At certain times in our lives, we can find ourselves questioning everything. We feel dissatisfied, we might believe there are things that we have given up on, that something (or someone) is holding us back or quite simply, that there has to be more to life than this. We are lacking purpose and just want something different to happen.
Whilst it can be scary, it’s important to realise that change shouldn’t be seen as something necessarily positive (or negative for that matter) but as something that is quite simply needed.
We go through different cycles in life and sometimes, it’s not be quite what we had in mind… So we need to remember that change is actually usually quite slow. What happens very quickly is what’s out of our control, when our circumstances alter against our will or because something unexpected happens.
Change involves a lot of unconscious work before anything can actually occur. For instance, it‘s near on impossible for you to just wake up one day and decide that you are going to leave your marriage or change job for instance, or even something more trivial like wanting to lose weight. There will have been a lot of pondering and contemplation first, you will have thought about things, weighed the pros and the cons, unintentionally starting the process.
The problem is that we are often our own worst enemies and we choose to remain in limbo or we choose to plod through life, as opposed to actually live it. Everything we do is a decision, including not making choices. And the thing is, it’s never the right time is it? Until it’s too late of course. When the decision has been made for us.
In order for your life to change, you will need to make sure that you change the right things. What you want to change is not always what actually needs to be changed and sometimes, what we attempt to change is only a symptom of something far deeper, so you will need to assess all aspects of your life. Are your issues interlinked or separate? You will probably need to tackle just one thing at a time and have to plan the change, listing all the actions and steps necessary for it to happen.
The amount of motivation and commitment cannot be underestimated as there will be plenty of times when you’ll feel challenged and overwhelmed, when your emotions will be a mix of fear, excitement, anxiety and happiness all at the same time. The key is to understand why you are feeling or doing things a certain way and how your life will be impacted once you have achieved what you’ve set your mind to. Essentially, you need to understand yourself and why you do what you do, understand your own habits and motivations, your own self-talk, the journey, as well as learning to follow your gut instinct.
And sometimes you will fail… or at least, get the impression that you’ve failed. That might be just because you need to change direction or path a little bit and adjust your aim. In fact, at times, it may even feel like everything is falling apart around you… But what really matters is that you choose to live and be happy from today. As Lao Tzu said, the journey of a 1,000 miles starts with a single step.