Tomàs is a top manager in a multinational company. He has a fantastic salary and all of the benefits imaginable, but he’s tired of committing himself to his work 14 hours a day and spending half his time travelling. He’s tired of useless meetings and frustrating projects. Every time we meet, he tells me about some new plan he has, new ideas he comes up with that would allow him to change his life. Some are simply unachievable, but most of them have some sense and, if he pursued them seriously, could be achieved. But no sooner has he begun to go over them than he finds an excuse, some obstacle, which prevents him from carrying out his plans. If it’s not his children, then it’s the mortgage or other expenses…there is always something that keeps him from seriously believing in the possibility of changing his life. Maybe that’s why every one of these conversations starts with “Oh, if I won the lottery…”

Can we change?

“We are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.” (Stephen Covey)

All of us, at some point, have dreamed about how we would change our lives if we won the lottery. But you almost never win the lottery and making our plans dependent on this possibility amounts to deluding ourselves. Changing our lives is not a question of chance, but of desire. Above all, it depends on how seriously we want it. Once we are convinced of this, it depends on what degree we are capable of fulfilling a solid plan, tackling this process with the rigor and attitude necessary to make this plan a reality, not just a mere fantasy.

Changing our life requires the ability to look inside ourselves and analyze all of the things that make us dissatisfied. It requires the ability to reorganize all of the pieces and create a plan that we feel accountable for and we want to take on

Identifying our dreams

“We don’t invent, we perceive our purpose in life” (Viktor Frankl)

We all have a dream that we would like to come true because it would make us especially happy and would give our lives new meaning. Identifying that dream is fundamental in the process of initiating change. Sometimes this is difficult because we are slaves to fear, doubts and responsibilities which obscure our common sense and prevent us from recognizing these dreams.

Often what we desire is not unachievable. In fact, it may present itself in the form of an activity that we only take part in sporadically, or as something that complements our profession but that we would never consider as an option for a possible life change.

In any case, not every dream we are able to identify is useful. This is because the dreams must be achievable in order to change our lives, and that means that they must satisfy three criteria: first of all, they must involve an activity that we know how to do well (it’s much easier to achieve something that we already know how to do than it is trying to obtain the minimum experience in something we don’t know how to do); second of all, it must be something that we can support ourselves with (romantic ideas that offer no means of self-sufficiency need to be avoided, unless this is our basic problem) and, third of all, it should be something that gives us a sense of happiness and self-realization (doing something that we like is the best guarantee for success).

Reorganizing our time

“The most important things are hidden under a shroud of pressing problems and immediate worries.” (Stephen Covey)

To achieve our dreams we must reorganize our time. We often convince ourselves that we don’t have enough time to do all of the things we want to, but in reality what happens is that we use our time poorly. We must learn to give priority to whatever allows us to fulfill our dreams.

We must stop wasting time with useless things and senseless obligations. This is something you only learn by saying ‘no’ to anything that doesn’t contribute to and make possible our plans. Certainly, saying ‘no’ is never easy because nobody likes to be unkind and disappoint others. However, there is a high price to pay if we don’t – not being able to focus on what we are really interested in and not even realizing that we are renouncing our dreams for work or obligations that don’t interest us.

Choosing the right accoutrements

“We search for happiness in the wrong places” (John Powell)

Above all, we must decide what we need to achieve our new life and leave behind what ever we can do without. We are accustomed to surrounding ourselves and looking for many more things than we actually need: sometimes we look for some form of compensation for the unhappiness and dissatisfaction that come from work, from stress and from tension in the things that we acquire. Other times external pressures convince us that these are things we absolutely need. Without doubt, nothing seems as wonderful and desirable as something we don’t possess. But as soon as we acquire it, the illusion vanishes.

What’s more, everything we accumulate in our lives brings more work and worries; things that we buy need to be maintained, cared for, repaired, protected…so, as well as buying useless objects which seem necessary for a time, we become slaves.

We must understand what the real necessities are for fulfilling our plans; it’s better to undertake a voyage with those things that are useful than finding ourselves in difficulty because we’ve chosen poorly. In this manner we avoid worrying and simplify our life and we can look for happiness where we really should be looking for it.

Choosing our fellow travelers

“We are as happy as our relationships” (James Hunter)

The more we are obsessed with our work, the more we focus on ourselves, neglecting our relationships and distancing ourselves from people. And, paradoxically, we dedicate our time and energy to work relations, at the detriment of those that are the most important and fundamental. We must learn to nurture to our interpersonal relationships, dedicating time and energy, because these relations are the only ones that allow for our growth and development as people. Building and nurturing relationships is a long term investment.

We need to understand who, among the people we are closest to, are the people we want to travel through life with. They will be the people that we make feel good and who make us feel good; those we can help and who can help us. It is obviously a careful process of selection; opening yourself to too many people is the best guarantee for failure, and the energy it takes to maintain friendships with too many people may threaten to suffocate us.

Being able to build and nurture interpersonal relationships means being able to let go of spite, leave behind resentment and tension. This is necessary for creating the space needed to maintain the relationships that are truly dear to us. That is because, above all, feeling spite means giving others a great deal of power over us.

Being able to see the positive side of people and overlook their defects is an important step. We all have both positive and negative qualities and being able to recognize them in others can help us in our relationship with ourselves.

Looking fear in the eyes

“When fear wins it takes your life” (Robin S. Sharma)

It is the biggest obstacle in any plan to change your life.

It can take us by surprise in the worst possible moment, in the worst possible way, exposing all of the dangers we face and causing our resolve to collapse.

Fear causes us lose many opportunities: because of fear we confine ourselves to our circle of security and decline exploring new ways and new possibilities. We lose our vitality and our common sense.

We need to be able to look fear in the eye and not allow it to shape our lives. However, we can’t eliminate fear from our lives (nor would we want to) because fear keeps us alert. But, we must be able to identify the signs and be able to stop it when it becomes excessive. We have to let it protect us without allowing it to nullify us.

If we control our fear, we can explore new horizons, try things we’ve always wanted to try but never dared to. We start to free our true potential as a human.

Controlling our fear makes change possible.