The Art of Changing

For years I taught a self-help course about recovery. At the end of the class I always passed out a list of self-help books. Inevitably, at least one student would raise her hand and say, “I have read most of these books and they don’t help. I don’t know what I am doing wrong.” Speaking to these students after class, I often discovered that they were stuck because they didn’t understand one fundamental truth; our lives don’t get better when we read a book or go to a class; our lives get better when we put forth the effort to change.

Despite all of this information, many people still get stuck. They are unable to implement a recovery program. They either can’t get started or they can’t stick with it, and professionals have a hard time explaining this. We know that the ability to change has a lot to do with personality type, timing, childhood wounds and the nature of the problem one has to change, but we still cannot completely analyze or explain why people get stuck. I think this is why the art of changing is such a neglected topic. It is a mysterious process and no one really has any definitive answers as to how to get started and how to stay motivated.

While I don’t have all the answers either, I do believe it is time to focus more attention on changing because changing is the bridge between the problem and the solution. Without the ability to change we can never outgrow our problems, feel good about ourselves or be successful. This is why I have written The Art of Changing.