Change is difficult.

Sometimes it even seems impossible and we grow frustrated and give up.

Change is a scary word.

Politicians use it as if people really want it when what they really want is for things to get better.

Let’s replace change with getting better.

Here are the secrets to effectively make changes.

1. See vividly in your mind’s eye that which will make you better, happier, more fulfilled, more loving or more loved.
2. Make a road map. Just wanting to be better is a prescription for failure.  We have to know how to move toward that which we want.
3. Change that matters usually comes from turmoil so if you are expecting to flip a switch and emerge as someone else or someone better, that’s not going to happen.
4. Change comes to those who refuse to give up pursuing it. In other words, after making a plan, your ability to doggedly stick to that plan almost always guarantees success.
5. When it feels like change is coming too slowly, remember that good things come to those who want it the most.

That’s why New Year’s resolutions never seem to make it past the first week in January.

Even failing to change is valuable.

It tells us that we didn’t want it enough to work for it.

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Ali:  “So everything the God made, the cows, horses, the moon, stars, ants, everything has a purpose … Now what’s your purpose? You’re a human being. If God made the sun have a purpose, humans have a purpose too. You haven’t found your life purpose yet have you?”

Maryum Ali:  “To make people feel better … To fix people up.”

Ali:  “That’s good, Maryum”.

This is what we learn from a documentary about the amazing boxer Muhammad Ali as he spoke to one of his daughters.

It makes me take pause and ask some questions of myself.

What is your purpose on this earth?

Am I proceeding in the right direction?

Am I using my God-given gifts – all of them?

We wouldn’t travel from New York to New Haven without a roadmap or certainly Google Maps.

Why do we live our lives without knowing where we are going.

It’s never too late to change course to match what our purpose is on this earth.

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That’s the conclusion of Shawn Achor who speaks of the happy secret to better work.

That means that thinking we’ll be happy when we make a certain amount of money (or win the lottery) is not correct.

If we meet another person, it will make us happy (not always true).

If we lose weight, we’ll feel happier (healthier but not always happier).

What Achor is isolating which I find empowering is that we would be wise to put our expectations second to our happiness.

Be happy, then don’t worry.

Not don’t worry, be happy.

Intelligence and technical skills only predict 25% of success.

“75% of long term job success is predicted not by intelligence and technical skills, which is normally how we hire, educate and train, but it’s predicted by three other umbrella categories. It’s optimism (which is the belief that your behavior matters in the midst of challenge), your social connection (whether or not you have depth and breadth in your social relationships), and the way that you perceive stress”.

As a college professor I preached optimism over everything to my students.  Now there is research to back it.

Our homework then is to work at being happy.

The other benefits will follow and not the other way around.

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It seems like there are so many school shootings these days.

I’ve heard people say, “Back in my day that never happened”.

Here is how I choose to look at it.

99.99% of our school children are educated in safe environments.

But to make every young person safe we have to put politics aside and focus on the stressful world in which we live.

Most people are stressed beyond belief and to make things worse, they are tied to their stress through digital communication and social media.

Bullying is not the exception but the rule at all schools, in all grades and in every part of the country.

There are things we can do about school safety and things that educators must do – such as become more skilled looking for early warning signs because it seems every time we have a tragedy like the recent one in Washington, officials have to admit that they didn’t see this behavior coming.

Bullying is not acceptable – and I am speaking of the workplace and in personal relationships as well.

Bullying is ten times worse in the digital age because it can be conducted publicly.

So rather than shake our heads and mourn another sad day, let’s roll up our sleeves and do what we can do – become a vocal advocate against bullying all people.

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The secret is not looking back and determining that all those bad breaks you overcame actually led to a better outcome.

The secret is remembering that good comes from bad.

I hate to even admit it but we don’t usually know what we really want.

We think we do.

Sometimes we are convinced we do.

But adversity introduces a person to him or herself and to those around them.

And so often things could only have happened because we didn’t get what we wanted.

The mate you would have never met if you hadn’t experienced the pain of a broken relationship – this is true for me.

The career you could have never thought of until some employer terminated your position, made you feel pain and launched you into a new career.

All the unexpected good things that seem to happen when we take the death grip off our lives and look forward to that which we have never sought.

To make this powerful message a strong part of your life, make a list of great outcomes in your life and the lives of those around you that we unanticipated and unasked for.

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Not the stress in you.

Eject those people from your lives.

I know.

Some of them are relatives – and you can’t choose your relatives.

But you can choose who you will let have your ear.

