The Grasshopper offered a small morsel that’s a mouthful: “The biggest impediment to change is the mindset of ‘I don’t have to change.'”

The hidden part of that observation is that the mindset may be hidden from some people. They may think they are open to change when, in fact, their actions suggest otherwise.

It seems odd to me that people who take the most self-help courses fall in the category of “resistant to change.” That is my experience. My guess is that they believe by taking the course, it will change them. It won’t. Only a series of sustained actions after the course or reading the book will bear fruit. Their patterned belief is that something outside of them will change them. They will take that belief into their next course and get the same results they got before. Their mindset has to change before change is possible.

There are others who own the mindset of “I don’t have to change” that isn’t hidden from them. They have an air of “I know better” about them. You will often witness them lobbying for you to change to their way when their way clearly isn’t working for them. No one likes being wrong, but these people loathe it. They will lobby long after their argument has been disproven that they were right. They will stay on an intellectual path that bears no fruit.

“Results” win all arguments.

In order to get results, you have to act, not proselytize or show up at yet another course.

If people “don’t get you,” it’s your fault. There is something you are doing that isn’t working. That something needs to change.

The next time someone tells you that what you’re doing isn’t working, you may want to take that as a wake-up call that your notion of “I don’t have to change” needs to change.

All the best,

John