Every year, millions of people make New Year’s resolutions… that they fail to keep for more than a month or two.
Every year, people around the world spend BILLIONS of dollars on books, tapes, and products to help them lose weight, quit smoking, be confident, be more organized, have a great relationship…
And then they don’t actually read past the first chapter or two.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people go to see self-help gurus who yell at them to “get outside their comfort zone” or “take massive action” to achieve their goals…
And then they come back the following year, to listen to the same speeches all over again — because the “motivation” wore off.
Overwhelmingly, the evidence seems to be telling us that people just don’t change.
But is that really true?
Or is it just HOW they’re trying to change that’s the problem?
You see, the way most people try to change things is from the outside, in. They try to change what they’re doing on the outside, in order to change the kind of person they are on the inside.
And that’s a lot harder than you might think, from listening to the self-help gurus!
Think of it this way: suppose you print a document out of your computer, and take it to a meeting. The other people at the meeting don’t like it, and say you should change a few things.
So you take the printout and you make some changes to it with a pen and some correcting fluid, and show it around again. Everybody likes it, hurray!
The next day, you’re back at your computer, and somebody asks you for another copy of that fantastic “changed” document from yesterday.
“No problem,” you say, and push PRINT.
But wait… what comes out of the computer is… the old, ugly document.
What happened to your “changes”?
Why didn’t they stick?
Is it because you didn’t try hard enough?
Is it because you didn’t “believe in yourself” enough, or have enough positive thoughts?
Is it because you didn’t take enough “massive action” or have a powerful enough reason to change the document?
Is it because you didn’t attach pleasure to changing the document, and pain to not changing the document?
Or is it just that changing documents is really, really hard, and maybe some documents “just don’t change”?
No, no, no, no and for heaven’s sake NO.
The document didn’t change because you didn’t change the document.
You only changed a printout of the document.
And that’s exactly what you’re doing, when you try to change the hard way:
From The Outside, In!
When you try to change your actions directly, what you’re changing is not YOU… it’s like a printout of the documents inside you.
“Documents” like your feelings, beliefs, and ways of thinking.
And, as long as you leave these “inner documents” unchanged, you might as well be scribbling on printouts, for all the good it’s going to do.
Sure, if you sit there and watch every single printout (action), you can try to change it as it comes out.
But the moment your attention wavers, the original document resurfaces… and there goes your diet or your exercise plan or whatever it was that you were trying to make happen.
And you get discouraged, because you just did an awful lot of work to get as far as you did… but you’re still the same person as when you started!
What a letdown.
But…
What if there was another way?
Suppose that, instead of trying to change your actions (the “printout”), you tried changing yourself (the “document”)?
Then, once you successfully made a change, all of your printouts (actions) would naturally and automatically come out changed as well.
And then, you wouldn’t have to keep watching over yourself, trying to correct your every move!
Because you would have changed.
From the inside, out.
Hi, my name is P.J. Eby, and I’d like to welcome you to Change, From The Inside Out.
Over the last twenty years or so, I’ve studied a vast assortment of psychology, self-help, and even “new age” stuff, trying to find a way to change the shortcomings I believed I had: in confidence, motivation, willpower, and many other areas.
And the most important thing I learned from all that studying and trying to change, was that when people DO change, it’s nearly always from the inside, out!
Sometimes it’s by accident: when someone says just the right thing at the right time to make an idea “click” in your mind.
Sometimes, it’s by choice: when something happens that makes you say, “enough is enough”, and you decide to do whatever it takes… even if it means becoming a different person than the one you were before.
Because, make no mistake: changing from the inside out is not just tweaking a few things on the surface, doing little tricks to find your stuff better or be more productive.
Make Deep Changes, Not Superficial Ones
That kind of thing is a bit like tweaking the fonts on a word processor, making the “document” look a little different, without changing what it all really means.
No, what I found out that let me change myself — to become a truly different person than the one I started out as — was a way to change the text of my personal “document”… the table of contents of my life.
And it’s something you can do, too.
But it’s going to take a completely different kind of thinking than what the self-help gurus taught you.
Because it’s not about taking a bunch of answers from the outside, and cramming them into yourself.
Instead, it’s about asking questions that only YOU can answer.
So that, instead of trying to correct the printout or tweak the fonts, what you’re doing instead is READING the document.
So you can find out what’s really going on…
And make a few simple changes.
So, if that’s something that interests YOU — and believe me, it’s not for everybody! — then check out the rest of my site here, including the many free resources you’ll find mentioned at the bottom and on the side of this webpage.
And, as time goes on, I’ll be posting more articles here (and occasionally videos), to bust more self-help myths, and share more with you about the art of changing from the inside out.
(So be sure to follow my blog and sign up for my e-mails, so you won’t miss a thing!)
Talk to you soon!
— PJ