Beyond the Predictable Path: How to create Personal Transformation

Big Picture

Significant life transformation often follows a life altering event. This transformative event can be unplanned, like the shock of being retrenched which forces you to start a successful business. Often you need to engineer your own transformation, like the critical path followed by Nelson Mandela.

Why should you care?

Our lives often proceed on a predictable, dissatisfactory path. This is often a comfortable path leading to an undesirable destination. This might be why the Mercer Talents Trend study in 2021 found that 45% of South African employees are looking for other jobs. Many people are stuck in a career arising from a chance event that happened when they were 16.

Case in point

In his book, Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela talks about the harsh realities of Johannesburg life he found in 1941. The poverty, squalid living conditions, inequality and injustice black people faced daily were unbearable.

He joined the ANC and became involved in the anti-apartheid activities and learnt from the leaders. He became radicalised and fully committed his life to the struggle.

It was a gradual change of a rural young man trying to make a life to a freedom fighter. With further evolution he became an award-winning statesman.

Lesson: Types of personal evolution

The point I am trying to make is that you can jump start life change using a single external event or baby step your way to transformation.

1. Jump start transformation: This is when you seek an event like a weekend silent retreat or running the Comrades marathon, to jump start you personal growth. I started running every week day after my boss challenged me at age 33 that I was not fit enough to run a kilometre. When my attempt to prove him wrong ruined my weekend, that changed me.

2. Baby steps to transformation: You start on a path which leads to personal transformation. Let's say you decide to read a marketing book recommended by a friend. After the book you decide to explore digital marketing further by buying an online course.

You then realise you can help your friend improve his business using digital marketing. When you see the improvements in your friend's business, you are motivated to approach a few local businesses. Before you know it, you have a thriving consulting business.

When did you become a businessman? You cannot put a finger to it, but there is no denying you are now an entrepreneur with paying clients.

Bottom line

Significant changes in our lives are underpinned by transformative experiences. It is not those events which matter,? it is your actions which will lead to your transformation. What is the one transformative action you are willing to attempt next year to change your life?

“The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change.” — Bill Clinton