Making positive changes in our lives can sometimes be a painful process. The very definition of change involves stepping outside our comfort zones and sometimes the fear of imagined consequences can be enough to stop us dead in our tracks.

One, sure way to conquer this fear is to turn it round into a positive, by training ourselves to embrace change instead of turning away from it; to enjoy the thrill of the new instead of dreading the terror of the unfamiliar.

Like any kind of training, we must start with small steps and graduate, through practice into more complex and far reaching skills. Learning to love change starts with the tiniest of adjustments to our daily routine.

If you are not completely averse to change you can probably skip the first few steps, but if you are very stuck in your ways or particularly timid, then you might need to begin with what seem absurdly small changes until you find the ones that stretch you enough to make a difference but that don’t paralyse you with fear.

Try taking a different route to work, for the next three days. Try getting up earlier and going for a run before breakfast. Go somewhere different for lunch. Go without lunch and take in a half hour concert. Buy a book on a completely new subject and resolve to read it on the train each day, until you know it well enough to explain the subject to someone else.

Read a different newspaper. Talk to your family instead of watching TV. Try new foods. Take a vacation somewhere different. Resolve to meet someone new each day and have a short conversation with them.

Many of these actions will feel scary at first and for the next few times, but once you learn to suppress those tremors, you will understand the three key benefits.

Firstly, doing new things teaches us that our fears are usually completely groundless and that we are perfectly capable of managing them.

Secondly we start to learn that we are capable of much more than we realised and thirdly, we will open ourselves up to new experiences, new people and subsequently, new opportunities that we never believed existed.

Do this for one week and show yourself that you are a creature capable of infinite change and more importantly, you love it.

Resolve to enjoy one new experience every day and promise yourself that you will learn one new fact or skill each day as well. As our minds expand, so do our horizons.

Have a great day.