It has been a hard year for a lot of us as we experience loss, grief, health issues and radical change, both personally and globally. Although you may not be able to make all the changes you want now, you can start to mentally and emotionally make changes for how you want your life to be.
It’s time to get unstuck and make a change! Do you know what changes you need to make? If you are like a lot of us, there is at least one area where you feel stagnant, blocked, or at a loss.
Should you try to breathe life back into a tired relationship–or say enough and stop throwing good years away? Have you had it with your ho-hum job that is leading you nowhere? Do you need to take better care of your body in a healthy way but don’t know where to start?
Are you yearning for change?
It is a time for deep introspection, and for exploring how you want to live this part of your life and how you want to become more authentically who you are.
- Step One: Schedule a quiet time to think about some of the questions you need to ask yourself to make change.
Do I want to spend the rest of my working life in my present career? What changes can I begin to make now to ensure better physical and psychological health for the rest of my life? Which relationships do I want to keep and which do I let go? Am I really happy and content with my daily life now? The deeper question is “What Would I Love to Do With My Life?”
- Step Two: Get clear about what you want for your life.
Develop a personal profile that highlights several areas: Your passions, your dream job or career, your wish for where you want to live, and your overall health and wellness. Give yourself permission to get in touch with your suppressed vision of who you truly are and how you want your life to actually be.
- Step Three: Identify obstacles and outdated beliefs.
Do you have limiting thoughts that are holding you back?
Your set of beliefs, thoughts and lifestyle habits, which include your food choices, your form of exercise, your sleep patterns and stress level, can be an obstacle for living a healthy lifestyle. What are your thoughts and limiting behaviors? It is essential that you learn how to recognize your unproductive thoughts, and how the thoughts make you feel. If you feel good you know you are in a positive or higher vibration. Develop tools such as empowering statements like “Everything is in divine flow”, listen to music that will energize and refocus your thoughts.
- Step Four: Take action to make permanent change.
It is not enough to just verbalize or visualize your goals. You must have a plan and take steps to create what you want!
Action Steps: Write down your vision and action steps to achieve them during the next 3 months. Identify your strengths and areas that need improvement and follow up with your plan.
- Step Five: Get help to hold yourself accountable.
To help you manifest your goals and dreams, I recommend that you create accountability by finding a buddy, hiring a coach, or joining a mastermind group with like-minded people to help you reach you goals.
We are all coping in these turbulent times. It’s not abnormal or unusual to sometimes face the lesson or challenge, or to sometimes be in the dark either unaware or stuck. Relief is palpable when we discover that it’s okay to be where you are. Breathe, let go!
I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky in a close-knit, blue-collar, small community. My father died when I was seven and left my mother to raise me. As a “career housewife,” she was forced to quickly learn a marketable skill to support us. She became a caregiver for children and older adults.
Recently I offered several workshops focusing on self-compassion. I began each one by saying, “This weekend is a project in non-self-improvement.”
