Are you stuck in your ways or open to new ideas? If you’re feeling stuck in any area of your life, chances are you’re keeping yourself there.
To our detriment, many of us go through life trying to get new things, make progress, or achieve new levels of success by doing what we’ve always done. We get stuck in our old ways of thinking; not necessarily because we want to, but because the old is familiar. The new is unfamiliar and sometimes downright scary.
You’ve probably heard a person older than you say something like, “They just don’t make music like they used to anymore.” Such a statement carries the implication that they don’t appreciate newer music; probably because it’s unfamiliar to them. It’s easy to shut down the new when the old feels so much better.
But the truth is that if you want to grow, achieve, and move forward in life, you’re going to have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Doesn’t sound fair, does it? Well, you’ll have to decide what matters to you most. Do you want comfort or growth? They live in two different directions. If you’re pursuing one, you’re moving away from the other. If you’re a person who says you want to grow, learn to get comfortable with this truth: The more you grow, the more uncomfortable you’ll feel because you’ll encounter more of the unfamiliar.
And this is how innovation and its accompanying advances come about: being willing to explore the unfamiliar and trade comfort for discovery. If we are unwilling, however, to get out of our comfort zone, we will miss out on key opportunities. And these opportunities benefit not only you, but those around you. Let’s consider a few examples.
The electric guitar was invented in 1931. It enhanced the music industry with new sound for the listener and new outlets of expression for the musician. The electric guitar would lead the Rock ‘n Roll genre of music to new horizons. Imagine the discomfort of the inventors, chief among them being George Beauchamp. He had to be willing to fail and willing to keep changing his approach until he achieved success.
The Walkman, the first truly portable music listening device, was invented in 1979. It enabled the user to carry their favorite music with them everywhere, something certainly revolutionary then, but now commonplace to every smartphone user. Innovation leads to excitement because it exemplifies possibility. Imagine if people decided that it couldn’t be done, that we would be relegated to listening to live music or large phonographs in our living rooms. Possibility opens the doors to more invention, further advances, and vast shifts in the quality of our daily lives.
How about you? Is there something in your life that you wish would change? Perhaps you don’t know “how” to change it. That’s okay. You don’t need to know how to proceed to innovate. You simply need to believe that it’s possible.
But here’s the key. It’s only possible if you’re willing to get out of your comfort zone.
Do you want different relationships in your life? You’re going to have to get uncomfortable.
Do you want new opportunities to advance in your musical career? You’re going to have to start looking beyond what you can see, into what you can imagine. Do you want to change the generational patterns in your family? (That’s a heavy one, we know.) All you must do is believe it’s possible.
Keep these truths in mind as you begin to imagine what the life you desire might look like:
- You must be willing to fail. You’re not going to get it right the first time, or even the 7th. But you’ll never get it right if you don’t make the attempt. As Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”
- You must be willing to be imperfect. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not learning. And if you’re not learning, you’re certainly not growing or advancing toward something new and different.
- You must be willing to be uncomfortable. You can expect fear, worry, anxiety, and doubt to be present when you’re doing something new. But you can also expect yourself to choose what to do when it shows up. You can listen to it, or it can listen to you.
Don’t be the one who keeps yourself stuck in life. You’re capable of achieving everything you desire: meaningful relationships, thriving career opportunities, and even peace of mind to name a few. But if you want something different, you’re going to have to do something different. Take a note from the innovators of the microphone, the speaker, the mp3 player, and even Auto-Tune: you don’t have to do things the way you’ve always done them, and if you do, you can expect to get what you’ve always gotten.
This is mental health (and music).
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Thriving Thoughts Global is a 501(c)3 that is redefining mental health and inspiring you to improve your own simply by changing the way you think.
We bring the best practices of cognitive-behavioral and reality theories to YOU, the people, because you deserve to be equipped with these tools long before you experience a crisis in which you’ll need them. And, trust us, you WILL need them because no one is immune from life’s inevitable, unexpected events.
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