Are Any of These Obstacles to Change Holding You Back?

Do obstacles hold you back when something new comes your way? When exposed to something new or different, do you see excitement and opportunity? Or, do you choose to view the situation you currently know is somehow threatened? If you choose the latter, you may experience a degree of fear of the unknown.

Most of us would dismiss any thoughts or attitudes towards change as being driven by fear by saying it cant be that I am not fearful of that. Yet as soon as that statement is made, you have just encountered the first obstacle to change. For one to have success in most anything we do, one must embrace change and look for new methods or opportunities.

We all know the world is not standing still. Lets review possible obstacles that may be standing in the way to your success. The fear of change itself it is easy to fall into a pattern of being comfortable. Everything is predictable.

We may not necessarily be completely happy with our jobs or our lives, yet we resist making changes. We may achieve a level of success with our job or life and become comfortable and complacent we may even be in a rut and don’t wish to admit it. Or if we do admit it, we are not willing to do anything different.

To avoid an unknown situation, we stick with what we know even if we are not finding the success or fulfillment in life we desire. To counter the fear of change, we must develop a faith or confidence in our actions and abilities. At times we will encounter challenges or even make mistakes.

By learning from those experiences, we can move farther ahead with our next actions. We must remember taking new action can lead to achieving new outcomes even the ones we envision in our dreams or believe in our heart. The fear of criticism over our lives we have learned its no fun to do something and have others make fun or provide hurtful comments.

So rather than trying something new, different or something we are not good at, we hold back – even if it has the potential or likelihood of making our job or our life better. With the fear of criticism from others, our desire for change is reduced or removed, and we potentially will remain locked into our current situation.

To counter this fear, we must be open to believe not all comments and criticism are hurtful. Do you remember the old saying, sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me? There are a variety of motivations behind someone providing feedback or criticism.

We must look at the individual making the comments and understand the rationale behind the words as we listen to the comments. Our level of trust with the individual providing the feedback also comes into play. There is much to be learned from listening to others that will enhance our chance of success.

Unfortunately we also know others purposely plan their words to be spiteful and to make us create doubt in ourselves, our success, or to intentionally hurt our feelings. As we create success and move past our current station in life, these individuals may be left behind.

In this case, the person providing the negative comments is exhibiting their fear of change because, with our success, it will bring changes to our relationship and possibly their lives.

As hard as it may be at times, we must choose to limit our exposure to these individuals and be open to allowing other more positive and supportive people into our lives. The fear of failure no one purposely plans to fail.

Yet most of us have resisted making a change or taking an action in fear we might not succeed. Our excuse is the time is not right, or we wait until we are better prepared; or we are just not sure what this change will bring and are afraid it will not be a change for the better.

While creating or having success does not come with guarantee, continuing to sit and do nothing will most likely have a guaranteed result. That result is what we know today will most likely continue or decline due to our inability to stay current with the world around us.

If we are fearful of making a change and do nothing, we have a much greater guarantee that the outcome will not be one we desire. Throughout history many examples can be identified where an individual repeatedly failed over and over in their attempts.

Yet one day, because they persisted and continued their activity, the next attempt created a success. Look at Colonel Sanders who founded Kentucky Fried Chicken it took him 2 years of talking to restaurant owners to sell his first franchise.

His success in the franchise business soon followed. The obstacles to making changes in your life could come down to a fear of change, a fear of criticism, or a fear of failure.

We have the ability to manage all of these with some simple steps. In overcoming these obstacles, we must possess belief and faith in our talents and ourselves.

We must get past the fact of what others think. Part of the process of changing is encountering challenges and setbacks even if we do not have success in this attempt, we soon will, but we must keep trying.

Recognize the only constant is change itself. As fast as things move and change in todays world, if we are not changing, we are falling behind. With a new approach and a different attitude, we can remove our obstacles to change and work to create the success we all desire