groups and volunteers working on the problem, it would certainly be less than it is. At least you can be a part of the solution instead of just knowing or talking about the problem.

The next time you find yourself thinking about (or talking about) something that need attention or help, ask yourself, “So, what can I do about that?” Then don’t let yourself be put off by the size or pervasiveness of the problem. Keep thinking smaller and smaller until you think of something that you can do and do it. When you see a person in need, take action, not pity.

Be the difference…

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