What is change? Why can change be so daunting? And why do we need to change? If you want to create a life for yourself that feels satisfying, or figure out how to get out of a rut and create a life that you feel good about, then that’s what you’ll discover in Episode 1 of the Change Your Life! podcast… your guide to creating a better life for yourself.
Episode Transcript
Do you want to create a life for yourself that feels satisfying? Do you want to figure out how to get out of a rut and create a life that you feel good about?
Well, you’ve come to the right place… because that’s what the ‘Change Your Life!’ podcast is all about! So, get settled and let’s talk about how to change your life with simple tips grounded in quality research.
Hi! I’m Jeremy Godwin, and welcome to the first episode of my brand new show, where I’m going to be sharing lots of practical and straightforward advice to help you create a better life for yourself.
I’m a writer, coach, and mental health counsellor, so I talk to clients about this stuff for a living, and you might also be familiar with my other podcast, Let’s Talk About Mental Health, where I teach people how to improve their wellbeing each week… but I’m also someone who’s been doing a lot of work to make changes in my own life and so I want to share my journey with you, and all the stuff I’ve been learning along the way, and hopefully we can all really change each of our lives for the better.
Today I’m going to talk about what change is, what change means to you, why change can be daunting, and the importance of taking control of what you can change.
First, let’s discuss what you can expect from this show. I’m going to be producing 12 episodes of season one, and we’ll just see what happens from there. I think that there’s this real thing where we feel like we have to have everything mapped out before we dive in headfirst and I don’t think that’s necessarily realistic; like all things in life, it’s about finding a healthy balance… in this case, that means a healthy balance between planning and just giving things a go so you can see where you end up. I think we all need to kind of understand that you don’t have to have everything planned 54 years in advance, and that it’s perfectly fine to just, I don’t know, dip your toe in the water and see what happens!
But, for me, the whole piece about creating this podcast is very much about sharing the stuff that I’ve been learning along the way, not just with my mental health journey over the last decade (or decade and a half, really), but also related to the massive number of changes that I’ve gone through in my life over the last few years. And then it’s also about holding myself accountable for creating the change that I want to create in my life, but also the changes that I need to create in my life… and I’ll talk a little bit about that later on.
But to start off with, let’s have a bit of a chat about…
What change actually is
And so, in this context, I’m talking about making adjustments to different areas of your life, whether that’s big or small, and in my work as a coach and counsellor I talk about nine key areas of wellbeing covering your physical wellbeing, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, and financial wellbeing, as well as your work and your relationships with others, and then, at the core of all of that, your relationship with yourself.
And so where this whole change piece comes in is that this is about really being honest with yourself to look at, “OK, if I think about all of those key areas, let me ask myself: what’s working? What’s working really well, what am I happy with, and how do I do more of that stuff? And then, what’s not working? How do I do less of that stuff, or find ways to remove it from my life?”
And sothat can be a really hard conversation to have with yourself because it requires you to be brutally honest — which, you know, is hugely painful so it’s not something we tend to enjoy doing! — but it really is about looking yourself in the eye, figuratively speaking, and just being clear about what is working in your life and then what isn’t; what needs to change, what do you need to do less of, or do differently, in order to address the stuff that’s not working in one or more of those nine areas that I talked about a moment ago?
And then, beyond that, it’s also about thinking really clearly and understanding what you want to achieve and who you want to be in the future. Let me repeat that: what you want to achieve, and who you want to be in the future. And I said those again because those two questions are enormous, and they can change with whatever’s going on in your life, whatever your direction is, etc.; I mean, certainly for me, my idea of who I want to be has changed significantly in the past few years.
In 2015, my partner and I left the city — we’d been living in Melbourne for 14 years almost, after moving there from Sydney where we both grew up — and we then moved to the countryside in 2015, and that has been a massive change, and it has really influenced the way that I look at not just my life, but the world in general.
It’s changed my priorities, and it’s changed my focus.
