Great Things Cannot Happen Without Change

If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.

It's critical that we realize our lives can change at any moment. Realistically, there will come a time when our everyday life will suddenly be altered; the only question is when. It could happen when you least expect it. You might get a dreaded phone call, come up with a brilliant idea, loose your job, meet a new friend, discover a new career direction, or fall in love. You just never know, and this is one of the reasons why life is so exciting and mysterious.

I know it's not easy to shift out of what we do and how we do it, nor is it easy to shift our views in order to see new things in place of the old. It is often frightening and confusing to make a shift away from the familiar in order to embrace the unknown. Yet it is necessary energy we must apply in order to grow. No matter how challenging, difficult, or hard it may seem, shifts are necessary to free ourselves from the confinement of our unnecessary self-made mental, emotional, or physical limitations. All shifts create a vibration which in turn affects everything around it. If you shift a piece of chalk in a box, all the other pieces of chalks will move. Sometimes moving a single piece of chalk will cause a slight shift. Under other circumstances, moving a single piece may mean the others fall, crack, and crumble. This is why sometimes in fear of the effects our changes will create, we delay making a much-needed shift in our minds and behaviors. As a result, our lives and everything around us remain stuck. Being stuck can lead our spirits to develop negative emotions -- such as frustration, depression, confusion, doubt or even anger -- that we don't truly understand.

Nevertheless when the time comes to move (and you'll know when that time is, just as long as you choose to acknowledge it), all I can say is, you must move! However, there are important factors that you must also take into account when making changes in your life -- that is, to consider all the different kinds of income you need to produce. Aside from monetary income there are also psychological, spiritual, and physical income. You have to consider the balance in all your accounts because a high figure in one and nothing in the others adds up to a very low average. Realize when you choose a certain kind of behavior, you also choose the consequences of the balance in each account. So let's say you choose to invest 90 percent of your energy in your job and 10 percent in your personal relationship -- it doesn't matter whether you can justify the demands at work -- essentially what matters is that you've chosen to allow your personal relationship to loose a vital connection.

Be truthful about what isn't working in your life. Honestly assess where you stand with your beliefs in self-management -- mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. You cannot afford to be fearful, defensive or to be in denial; this can truly harm you. It diminishes what might have been a real chance to overcome a problem had the solution just been pursued in time. So you have to have the strength and courage to ask yourself the hard questions, and give yourself realistic answers. Remember -- you can't change what you don't acknowledge. If you refuse to acknowledge the changes that occur or need to occur in your life, your own self-destructive behaviors will not only continue, they will actually gain momentum, become more deeply entrenched in the habitual patterns of your life, and grow more and more resistance to change. And let me remind you, nothing glorious can come out of this!

Copyright © 2005 Penny Phang Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

Penny Phang is one of Canada's nominated Top 40 Under 40 business leaders, recognized for her commitment to provide strategic business communication and marketing services with inspiring enthusiasm, creativity, and elegance. She is also well known as the Producer for Playboy Special Editions for Western Canada. In addition, she remains involved in full-service business communications with her founded Simplex Communications Group, and continues to write for her monthly inspirational lifestyle column, Moments of Inspiration with Penny on http://www.pennyphang.com/

For more information please visit: http://www.phangenterprises.com/

In The News:

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A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, November 20, 2008. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)AP - With no end in sight to economic bad news, President George W. Bush on Friday ensured that millions of laid-off workers will keep getting their unemployment checks as the year-end holidays approach.



A protester uses his shoe to strike an effigy of U.S. President George. W. Bush, in an expression of contempt, as thousands of followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr converged on Firdous Square in central Baghdad, Iraq for a mass prayer to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact on Friday, Nov. 21, 2008.(AP Photo/Karim Kadim)AP - Thousands of followers of a radical Shiite cleric protested a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security deal Friday, burning an effigy of President George W. Bush in the same square where Iraqis beat a toppled Saddam Hussein statue five years ago.



Attorney General Michael Mukasey leaves George Washington University Hospital in Washington, Friday, Nov. 21, 2008. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)AP - Attorney General Michael Mukasey was given a "clean bill of health" and went back to work Friday after his harrowing collapse at a late-night dinner speech.



Local women sit on the banks of the Suez canal as a Suez Canal Authority pilot boat passes by in Ismailia, Egypt, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008. Major shipping companies said that they are considering other options including avoiding the passage through the Suez Canal to avoid having to go through the Gulf of Aden due to increasing piracy risks - meaning longer, costlier trips around the southern tip of Africa. (AP Photo)AP - A radical Islamic group in Somalia said Friday it will fight the pirates holding a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil.



