So you’ve heard that you can’t change yourself overnight. That change takes much time and a lot of effort. That you have to be true to yourself and know yourself and your limitations well.

But perhaps we can challenge that notion a little. You see, what we sometimes think of as change can often be a sense of becoming someone I am not. Someone I would like to be at some point in the future.

A new path can begin with just one small step -one small change. A small change to my morning schedule. Waking up 10 minutes earlier. Committing to a small bite-size, easy and doable change. Making that firm decision and sticking with it can cause a much bigger change than we imagine. By making an easy change first, that can trigger and lead to the next logical, intuitive next move to the better.

What you’re essentially doing, is becoming purposeful. It may seem that it is only in one small area and with something trivial, but that exercise of purposefulness has long lasting effects. Not just because of becoming a little more purposeful and giving thought to my actions, but also because every part of our lives are so intricately connected. So my purposefulness in one small area, actually created that change in other areas too. As Vincent Van Gogh said “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together”. Today’s science is replete with examples of the interconnectivity of literally everything. It’s the same for our personal lives.

Making a physical change, along with our mental one can be very powerful. What also works well, is to surround ourselves and develop relationships with people whose lifestyles we wish to emulate, as well as people who bring out the best in us.

At any given moment, you can become a ‘New You’, or as our title suggests, ‘You 2.0’ which is really the same you, but now the best version currently available (and of course the implication that there is always room for continued growth ‘You 3.0’).

If you think about, whenever you choose to stop, think and make that small change, what you are in essence saying, is that “here I am, the I of today, the I of right now, with whatever history I come with. These are my ‘preprogrammed’ circumstance, temperament, traits, talents, baggage and background and I am now choosing my next step, my next change -my next ‘update’.

There may not be too much we can do regarding our ‘hardware’, we are blessed with one we have, with limited changes available. But our ‘software upgrades’ are only limited by our mindset and notion that major upgrades are too difficult. Remember, many times, the journey to version 2.0 starts with version 1.1 but once that journey starts, 2.0 arrives much quicker and easier than you think.

So can we change overnight? Sure. But why wait till tomorrow? 🙂

Mendy Baron