The Grasshopper visited yesterday and brought this gift: “Myth: Believing something will change if you don’t change.”

What have you been hoping for, dreaming about, waiting on for countless days, months and years? If it hasn’t happened, it’s either a pipe dream, a delusion, or belief in the myth that you don’t have to change to make it happen.

I marvel when I watch the antacid commercials that let you know that if you take one of these you’ll be able to eat the food that aggravates your condition. Nowhere in there does it suggest that you change the behaviors that cause the condition in the first place. Advertisers know you believe in the myth that you don’t have to change.

Are you unhappy, lonely, bored, overweight, unloved, a sot? If it’s been going on for a while, it will go on for a lifetime if you expect it to change without you changing.

Waiting for change to happen is like waiting for The Great Pumpkin. It’s always a waiting game.

What can you do to accelerate change? First, you can stop hoping for change. After that, you can stop praying for change. After all this time they haven’t worked, so let’s set them aside. Next, begin to notice the behaviors that contribute to your current condition. There is a recipe.

Notice how good you’ve become at baking that cake. It’s second nature now. You’re caught in the loop of continually baking a cake that’s making you sick.

If you can come up with that recipe, you are clever enough to come up with another – one that puts you on a path forward, rather than one that led to Marie Antoinette’s demise.

In short, what you’ve been doing isn’t working. The answer: Do something else.

Change requires action, not more thought. If you’re thinking about changing, you’re caught up in the myth that thinking will do it.

I’m reminded of the opening line from a hymn that is a favorite: “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” You could easily substitute the word “change” for “peace” and get the same result.

Change begins with you changing. It’s that simple.

The only question you have to answer now is: Am I willing to put a pin in a ballooning myth?

All the best,

John