If youre not changing as a person then youre not intelligent

If youre not changing as a person then youre not intelligentIf youre not changing as a person then youre not intelligentIf youre not changing, youre not growing. If youre not growing, youre not being intelligent. Humans thrive in change and expansion - yet there can be so many internal or external blocks to change.Trying to keep things as they are is a very unhealthy approach to life. Avoiding change reflects a misunderstanding of the human condition and human flourishing. Change is not to be avoided, but embraced. Said Winston ChurchillTo improve is to change to be perfect is to change often.- - - How much have you changed in the past 12 months?How much have you changed in the past 5 years (60 months)?What new challenges are you taking on?What new books have you read that have completely changed your paradigm?What new relationships and experiences have opened you to new worlds of possibilities?What suppressed pain and trauma have you freed yourself from?What bad habits have you f inally given up?What relationships have you healed or let go of?What addictions are still stopping you from living your dreams?What roles or personality are you still clinging to?The extreme importance of the parent-child connectionThe parent-child connection is the most powerful mental health intervention known to mankind. - Bessel van der KolkIn the profound and life-changing book, The Body Keeps The Score, Bessel van der Kolk M.D. explains that suppressed emotions and trauma lead people to unhealthy and addictive cycles.One of the most fundamental components of making positive change in your life is developing a healthy relationship with your parents - whether they are alive or not.All parent-child relationships have some form of baggage because no parent is perfect. Every parent has their own problems and through those problems they raise their kids.It is then the kids responsibility to eventually evolve beyond the deficiencies of their parents. Any good parent would want this for their children to go beyond where they themselves were.Parents must be fully forgiven and viewed in a loving, appreciative, and honorable light. No matter how flawed. This doesnt mean you must maintain a relationship if your parents are heavily abusive or toxic, as is the case of my three recently adopted children. However, if you neglect that relationship and cant openly discuss it, it will come back to you later in life. Even if just at the emotional-level, this relationship is very important to your ability to make desired transformations.Your relationship with your own body (and food)When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure food. - James AllenDoes your body control you, or do you control your body? For most people, the body is completely in control. Want a gut-check about whether youre in control or if your body is?How often do you impulsively check your smart-phone?How often do you impulsively eat or put other substances in your body?How is your abili ty to focus for long periods of time?How in-tune are you with your own intuition?How much time do you spend thinking about your physical appearance?How much time do you spend worrying about the opinions of others?If you dont control your body, then you cant control your mind.If you dont control your body, then you cant control your time.If you dont control your body, then youre life is far mora impulsive and out-of-control than you realize.If the spirit yields to the body, it becomes corrupt but if the body yields to the spirit it becomes pure and holy. - Brigham YoungOne of the most basic and well-tested methods for regaining control of your mind and body is through fasting. There are many different forms, such as water fasting where you only drink water and dont consume food of any kind for a period of time (often 13 days). Theres juice fasting and bone broth fasting (often 110 days) where you only consume liquids for a period of time to allow your digestive system to rest, recove r, and reset.You can also fast from technology - something most people havent done since the internet.Youll also want to fast from routine environments. fruchtwein of your triggers and memories - and thus identity - are tied to places and environments. When you get out and see new things, you open yourself to new insights and experiences which open you up.While fasting, youll begin to get a ton of insight. Youll start to realize how reactive youve been to the environment. Youll start to notice how off youve been. Youll then have more clarity and capability to shift your life in a positive direction.Education through reading and experienceYou will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read. - Charlie Tremendous JonesEducation is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. - Nelson MandelaWhere is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? - T.S. ElliotIn a powerful lecture on how our brains change through experience, Neuroscientist Dr. Dafna Shohamy explains that our brains assimilate information for the purpose of prediction.Being able to predict how our behavior will lead to outcomes is one of the most important goals of our brains. For example, when you touch the stove as a child, you experience what is known as a prediction error - which according to Dr. Shohamy is a learning signal to update your expectations for the next time.Prediction errors are exactly what you want to experience more of if you want a lifetime of growth.This is why failure is such a key part of success. Failure is what occurs when you incorrectly predict how things will go based on your limited knowledge. Because you experience failure or prediction error, you can then update your expectations and strategies for the next attempt.This is what growth and innovation are all