How many times have you considered changing your life? Even a small part of it?
How many times have you achieved it?
Changing your life, or part of it, may not be as easy as some may think. And even though you may have a lot of desire or enthusiasm, you’ll need many other things to be able to persevere your wish to change something in your life.
Of course you can always keep going “as always”, but then, life becomes a little boring, don’t you think?
With this post I want to describe 5 steps that you’ll go through when you decide to change your life, be it a small change or something greater.
Step 1: Wishes are wishes
And they are important, of course, as they are the drivers of change.
All changes begin with a wish.
I wish I could change … this.
But any wish that isn’t accompanied with action, will remain only in that, a wish.
“I wish I could go abroad for a while.”
The wish informs you of restlessness within you.
But it can only become a change in your life if that becomes a will.
That is, for example, “I want to go to London, for 6 months.” (You have to define it concretely)
As you can notice, the will is stronger than the wish, but wanting and doing are two very different things.
Step 2: From wanting until doing
You may want many things, you may have more strength to get them than when you want them, however, just by wanting, you won’t change your life.
A will has to be followed by action if you want something to happen.
You can ask yourself the following question: What do you have to do to get what you want?
Following the previous example, if you ask this question, then the mind begins to give you ideas:
- You could search for information about the country
- You could start looking for the type of work could do there
- You could take some English course to improve your level
- You could talk to that friend who was an au-pair there
- You could save 1/3 of your current salary to be able to pay for your expenses
- You could…
You’re already closer. Now you even know what you could do.
But look, if you stay at this point, you won’t be able to change your life.
It’s important to know what you need to change, but if you do know and don’t do it, then what good is it anyway?
Step 3: Acting is the key
This is the first step of the way.
But only the first.
It can happen that, when you’re determined to act, then a lot of blockages appear.
For this you’ll have to:
A) Face your fears
You have finally taken the first step to change your life.
You may even take two, but before you take the third, you’ll need to face your fears.
In general, humans prefer:
- Comfort than change.
- The known than the unknown.
- “Security” than uncertainty.
And therefore, any fear, no matter how small, at this stage of the change process, will assault you to keep you in your comfort zone, the known and “false” security.
And I say false because nothing is certain.
But your mind tries to convince you that, you’re ok where you are.
- “Why do you need to change anything?” (It will ask).
- “Spain isn’t so bad either” (it’ll tell you).
- “Besides, it takes a lot of effort. It’s not worth it” (it’ll try to convince you).
- Doesn’t the popular saying state that “a known evil is better than an unknown good“? (Another argument to convince you to abandon your goal).
And I must say, that popular saying must’ve been invented by someone who couldn’t overcome his or her fears.
As I’ve already said, fear is only overcome by confronting it.
It’s the only way.
So, knowing that at the beginning of the road, your fears will arise to stop you, it’d do you good to be prepared to face them.
B) Boycott as a form of resistance
Not only are you going to have to deal with your fears, you’ll also need to change your own resistance.
Sometimes, even by wanting to change your life, you can get boycotted in such a way, that you believe that life itself isn’t allowing you to achieve your dreams.
Boycotting means that when you try something once and fail, you quit.
It’s looking at all those difficulties that arise along the way, but instead of seeing them as challenges, you see them as insurmountable things.
And you give up.
And if you do, I can tell you, the resistance will have won the battle.
How to overcome resistance?
Step 4: Stop and re-charge
Changing your life, even if only a small part of it, is quite a move.
And there are so many things you could do, that sometimes you can get overwhelmed.
If there comes a time when you’re about to throw in the towel. Stop!
You need to rest to regain your strength.
Yes, it’s true, you do need to consider some deadlines to meet your goals, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t extend your deadlines if the situation requires it.
It’s important to be flexible. To adapt to what may emerge.
So give yourself a break, forget everything you need to do this week and take care of yourself.
You can take care of you in many ways, but the important thing is that you give yourself the time to charge batteries.
Step 5: Changing your life requires time and patience
Normally, change processes are slow.
And you can’t despair if what you want, hasn’t happened yet.
Nor is it a matter of believing that changes happen from one day to the other.
The change will happen at slug-pace.
If you keep this in mind, you won’t have to worry, because time is an important part of the change process.
Depending on what you want to change in your life, you’ll need more or less time, so you’ll need to accept that even though you get to do your part, you’ll need to wait for life to do the other.
And life is unpredictable.
So fill yourself with patience.
Agreed?
For this, I leave you one last piece of advice that will help you increase your patience and is:
Trust life
Finally, I’d like to tell you that the path that you chose to change your life might not be what life considers to be right for you.
So set a different one for yourself.
My advice is: take advantage of it!
Because many times we get stuck in things that happen in a certain way and can’t see beyond our noses.
Open to what life has to offer you.
Try new ways.
And if after a while you notice that you’re not getting to where you want to go, then abandon them.
But don’t stop yourself from being able to live new experiences, just because you didn’t consider them.
Wise people say that life knows what we need better than we do.
So trust life.
I hope that my words help you understand the processes of change. Now that you know what awaits. I trust that nothing will stop you on your way to change your life.
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