And so now it’s an ongoing process of thinking about what does that actually look and feel like for me, now and in the future, and how do I make changes to ensure that I’m focusing my energy and my attention on what I want to achieve, rather than just kind of sitting back and expecting things to go however they go. I’m not a particularly huge fan of just letting the currents take me wherever they will in life; again, going back to my earlier point about balance in all things, I think it’s about finding a healthy balance between going with the flow and also taking control of your own destiny so you can create a future for yourself that feels genuinely satisfying and fulfilling.
OK, so now let’s talk about…
What does change mean to you?
So, I want to encourage you to think — to really think — about what change is to you; is it something you welcome, or is it something you try to resist? Do you tend to be proactive about making changes in your life to improve things, like situations or relationships that aren’t working, or do you avoid making changes, or hope that problems will just take care of themselves? There’s absolutely no judgement from me attached to any of those different approaches, and so I don’t want you to feel like it’s a criticism if you’d rather run screaming into the woods at night than make changes (because it’s not a criticism; that’s just human nature!), but it is necessary for you to have a clear understanding of what your mindset is when it comes to the idea of change, because it’s going to have a big impact on how you approach things going forward… and, spoiler alert here, given the fact that I called this podcast Change Your Life! you can probably expect that I’ll be encouraging you to change your life so, you know, I totally get it if that makes you want to curl into a ball but that won’t help you to make progress in life!
So, then, beyond that, start to think about what is it that you want to achieve, and who do you want to be? And if you find that question really hard to answer (the “who do I want to be?” question), then a great starting point that I find useful is to start thinking about who do I not want to be? I think that’s a really profound and challenging conversation that you can have with yourself, and often it’s a much easier way to begin because when you start to think about who you don’t want to be it can give you a very clear idea of what you then have to do in order to move away from that, right?
So, for example, I used to work in the corporate sector, and I left in 2012 after having a nervous breakdown in late 2011 that was followed ultimately by a few years of quite severe depression and anxiety. And I had been in middle management roles, and they were high pressure and I always thought that’s what I wanted… and then I had this breakdown, I couldn’t work and could barely function for a few years, and eventually the fog started to lift in early 2014 and I looked around and went, oh shit, where am I?! And several years had passed… so here’s me thinking, What am I going to do with myself? Who do I want to be?
And I had absolutely no idea where to even begin answering that question.
But the one thing I was able to latch onto, and really focus on, and which has driven me to do the things that I’ve done since, is that I had a really clear voice in my head saying, whatever I do, I don’t want to go back to corporate. And that — knowing what I didn’t want — actually, strangely enough, helped to drive me forward. It helped to inform the choices that I had to make in order to avoid going back to corporate.
And so, beyond that, it then became a conversation of, alright, well, what do I want to do instead? And, what are my options? And then, how do I pursue that? And, you know, that’s a bigger conversation, and it’s not necessarily relevant here (I mean, I’m someone who could happily go off on a tangent, but it’s probably too early for that!), but it really is, for you, this — today — is an opportunity for you to say, “What do I want? And if I don’t know what I want, that’s fine. It’s OK! I’ll figure it out!” And, seriously, it is OK; do you know how many people don’t know what they want? Life does not come with an instruction manual, alright, and so you’re not expected to know this stuff. Honestly, we’re all just making this shit up as we go along!
Now… if you’re not sure, then sit with yourself and reflect and think, “What don’t I want out of life?” and allow that to be the starting point of that conversation.
So before we go any further let’s first take a short break to hear from the brands who help me create this show each week.
AD BREAK [does not play on Spotify Premium]
And welcome back! Now let’s talk about…
Why is change so daunting?
And I think one of the main reasons, why this idea of change in general can be so difficult (and maybe even intimidating), is that change is scary, right? Let me explain.
So, our comfort zone as human beings is to stick with the familiar, even if the ‘familiar’ is horrible, messed up, we don’t like it, it doesn’t make us happy, all of that stuff… because at least it’s safe and it’s familiar, and the unknown is just that: it’s unknown, and so it’s extremely unsettling.
