When you’re ignorant, you don’t know what you don’t know.
Think about a pool of ink dropped on a page. If the page represents everything that you can possibly know, and the ink represents what you actually know, then a small spot of ink will not only take in a small amount of knowledge. It will also have a small circumference, with limited contact with other knowledge – the things that you know you don’t know.
As the pool of ink grows, as you become more knowledgeable, so does the number of things you’re aware of that you don’t know yet.
So, what might be outside the inkblot that will keep you from changing your life?
Ignorance about needing to change
There’s ignorance that’s unintentional, and then there’s deliberate ignorance.
Deliberate ignorance usually comes out of arrogance or fear (if there’s a difference; arrogance is often a mask for fear of being wrong, after all). If you’re afraid to change, keeping a deliberate blind spot is one way of ensuring that you don’t feel the need to do so.
I’m going to assume that if you’re reading a personal development blog, your main problem is not that you’re carefully remaining ignorant of needing to change your life. You may be avoiding change in other ways, which is what this whole How Not to Change Your Life series is all about, but you’re aware that you need to change.
You may not, of course, be sure what about your life needs to change.
Ignorance about what to change
All too often, we feel a sense of unease about our lives. Something we can’t quite pin down. Something obviously needs to change – but what?
Should I change my job? My house? My partner? My appearance? What if I change all those things and the same sense of unease persists?
And even if I know that I need to change something on the inside… what, exactly? Do I need to be more confident? Less anxious? Deal with my stress better? Get on better with the people around me who irritate me? Do I need to care more about some things, less about others? Do I need to be more organised, more punctual and more motivated? And if I could just improve my memory and sleep better….
Often enough, a cluster of things come together, and we don’t know what to change first. Everything I mentioned in the previous paragraph could describe one person’s issues, and none of them are uncommon. (I couldn’t tell you how many of my clients would have ticked all of those boxes when they came in to see me.)
Where do you start? Is it even possible?
Ignorance that change is possible
All too many people don’t even realise that they can change. It seems too hard. Some other, really disciplined people might be able to change, but not me, they think. I’ve always been like this, and I always will.
I take an optimistic view of personal change. I think that anyone who wants to can change, with the right help. It’s definitely hard – I don’t mean to suggest otherwise for a moment. But it is possible.
People who are less intelligent than you, have less money then you, have fewer opportunities and less support and less education and less anything else you might use as an excuse, have succeeded in changing. I guarantee it.
OK, how?
Ignorance about how to change
This is where we start to get real. What are the steps you follow to change your life? How’s it done?
This is a big part of what I call the Missing Curriculum. It’s something we weren’t taught at school (unless you went to a very unusual school).
There’s a process of change, and although going through it takes dedication and perseverance, the concept is simple.
- Your motivation to change needs to be, at least on average, stronger than your reasons to stay the same.
- You need to pay attention to what you’re doing and what you want to be doing instead.
- You need to practice regularly.
That’s it, really. There are no more secrets to change than that. Except maybe, “What your imagination got you into, it can get you out of – once you know what to do with it”.
Almost everything I write is about the change process and how to facilitate it, so I’m not going to try to repeat it all here. If you want a concise summary of a powerful technique for change – which incorporates attention, imagination, motivation and regular practice – take a look at my Self-Hypnosis How To site.
Action Now
So, if you’re in that place of feeling discontented and unsure, of knowing you want to change your life but not knowing what you want to change or how to do it, here are some concrete first steps.
- Let yourself dream. Get yourself into a “daydream” state and listen to yourself say what you really want to do and how you really want to be in the world, no matter how crazy or unrealistic it sounds.
- Figure out what’s stopping you from heading towards that dream – however slowly and hesitantly.
- Find out how people change that. Once you’ve identified what you want to change, research. Discover how it’s done, how other people have done it. Browse this site, and my other site, How to Be Amazing. Write down keywords. Google them.
- Put a practice in place. Do something on a regular basis that moves you in the direction of the person you want to be. I can’t stress this one enough.
- Watch yourself change. See what works, what doesn’t work, what continually trips you up. Every outcome is an education.
- Keep up your motivation by celebrating small successes, by holding on to the dream, by thinking about how it will be if you remain as you are.
- Get help when you need it. I’m here, and there are lots of other people around who are trained in helping you change. Talk to us.
There’s no need to remain ignorant about how to change your life. Make use of the amazing resources you have that earlier generations never dreamed of.
And tune in next week, when I talk about the dangers of becoming an expert.
This post is part of a series, How Not to Change Your Life.
(Image credits, clockwise from top left: Helen Clark, by 