Career News 24/7: The Cynical Girl: Radical change is never radical.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The Cynical Girl: Radical change is never radical.

Posted: 04 Nov 2013 06:45 AM PST

I have never met a real person with real problems who wakes up, one morning, and decides to radically reinvent her life.

If you have a job and bills to pay, you probably wake up in the morning and wish things were different. You might wonder how to change your life. And you might dream a little about what it looks like if you make a big and bold change.

I like blowing things up, but in reality, change is often inconvenient, disruptive and selfish. If you have emotional and financial commitments, change can feel impossible.

But change and reinvention are possible. You just need a better plan.

Grieve for the version of you who made those mistakes. We spend so much psychic energy trying to “learn lessons” and move forward. It’s too bad most of us never learn shit. Very few of us move forward. I think it’s okay to go back and feel bad about the circumstances that got you where you are in the first place. You have a right to your private sadness and pain. Be an adult about it, of course, but spend some time with your grief. Sometimes shit is fucked up and bullshit. Many of us need to face that reality before we can change for good.
Realize that every day is an opportunity for reinvention. Even when you feel like you don’t have a choice, you probably do. At the very least, you can slow down and make better decisions that lay the groundwork for a brighter future.
Find someone who is doing what you want to do and be that person’s best friend. This is how I learned to love running. And almost everything worth doing in life.
If you still feel compelled to make a change, unwind your life gently. Maybe it’s not so bad, after all. Maybe you can be happy, or at the very least, implement change as part of a a slow and deliberate process.

I have radically changed my life. I keep learning lessons and moving forward as I change jobs, change career paths, change businesses and change my hair color. But I have also learned that sometimes change is just a distraction from the unfuckingbelievably hard work of sitting with myself and understanding how I got myself into this mess in the first place.

Radical change is never radical. It is a slow and deliberate movement forward into a better version of consciousness.

And I know you can do it.