I got a raise on Friday at work and it got me to thinking. There is a saying “Your system is designed perfectly to get the results you are getting”. If you look at your life, and you start thinking about changing it, you suddenly find there is a complex set of circumstance that keep it right were it is. This seems especially true of financial things, but applies to other aspects of your life.

It isn’t just the things that you are doing that keep you from changing. The phrase to me implies if I were to do some different things, I could get the change I want. And that is true, but there are things in your system that keep you from being able to make those changes. The system is set up to keep you where you are, not just to produce your results.

For instance if you want to change careers to something that pays less, suddenly you are living above your means. Which means if you change, your kids won’t go to college. That isn’t about what you can do, it is about what you can’t.

And in reality it doesn’t mean you can’t change, it just means it will hurt more. Now the question becomes is doing what you are doing more painful than changing?