You've been reading books for years, visiting daily blogs from development and motivation, You make New Year's resolutions to do more sports and eat better, you are trying to meditate a little every day ... but you do not see any real changes in your life, it seems that you are not moving forward, that you have been stagnant and unmotivated with all this world of personal development and well-being.
I'm not telling you anything new: this has been the trend of my life. Recently, in a conversation with a friend who actively practices yoga and has been meditating for several years, I asked him what the formula was, how to get that willpower to meditate every day, breathe consciously, exercise, in short: be more motivated.
My friend is very wise and gave me a very simple idea. There are 3 ways to change something in your life, he told me:
Since the path of enlightenment is reserved for the privileged, it turns out that if you do not choose the path of perseverance, it may be your turn to change to the path of suffering. You choose. A very simple idea that gave me a lot to think about.
Although it is also possible that none of the 3 things mentioned above happen to you and you stay exactly where you are now. Maybe deep down your current life, as much as this weighs you down, satisfies you, Even if it is not the ideal life that you would have wanted to have. Because change costs a lot.
If you feel a bit like me and you think that there is something in you that resists change, despite knowing consciously that changing would be very positive for you, I invite you to read these reflections that may make you realize if are you really ready for the change.
When you start a coaching process, for example, in the first weeks you have to face yourself, your weaknesses, your beliefs, your fears. Not everyone is willing to pay the price of change or ready to step inside oneself. You may encounter something that you did not expect or that you denied was inside of you.
When I was training as a Coach, I had to try all the methodology on my own flesh. I remember a very powerful exercise that we did as a task: Emotional Diary. It was about transcribing all our emotions, small or large, for 10 days and, among other things, seeing which ones predominated in our day to day life..
When I did this exercise I got a real surprise: it turned out that I, a peaceful girl who was kind to everyone, was full of anger that I could not expel. Realizing that something like anger (one of my counter values) was part of my daily life had hurt me and made me feel bad about myself, but it was a necessary step to start a process of real change.
Ask yourself: are you willing to face your hidden emotions, to look the truth in the eye or may this be what is holding you back?
Not only will you have had to know your fears, emotions or deep-rooted beliefs, but also understand where they come from, what causes they have and work them so that they stop hurting you. In reality, you are facing your pain, what is under the surface, while on the outside you feel comfortable, everything is calm and apparently it is not giving you problems. Why remove the traumas and pains of the past?
It is true that bringing our deepest emotions to light and trying to understand or change them is hard, but it is a necessary step if you really want to change.. If what you want is to ignore your feelings and hope that the change will appear in your life, it will probably not come or it will not last.
It has always been very difficult for me to meditate, despite the fact that I have always known that it was necessary and important for my growth as a person. When I was left without thoughts, without ideas, I felt my emptiness and tried to run away from it through any activity that was not to remain silent, to remain still. Little by little I understood that one of my fears was the fear of emptiness and the only way to face that fear was to experience it..
The big question is: are you willing to relive and go through emotionally painful moments??
One of our greatest resistances to change is the fear of leaving our beloved and hackneyed comfort zone. You will have to stop being you, the you from before, and start doing totally new actions for you, different, exposing yourself, actively living your real change.
Imagine that you have to speak in public and that your greatest fear is the fear of rejection. When you decide to change, you know that you will have to go through uncomfortable situations, situations that you try to avoid at all costs. But the real change is in precisely that: going for those situations, looking for them, almost provoking them. It gives vertigo, right?
In my profession as a Coach I also face the same fear as always: Scared of speaking in public. I remember my first time speaking in front of 30 people in my first workshop talk. I had been preparing the event with great care and finally the key day had arrived: I had no way of postponing it, there I was in front of people willing to listen to me. The shy and quiet girl from before had to give way to a new woman. I had no choice but to be my new me, to think in a different way: I can, I am brave, I trust myself.
