Change does not have to be as hard as we make it.

One of my career long pursuits has been to find the fastest and most reliable tools and strategies for helping my clients get the changes they desire.

This pursuit has led me to the writing of Bill O'Hanlon, one of the leading experts in Brief Therapy. That's brief as in quick, not as in underwear, by the way.

In his most recent book "Change 101: A Practical Guide to Creating Change in Life or Therapy, O'Hanlon writes about 11 strategies for staying stuck. These useful tonque-in-cheek strategies are listed below:

1. Don't listen to anybody.

2. Listen to everybody.

3. Endlessly analyze and don't make any changes.

4. Blame others for your actions or problems.

5. Blame yourself or put yourself down regularly.

6. Keep doing the same thing that doesn't work.

7. Keep focusing on the same things when that focus doesn't help.

8. Keep thinking the same thoughts when those thoughts don't help.

9. Keep putting yourself in the same unhelpful environment.

10. Keep relating to the same unhelpful people.

11. Put more importance on being right than on being helpful.

While these tips are certainly worth a good chuckle, I'd suggest looking a little deeper at least two things:

1. Which ones do you repeatedly do?

and

2. Do the opposite of the ones you keep getting stuck on. Instead of endlessly analyzing and not making any changes, analyze the situation, create a plan for change, and then work the plan.

If you are at all interested in making your own changes and/or helping others make changes, I highly recommend this book!