Principles of Change

Changing your life—I want to share with you some principles. Most of what I’m going to share with you comes out of the work of a motivational speaker and writer named Andy Andrews. I’ve loved his writings through the years. This, in particular, you can find a lot of this content in Mastering the Seven Decisions [that Determine Personal Success]. You can also find it in The Seven Decisions. You can look into his novels, and more, and see a lot of the principles that are there, that drive how he writes. Let’s get started.

Accept Responsibility

Andy said, in the review of the literature, he found that—and I’m going to put my own spin and take on some of this too—that you start out by accepting responsibility. If you’re going to change your life—let’s just look at this personally for a moment—you have got to accept personal responsibility. Stop blaming others for your problems or your circumstances.

Make Adjustments

Come back to the game of baseball, just for a moment. If the umpire is calling a strike three or four inches off the plate, well don’t just sit there and let him call you out. What? Move up on the plate, and put the head of the bat on the baseball. Great athletes, we know, through the years, don’t make excuses; they make adjustments. It’s the same principle in our everyday life. Make the adjustments.

Face Your Fears

You’ve heard this statement: Face your fears. It goes right with this, accepting responsibility. Face your adversity. If you don’t accept the challenges in your life, you have no hope for the future. Maybe it’d be fair to say this: If hope isn’t staring you in the mirror every morning, I’m telling you, then you are in trouble. “Well, what about my past? You don’t understand everything I’ve been up against.” You’ve heard me talk about Joe Cucci saying, “Forget about it!” Listen, it’s hard to do. I know that, especially if your past is still affecting your present. At the end of the day, though, you’ve got a responsibility.