Breaking New Ground
Intentional change is a matter of breaking new ground.
Every day is a new day.
Cliché, right? That doesn’t make it any less true. Every single day of your life is different from the day before.
To be fair, many days are similar. But that doesn’t mean they’re the same. Because they aren’t.
It has taken me a long time to reconcile this. For years, I was always looking ahead from today to tomorrow – while also chewing on past indiscretions, mistakes, missteps, and other similar experiences.
While some days are similar to the day before – others are wholly new and different. Those are the days where you forge ahead and have new experiences.
This can occur on every level of your life that you can imagine. From personal life to work life to family life, change is the only constant in the Universe.
Some you have little to no control over. I can’t make anyone else do, think, or feel in any way. I can make suggestions and offer opinions – but the only one inside my head is me. Likewise, the only one inside your head is you.
But there are changes over which you have control. While some are subtle and just a matter of mindfulness – others require large steps out of comfort zones and the familiar.
In other words – they require breaking new ground.
Choices, decisions, mindfulness
You have choices and decisions to make all the time. From the moment you wake up until you go to bed, you are making choices.
For example, you choose when to wake up, what you will do after that, what route (if any) to take to work, calls to make, distractions, and so on. Constant, almost endless choices. And yes, many are relatively subconscious.
Decisions, on the other hand, take a little more thought to them. A decision is more set than a choice, in that it is more actionable. For example, choosing to go into the kitchen and make breakfast has direction, but still requires more. Deciding to go into the kitchen and pour a bowl of cereal is much more actionable. Done and done.
Conscious choices and decisions are a matter of mindfulness. Mindfulness is awareness of your mindset/headspace/psyche and overall being. To gain access to that, you need to be conscious and aware, in the now, of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
Knowing what you are thinking, how and what you are feeling, options for actions, and intent behind those, you gain insight into yourself. That makes it possible to make choices and decisions for your life.
Some days this is easier than others. When I woke up this morning it was nasty, rainy, and generally icky. While it was super tempting to roll over and go back to bed, I chose to get up and decided to go sit and do my morning reading.
Recognizing the power of choices, decisions, and mindfulness helps you be capable of breaking new ground in your life to welcome and drive change.
What does breaking new ground look like?
Any change that will have an impact on broader aspects of your life is a matter of breaking new ground.
This might include:
- Starting a new job
- Getting into a new relationship
- Moving to a new home
- Relocating to a new city
- Moving in with a lover
- Ending a relationship
- Quitting a job
- Starting a new business
- Ending a friendship
- Having a child
- Adopting a pet
There are many, many more possibilities here. But all of these, and other matters akin to them, require breaking new ground.
The difference is likened to architecture, in that all these sorts of changes begin with new foundations. You create new bases upon which you are living an aspect or aspects of your life. Like any construction project, this requires breaking new ground.
This can and will take different forms. Sometimes you start shoveling. Other times, you rent a backhoe. And sometimes explosives are employed in breaking new ground.
How this occurs will vary. It may be a slow build or a sudden change. But it tends to be a mindfully made choice or decision to drive change in your life.
Why bother? Because change is inevitable. And you have three choices for how to approach your life. Let it happen and just go with it; curl up in a ball, whine, kvetch, and await death; grab hold and take it for a ride. Breaking new ground is intentional and is the practice of grabbing hold of life and taking it for the ride.
What if you get it wrong?
You might. Plain and simple, you might screw this up. Years ago, I had a good, stable, decently paying job. It was boring, and the hours sucked. But the pay and benefits were good.
An opportunity for a new job came to me. It was very uncertain, but I thought it would be better hours, far more money, and more exciting. So, I quit the stable but unfulfilling job and took the new one.
A week later, I realized I had chosen poorly. I left the new job and returned to a reliable job option that, while I loved it, paid rather poorly. But I was happier with what I was doing and wiser from the experience.
I won’t even get into my old dating history – but talk about numerous missteps, wrong choices, and other issues that kept my life – well, let’s simply say, interesting.
But you will get it wrong. That’s because, as a human being, you are perfectly imperfect. Today’s good decision is tomorrow’s poor choice. It happens, and it happens to everyone.
So why bother breaking new ground? Because change is constant and taking life for a ride means you choose and decide on bold changes that will have an impact. You might succeed or you might fail. But if you don’t do it, and you never break new ground, then you can’t succeed in the slightest, can you?
We all know people who don’t choose or decide on much of anything. Breaking new ground? No, they just let life live them or are awaiting death. But when you recognize all the potential and possibility that your life has – breaking new ground is an action to create an experience. Good or bad, growth comes of experience – and that’s what ultimately makes me, me – and makes you, you.
Breaking new ground isn’t hard
But it requires mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intent to understand the inherent positivity of this.
Knowing that breaking new ground is a choice and a decision for action, you gain control over change that will impact your life experience. It may be good, or it may be bad, but it will be an experience full of potential and possibility. When you choose to break new ground, you take control over change and decide to take life for a ride to see where it might take you. And that ultimately empowers you.
When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that can spread to people around you. This creates a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.
You build more positive feelings and discover further reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of any current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude.
An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of immense positivity. That positivity can generate even more good energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile. You are worthy and deserving of all the good you desire.
This is the three-hundred and fifty-sixth entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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