A New You

Having outgrown your current situation and feeling frustrated and standing still is not a fun position to be in. I've been there and my some friends of mine have been there. It's not easy but what's even worse is trying to initiate change like being thrown back into square one literally over and over again. I say literally square one because of the change cycle. The change cycle is made up of the different phases or squares that we must travel through to reach full-fledged rebirth. But so many of us get stuck and stay stuck in square one not effectively or efficiently moving through all the different stages of change. So today, I want to talk about a the three mistakes we can make when trying to initiate change in our life and the three solutions to getting unstuck in square one for becoming that new better version of yourself.

The first big mistake is attempting to change from the outside in. What changing from the outside in looks like is going out into the world, taking a bunch of action and trying to like change other people, places and things to feel better or to feel changed. For example, I need to change my job. If I just change my job then I can feel worthy and wonderful. I've just got to change these people's opinions about me by what I post on social media so that I can feel like the confident person I want to be. I need to do all of these things in my business and get people to pay me so that I can believe that I am a successful business owner. The mistake here is trying to build a new self-concept and identity by like manipulating our external circumstances. It's when we attach our sense of self to what's happening out there. This is not real transformation. Relying on other people, places and things to not only feel good about ourselves but to also dictate our future results is not real transformation, that's dependency. And the outcome of attempting to change from the outside in is not actually feeling changed or creating better results. So like, this is when we find ourselves at a different desk but dealing with the same ship, same challenges or we're in a new relationship but same drama, same problems or we're taking all of this new action in our side hustle but not making any external progress.

The solution here for this mistake is to treat the cause of our identity crisis and the cause is not our circumstances but rather the thoughts in our brain. We must get our own brain on board to support us. It means examining your own limited thinking that's keeping you the same and then elevating your own thoughts to elevate your results.

The second mistake I see people make when trying to initiate change is impulsion and over consumption. When we've outgrown our current situation, we feel a void right? We feel disconnected from our current identity because it's expired and we feel like something is missing. So our primal brain's instinct is to add more and more things into our lives. Our bodies homes in an attempt to fill that void again to feel better from the outside in. For example, I need more information, knowledge and answers. This is where we start like piling on lots of thoughts into our brain and overthinking like crazy probably about what's next and what's the next plan of action. All impulsive decisions come into play but consumption is the opposite of liberation, freedom and transformation. Adding more and more things onto a bed of unwanted and essentially unresolved baggage creates more overwhelm, more confusion and more chaos. I say unresolved because again instead of using this void to do some self-evaluation first and clean up our own mind drama, we immediately panic project outward to fill that void from the outside in. This keeps us stuck in square one.

The real solution here is purging. It's unlearning, it's undoing, it's shedding old baggage stories and limitations. It's letting go of everything that no longer serves us first in order to make room for the new. It's like wanting to redesign your home. You want to give it a complete makeover. You don't keep your existing furniture that you no longer want or like and pile new furniture on top. Like you don't keep your existing couch and pile on top another couch right? You've got to create space first so that you can then invite new and improved pieces that you love. This is the same deal when it comes to giving yourself a makeover. I always say like we only have so much bandwidth and so if it's being exhausted with what's no longer wanted in your mind, body and soul, you don't have the capacity to seek new and improved ideas and solutions that feel like freedom makes sense.

The third mistake when trying to initiate real change is leading with fear-based decision. Part of the internal work that a lot of us skip over is uncovering what makes us uniquely again. When we're trying to change from the outside in, what happens is we're so focused on other people and what they're doing and their ideas and what they think about us. So when our interest is outward, we miss the mark in connecting with our own zone of our own likes, dislikes, desires, talents, passions and ideas. When we don't have that information by default, our fear-based brains make decisions based on I have to, I should, I shouldn't, what will everybody think, I can't and each of these decisions add up and we end up not liking the lifestyle we've created for ourselves because we don't know ourselves well enough.

The solution here is inspired action. An inspired action is born from connecting to the truth of who you are and all the things that feel good and true to you. It is born through self-awareness and self-discovery and so you've got to turn your head around and take massive interest in yourself.