My ‘One Word’ this week is: EVOLVING

It took me 10+ years of therapy to learn a profound lesson about CHANGING myself vs EVOLVING myself.

Now, I’ll explain it to you in just 2 minutes.

So, why does this perspective shift matter?

You don’t need to change who you are, not entirely. Odds are, you have a lot of good to work with as is; you just need to grow. Instead of focusing on wholesale changes, we must take the foundation of our identities and evolve into the person we want to become.

When I was a little boy, I grew up in a home where my parents fought constantly—it felt inescapable. Anxiety hung around in my head as I waited for the next fight to begin. It usually started when my mom or dad walked into the house.

During their arguments, I would do two things:

1. Make dinner because I thought if I brought everyone to the table, then perhaps the fighting would stop, and the tension would subside.

AND

2. I would clean up the kitchen until it was spotless…and I mean spotless (Note: I still do that today with my own family, but that’s because I love a clean kitchen 😉).

Therapy helped me see that by changing the environment around me, I was really just trying to erase potential stressors. I thought that I could bring calm to the disarray happening around me and make it all go away.

When I reflect back on my childhood during therapy, I understand that you can’t change your past. But you CAN take the learnings from those past experiences and evolve into the person you want to be.

The onus is on you to go from a passenger in your life to a driver by EVOLVING who you are and NOT repeating the same cycle…and then denying it’s even there.

The family and life I’ve cultivated today are by no means perfect, but I can honestly say that I am working hard to clean up my childhood traumas by doing the work to finally settle my past—NOT change it!

These learnings in therapy have helped me EVOLVE into the best dad, husband, and friend I can be.

My advice: Take the time to clean up your past (By EVOLVING yourself)…don’t bury it (By CHANGING who you are).

And remember, the cleanup never ends! We’re always EVOLVING by learning the behaviors and strategies needed to manage past traumas, keeping doubt at bay so you can step into who you truly are.

What’s your take on my distinction between “CHANGING” vs. “EVOLVING”?