Illustration by Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot – FreeDigitalPhotos.net
There’s More Than One Path to the Grocery Store…
A strange thing happened on my way back from the gym the other day. It’s nothing harrowing, but then again, depending upon the situation, one never knows.
In this instance, while sitting at the red light waiting for green, it dawned on me that making a left might be a quicker route to my favorite grocery store. God knows how many times I’ve driven past this left taking a path that seemed to be quicker, or at least had the appearance of, but this time I made the left. This time I was bold and tried something new; something out of the norm.
As it turns out, the route is quicker and less stressful – no meandering through town, no endless stop lights, fewer pedestrians and fewer wandering drivers. And all this time I thought I was already driving the quickest route!
Like trips to the grocery store, so is life. It’s mind-boggling how we become stuck in our ways and our brain seemingly develops well-traveled canals from which we can’t escape to the myriad of endless possibilities that are otherwise open to us. It’s not that we don’t use our brains, because we do. It’s more in how we use them, which stems from our habits (see Self-Discipline: The Cornerstone of Meaningful Action…).
For better or worse, humans are creatures of habit. We become comfortable and don’t look upon change agreeably, even if it brings good, as my alternate route to the grocery store proved. As it was yesterday, shall it be today, and shall it be tomorrow, is the modus operandi for the vast majority of us. If only we could break this mindset, if only we could implement change, even a percentile, how we could impact our lives and break the boredom that many of us experience day-in, day-out.
All great innovators understand this. We look upon these people with great admiration as if they walk on water (and some of them almost do!), but in essence, they’re not that different from us. It’s not so much in what they know that makes them great, but how they think with what they know that makes them great. Theirs is a world of endless possibilities, and they have habituated their minds to think change. Change is welcome, change is good, change spells possibility; this is the modus operandi of the innovator’s mind!
English writer and clergyman, William Pollard (1826-1893) understood this when he wrote, “Without change, there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.”
Writing this in the 19th century before the amazing achievements of the past century and the one now upon us, Pollard was certainly ahead of his time. But even in the relative calmness of Pollard’s times, change always appeared, and the fact of the matter is, it always will.
So the next time you’re heading out to the grocery store, change it up, take a different route and you’ll never know what might happen. You just might be surprised…
For more on change check out The C.A.T. Principle: Change, Action, Trust – Words to Live By, a 2014 Global Ebook Awards GOLD First Place Winner for Best Non-Fiction Self-Help Ebook, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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A 2014 Global Ebook Awards GOLD Winner for Best Non-Fiction Self-Help Ebook.