Human beings don’t tend to cope well with the uncertain, with the unknown. And so anybody who listens to a podcast like this, or picks up a book and is looking at the idea of change, or who is listening to this and thinking, “I think I want to change my life, but I don’t know where to start necessarily, or I’m not quite clear,” anyone who does that, to me, is seriously the bravest person in the world, because change is terrifying!
It often seems so much easier to just stay small, and it can feel like it’s so much easier to just stick with the familiar… and that’s what so many people do, resisting change so they can stay in their little boxes and pretend it’s still 1988 or 2011 or whatever their best-year-ever was. But the problem with that is — and this is one of my favourite sayings of all time — nothing changes if nothing changes.
If you want to create a life that you love, if you want to create a life that you feel proud of, that feels purposeful and meaningful and fulfilling, no matter whether that’s on a big scale, or if it’s just with you and your family or your loved ones or whatever the case might be, it doesn’t matter; you don’t have to become president of the world in order to feel satisfied and fulfilled, you could be that as a partner or a parent or a child or whatever the case might be.
My point — and I think there’s one buried in here somewhere! — my point is that nothing changes if nothing changes. And if you’re listening to this, then I’m going to guess that it’s because you want to create some sort of change in some aspect of your life, if not in general in your life, right? Well, if you want better then you need to create better… because things don’t just magically change for the better on their own without at least some input from you!
I actually started this episode by deliberately asking some thought-provoking questions, which were, “Do you want to create a life for yourself that feels satisfying?” and “Do you want to figure out how to get out of a rut and create a life that you feel good about?” And if those questions resonated with you, then guess what? It’s time to make changes in your life!
I mean, look, whether or not you’re going to go ahead with making the actual change now or later (or at all) is a question that only you can answer, alright. But, really, I’m going to say that, yes, right now definitely is the right time to make changes in your life. In fact, I think it’s always the right time to make changes, because nothing stays the same forever and change is how we grow, so ideally we should all be focusing on continuous improvement.
The thing is, you can either let yourself be swept along by life, which usually feels pretty frustrating or, I don’t know, ‘disappointing’ maybe is a good way to look at it… it leaves you feeling like you have no control, and the problem with that is that over time it can lead to unhappiness or even bitterness, which is… not great, obviously; I mean, nobody wants to end up being like that cranky old lady in Gremlins who’s got it out for everybody in the world! And so that brings me to my main point today, which is…
It’s up to you to take control of what you can change in your life
So the idea is that you can either make changes or just go with the flow — and there’s nothing wrong with going with the flow, don’t get me wrong; I actually think that letting go and allowing yourself to be surprised by the opportunities that life presents you is a great mindset to be in… but I think you need to have an element of control alongside that in order to be actively making choices about the direction that you’re going to be heading in, so that you aren’t just randomly swept along into places that you maybe shouldn’t be going or maybe don’t want to go.
This is about choosing to take control of your life, and staying one step ahead of the shenanigans and tomfoolery that life likes to throw our way. It’s inevitable that each of us will have challenges to deal with at some point in our lives, and that that will be something that we have to put up with for the rest of our lives; it’s just part and parcel of what happens as a human being… and so we need to learn how to make our peace with the fact that so much is out of our control, and instead of wasting energy trying to change things you can never change it’s about focusing on what you can change.
You only have direct control over yourself, and by that I mean your words and actions and what you choose to do with the way that you feel. And so, just to put that into context, everything else that goes on, all of the random stuff that happens in the world — you know, the decisions that are made by your government, the… I don’t know, whether or not your favourite show gets renewed for another season or which country wins Eurovision — the point is that you can influence all of that stuff, by making your voice heard, but you cannot control what does or doesn’t happen.
