Change? Burn your bridges and destroy all the things that were you Humpty.

This time extreme measures for change, lasting change.  

I have pondered over the years how some people go on and realise their goals and many do not. Some of the musicians tour the world, others set up in business as a player and teacher and become successful at that. I had seen it in the areas of health, people who make the transition from illnesses to health and others who do not. As seen the people who cannot change like the smokers who have cancer who cannot give up smoking even when it means the difference between life and death.

So what is it that makes change possible? Some people seem wired up so that they can change, you will know some people like that, they seem to embrace change but I think they are in the minority for most of us it takes something else. For many having nothing to go back to is something that causes movement towards difference and away from something old and familiar, remember the familiar can be abuse and unhappiness, look at the people who leave one abusive relationship only to find themselves in another. Sometimes amping up the pain helps to make the move away from it easier and then you need to burn the bridges that would take you back. So pack up the job with nowhere to go, buy a one-way ticket to somewhere else. The Exodus story is a good metaphor, the people of Israel escaping Egypt not being able to return over the sea as after getting through the parted waves the sea returns therefore destroying their way back.

Now for destroying the image of you.

Bowie gave up Ziggy Stardust when he was at the top of his game and created himself anew, so working on yourself; now you cannot go back to the person before, letting go of what you were. Destroying the photos, anything symbolic, get some new clothes, change what you are wearing, and throw away the old. Now aim in the direction that you expect to arrive at, allowing things to come in and help, chance happenings, chance meetings and strange coincidences. On my podcast I interview musicians and artists and the times that they say that their lives changed in this way is the norm not something that was planned but something that was acted on. So the unexpected invitation to join a band which was responded to straightaway ,the chance hearing of them playing in a little pub in an out of the way place, the overheard conversation that gave you an idea etc. If you think this is a little bit woo- woo, then it is, I would say that it does not interest me whether we validate that but does it work? The evidence points to it, the data says that it does and secondly dismissing this may reflect the trap of one’s own thinking, because it is that type of thinking that stops change because it is risk averse. For real change, lasting change we need the ‘triple whammy effect’ that breaks you in such a way that you cannot reconstitute the old you anymore. A little bit like Humpty Dumpty

Vic Hyland

www.bluescampuk.co.uk