Or You Can Just Keep Doing What You’ve Been Doing
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
This common quote is attributed to a lot of different people. It doesn’t matter who said it. What matters is what it says.
I think this quote is so popular because of the truth that it represents.
I recently shared how change is hard. This seems especially true for people in construction but isn’t limited to them.
Without intentional action, nothing is going to change. Things will just continue as they are.
I know a lot about the struggle with change because…I’m one of those people who doesn’t like change.
This was evident when our church was considering changing the hierarchy of our committees.
As long as I can remember we had an Administrative Council to oversee other committees in different areas. These included finance, trustees, staff/pastor parish, nurture, outreach, witness, communications, memorial, and a whole lot of others.
I thought this system worked just fine. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Some in the church thought this system resulted in too many meetings. Many felt overwhelmed by the meetings. There were a lot of meetings.
The suggestion was to reorganize and consolidate most of the committees into one larger committee. This might mean longer meetings, but fewer of them. It was voted on and approved to try the new system.
I was not for the change. I went kicking and screaming…okay, this might be a little exaggerated. The point here is there were some things with the old system that needed to change. And…
Doing things over and over again expecting different results is insane.
We made the change, and it seems to be working.
If we aren’t open to change and trying new things, nothing will ever improve. We’ll just stay stuck in our rut. Walking back and forth as it gets deeper and deeper.
It’s been said that a rut is grave with both ends kicked out. Don’t spend your life in a grave. There’s so much more for us if we just get out of the rut.
Change is scary. We’re used to our rut. The change we don’t know is scarier than the pain we do know. This resistance to change could be because of the unknown. It could be the time the change is going to take.
Another scary thing about change is that it’s not a one and done thing. Change is a continual process. We want simple, but that’s not how life works. The question is: do you want control over the direction of your life…or do you want to leave it to the world around you?
We have the power of choice. We can choose to change or not.
We also shouldn’t change just for the sake of change. Change should be intentional and based on knowing who you are, knowing what you want, and being true to these.
Too many people drift through life without any direction or purpose. If this mundane rut is where you want to stay…just keep doing what you’re doing. But if you want to build a dream life…do something about it!
“Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” Tony Robins
