The New You And The Old You Might Not Be As Far Apart As You Think!

Here’s another personal development article in the series digging deeper into the ideas raised in my quote images, and for this one we’re looking forwards…

I took this photo on a balmy September evening 2015, at a place called Reculver on the Kent coast in the South East of Britain. The contrast between the older towers and the *even older* towers was stark, and the lesson leapt out at me.

So, let’s take that look forward I mentioned at the beginning, because it’s something that we all do, and it’s easy to think how lovely everything will be when the ‘new you’ is here.

The new you that is happy, the new you that has what you want, no money worries, no career worries, no relationship worries, basically no worries at all. Ok, come on, let’s be honest, the new you where *everything* is pretty much perfect! Much better than the old you, eh?

Sounds great doesn’t it! It would be great too, if it weren’t such a fantasy, and that’s the key point I want to make.

We think of it as a fantasy future, so much so that when we get those thoughts of this utopian new you, it seems such a fantasy to us that we smile at the ridiculousness of it, as we almost grudgingly accept that the real world is where the real, old you, lives. The old you that does have the worries about finance, health, career, relationships, and so on.

Does that ring a bell? If it does, you’re not alone, not by a long shot!

It’s what the majority of people do, and because the majority of people do it, we take it for granted – to the extent that we fail to see how ludicrous we’re actually being to ourselves, and we fail to even consider the most basic of questions, which is this…

Why?

Why is it such a fantasy? Why is it so hard to believe that we can be free of these worries, that we push the idea of that person ever further into the future?

The answer to the question is fairly simple – because it’s easier to push the fantasy into the future than try and create it now.

If we have this ideal version of you, (or more often than not even just a *better* version of you, so far into the future), we can then put all sorts of conditions in our own paths.

‘Oh yes, but this needs to happen first, oh yes, it’ll be ok when so and so does this…’

There are 2 massive problems with this common mechanism –

1. We think it makes life easier, but it’s a false economy, because although it lets us avoid the effort doing what it might take to become the new you, by not doing it we are sentencing ourselves to remain exactly where we are, with all the worries of the old you!

How is that easier?

It’s not, that’s how. It’s not easier – in fact it makes life harder, unnecessarily so too.

2. The second problem with this mechanism, is that it’s simply not true that the new you will only appear at some point in the distant future when all the conditions have been met. Most of the conditions are ones we have set ourselves!

That means we can do something about these self set conditions, and get rid of them. If we do the work on our self esteem, on our belief and attitude systems, it can be a revelation to find that the new you can be surprisingly close at hand…

Simple concepts about acceptance, appreciation, allowing happiness, etc are all things we can start working on at any time.

We can get rid of a lot of worries about relationships, career, money, health, etc, by putting in place a new set of action and thought habits. If we practice these new habits consistently until they become, well, habits, then instead of fantasising about the new you, you’ll begin to notice that you *are* the new you!

Is this easy? Well let‘s be honest, it can be hard to overcome thought processes which may have been ingrained for years, yes, but once you accept the logic of the idea, and decide to do something about it, that automatically takes you leaps forwards from the old you, which by definition means you have lessened what you thought was a massive gap between that old you, and the new you. Exciting, eh!

As ever, I love the feedback, let me know what you think!

Remember – make the decision, take the action, and you can transform your life.

‘Til Next Time,
Health & Happiness,
Gordon
P.S. You can see all my quote images as I post them up on my Facebook Page
P.P.S. Why not grab a copy of my free 8 step goal achievement formula! The free video series will definitely help get you to the ‘new’ you!