I’ve been thinking about change and how much courage it takes me to redirect. I’ve heard it said that the most successful people are the ones who are good at Plan B. Which makes a lot of sense. Few of us have lives that follow a smooth trajectory and most of us need to improvise along the way, so adaptation is a important skill.
In many respects, our ability to change and make course corrections in life takes the stamina and grit shown in Walter Mitty’s classic children’s book: The Little Engine That Could. The little blue engine implores the steady I-Think-I-Can, I-Think-I-Can mantra as it pulls the train over the mountain. The chant is more than a great motto; it’s generally true that our optimism can make all the difference.
“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” - M. Scott Peck