Two different men from different era’s but the same meaning.
Write now you’re probably about ready to quit dry January or New years resolutions will be fading fast. Why are diets and lifestyle changes easy to implement but difficult to sustain? Clients are always telling me why they cannot start class or come for sessions, there will always be something or someone to hold us back.
Consider:
- Seventy percent of borrowers who take out home equity loans to consolidate debt wind up with higher debt within two years, according to the nonprofit Cambridge Credit Counseling.
- A University of Scranton study found that a mere 8 percent of people keeps their New Year’s resolutions.
- Just 20 percent of obese dieters sustain a 10 percent weight loss for more than a year, according to the National Weight Control Registry.
So your trying to become a better person than you are, but the problem is that you keep thinking about things and are getting really frustrated or making the same mistakes. In yoga we call this the ’monkey mind’. For example some mistakes that we all do:
- The easy things we make them difficult.
- We tell our self a story and live behind it.
- We blame others instead of taking self-responsibility.
- We waste time judging others and gossiping instead of working on ourselves.
- We always find excuses for when there is the time to start doing things.
- We never achieve anything and we wonder why we are in the same situation again.
- We want the world to fall around our timetable and lifestyle and get irritated when it does not.
- There are times that we are in good mood but there are times we are in bad mood.
- We want to stop getting distracted by falling into the same self-destruct buttons with relationships, credit card, money problems etc.
- We just look for a solution to the problem without looking at the route cause.
Gandhi said: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
So many of us have heard and been moved by Gandhi’s quote. But even as we have quoted, cited, coached it and counseled with it, we don’t often hear the story behind it. Among the hundreds of people were waiting to visit with Mahatma Gandhi were a mother and her young son. When it was their turn, the woman asked Gandhi to speak with her son about eating sugar. Gandhi asked her to come back in two weeks and said he would talk to the boy then. She wondered why he didn’t just speak to her son when he was already there, but she complied with his request. In two weeks they returned, and after waiting for a couple of hours, she was able to approach Gandhi once again. Hearing her repeated request, Gandhi immediately spoke with the boy, who agreed to begin working to eliminate sweets. After thanking Gandhi for his wise and compassionate words, the mother asked him why he wanted them to return instead of offering his advice the first time.
Gandhi replied, “Upon your visit two weeks ago I too was eating sugar.” He explained that he could not speak of or teach her son to not eat sugar if he himself had not taken that journey.
- Whatever changes you would like to effect in our society has to begin with you.
Let your every moment be an example of what you teach and counsel. - Let your every action be a reflection of your beliefs.
- Let your every word be reflective of your own thoughts.
- The best leaders the world has ever known are the reformers who were accountable and responsible for their own change.
- The commitment for change has no days off, does not allow for excuses, does not allow for pardons.
- It’s a true commitment—a commitment to lead with heart to add value to the world.
Changing our face can change nothing. But facing our change can change everything.
Each one of us can leave a stamp on this world by making our lives meaningful in a thousand ways and making the lives of others better than they ever thought possible. If you want to see change you must first start within. It’s that simple and it’s that profound.
Michael Jackson “Heal the world lyrics “:
There’s a place in your heart
And I know that it is love
And this place could be much
Brighter than tomorrow
And if you really try
You’ll find there’s no need to cry
In this place you’ll feel
There’s no hurt or sorrow
There are ways to get there
If you care enough for the living
Make a little space
Make a better place
Heal the world
Make it a better place
For you and for me
And the entire human race
There are people dying
If you care enough for the living
Make it a better place
For you and for me
If you want to know why
There’s love that cannot lie
Love is strong
It only cares of joyful giving
If we try we shall see
In this bliss we cannot feel
Fear of dread
We stop existing and start living
Both imply that we need to work on ourselves first before seeing to others. Self-care is so much more significant to society than healthcare. If patients started realizing their ability to take care of themselves it would free up so much time and energy in our healthcare system. In other words, although life changes are inevitable, we can also initiate personal change so we can rise to the challenge and become a bigger and better person as a result.
“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.” Gandhi