So the point I’m making is that changing your life is about choosing to take control of your circumstances and staying one step ahead, and also steering your life in the direction that you want to go. It’s the reason why I launched this podcast; right now, I’ve been doing my other weekly podcast, Let’s Talk About Mental Health, for more than four and a half years now, and I absolutely love what I do… but I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve been in a bit of a rut for a while. And it’s not just with that podcast; I think I’m in a rut in life in general, and I need some new challenges to force me to move forward. And so this, for me, is a creative outlet, but it’s also a way of challenging myself; it’s a way of pushing myself in all of these different areas and documenting my journey. And it’s also about keeping myself honest with the kind of change that I want to make.
As a mental health professional myself, and a coach, I’m great at being able to help people to do that stuff for themselves. But when it comes to me doing that for me, I don’t know… I’m terrible at it. Absolutely terrible! Actually, no, wait, that’s a self-criticism… maybe I’m not terrible, but I feel like I tend to default back into this place of not making progress a lot of the time because it becomes a struggle.
And so, anyway, the point is I’m being really hard on all of this stuff with myself, but I want to and need to make some changes.
And I hope that, by hearing this, you can see that it’s a struggle for a lot of people, including those of us who work on this stuff for a living, and I hope you can understand why you really need to show yourself a lot more kindness and empathy for the things that, in your life, that maybe you’re not completely happy with, or that maybe you struggle with, instead of being your own bully and criticising yourself.
So, what I’m trying to say is that this new podcast, this whole ‘Change Your Life!’ thing, this is a way for me to share all the stuff I’ve learned over these past few years as well as an opportunity to push myself in all of these different areas and to document my journey — and I said that before — but it’s also… it’s also to give myself an outlet. I love to create — it’s one of the things that I do that I really enjoy the most — and, like I said before, I’m a coach and a mental health counsellor, and so I see clients throughout the week, I do one on one appointments with a handful of clients, and when I have those conversations, it’s energising for me. I get to the end of the discussion — I do them over Zoom — and I hang up the call, and I feel restored because there’s something about sitting here and talking through problems and challenges with people, and helping them find solutions, and also being able to shine a light on the difficult stuff to help people see a way forward; the things that we need to talk about and shine a light on that we that we need to acknowledge and process… but that can be really hard to do because it’s just so uncomfortable. And that’s the bit that I really enjoy about the work that I do.
And I’m using this podcast as an opportunity to, kind of, to do that in a different forum; to share some of my challenges as examples along the way, and to also potentially introduce the stuff that I talk about to a different audience. Because, you know, I do the mental health podcast, but there’s a lot of people who are never going to come across that simply by virtue of the fact that they’re not looking for something specifically around mental health. But the work I do is very much around changing your life and taking control and creating a life that you feel happy with, that you feel genuinely satisfied with. And an overarching part of that is working out who you want to be and who you don’t want to be.
So… in a long-winded kind of way, that’s the message that I’m getting across with this, with this new podcast. So, you know, change really is this hugely personal journey for each of us, but it’s also something that we can share with one another, and it really is a way for us to feel a bit less alone.
I think when you recognise, or when you discover, that there are other people feeling similarly to you, even if their individual experiences are unique — which of course they are; nobody has lived my life, I haven’t lived their life — but to be able to find commonalities, similarities, with things… it’s enormously comforting to know that you’re not alone with struggling with some of this stuff, and even being able to share best practices and ideas and things — and that’s part of what I’ll do in this podcast, is share tips that are grounded in quality research and positive psychology and things like that — but, more than anything, I think just the simple act itself of sharing really creates a unique connection among us where we can start to recognise our own potential and to feel a bit less alone, and to feel a sense of solidarity in this idea of changing our lives, which is such an amazing… an amazingly enormous decision to make.
It’s huge. Right?!
There’s a reason why most people never change. Most people will just happily sit there and be the same person until the end of days, and may not necessarily see a problem with that. And I’m not saying that there is a problem with that, but… I don’t know… I don’t want to be the same person that I was yesterday. Is it just me? Or, it’s… yeah, I don’t know. I feel like… I look at the world very differently now. I’m 47 and I look at the world enormously differently than I did at 37, and certainly a world apart from how I did at, like, 27 or 17.