Nebraska lawmakers Brad Ashford, front, of Omaha, and Arnie Stuthman, of Platte Center, Neb., vote in favor of LB 1 Friday, Nov. 21, 2008 at the state capitol in Lincoln, Neb., The bill puts a 30-day age limit on children who can be dropped off at Nebraska hospitals under the state's safe haven law. The bill easily passed 43-5. (AP Photo/Bill Wolf)AP - Nebraska lawmakers have approved adding a 30-day age limit to a safe-haven law that resulted in 35 children — including teenagers as old as 17 — being abandoned at state hospitals.



AP - General Motors Corp. will extend its holiday shutdown or make other production cuts at five factories at as it deals with a continued U.S. auto sales slump and fights to stay solvent.

Trader Paul LaRegina works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Friday, Nov. 21, 2008. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)AP - Wall Street moved cautiously higher Friday, with investors taking a breather from the heavy selling of recent days. Energy, utility and technology stocks showed some advances, but bank stocks declined sharply.



In this image from NASA TV, mission specialist Shane Kimbrough cleans and lubricates the end of the International Space Stations' robotic arm during a space walk, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008. (AP Photo/NASA TV)AP - Space shuttle Endeavour provided an orbital lift to the attached international space station on Friday as the astronauts encountered more problems with a new water recycling system.



AP - A South Florida teen died of a lethal drug overdose in front of a live online webcam audience 12 hours after he started blogging about his plan to commit suicide, an investigator said Friday.

Annika Sorenstam, from Sweden, watches her drive from the third tee during  the ADT Championship at the Trump International Golf Club on Thursday Nov. 20, 2008 in West Palm Beach, Fla . Barring a change of heart, the ADT Championship this week will be Sorenstam's farewell to the LPGA Tour.(AP Photo/J Pat Carter)AP - Annika Sorenstam has enjoyed plenty of great rounds at Trump International, a course where she won three times in a four-year span earlier this decade.



A Citibank branch in San Francisco, June 23, 2008. (Robert Galbraith/Reuters)Reuters - Citigroup Inc shares tumbled for a fifth straight day, as Chief Executive Vikram Pandit tried to downplay speculation the banking giant might sell major businesses to restore its health and investor confidence.



U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey addresses the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, California in this March 27, 2008 file photo. (Robert Galbraith/Files/Reuters)Reuters - U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey returned to work on Friday after a "fainting spell" during a speech sent him to hospital the night before.



President-elect Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton attend a campaign rally in Orlando, Florida, October 20, 2008. (Jim Young/Reuters)Reuters - Retired Marine Gen. James Jones emerged as a leading contender for White House national security adviser as President-elect Barack Obama worked on Thursday to assemble his foreign policy team.



Reuters - General Motors Corp will return two of its leased corporate jets amid intense criticism in Washington this week on the luxury travel arrangements of its chief executive even as the company pleads for federal aid.

People search for jobs on computers at the Verdugo Jobs Center, in Glendale, California, November 7, 2008. (Fred Prouser/Reuters)Reuters - President George W. Bush on Friday signed into law an extension of unemployment benefits, the White House said.



President-elect Barack Obama on the phone with a potential voter during his visit to a campaign field office in Charlotte, North Carolina, November 3, 2008. (Jason Reed/Reuters)Reuters - Verizon Wireless said on Thursday that some employees had gained unauthorized access and viewed a personal cell phone account held by President-elect Barack Obama that is now inactive.



A video grab from undated television footage shows pirates walking on the beach in the town of Eyl, in the north of Somalia. (Reuters TV/Reuters)Reuters - Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port on Friday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world's biggest hijack, a local elder said.



President Bush walks across the South Lawn to board Marine One at the White House, November 21, 2008. (Jim Young/Reuters)Reuters - George W. Bush headed on Friday to an Asia-Pacific summit aiming to seek support for global financial reform and hold talks on ending North Korea's nuclear program as his presidency winds down.



Iraqi Shiites protest in central Baghdad. Thousands of Shiite followers of the firebrand anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad to protest a security accord that would allow US troops to remain in Iraq until 2011.(AFP/Ali al-Saadi)AFP - Thousands of Shiite followers of firebrand anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad on Friday to protest a security accord that would allow US troops to remain in Iraq until 2011.



A Congolese infant at a displaced people camp in Kibati. The Congo government has demanded a stronger mandate for the peacekeeping force in the country after the UN Security Council voted to send 3,000 extra international troops.(AFP/Roberto Schmidt)AFP - The Democratic Republic of Congo demanded Friday a stronger mandate for UN peacekeepers in the east of the vast country after the UN Security Council approved an additional 3,000 troops.




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