Life can get confusing at times. Sometimes we feel stuck and want a change in our lives but are unsure about how to get unstuck. Unfortunately many of us can be prone to wanting life to be different but feeling unable to do anything about it. You might want things to change now but don’t even have an idea of how to begin. You might not even realize that you are turning down opportunities and rejecting experiences that haven’t even begun yet.
We only have one life and it is very important to be the CEO of your own life. Even if you don’t know exactly what you want to be in the future or have everything in your life mapped out, there are still some steps you can take to get your life turned in a different direction. Below are some ways that you can begin turning your life around today.
1. Focus on the present more. You might have future goals that you are looking towards. Maybe you want to move overseas in the next couple of years, have a plan to move upwards in your career or develop a stronger support network. There’s nothing wrong with having plans but often times we become overly focused on the future which results in us neglecting what we can currently do now.
For instance, let’s say you have a good job but you want to change careers sometime in the next several years. You have a plan of what you want to do with very specific goals but ultimately you aren’t really doing anything in the present moment. You might be spending time playing games, watching TV or browsing through social media. However, during this time you could have been truly using your time such as learning a new language, building a website, writing a blog or attending more events where you can meet new people. There are many ways that you can gain new skills, challenge yourself and become more adventurous. When you work on utilizing your time better, you might begin to see that your goals change or new opportunities open up to you. Taking time to learn a new language may give you the motivation to take an extended holiday in a country where that language is spoken. Learning to design a website could be the beginning of a new career as a website designer. There’s no need to wait till next year or even tomorrow to begin making changes. Focus on what you can do today. Use your time more effectively to build the life you want now.
2. Get organized. Being present is important, but sticking to your plans is important too. Look for ways that you aren’t meeting your goals. Maybe you had hoped to be healthier by now. Why aren’t you? Perhaps you had hoped to travel more of the world but haven’t yet. Why is that? Sometimes we feel stuck because we have developed habits or rituals that are undermining our goals. I have a friend who used to be terrible with time management. He would have things that he definitely wanted to do and were goals in his life but he had no set time line, plan or accountability to achieve that plan. He might say how important it is that he make a career change but years would go by without a career change. Sure he might have had an occasional interview or sent out his resume every few months but ultimately he was stuck in the same place. What he ended up having to change to achieve his goals, was getting organized. He created hard time lines such as he had to make a career change by the end of the year. He started sending out resumes, getting new skills to bolster his resume, following up with people who might be able to assist and coming up with other alternative plans in case his goal didn’t work out within that time line.
One of the hardest things to admit is that often we aren’t achieving our goals because there may be something we might be doing to prevent that. If you aren’t achieving your goals, then reassess how you go about achieving those goals. Find your weakness. Are you procrastinating too much? Have you not found a workout that you enjoy? Do you keep forgetting to follow up with people? Have you even written down your plans and created set time lines and outcomes from those plans? Do your plans keep changing and you don’t have an area to focus on? Find out what is wrong with your system so that you can get back on track to moving your life in the direction you want it to.
3. Work on developing a positive attitude. Turning your life around will only be tough if you stick to a negative and self-defeating attitude. If you find yourself approaching change with negativity or you feel your thoughts are preventing you from making change, then start working on your attitude first. Having a positive attitude doesn’t mean that you are unrealistic or believe in the impossible. A positive attitude allows you to look for the positive in a situation and to accept that you will be okay even if things don’t work out according to plan. A positive attitude keeps you going even when things get really tough. A family member of mine is in the process of adopting a child. This process has been very tough and without a positive attitude, my family member may have given up altogether. Keeping a positive attitude has allowed my family member to be patient, see the positives in a long waiting process and gives her time to focus on achieving other goals that may be harder to do once the child arrives. Work on your attitude so that you can persist in your goals even when things get tough and so that you can approach change positively.
4. Challenge yourself. When you are out of school or comfortable in the routine, you may not have given yourself experiences that are truly challenging. Giving yourself excuses to not try some different may be easy but creates a position where you feel stuck. Challenge could involve learning a new skill that requires you test yourself, devoting hours to learning, failing and ultimately become better at the skill. Trying a new parenting tactic could be a challenge. Making more of an effort with your partner could be a challenge. Doing something completely different could be scary and challenging. Start doing things that are challenging, even if you know nothing about it or are worried that you might fail.
Start the process of incorporating challenge into your life. Everyone is different. Some people may need to jump right in and sign up for a semester long course. Other people need to make small changes slowly at a time. You could start writing a blog post, story or poem every other day so that you can develop a healthy routine of writing over time. Walking to work or the store every day could be a good way to challenge yourself to start doing exercise regularly. Sign up for a beginning painting course so that you can start learning a new skill.
