What results do you expect?

What can you change to make things better? What will happen if you do or don’t make this change?

Gentle reader: What do you think needs to change? What one change would make the biggest improvement to your life, or to the lives of those you love, or to the general good of the world?

Is there anything that you can do to help make this change a reality? Is there anything getting in the way of you being able to do what you can to make this change happen?

What will happen if you do or don’t make this change?

If you make this change, what results do you expect?

If you keep things as they are and do nothing differently, what results do you expect?

Intention, effort and persistence

For some, the arrival of a new year is the time to change. We have the ability to make positive change when the new year arrives. Or at any point in any year. Making meaningful positive change will usually require intention, effort and persistence. Without the latter two factors, good intentions can quickly run out of steam.

For those of us who made new year’s resolutions, the resolve that inspired the change may be starting to waver. Or those resolutions might be a memory now forgotten.

The arrival of a new calendar year is as good a time as any to resolve to make a change with positive intent. The new year part is arbitrary, really. If a change is needed, it is usually best and wisest to do all you can to make and implement that change as soon as possible, and to stick with it, to see it through. Otherwise, what results do you expect?

But human history teaches us and will always teach us, over and over, that doing what is best and wisest does not always come naturally. I am no better at this than anyone else. Looking back upon my life, the times when I should have made changes so much sooner stand out as clear as day. Over the years, so many things stopped me from or slowed me in making changes that needed to be made. Fear stopped me. Anxiety stopped me. Stupidity stopped me. Reluctance to do what needed to be done stopped me.

I can only change when I am ready to.

Everyone can only change when they are ready to.

Give yourself time

Making change in our own lives can be hard enough. Helping others to make change can be harder still.

It is heartbreaking when someone you know and love is struggling or suffering. Sometimes, it can be as clear as day to you that they could make a specific change that would make things so much better, that would help them through. But they will not always do what needs to be done. More likely, they will only make that change when they are ready, when the time is right.

When that person you know and love is ready to make that change, do all that you can to be supportive of them. If they waver while trying to make that change, be gentle with them, be kind and supportive. Give them time.

If you are ready to make a change, do all that you can to make that change happen. If you should waver in that change, be gentle with yourself, be kind and supportive. Give yourself time.

In time, you can and will be able to make that positive change.

That time might even be now. Today. Or it might be tomorrow, or soon.

May you be nothing but kind today, to others and to yourself.

May today be nothing but kind to you and yours.

IMAGES

• Flame (2672429705) via Wikimedia Commons.
• Exotic Butterflies – Shubina Arina via Wikimedia Commons.
• Butterfly by deepan sa via Wikimedia Commons.