Have you ever been told that to change your life you have to change your environment? That your surroundings play a big role in your actions, behaviors, and how you feel? That you are the product of the people you spend the most time with?
While there is no doubt some truth to all of those statements, too often these understandings put us in a mindset that the change that needs to happen in our life is external. That the problem is outside of us. It’s the place we live, the job we have, or the people we associate with.
While changing our environment and who we spend time with will no doubt make a difference in whatever our situation is. If we want to improve or change in any area of life, the change needs to come from inside. We need to be the change.
This morning, Pastor Stephen Christian, one of the pastors in my church who also by the way is the lead singer of one of my all-time favorite bands Anberlin (I still can’t believe he’s a pastor at my church), told a story about a tiger at the zoo.
As the story goes, there was a tiger in a small cage at a zoo. Every day that tiger would wake up and walk the same route back and forth all day. He walked the path so much that you could see his tracks worn into the ground.
Obviously, this was no way for a tiger to live so the zoo banded together to create a 2-acre living space for the tiger so that it could live more closely to how it would in the wild. When the project was complete, everyone was so excited to bring the tiger to his new home and see him become full of life again.
Despite the expectations, when they brought the tiger to his new home, guess what happened. He went to sleep, woke up, and started walking the same route that he walked every day before he had his new living area.
The change in the environment did not change the tiger’s behaviors. He woke up and did what he has always done, despite having much more space and opportunity than he had before.
This can so easily happen to us when we assume that our environment is all we need to change. We move into a new house, we take a new job, or we start a new relationship. We think that will solve our problems or allow us to change and grow. Yet many times we find ourselves right back where we were, following the same behaviors, and feeling the same way.
When we don’t change ourselves, we will inevitably go back to what is comfortable, familiar, and safe. We aren’t going to use the new exercise bike just because we put it in the living room. We aren’t going to eat a better diet just because we put a couple of vegetables in the fridge. We won’t spend time praying, meditating, or being mindful just because we downloaded an app or build a “zen corner” in our home office.
Change requires decision and on-going active participation. At the end of the day, WE need to change for any real change to occur. We can’t play a passive role in change. We have to do the often uncomfortable task of analyzing our situation, being honest with ourselves, and putting forth the effort to change it. We have to decide that the “old me” no longer controls the “new me”. We have to decide what actions, behaviors, and mindsets the new me needs to adopt and then actually put those to work.
It won’t be easy. Change never is which is why so few people do it. But changing is good and it’s necessary. It is how we evolve. It’s how we grow as humans. It’s how we leave this world a better place than when we entered it.
If you’re approaching the new year thinking that you are ready for change, I challenge you to spend the next week being intentional with your thoughts and thinking about what change actually looks like for you. What you need to do to see the changes you desire and what you can do to keep yourself accountable with those changes.
Gear up, 2021 is quickly on its way!
Thanks for reading,
Chris Irvin