Change is NOT a Dirty Word – How To Start Something New

Often times when we feel stuck in our business we know something has to change but making that change can be really challenging. Sometimes it is difficult just to know where to start. Sometimes we feel the change is taking way to long and we give up, and sometimes it never feels right. I live for change and those of you who know me know how much I am constantly stretching and changing in my life and in my business to find the right fit.

Here are two pieces of my ‘change puzzle’ I want to share with you to help you get started on change.

Get More Information

When I am stuck and know I need to do something different I start by talking to others that have had the same challenge and start gathering more information. I don’t necessarily ask people, “Hey, what should I do next?” Instead the questions are around what they did when…

When I wanted to start my first business I talked to several people I knew that had a business, including someone that became my mentor and best referral partner for 6 years. He had already built several very successful businesses and his insight and feedback was so valuable.

When I wanted to start coaching I talked to everyone that was a coach. How did they get into it, how do they market what they do, what do they charge, what credentials did they need and what would I need.

When I wanted to do more speaking I spent more time professional speakers. I found the speaking model that I liked best then paid to mentor under one of the best, most successful speakers using that sales model.

I always look for the best, engage my most successful contacts, and pay for the best person I can afford to learn from. If you want to make change that will work for you it has to be something that you know will work because someone else has done it before. It will be easier to get started when you know it is possible.

Visualize The Change

If you can picture what you are trying to implement you can more easily create it. This is where the law of attraction comes from, but the reality is that if you know what you want it is easier to recognize the parts of it as they come into your focus.

My first home was just a house. It was a clean, good home, but it was not anything I had wished for as a property I would buy. It was what we could afford and it was a good investment.

While in that home I had drawn the layout of my ideal home. I know it had to be a bungalow. I knew it had to have tile from the front door to the kitchen, three beds, 2.5 baths, a 2 car garage and a covered front porch where my husband and I could share a tea on a rainy day in the summer. As a bonus I added a skylight, and a private yard.

We had our home up for sale and while trying to sell it we looked for the ideal home. I could have had it built but that would have put it outside our budget. We did not find our home and we did not sell so I accepted that it was not time to change.

Three years later when I was browsing the real estate paper I saw an image that showed a home in silhouette. Somehow I just knew it was the one. I dug out the number from our realtor three years earlier and asked her to take me through. Guess what, it had everything on my drawing. Now every summer morning we start our day on the front porch before work.

This is not magic, this is an acute awareness to be alert and vigilant to what I want to see happen. This is the same for your business. If you need to make a change, draw it out, make a list, put in as many details as possible so that you can visualize exactly what you expect the change to look like when it is complete. My friend MarBeth Dunn says, “See it and feel it. Make it a sensual image.”

It is OK to be afraid, as long as the fear does not stop you from accepting that things will change, whether you want them to or not. Don’t just accept what might happen to you, create your own change. The only person that does not have to worry about change is no longer alive. To be alive is to be in constant change, therefore…

Change = Life

If you love life you also have to accept change as one of the conditions. Make it yours and make it count.