5. Embrace uncertainty. One of the scariest parts about getting unstuck is accepting that there is a level of uncertainty with achieving your plans. Many decisions and challenges involve a level of risk and you may doubt your own abilities along the way. When I started learning Hindi a few months ago, I had to embrace the uncertainty. I had always had an interest in learning a new language but had fed myself negative beliefs. I believed I was bad at learning language, would not be able to get past the basics and I imagined myself failing repeatedly. What allowed me to finally enroll in taking the class was accepting the uncertainty. The class has been challenging and there are times where I doubt myself, but I have been learning the language and am happy I made the decision to enroll in the class.
You can’t gain much if you are not willing to take risks. You also miss out on amazing opportunities by not taking risks. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to get comfortable with uncertainty. To become comfortable you have to start taking risks, and you need to take risks sooner than later. Try allowing yourself to do something uncomfortable every day or every week. If you have a fear of putting your writing out there for the world, develop a routine of writing a blog that your friends and family can access. Book a flight to a new city or country so that you can start achieving your travel goals. Sign up for a class so that you can develop a new skill. As you become accustomed to doing that things that feel uncomfortable and realizing that everything turned out okay, you will feel more confident in trying new things.
6. Keep moving forward even when life gets tough. All of us have dealt with moments where life threw some terrible punches. Maybe you were on track and achieving what you wanted but found yourself facing financial or physical difficulties that have held you back for months or even years. Perhaps you have lost someone that has sapped your motivation completely. You may not be in control of everything that happens to you but there are still ways to move forward even when you feel you can’t move forward in the ways you wish you could.
Take small steps, even smaller than before. You may not be able to save money at the rate you wished you could but you still can. Come up with different opportunities. Life rarely goes according to plan. A setback may cause you to look at other options or opportunities available to you. I knew a woman who had injured her leg badly and was unable to work for over a year as a result. Her profession relied on her mobility and she was unable to drive or move for too long at her home. She did not have a partner and had to find a way to create an income for herself. Although the journey was tough she began learning new skills and doing freelance work. The income was not nearly as much as it was at her last job but it was enough to get by. From there her life went into a new direction than planned. Although she was not in the best position to accomplish her original plans, she came up with a plan for a home business which she could do despite the setbacks. The journey was not easy and she had to request assistance in many ways but it was an opportunity to continue moving forward regardless of the setback.
7. Let go of some friendships and make new friends. The people we are hanging out with can be the ones that are holding us back in some ways. You might have friends that keep you set in negative thinking or do not support your plans to move forward at all. Recognize when friends are genuinely trying to be helpful and supportive and when a friend is negatively holding you back. Friendships can be destructive and it is important that you recognize when this is happening. A destructive friend may be the type who strongly discourages you from dating because of his or her negative views on dating and relationships. A destructive friend may continually remind you of all the risks that could happen if you change careers and is completely unsupportive of you making any positive changes in your life. Recognize these destructive friendships and start the process of letting them go.
Making new friendships can be just as important. New friendships give you an opportunity to make friends who share a similar outlook to you. These friends might broaden your outlook and can encourage you to think in new and exciting ways. You might even find yourself attracting people who are actively moving forward which will give you motivation to continue moving forward in your own life. New friendships could be professional connections as well. Network with new people as much as you are able. Work on maintaining positive friendships with your boss, coworkers, employees, professors, neighbors, acquaintances and so forth. Build a network so that you can continue to have positive personal and professional connections throughout your life. Building a network can happen at any age and requires that you be the type of friend anybody would want, someone who is trustworthy and reliable.
8. Nourish the good relationships in your life. You likely already have people in your life who are your supporters. Identify these people and nourish those relationships. Stick with the people who have shown their reliability, trustworthiness and support to you. These are the people who keep their promises and will be there for you when you need it. Spending time on the wrong relationships takes away time from the people who do matter. Assess if you are spending too much time hanging out with the wrong people, investing in a bad relationship or surrounding yourself with fleeting friendships. You might realize that you are neglecting the relationships with amazing people as a result.
If you follow the steps above you’ll start to see some wonderful changes occurring and over time you will be achieving more and more in your life. Opportunities will become readily available to you as you begin focusing more on what you can do today whether that is writing some more, learning a new skill, reading something that could change your outlook on life or making the decision to start a business. In what ways have you been turning your life around?