If you want to be creative in your company, your career, your life, all it takes is one easy step…the extra one...

...When you encounter a familiar plan, you just ask one question: “What ELSE could we do? - Dale Dauten

I really like this quote. I like it so much because I think it's a great way to paraphrase a topic I've been thinking about a lot recently- the topic of Change. I think what really got me thinking about it was Obama's campaign. "Vote for Change" he says. "Things need to change around here." "Together, we can change the world." We've all heard quotes like these before from all kinds of people and organizations, so obviously, Obama, his team and believers in him are not the only ones that want to change things in the world. We all do, really. But here's what I've been thinking about: Why do we have to change everything? Why do people want to change the world? I mean, I'm a human being, a part of this world. What did I say or do to make you want to change me?? While people want to change everything, here's my suggestion: Why not improve it instead? You can't make the decision or grow the desire to change something unless you think it's seriously wrong in the first place. If you didn't see something wrong, or you thought something was just fine and wonderful the way it already was, you wouldn't want to change it, right? That goes for how you see people, too. We don't want to change ourselves unless we first see something wrong that needs to be fixed or replaced.

I don't think people take enough time to really see how awesome life is and how awesome our world is. If they did, they wouldn't want to change everything. Of course, there is a lot of shit going on in our world that could and should be changed, but I truly think that we need to focus more on improvement than we do change. Because if we did, we would be more appreciative of life and all that's in it today than we would be appreciative of what could be.

To put this into practice, I've decided to be more conscious about my thoughts on how I want to live my life in the future and about my goals and how I make them. And I'm using this blog entry as a way to hold myself accountable.. to get it out in public and down on "paper." Usually, I put about 30 minutes aside each month to just jot down what I want to change about my life and how I'm going to do that. In the past, my notes have said things like, "Stop procrastinating," or "Become the best outside hitter in our conference," "Work at a top design studio by January" and so on. I know a lot of people would think, "ok, Sarah, there's nothing wrong with those goals so what's your point?" It's this: My goals have always been created after thinking hard about what I didn't like about my life or myself and jotting down my plans to change that. And that's not what I want to do anymore and it's something I think we all do too much of. Especially those who want to "change the world." I wanted to be the best outside hitter in our conference because I didn't like the player I was at the time I made that goal. I wasn't focused on how far I'd come and how much better I'd gotten, I just wanted to change. Same goes for getting that job. I still want to work at a high-profile design firm but I now realize that I have some improvements to make in my skill set before I do. Most importantly though, I now realize it's FINE to have lots of room for improvement.

Here's what else I want to do with my life (hopefully before '09 is over):
-Be an adventurer. Just go to different places on a whim, unafraid of what could be there or what could happen.
-Make exercising a part of my everyday life
-Become an early riser
-Complete an Olympic distance triathlon
-Complete an Xterra
-Be completely independent, financially. Get my credit card paid off, take over payments for health and car insurance, be able to pay full rent and all business expenses.
-Love my job. Everyday and every minute.
-Do all of these things because I want to improve my life, not because I want to change it. In other words, be totally satisfied, happy with and appreciative of the life I'm blessed with and only see what else I can do to improve it rather than categorize things into either good or bad, then swapping out the supposedly bad for some new goal I want to accomplish.

Hopefully that all makes sense. If not, just read the quote that I picked for this post one more time because it really does sum up what I've been thinking about, probably without even meaning to. Bottom line is, I truly think our world needs to focus on what ELSE we can do. Not just what we can CHANGE. Yes, change and improvement go hand in hand a lot of the time, and a lot of the time that's okay... as long as we take the time to stop and think about and appreciate all the great in our lives.