"I wish I'd made that change later.” -said no one

Sooner is better than later—but “now” is good, too.

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Over the years, I’ve written a lot about change.¹

I’ve even described my audience as “pro-change,” when asked to explain who reads my blog and comes to my events.

This explanation was always frustrating to book publicists and professional marketers, who assured me that the world exists in neat, demographically-packaged pockets.

“But my readers want to change the world!” I’d say.

“That’s not a target market,” I was told. 

Fair enough. Perhaps we were both right in some ways.

And of course, not everything should be changed. But the point is: all things considered and generally speaking, change is good. 

When you are stuck, you want to change. When you are frustrated, you want to change.

Either literally or figuratively (or both), you want to go from where you are now to someplace better—and this involves change.

Just think about a big change you’ve made during your life—do you ever wish you’d made it later? 

Most likely, it's either the right time or it's overdue. Again, there’s probably some exception to the rule, but most of the time, you’ll feel better after making a change you’ve been pondering for a while.

For me —

• I wish I’d gone to therapy sooner

• I wish I’d learned more about ADHD sooner (also: attachment theory, codependency, family systems, radical acceptance, and more)

• I wish I’d actively developed emotional intelligence instead of picking it up along the way

• I wish I’d learned how to learn sooner (weird thing: most of us never study the practice of skill acquisition, which offers a huge return on investment. The better and faster you can learn, the more you can learn)

The list could go on and on. 

In fact, almost every “regrets of the dying” article dwells on this concept in some way, usually in a formula of sorts: I wish I’d made/done [big life change] [more, sooner, earlier, etc.].²

Another thing: sometimes I've been afraid in advance of making a change—but almost always afterwards, I think, wow, I feel so relieved.

So my suggestion is to do whatever it takes to make yourself pro-change. Create nudges and positive barriers toward your desired behavior. 

Make it easier to change than to remain in the same situation.

If you want to stop eating junk food, don’t keep junk food around the house. (Then, if you still eat it when you’re out sometime, don’t beat yourself up over it.) 

If you want to exercise in the morning, put your workout clothes by your bed and change into them right when you wake up. (Tell yourself you don’t have to work out, you just have to wear your workout clothes for a while. See what happens.)

I know these things might seem like silly tricks … but they really do help! And of course, they can help for bigger changes, too.

The key point is to move in the direction of what feels exciting and scary. Do it today. Do it now, before you can overthink it. 

“Be the change,” as they say—and not just for “the world,” but for yourself. 

Remember: almost no one says "I'd wish I'd made that change later."

Shoutouts

• “For you, who needs more than a dry January”—I loved this essay on sobriety by

  Laura McKowen

• The author and scientist

  Scott Barry Kaufman
  has a new series called
  Beautiful Minds Newsletter

Conversation Starters

1. What’s the last big change you made?

2. What’s something you want to change? (Don’t worry if you’re not sure how to do it just yet.)

3. "I'm all for change, as long as I don't have to do anything different." Discuss.

1. For example, some old blog posts: The Need for Change, Some Things You Can Do to Change Your Life, The Real Risk is That You Don’t Change, Good Reasons to Change Your Mind, When in Doubt, Change Everything, If You Have No Challenges, Maybe It’s Time To Change Your Life, How Goals Change Over Time, and What to Do About It

2. BTW, the whole “regrets of the dying” concept is a little problematic, or at least overly simplified. We’ll come to that later.