Bring On The Hurt

The simplest questions are always the hardest, dammit. Like these two, put to me on Monday by Jo:

What is it that prompts us to start making changes in our lives? How do we get from merely existing to actually living?  

I've worked as a mentor to managers, professionals and business owners for 11 years now. All have talked about change; only some have acted. A common thread connects those who have acted: pain. They acted because the status quo became intolerable; it simply hurt too much. Clients for whom the status quo was, at worst, bearably uncomfortable settled for talk.

The pain of the changers was sometimes triggered by an external event: the death of a loved one, a marriage break-up, a redundancy, a life-threatening illness. Usually the causes were more complex. In my own case, a sense of inner deadness and self-betrayal grew steadily over many years, to the point where the risks of change seemed minor compared to the risks of no-change.

Po Bronson's research, described in What Should I Do With My Life?, led him to the same conclusion that, by and large, people don't make changes unless something personal happens. He met many professionals who had enough money to change course:

"They wanted to. Ten times a day they'd fantasize about doing it. But they couldn't. Couldn't seem to cut off that pipeline of cash... No matter how much they earned, it was never quite enough to free them. Having enough money to change rarely triggered the change by itself. It had to get personal. Something else had to pull the trigger."