And I hope you do too.
Because if you’re not growing, you’re stagnating.
Life is going to move forward regardless. And so this is about giving each of us permission to talk about how scary the journey is, how irritating it is that we have to change sometimes; I mean, you know, you think I want to sit here and talk about my challenges? No, I don’t want to talk about that! But if I’m going to do something about it, then I also can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist.
Anyway, I’m hoping that I’ve said something there that is of value, in some way, shape, or form. I… we’ll see how I feel about this conversation after I listen back to it later on!
Summary and Conclusion
Alright, so the main point that I really want you to take away from today’s discussion is about figuring out what change involves, for you; working out what it means to you.
Going back to what I said earlier, which is all of those different areas of your wellbeing, I’d really like you to take some time to think about each of them in relation to where you’re at now and where you’d like to be. So let me just remind you, and this will be in the transcript as well, which will be linked in the episode description (or you can just head to itsjeremygodwin.com and find it there), but I’ll just quickly remind you of those key things that I want you to kind of consider.
So, think about the quality of your life and your wellbeing in general based on these key areas: it’s your physical wellbeing, your mental wellbeing, spiritual wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, social (so that’s all of your social interactions, regardless of whether they’re acquaintances or friends or family, whatever the case might be), and financial wellbeing. All of those six are like internally-focused aspects of well-being, and then there’s the externally-focused factors, which is your work and your relationships with others. And those are both influenced by your well-being, but they also have a direct impact on your internal self, your well-being. And then, at the core of all of it, is the quality of your relationship with yourself.
So if you find that in one or more of those nine aspects of well-being, that you don’t feel satisfied, that you feel like you either need to or want to change, then that’s the starting point from today’s conversation; it’s, “OK, so I’ve identified this… now, what does that actually mean?” And be really clear with yourself about what that means, even if you have to sit with it for a while or maybe talk it over with someone you trust or even with a therapist.
And then, beyond that, I would encourage you to have that reflection conversation with yourself about what’s working and what’s not working in your life, and then who do you want to be and who don’t you want to be? Because all of that together will give you a much clearer idea of the broad direction that you’re wanting to head, and also some of the key things that you’re going to need to focus on.
You know, it’s really — hopefully — going to be an enlightening exercise for you to spend a bit of time, and reflection is one of those things that can make an enormous difference. So if you’re not already doing a regular reflection practice, I’d highly encourage you to make some time to do so; I have some simple-yet-effective tools available from my store that can help you to do that, and it’s linked in the episode description.
So, by way of closing out, something I like to do in my other podcast is to share a quote at the end of each episode that’s relevant to the subject and so I’ll do that here as well; this is one of my favourite quotes ever about change, it’s by author Karen Kaiser Clark, and it is: “Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.”
Alright… that’s it for this episode; next week I’m going to be talking about why change is important, and so we’ll dig a little bit deeper and we’ll discuss some of the real challenges involved in change, but also why it makes such an enormous difference for the way you feel about your life.
I hope you’ll join me for that episode; hit ‘follow’ on your preferred podcast platform so you never miss an episode (and turn on that notification bell; I release new episodes on Wednesdays); as I said earlier, I’m committing to 12 episodes for this first season, and then we’ll see what happens from there.
If this episode was helpful, please give it a like so other people can find it and leave me a note to tell me what you thought; if you’re on Spotify scroll down and leave a comment in the Q&A section below, or you can find me on Instagram @itsjeremygodwin. Sign up to my mailing list for free at itsjeremygodwin.com to have episode transcripts and audio emailed to you each week, and support me on Patreon for early access to ad-free episodes of all of my podcasts; you’ll find all of those links in the episode description.
Thank you very much for joining me today! Have an absolutely fantastic day, night, whatever it is when you’re listening, and I’ll talk to you next time. Take care!
Change Your Life! is an independent program proudly produced by Reconnaissance Media. For more information, visit reconnaissancemedia.com
Jeremy Godwin 
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