Change The Template

I had another aha moment yesterday! As I was opening Microsoft Word 2007 for the 1000th time, I had that old frustrated feeling. When Microsoft went from Word 2003 to Word 2007 they made a change to the normal template format that dictates the default format for any new document. They changed the font itself from Times New Roman to Calibri and they changed the point size from 12pt to 11pt. They also changed the line spacing and paragraph formatting. I disliked all the changes from day 1.

My approach to resolving this has been to change these settings in each new document that I create. I’m always annoyed and irritated when I have to do this. Just to get to my preferred starting point I have about 6 steps to perform each and every time.

I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person. Yet, I’ve been using this product for at least a year, and it was only yesterday that I realized I could CHANGE these default setting so that each new document would be created EXACTLY the way I wanted it to be.

What’s up with that? Why do we sometimes blind ourselves to the answers that we seek?

I think we often have a world view and supporting beliefs that ‘life is hard’ and that we have to struggle to survive and accomplish what we need to accomplish. We look around and find all sorts of evidence to support our theory. We will always find proof of our most deeply held beliefs when we look around us in the world. That is the way the universe works. Have you ever heard that saying, “You’ll see it… when you believe it?” Usually this is used in reference to positive ideas, but it works just as powerfully in the negative. We pretty much get what we expect to get.

I also think that we often believe that problems are difficult to solve. We expect that it will be tough, if not impossible to deal with the challenge that confronts us.

This latest ‘reminder’ in my life shows me that I need to be really careful about simply ‘living with the problem’ because I believe it’s ‘just the way it is.’ I need to get more committed to challenging my belief in ‘unsolvable problems.’ Part of me is completely aware that there is ALWAYS a solution, but a very vocal, powerful part inside me argues for limitation… over and over and over again.

Just as I needed to ‘change my template’ in Microsoft Word 2007 to better serve my needs, I need to ‘change my template’ for how I regularly engage with my life’s challenges. The old template causes me problems and does not support me in living fully.

Have any templates that you need to change? It might be worth a look!