How to change your life
It’s the beginning of a new year, and if you are like me, you’ve probably thought about how you want to make changes in your life this year.
Maybe you want to finally commit to exercise or getting healthy.
Maybe you want to find your passion or purpose in life.
Maybe you want to simplify, find self-confidence, or improve a relationship.
This post is a mixture of several elements mentioned already on the blog: gratitude, the search for happiness, stress management – all of the psychological gremlins that seem to be perched on one shoulder or the other on a regular basis. I went through a life-changing experience at the age of 48 that centered on honesty: self-honesty, to be precise.
At 48 the wheels came off for me; I lost my job when the company changed hands and shortly thereafter my marriage imploded. This was a relationship that had been lifeless for years but when the specter of a permanent split hove into view I was terrified and scared to death. The couples therapy routinely became a place for target practice, but out of that and some other situations that I had to confront it became clear to me that I had very little knowledge of how I felt about things, how I treated people, and what might be the principal source of my fear.
In the last article, we saw that excellence in any field can be studied and copied, and that NLP (neurolinguistic programming) is a well established and effective way of doing this. Success in any area – be it career, family, business, politics or anything else – is largely a matter of building relationships. People who are able to develop and maintain good, mutually productive relationships with other people tend to be much more successful than those who don’t do this.
Building good relationships does come more easily to some people, but it is a skill that can be developed, and NLP offers a number of perspectives and tools to enable you to do so.
When I got fired from my 1st post-college job after working there almost 3 years, I was devastated. I felt like a complete failure as an adult. This is what I learned and how I got over it.
I have always been competitive. I always prided myself on grades, always competing with my sister; playing sports, competing with rival teams and my own teammates; my friends, competing who is the most liked, has the coolest boyfriends, hair, clothes, etc… I never really felt like I “won” at any of these things. My sister always had the better GPA, I wasn’t a starter on the varsity basketball team, I only had one boyfriend in high school (he had dyed blonde polka-dots in his hair at the time, coolest guy? Not so much), I didn’t win Prom Queen. The only “victory” I did get was the “Best Looking” superlative senior year but the funny thing is I never had the confidence to claim that award thinking it was a fluke or that the teachers counting the votes felt sorry for me.
Over the years I have come to believe that life is about choices. And the choices you make eventually shape your day, shape your views, shape your experiences, shape your thoughts and shape your life…
There are some life choices over which you have no control or which others will make for you – like when and where you are born, the family you are born to, your life during childhood, the school you went to, etc. etc. etc.
Beyond that, there are several other important choices that you make in life. In this blog, I have articulated the most significant choices which have the potential to transform your life.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” ~ Albert Einstein
Have you ever had an important project or goal not turn out as well as you had hoped? Don’t worry, we all have! It’s time to reverse this trend by re-evaluating the actions we are taking in our lives to see if they are setting us up for success. Here’s what we know:
When we think about change, we’re often tempted to shoot for huge goals – like “get fit” or “eat healthy” or “find a better job” or even “have a better life”.
These goals set you up for failure. They’re not specific – and so they’re hard to work towards, let alone achieve.
When you set goals for real change in your life, try following this simple three-step process:
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