Drama queens are stress producers – we know who they are – so failure to withdraw from their world is asking for more stress.

Reject those friends who have lack of character because we eventually become the people that surround us – family, friends, teachers, mentors, mates.

Often we waste a lot of emotional time on people that we allow to bring stress into our lives.

At best, avoid them.

If you can’t avoid these negative influences, reduce the time they get your ear.

And if these people are so close to you that they are impossible to avoid, the only way out is to banish them from your life.

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Nothing stings more than putting it all out there to get a new job only to find out that you didn’t get it.

I tried for three years to get an on-air job at a Philadelphia television station and for three straight years I never received as much as a courteous response or acknowledgment.  And I included a tape of my voice as well monthly potentially magnifying my vulnerability to rejection.

But I knew – and know – that nothing worthwhile comes easy.

So, every month – off went another tape of me to three Philly TV stations until one day the program director at Channel 6 called and said he needed a booth announcer for just two days.

He even went as far to caution me that this is a very temporary job and that was that.

I accepted the two days and wound up staying.

Here’s how I think:  If being lucky is what it takes to get the job or promotion of my dreams, I’m out.  But if being persistent is the criteria, I will always get it.

And I do.

I share this because we need to change the way we think about putting it on the line and taking prudent risks.

Deal with any potential hurt feelings the way athletes do for injuries – part of the business.

Celebrate being bold and persistent and expect a positive result.

We are our own worst enemy when we should be our very best friend.

Before you readjust your thinking, take a moment to name three people you admire the most and then look into how they got to where they are today.

Rejection is the fuel for a motivated person.

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In the Showtime hit series Ray Donovan, every phone call shown on screen ends with a click not a goodbye.

Of course, we know the producers are taking theatrical license, but still – it reminds me that even with texting as big as it is for all generations, people find themselves ignored.

Text a message – you may get an answer, you may not.  Or you may get into a long back and forth.

Make a phone call (what’s that?) on your smartphone and leave a message – chances are better than ever that you will get an email or text as a response.

Even some salespeople would rather do it all by email than in person or on the phone even if you would rather not.

But what hurts the most is when a friend ignores us.

That couldn’t happen in a world where it is impossible not to receive a quick response, could it?

When this bothers me I fix it right away by focusing on what I can control which is what I am communicating not the anticipated response.

Keep expectations low and motivation high.

If there is one way to become a better person with virtually little effort it is to never ignore another person whether you’re in their company, on the phone, by email, texting or social media.

This is also the secret to making people crave you and listen to your ideas and points of view.

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When we set goals, we tend to set them in ways that will not help us accomplish them.

Save for a rainy day is not very sexy and most Americans do not have enough money when the rain begins.

Save for something specific in the next 6 months and you’re actually helping to pattern the habits you will need for the long term.

When we get a few extra bucks (and sometimes when we don’t), we tend to spend here and now instead of save for later – and that’s quite understandable.

But here are some solutions:

• Split any extra money in half – one part goes to the future, the other you can spend now.
• See vividly what money really buys – when I buy gas at the local Costco, I have figured I am saving enough to buy 30-50 shares of Apple (at about $100 a share).  I love Apple and love to invest in it but that investment grows when I can see the gas savings at Costco.
• And here’s the big one.  We spend our lives working our butts off often with little to show for it financially.  So I take some of what I earn (or have earned in the past) and put it in a safe but productive investment that grows the money and pays me a dividend.  I spend ALL of the dividend every year and since the principle keeps growing, there’s more to spend every year.

This isn’t brain surgery, I admit.

But setting intermediate goals in all areas of life (I just covered financial here today), guarantees you’ll stick to the plan.

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Hollywood entertainment reporter Mike Evans says famed Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda (now 87 years young) has the perfect saying for dealing with problems.

Talking about your problems is no good, 80% of your friends don’t care and the rest are glad.

That prompts me to add, the solution may very well be to identify your problems – the things that eat at you, haunt you or rob you of happiness – and come up with a plan to attack them.

Too often we assume that the first solution is the best, but that is not always the case.

When Thomas Edison was trying to invent the light bulb, he famously failed frequently.  But Edison claimed, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times.  The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps” and that “Great success is built on failure, frustration, even catastrophe”.

Why is it that we expect the one or two things we do is enough to solve a lingering problem?

Successful people.

Better yet happy people know the road to life is always under construction and that there are no simple answers to complex problems.

Just recognizing that failing is a rehearsal for winning is enough to keep us going.

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