Changing the way I think for good.

How far we go is determined by how far ahead we think, There's a reason some people fear change: It can be scary. It can also be uncomfortable, nerve wrecking and potentially embarrassing too. But that doesn't mean you should avoid change. I also think the fear of change can keep you from reaching your full potential can affect your personal finances , both at work and in your personal life. ‎

If we think on a ‘pay as you go’ basis, we will keep getting slammed by circumstances we did not see coming. A lot of people have no idea why their finances are the way they are. They are doing the best they know how to do, but somehow each month seems to look exactly the same as the one before. If we don’t look up and look ahead, we will keep running into things, including repeating financial mistakes.‎‎

‎The conventional wisdom treats change as an evolutionary, incremental process. It can work that way, but here is the danger: The world that we live in today is making tectonic changes, and puny, so incremental responses will only leave us further and further behind.‎

Thinking for a change, there's this book by John Maxwell, it practically changed the way I think for good. ‎

I have often wondered why we make unwise decisions. Why a man quarrels with the wife and drives out of the house , Why do we indulge in instant gratification when we know tomorrow is sure to come? Why do we try to look good on the outside by making poor financial decisions huh .‎

‎The key is rigor and intention. If I truly intend to change something in my life, then it starts with how I speak about it. It’s not "if" I make the change, it's "when" I make it. That simple little tune up sets the mind to work in a different context.

"I will never get this done," is a belief that may be easy to fall into, but it is one that sets up failure and provides an excuse to quit. "This is a challenge, but I will get there," is a different response to the same circumstances. What matters is the story we tell ourselves about the circumstances. ‎

 I feel the reason is because consequences are often slow in showing up. There is a big gap time between an action and the result at the long run,  It is not on our face, so we hardly reckon with it. ‎

So many of our people in power embezzle public funds. And  the culture of impunity makes them think they have immunity. They don’t see their reputation becoming soiled down the lane when they get caught and possibly put in jail. 

Even when they seem to get away with it, they don’t see the spiritual consequences. They miss the fact that their children will pay for it( sins of the father) They may become wayward, a nuisance to society, on drugs, go mental; the money gets squandered and such ‘riches’ hardly get passed from generations to generation. They don’t see the anguish ahead at the moment. At our level now, we just think what we do does not matter, but it truly does. 

How far ahead we think determines what we see. What we see influences what we do. When we think short term, we see only a part of the picture. We don’t see the big picture. We don’t see possible job loss, brain drain, possible health challenges, emergency expenses, family challenges etc. We are so focussed in winning the battle that we may loose the war. We feel so happy that we caught the rat, forgetting that our house is on fire. We become so focussed on the urgent that we miss the important.‎

My adage is that competence is domain specific. That someone was a great sales person doesn't mean she will make a great sales manager. Why? This is because Selling and managing are two distinct domains of competence.

Look at Michael Jordan — arguably the world's best basketball player. He is a pretty good golfer and, at best, a semi-pro baseball player. Competence is domain specific. So we should be determined to make a change and work towards it. ‎‎‎ My favorite current example is the new fad around [employee] engagement. This is a total waste of time and money as it is a symptom, not a cause. The cause is degenerative moods. People who are living in resignation, resentment, complacency or distrust have no capacity to be engaged in things and no amount of "happy clappy" work is going to change that. This is the stuff of novelty.

Innovation is the key to the future. Innovation is an incremental or radical improvement to a product or process that shifts the practices of some community. Most organizations are terrible at innovation as they don't know how to generate it. Instead, they wait for it to happen — not a great strategy. ‎

‎ My question is : Why is the conventional wisdom surrounding change wrong? What's the right way to make change happen?‎

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