We all know this old saying, Leopards cannot change their spots. We have all heard and at times said, “well that is who I am.” I remember someone once saying to me, “this cake is baked.” I thought about it and agreed at the time. You can grow and make adjustments to behavior, but your core is your core, and that is who you are.
Man, was I wrong! At our soul level, we are pure love. As we move through life that changes. Our behavior and decisions come from deep-seated beliefs that have formed over many years through social conditioning, validation, conclusions we drew that may not have been correct, from watching parents and other adults navigate life. We learn and create beliefs based mostly in fear. We look at what could go wrong before what could go right. We expect things to be hard and use mantras such as “no pain, no gain,” to make that real and accepted. We assume that life is supposed to be hard. I used, “work hard, play hard” as my mantra for most of my career. We let everything that happens, every mistake, every transgression act as a lesson or validation that we were correct in fearing something. We also believe that anything that is good for us, or good period is due to either hard work (you know, the hustle) or luck. Fear drives most of our actions and keeps us from doing so much.
It keeps us from trying things because of what could go wrong. It keeps us from trusting our intuition because we have heard we need facts and must see things to believe things. Intuition is woo-woo. It keeps us small because fear wants to keep us safe. It keeps us focused on what we don’t have versus what we do have. It also propels many of us to be perfectionists, so then we can feel bad when we aren’t perfect. It causes us to believe that in order to be loved or happy we need the right job, the right partner, the right next shiny new thing. We believe happiness is about what we have and not who we are and how we think. And most of us don’t even realize that this is fear driving us, we think this is what life is about. It is supposed to be hard work, it is supposed to be chasing. It is supposed to be about doing and not being.
What if, just what if, happiness was all about how you think? What if, just what if, in order to change the outcome you just need to change the thinking? What if, just what if, you could become that vision you have without buying that next thing, or working harder in your profession? Do you think you can change?
Yes you can. We all can. Nobody is stagnate. To change, you have to have a few things. First, you have to want to change. Second, you have to choose to change. Third, you have to have a vision of what you want to be to change. Lastly, you have to become so hyper-aware of your thinking and change it at a fundamental level; actually change the belief system that creates the thought.
Is it easy? Hell no! Change is never easy mainly because it takes looking at yourself critically. It takes awareness. It takes desire and time. It isn’t overnight and it isn’t comfortable. But most of all, change takes compassion. You have to be easy on yourself, allowing for steps forward, backwards and side-to-side. It means understanding with compassion where your beliefs came from. It means understanding that without judging you or others. It is done with curiosity and love.
We can all change, if we choose to change. If we decide we want a happier , more fulfilling life, we can change. If we decide that there are patterns we no longer want to repeat. If we decide that there is a vision of us and our life that means more than staying where we are currently. Then we can change.
The leopards that choose to change their spots focus on love not fear. The leopards that choose to change their spots focus on being not doing. The leopards that choose to change their spots choose on being happy inside, not getting happiness for people and things.
Be your best version, embrace you and change those spots.