Be Honest About What You Want

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” – Henry Ford

I’ve been reminded over the past couple of weeks how difficult change is. That’s not any kind of earth-shattering statement. If you asked a group of a hundred people to describe change in one word, I bet “difficult” would be one of the words most often chosen.

There are a lot of reasons for that. Some are pretty straightforward – a lack of clear vision regarding what the change looks like, a lack of understanding why the change is important, a lack of belief that change is possible, etc. Some of those are more difficult to overcome than others.

Recently I’ve been reminded of another major barrier to change. It’s one most people would never admit to, but it’s a reality for a huge percentage of the population. It’s about a lack of honesty.

I don’t mean that I believe most people are liars when they talk about change. I think most people aren’t even consciously aware of the fact that they’re not being honest. Most organizations talk about how important they believe change is, how their industry is constantly changing, how they can’t get complacent because everyone else is changing so they need to do it too.

But for so many organizations, all these statements about how they want and need to change aren’t true. The reality is that many (most?) people don’t want to change anything they’re doing, they just want better results. They want to keep doing the same comfortable things they’ve been doing, stay in the same routine they’ve been in, fill their time with the same tasks, but have wildly more successful outcomes. Not possible.

You cannot expect anything about your business to get better by just doing what you’re doing. If you keep do the same things, you’ll get the same results. That’s true whether you’re talking about leading your business or growing a garden or trying to lose weight. People complain that their businesses or their personal lives aren’t what they want them to be, then they go on doing the same things that got them there in the first place.

Don’t be those people. Understand that you have to change if you want your business or your life to change. You have to do different things. You have to spend your time differently. It won’t just happen on its own. You have to make it happen. So go make it happen.