And this will make you rethink your situation many times, wanting to throw in the towel. If after all that it costs me, I don't see results, what's the point of continuing to do it? What happens if I quit today? It happens to all of us. The demotivation peeks out the door. It tries to redirect us to our past, predicting comfort, tranquility, security.
But if you leave it halfway, getting back to where you started is not going to be easy. It's like going to the gym: you started the first week with great enthusiasm, going almost every day; in the second you have faltered for a couple of days; In the third you had too many setbacks to be able to go more than on Sunday; and in the last week you are so lazy that you decide to quit. Yes total: you do not notice any really visible changes in your body.
The secret is to keep doing it, even if you notice that there is no progress, simply make it your routine, and give yourself a deadline: the results will come, even if you don't see them at first.. The question is: will you have enough patience and motivation to keep pushing yourself?
The change can influence your relationship with your partner, family or at work. Not everyone may agree with what you do, because they won't want to lose the person you've always been. You will have to be strong and know how to deal with new situations that will arise when you start a process of change in your life. Some - almost always with the best of intentions - will even advise you not to do it, emphasizing the things you could lose..
When I decided to stop working for others and start my career as a coach, I got to hear all kinds of well-intentioned advice. People close or not so close dissuaded me from embarking on the adventure of entrepreneurship, giving me examples of people who have failed.
It also happened to me when I made the decision to go live abroad. My family did not want to see me so far away and they questioned that I was doing well in a new country.
The solution is to be strong enough and try to get out of an environment that does not approve of your decisions.. Surrounding yourself with the right people who support you is the key.
Change is actually moving from one situation to another, from one way of thinking to another, from one way of being to another. And changing something important in your life can also change your scale of values, needs ... it may change the way you see life. And this will not only affect others, but especially yourself. The idea you had of yourself and the world has partly changed. Are you willing to become a new person and live a new life?
If you were a dependent person in your relationships, suddenly you discover that you do not only need your partner to be happy, and you begin to live more in line with your own needs, to carry out those activities that you did not dare to do before, to discover new ones. hobbies, making new friends, etc..
It may also change your scale of values: from wanting to help others and put them first, it is possible that now you stop to think about yourself. Some may even label you as selfish.
In the last 5 years my life underwent important changes on several levels and my scale of values changed. I had always put others first, especially my family, and my needs second. For years I thought that my job was not a priority in my life, but a way to support myself and make ends meet.
Now I see life in a whole new way: I worry about myself first, because only if I'm okay can I help others. Work is essential for me now: it is the way to fulfill myself as a person. I am a new person and I am proud of it.
One of the causes that worries us the most when it comes to change is the management of the possible consequences that our life would have after the change.
We may very much want a change in a certain area of our life, such as being self-employed or leaving a job that makes us bitter.. But if we intuit the difficulties that we are going to face later, we can become our first spoilers..
A very simple example: being autonomous can give you more freedom, but at the same time it will mean more responsibility. It will be you who will have to make your own decisions and manage your company. And if you're wrong, you can't blame the boss or the government. It has been you who has decided to change.
Or maybe solving your relationship means having to leave it and you are not prepared to be alone, because it is your greatest fear. So you will sabotage yourself as much as you can, leaving your initial problem unsolvable and wondering what you are doing wrong..
So ask yourself: how could your life change on other levels if you decide to make those desired changes? Is there something you lose? Would you be willing to bear the consequences?
If you fervently want to change, if you have been trying for a long time but the time never comes or the thing does not work out anywhere, be honest with yourself, ask yourself: Am I willing to change? To pay the price? What is my greatest fear? What excuses are behind my indecision? What do I not want to see right now??
If you discover the blockage and decide to change your situation, congratulations! But if you still feel that you are not completely prepared and that there are other issues to attend to before starting a change in your life, nothing happens. Maybe now is not the right time for you.
The important thing is to detect what is holding you back and stop feeling guilty for not achieving all your goals. You may have other issues to resolve first. Focus on them and give yourself your time. Remember that we all have our own pace of growth and transformation.
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