REPLACING THE MOTHERBOARD: Celebration!
Celebrate good times come on...! (Kool & The Gang)
Enjoying the Vacation!
Last week we were on the plane to Hawaii. All the plans were set and we were getting ready to leave the tarmac. This past week we landed on the island and the vacation started! How exciting!
The ability to make a long anticipated change should bring joy and excitement! It should feel stimulating and activating. Why? Because you completed all the steps and have taken action to realize this long desired change.
It is time to celebrate! It is time to enjoy the process!
This means your focus is now on the positive aspects of the change that has begun. You are enjoying the vacation!
By following the steps necessary for meaningful change to occur, many things are happening.
You have taken control of the thing that feels like it was controlling you.
You have changed and shifted your perspective from defeat to clearly achievable.
You have denied and banished the idea/concept of fate.
You have shifted from the negative to the positive.
You have found that you possess an inner resource that you may or may not have known that you had.
You have opened your mind and your 90 percent to the next possibility.
You have set up the potential for being able to make any future change that you desire.
You have demonstrated to your 90 percent that you have power over the Factory Default Setting, and you are about to create an entirely new Default Setting.
We have been using the metaphor of learning the scales before playing a symphony. Congratulations! You have learned the scales! You have schooled the 90 percent!
In follow up to my vested participation in this process, there are indeed five check marks in five boxes on the sheet of paper placed on the cabinet over the sink. I picked up my weights and worked out with them five days out of seven. I met my goal. Looking at those check marks is its own reward. I am delighted, and my body already feels better and wants more. I feel really good about myself. I truly cannot remember the last time that I worked out five days in a week.
In fact, there are two checks in each box, because I added another healthy thing. I struggle with remembering to take my afternoon vitamins and supplements. I decided while I am working on my physical and mental health, this should be added in. This is what happens when the desire for change moves to taking action for change. It becomes self perpetuating. This is the power of this process.
The Owner’s Manual
Changing the Factory Default Setting is not hard. It is not intimidating. It is not impossible. It is so utterly possible. It is so utterly simple. Human beings excel at overthinking and overcomplicating process. It even seems that we take delight in it. There is no way to convey, in words, the impact of how embracing this process can, and if done so - will, completely change your life.
There are Five Stages of Change. These have been well researched, documented and published. (Prochaska, DiClemente, 1984, ISBN 9780870944383)
The Stages of Change are as follows: Pre-Contemplation, Contemplation, Planning, Action, Maintenance. Depending on the resource that you may use, you may find slightly different word choices for each stage.
For the purposes of this Practical Manual - the Stages will be renamed. Our Stages of Change will be called: Pre-Intention, Intention, Planning Implementation, Implementation, Celebration.
Pre-Intention - Desire. Covered in Lesson One.
Intention - the first Act of Doing - true change begins here. This is a CRITCAL STEP. This is not a “skippable” step. Making a firm Choice. Covered in Lesson Two.
Planning Implementation - Putting the Plan in Place to make the Change - this is how I am going to do it! Covered in Lesson Three.
Implementation - Taking the 90 percent to School! Today Change Happens! Coveredin Lesson Four.
Celebration - Celebrating the successful change! Size DOES NOT matter - we celebrate pee pee steps!
Composing the Symphony
Practicing the scales is essential, actually critical, to being able to move on to making music that is both enjoyable in the composition as well as the consumption.
The next step is to choose other small things that you would like to change, and repeat the process, learning it by heart. Then, when you are ready, you can start the process for the bigger, more challenging things that you would like to change in your life. Those things that have deeper impact on your psyche.
You can begin to compose the symphony of your own life, as you and you alone would like it to be played.
You are no longer beholden to the Factory Default Setting. You can live your life with a completely Rewired Motherboard.
If you don't want your life to be the same moving forward - if you want your life, or some aspect of it, to be different, or go differently - there is only a single variable in the equation —It is not your boss, your work, your kid, your partner, your spouse, your annoying co-worker, your wishy washy friend - It Is YOU!