To make changes in your life you must be ready and willing. For some, a major life event like a move to a new city or the birth of a child creates immediate readiness for change and the willpower to see it through. For others, the process is a deliberate choice to make a change for the better. No matter what road brought you to this point, the first step in experiencing The Shake Up is to stand down – to pause and think before taking immediate action.
Our past experiences prepare us for what is to come and we use those experiences to make decisions about what is happening now. Consider how the experiences and interactions you had in the past have influenced your current behavior. After so many times of being hurt we tend to build defenses. We have had our hearts broken, been misled by colleagues at work, or gotten pranked by “friends.” We go into survival mode and start developing a thick skin. Unfortunately, our thick skin often goes together with a closed mind. We get set in our ways and in our thoughts and start reflexively defending ourselves against everyone. We stop letting new concepts in and we begin to view everything through our cynical goggles. Stand down does not mean stop looking out for yourself; it means pause before you act and use compassion as a part of your action process. By standing down we prepare ourselves to listen and receive. We can quiet our knee-jerk reactions and allow for deeper thought and clearer action. By remembering to stand down you stop missing opportunities and begin making changes in your life.