It Doesn’t Pay To Violate Universal Laws Of Change

Consider for a moment all the different ways we use the word “change” in our lives.

We change our clothes, we change our minds, we change addresses, we get change back from a dollar. Wouldn’t it be nice if all our changes came so easily?

Let’s look at a few universal laws for change. A universal law in the physical world is something like gravity. It doesn’t matter if you ignore it, don’t believe in it or don’t think it applies to you. If you violate the law of gravity and haven’t arranged for a soft landing, you’ll go splat.

In the same way, violate any of these universal laws of change once too often, and your plans to change might go splat.

Law of stagnation. This is also known as first order change. First order change is a type of change where there really is no change.

How’s that again? Pretty foggy, huh? Authors Waltzlawick, Weakland and Fisch, in their book “Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution” (W.W. Norton, $14.95), explain it this way:

In other words, you can have lots of action and moving around without real change taking place. A good example is the belief that ending one relationship for another will change everything and make you happy. Not necessarily.

Remember these words of wisdom: “Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.”

Law of light bulbs. Do you know how many therapists it takes to change a light bulb? Just one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.

Law of “the clutch.” This is also known as the law of conscious attention.

Several years ago, the clutch went out on my 2-year-old car. I asked the mechanic why this would happen so soon, and he asked me a few questions about how I drive. It turns out I was a champion clutch rider. If it was possible for me to have the clutch in, it was in.

What’s the point?

I had to pay conscious attention to something I had been doing, kind of unconsciously, for years BUL driving. There are times in our life where we have to pay conscious and careful attention to what we are doing and thinking in order to get the changes we want.

The law of others. Whenever you set out to change someone else, you are doomed to frustration and failure. The only people we can change are ourselves, and that’s difficult enough sometimes.

Law of wet diapers. The only person who always likes change is a wet baby. Sometimes change can be the last thing we want. At the same time, change is an inevitable part of our lives.

The law of waves. As with change, there are three ways to handle a wave: You can let it knock you down, you can survive it, or you can ride it and thrive. Only the wisest and most creative of people do the latter.

The law of kaleidoscopes. Remember the kaleidoscopes we played with as kids? You would look through the hole in the tube, turn the end and watch the colors change. Many times there would be a series of small shifts followed by a big shift in the picture.

That’s often how we change as well. We make a series of small shifts leading to big changes.

So if you find yourself frustrated by being able to make only small changes, remember, big changes could be coming.

xxxx