Permission to Try New Things

One definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over
and expecting a different outcome."

Clients who subscribe to a philosophy that is clearly not working
often express statements such as these:
"I am depressed, my life is absolutely no fun; I just seem to work
harder each year and have less time for myself."
They have been programmed to believe they need to "just work
harder and things will take care of themselves." This "work-harder"
thing is an antiquated belief quite common in our parents' era and
resurrected again in the 1990s. No, working harder at something that
clearly isn't working certainly won't fix the problem.
Think about the following:
• If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what
you're getting!
• Figure out what works and do more of it!
• Figure out what doesn't work and do less of it!
(Options for Solution Focused Therapy)
We need to give ourselves permission to try new things, even if we
don't know what the outcome will be. We need to give up some of the
precious control in our lives and just change some things. See what
happens, rather than try to control what happens. On the other hand,
change doesn't always mean better, but neither has maintaining the
status quo, especially when we already know what doesn't work.
We sometimes need to go against what we have come to believe is
the best way of doing things and find newer, healthier ways of living
our lives.
There is some inexplicable and unavoidable logic in the saying:
"Sometimes we need to lose our mind to come to our senses."
The only thing I know for sure about change, besides being
inevitable, is that we will at least feel alive when we have tried
something new, or done something old in a different way.