Improving Alone Is Hard
If you start to change, many of the people around you, who you would hope would help you, might well do the opposite. Your friends tear you down instead of supporting you.
Yesterday I wrote about ambition and how many things in our society conspire to keep us in our place.
But the fact that you are reading this tells me that there is something different about you. That you are not prepared to settle for mediocre in your life.
Perhaps you are already working on something new. Or you have a dream you are working on. Or you are not sure you know what you want, but you know it isn't this.
If that's you then I am here to celebrate you, to champion you and to support you. You can always reply to my emails if you need help or advice.
Because I know from painful experience that trying to change your circumstances or radically improve your life is hard. And I think I know the biggest reason for this.
If you start to change, many of the people around you, who you would hope would help you, might well do the opposite. Your friends tear you down instead of supporting you. Your peers make jokes about you. Snide comments get made by the plus-ones at dinner parties.
Why do people do this? Because it is confronting. You are confronting.
They interpret any improvement in you as a slight on them and their personalities and life choices.
You start a new business: You think you are better than them.
You try an improvement project: You are calling them lazy.
You get sober: You're calling them an alcoholic.
You get fit: You are calling them fat.
Of course they won't say this exactly. They'll make jokes, say put-downs, exclude you from things or ignore you. If you call them out, they "didn't mean it".
And this social pressure works. It works to keep people in their place, to stop them changing, to make them quit when things get hard.
On a deep psychological level, one of every human's biggest fears is banishment. Because in ancient history banishment meant death. If the tribe cast you out it was hard to survive.
Which is what makes it unbelievably hard to change. But, you can use this psychology to your advantage in one simple way.
Find a new tribe.
You don't have to lose your friends, but maybe you don't need to rely on them for your support in changing. You don't have to leave your team, but maybe you can find fellow travellers elsewhere to support you.
You don't have to be alone.
Stephen
If you missed my talk on Ambition yesterday, you can find it on YouTube. Don't forget to Like/Comment/Subscribe as the influencers say.