about. Thomas Edison embraced prediction er ror. He embraced his own mental and experiential boundaries. He was willing to fail over and over and over because for him - failure was about learning. It was about changing and expanding himself. To prozentsatz Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.Thomas Edison had to update and refine himself constantly to become the man he became. His failures and experiences transformed to wisdom and understanding. Intelligence is applied understanding. Its far more powerful than base knowledge. There are lots of people who have information in their heads. But wisdom and intelligence is the proper application of knowledge.Interestingly, there is lots of research showing that as people age, they generally become LESS open to education. They become LESS open to new experiences.As people get older, they really want their lives to be predictable. In order to keep their lives predictable, they dont embrace new information, new experiences, new challenges, new relationships. Their life increasingly becomes an echo-chamber.If youre not proactively seeking new experiences and learning new information, youre stuck. If youre stuck, youre not growing and changing. And if youre not changing, then youre not intelligent. As C. JoyBell C. put itThe only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself.Change yourself and youll change the worldBe the change that you wish to see in the world. - Mahatma GandhiYesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. - RumiSuccess is not to be pursued it is to be attracted by the person you become. - Jim RohnIf youre not changing yourself, then youre not intelligent.If youre seeking exter nal success without changing who you are, then youre delusional.If youre trying to make a powerful change in the world without changing yourself, then youre simply trying to force the world into your box.When you begin changing yourself, youll be equipped to change the world.If you seek to change the world, youll be required to change yourself.If youre truly committed to something or someone, youll be required to become whatever that commitment entails.If you sufficiently transform yourself, you wont be able to stop yourself from helping others positively transform as well.Changed people change the world. They light a fire in others because they are on fire themselves.Measure the gain instead of the gapThe way to measure your progress is backward against where you started, not against your ideal. - Dan Sullivan, THE GAIN AND THE GAPHow much have you changed in the past 12 months?How much have you changed in the past 5 years?According to Strategic Coach founder, Dan Sullivan, its far more powerful to measure the gains youve made than the gap in front of you.If you look back on the past 15 years and truly consider how much youve grown and changed, youll be stunned.If youre proactively seeking change and transformation, youve probably made HUGE changes. You can actually make enormous change in yourself in a relatively small period of time.15 years is a short period of time. In that amount of time, you can go from making almost nothing to making millions of dollars. You can go from being single and having no kids to being married and having three kids with two on the way (thats what happened to me).If youre not growing, youre not changing. If youre not changing, then youre not intelligent.Its very important that you take time to examine and measure where you are from where youve been. When you do this, there are a host of psychological benefits.For example, measuring your progress injects enormous amounts of gratitude and appreciation into your life. Gratitude is one of the most powerful psychological experiences and relates to improvements in all areas of life.When you measure your progress, you grow in confidence because confidence is a byproduct of past experience.According to SullivanYour future growth and progress are now based in your understanding about the difference between the two ways in which you can measure yourself against the ideal, which puts you in what I call The Gap, and against your starting point, which puts you in The Gain, appreciating all that youve accomplished.When youre in The Gap, you feel as though you havent accomplished anything at all. This is because even though youve moved forward, the ideal remains distant from you. The ideal is a moving target. It might even get bigger, leaving you worse off than where you started if you measure against it. Youve also used up time and energy getting to where you are, so if you dont measure the progress, youll feel like youve wasted that time and energy and have fallen even further behind.But if you turn around and measure your progress against where you started, then youre in The Gain, and youll experience a sense of having moved forward, of having achieved something, and youll be motivated to continue on to your next stage of growth.ConclusionAre you intelligent and changing?Or are you unintelligent and staying the same?Are you being transformed through new experiences?Are you being transformed by taking on new roles?Are you being changed as you grow into powerful goals?Do you have a vision and a mission that compels you to become far more than you currently are?Make a change today. The moment you even make a small change in the right direction, youll begin to experience a flood of motivation, energy, and momentum.As you continue to change, your mind will expand allowing greater insights and epiphanies to flow.This life is a classroom. If youre not learning, growing, and changing, then youre missing the point.Ready to upgrade?Ive created a cheat she et for putting yourself into a PEAK-STATE, immediately. You follow this daily, your life will change very quickly.Get the cheat sheet hereThis post first appeared on Medium.