Recently, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with a potential coaching client. She was interested in having her date of birth analyzed to see what her “dream job” might be, and said she was ready to make a change regarding her work. She opened the conversation with all the complaints she had about her current job.

Going with that, I calculated her numbers, and discovered she had a Career Code of 8. As I’ve written in the past, most people with the 8 Career Code become entrepreneurs.

When I told her this, she then told me her dream of operating her own pastry business, down to the name and the desired location. I then told her the typical challenges with the 8 Code, which involve power and money, and she resonated with that; in her present job, she has recently experienced a cut in her salary.

And this is a typical thing I find with the 8 Code individuals, and I suggest that we work on the “money story” the person has created because there is work that needs to be done in this area, if the intended business venture is to be profitable.

And it was at this point, the conversation changed. And change is the operative word.

As we talked about the changes she might have to make in order to launch her business, it then became “improbable.”

I asked why.

She said she wanted to make it a family business with her daughters, but thought they wouldn’t want to be a part of it. When I asked if she’d discussed it with them, she had not. I pointed out she was going on an assumption in her mind, and not with fact. In order to know this for sure, she would have to have a conversation with each of them.

Then the conversation turned to money (of course—she has an 8 Code!). I asked her what her financial goals were. She said, “I’d like to make $100 thousand a year, but I think that’s improbable.” (She was using that word again.) I pointed out that it was improbable, as long as she thought it was.

I pointed out that there are people in the world making that much in a year, so it is probable.

I asked, “What changes would you be willing to make in your life to put you on the path to being a person who makes that much in a year?”

Her response: “It wouldn’t happen unless I won the lottery,” she said laughing. I wasn’t; I was sensing the laughter was a defense mechanism, a “tell.” I had the feeling there was more there, though.

I sensed I needed to change direction.

I asked her to tell me what she wanted her life to ultimately look like. I asked, “What do you want?”

“I don’t want to work,” she said.

“What would you have to do in order to not work?” I asked.

“That would be improbable,” she said (that word again!), “I have to work.”

Sensing the need to make another change in the conversation, I asked, “Why do you not want to work? What would you get from not working?”

“I would be comfortable. I want to be comfortable,” she stated. And that was the “tell” I was waiting for.

I then told her that she and I would not be a good fit, that we could not work together.

She seemed surprised.

I told her that as long as she wanted to be “comfortable,” she would not make any changes in her working life. As long as she wanted to be “comfortable,” she would not want to make any changes in her financial life. As long as she wanted to be “comfortable,” she would not make any changes at all. Because making change would require her to become uncomfortable, which she was not willing to be.

Also, anything I would ask her to do she would not do, because, in her own words, she “didn’t want to work.” She didn’t, and wouldn’t do her “work,” which would be the things needed to change her life in the ways she envisioned.

When she talked about her own business, she mentioned that she wasn’t “serious about it, that it was just a dream.” And that was how she was moving through her life: not really serious about it, and just having a lot of dreams.

Our conversation ended with her acknowledgement that she was not ready to make any changes with her job, that she felt she still had things to “learn” at that job before she could move on (even though she opened our conversation complaining about the job, which I pointed out to her).

In essence, she wanted to remain in her comfort zone.

What can we learn from her situation regarding how we each regard making changes in our lives?

Some Points About Change

At the top of the year, I talked about setting our intentions. When we set an intention, making changes in our lives for those intentions is implied; it’s a given. We have to be willing to make some changes in order for our lives to be changed.

I have a saying that, “Change changes everything.” And, like the woman I spoke to, for most of us, change can be uncomfortable. But that is what change is about: change requires us to move beyond our comfort zones.

Here are some things to consider regarding change:

• Change first begins with the decision to change. It is the acknowledgement that something in life is not working for us, not producing the result we want. Change first comes as a thought.
• Change then becomes a plan of action. What would need to be changed? How would we go about making those changes? What other areas of our lives would change as a result? Would we be willing to make those changes?
• Change then becomes action. This is “putting feet” to the intention to change. We have to “walk the walk.” This is what I call “working the plan.” Change requires commitment, effort, and determination.

As Gandhi once said, “Change begins with me.” In order for us to experience change in our lives (which means achieving what we want), we must be willing to change first. And this is also true: If we change nothing, nothing changes. We will just get more of the same.

Are you ready to make changes in your life—to get what you really want out of it?

Your change agent,