Last time I wrote about the drive for change being caused by a tension between the way we want the world to be and the way the world is. We looked at the two ways in which to release that tension - change reality to match your vision, or lower your vision to match reality. We explored the sad fact that most of the time it’s much easier to lower your expectations and what happens when you do that. We also looked at how you can keep your dreams alive in the face of difficulty - by not fixating on reaching the goal but focusing on the progress made along the journey. That post generated a bunch of questions from readers so I thought I'd write a follow-up to address them.

There were three main questions raised - does the goal have to be an external goal (change the world) and not an internal goal (change me); is any changing of your goal a bad thing; and what to do if you are a really goal oriented person and keep focusing on reaching that goal.

We all carry within us a picture of how we would like reality to be. Then there is the objective reality that surrounds us. When those two do not agree, an uncomfortable tension is built up and it is this tension that creates the desire for change. Our imagined state is usually a much happier/more productive/more complete state than the one we actually find ourselves in. How many times have you said to yourself something like "I wish I could be more..." or even more commonly "I wish work could be more like...."? The difference between our dreams and aspirations and where we find ourselves creates a mental tension and this drives the desire to change.

Mental tension is uncomfortable. It needs to be resolved. It won't resolve itself - something needs to change to resolve that tension. There are only two things that can change here, either we make changes to make the world we live in more like the one we aspire to, or we lower our aspirations to make our dreams more like reality. Either we change the world, or the world changes us. Unfortunately, it is often much easier to adjust our aspirations downwards than to make real change in the world.