Has Your Cheese Moved On Without You?

It seems like a very strange question, doesn’t it?

Unless you are already familiar with the book by Dr Spencer Johnson, you will no doubt be thinking more about lunch than about dealing with change.

But if you are feeling frustrated and uninspired, it is definitely time to start thinking about cheese in a very different way…

Imagine for a moment that you are a mouse. And your goals and desires in life are represented by a large wedge of your favourite fromage. You have your cheese, you know what it is and where it is and every day you fully expect it to be exactly where you left it the day before.

Until, one day, your cheese suddenly disappears. What do you do?

In “Who Moved My Cheese?”we encounter two mice, alone in a maze, dealing with exactly this problem. Do they stay and wait, or do they take a risk and start searching for some more cheese somewhere else, even if that means venturing out into the unknown?

One mouse decides to stay and wait for more cheese to appear. The other resolves to move on in search of better, more abundant cheese in another part of the maze. Guess which mouse made the right choice?

To apply this wonderful fable to our own lives, we must look closely at what we really want in life.

Because you have to know your cheese and what it means to you.

And our problems start when we forget that our cheese changes as we change.

As we get older and move through life, we interact with many different types of people. We encounter challenging perspectives, unfamiliar cultures and ideas, and experience life-changing events like childbirth, marriage and death.

As we expand our awareness of our place in the world and the way we see ourselves, then as a consequence our goals, values and priorities become more malleable and changeable, too.

If you are a teenager about to finish school and eager to decide on a career, then your cheese will be very different to that of a new parent in their 30s, juggling the demands of career and baby.

When you mistakenly assume that nothing has changed, then you may unconsciously be repeating the same behaviour as always,  like a mouse on a wheel,  making the same decisions and taking the very same actions that have placed you firmly into the rut you find yourself in now.

Perhaps you should stick your head out of the maze for a minute and ask yourself honestly, “Has my cheese moved?”

Are you on a career path that no longer gives you the joy and inspiration it once did? Are you still crouching in your tiny, familiar little corner, oblivious to the fact that the cheese you thought you were sitting on has long gone and you’re slowly starving yourself to death for fear of moving on?

If you think your cheese has moved on without you, isn’t it time you gathered up your courage, faced your fears and moved out of the mousehole and into the cheese shop?

If this post worked for you, perhaps you might like these too:

10 Powerful Resources For Inspiring Change
The Secret Of The Roundabout
I’ve Moved House!

Tagged as: Change, cheese, fears, goals, values