Choose To Change

As a therapist I specialize in helping people to change. It’s my job, one I’ve been doing for a good few years now. So I like to think I know a thing or two about how to bring it about.

One of the things I know is that, despite all the successes, I have never managed to change another person. Not one. I may have helped many people to change, but the only person I have ever really changed is myself.

The way I put it is: ‘If your feet hurt, it makes no difference if I change my shoes. You’re the one who has to do the changing. Are you ready to do that now?’

The choices we make, and the changes we choose to make, create the story of our life.

Another thing I know about change is that the world into which we were born has changed, and that it will continue to change. With it we, too, will change.

And it’s in the ‘will’ that we have a choice.

We can find ourselves being dragged into change against our will, the victim of external forces, things apparently beyond our control that we blame for our lot in life.

Or we can choose to change in positive, constructive ways, ways that move us forward, helping us and perhaps others, in the process.

It really is down to us. Choose to do the work. Choose to take the responsibility to change. No therapist and no therapy can do that for us.

When we ourselves choose, we become far more committed to the outcome — by a factor of about five!

Sure, good therapy can help enormously. It can make a tremendous difference. But ultimately it is you who must change.

Choose to change, accept the responsibility for that change, and just watch yourself go!