THREE WAYS TO RESTART YOUR LIFE EVERY DAY (OR EVERY MINUTE) OF THE YEAR
Years ending, years beginning, what does it all mean? You know what it means? It means whatever we make it mean. There is so much pressure around holidays and New Year’s Resolutions that one can walk around feeling like the biggest failure on the planet if they didn’t meet all of their 2017 goals or don’t have plans to lose 100 pounds, buy a mansion, travel the planet, and learn 7 new languages in the New Year.
Stop. Just stop.
Time is an illusion, and so is the pressure to be perfect JUST BECAUSE it is a New Year. You have choices. You can change any minute, any breath, on any given day in any given year. You don’t have to wait for 2018, nor do you have to “should” all over yourself for all that you didn’t do in 2017.
I’m not a researcher, and I have no substantiating evidence to support what I’m about to claim, but I bet I’m right anyway. I can almost promise you that most people who set ridiculously large goals at the beginning of the year, but don’t do the self-work, the self-care, the daily and rote life-giving activities all the days of the year, absolutely do not meet their grand goals. I can almost promise you that if you are a person who is willing to grow and change, who is willing to show up for personal growth when you don’t feel good, show up for it when you feel you have already arrived, and show up for it during the majority of times (when you are just sort of in-between) that you are far more likely to change over time than a person who just says NOW is the time, just because the calendar decides to pick another day.
Years have been passing since forever; but you are a star person in a body who is traveling through time. You can change regardless of a book saying that on this given day you MUST do the new thing.
Today’s blog is dedicated to any person who wants to grow and who wants to give themselves the opportunity to be transformed any day of the year.
THREE WAYS TO RESTART YOUR LIFE EVERY DAY (OR EVERY MINUTE) OF THE YEAR:
1. Just Do It.
What is the one thing you know you need to do that you keep putting off? What is it? Do you need to write a letter to someone you haven’t spoken to in way too long? Do you need to call someone and make things right? Do you need to forgive yourself for something from decades ago you have — until now — been unwilling to admit was never really your fault?
You know what the thing is. Time is passing whether you do this thing or not. Why does the time always have to be in the “not too distant” future? Why can’t it be now? Pick up the phone. Take out the paper. Do the thing you know you need to do NOW.
We all convince ourselves that the things(s) that hold us back most in life are the massive goals we don’t accomplish or the huge promotions we do not achieve. These ideas are just fundamentally flawed and entirely untrue. The things in life that really hold us back are the emotional spots where we get stuck. The people we hurt that we don’t get clear with, the mistakes we make that we don’t make right, the self-blame we assign when we didn’t do it in the first place. These are the things that hold us back. Sure goals are fun, but relationships and connection matter(s) most. Make those things right. Let go of what you did or didn’t do right and do the thing now. And if you really believe that life is about grand goals more than it is relationships; then I’ll flip the script on you. I can almost promise you if you don’t get clear with the people you love most (including and hopefully yourself) that you won’t feel emotionally free and confident enough to meet the larger/external goals you deem as so important anyway.
It isn’t too late for you. You still have time. But why keep waiting for the perfect day or moment or the calendar to click a new year before you do the thing that matters most? Why not get it out of the way and start living from a place of freedom instead of pain?
2. Slash Away the Self-Hate.
It’s time. It is legitimately time to let it go. You aren’t a failure. You aren’t a screw-up. You just aren’t. Self-hate is a learned thing. We learn it as a function of control. Maybe if I am just bad enough, maybe I don’t have to get close to people, maybe I don’t have to take authentic criticism, maybe I don’t have to feel afraid that no matter how perfect I can be, that bad things sometimes happen. It isn’t real. It is holding you back.
If you have a lot of self-doubt and self hate in your life one of two things happened. You had some bad — tragic even — things happen to you in your life and you learned it must be your fault and deemed yourself worthless. It was a lie then and it is a lie now. If bad things happened to you as a child/or young person, it was the other person’s fault — not yours. You don’t need to hate yourself for their bad behavior any longer. You have carried it long enough. If that isn’t the case, then maybe in your life you have done some things you are ashamed of. Maybe you have made a few serious and substantial mistakes. Okay so you did that or those things. Change the course of that now. Stop living in what you did wrong and find a way to make it right. You get to decide. If you need to clean things up and the other person doesn’t receive or forgive you, that is on them — not you. It is their flaw, not yours. You get to be a new person any day, any time any second that you choose.
Stop the cycle of self-abuse and recycle yourself in this moment.
Listen to a favorite song. Read a favorite poem. Stare at a tree. Get a whiff of how damn cold it is outside and remember that in a few short breaths, the sun will warmly beam down on your face yet again.
3. Free Fall.
I have a friend who always says, “God loves it when we take huge risks.” I totally agree. We think we have to always plan our lives. We think we have to always know the next thing. We think we have to have a rigid outline of our hopes and dreams to align with them. That simply is not true. Our hearts are the bedrock of our deepest hopes, dreams, goals and desires. Our hearts know the way.
Sure, it is fun to write things out, set rigid goals and live in our heads. Brains are fun. They give us learning and intellect and creative, new ideas. But brains aren’t as powerful as hearts. Hearts are what we need to listen to in order to find our true life’s purpose(s), desire(s) and joy(s). Brains are great protectors, too, but sometimes they can tell us all kinds of lies. Just to convince us that we are safe. The difference between a brain and a heart is that a heart will never ever lie. It just won’t. It just can’t.
Sit for a minute. What is the thing in your heart that you desire the most? What is your brain telling you to try and persuade you to diminish it and scare you into holding back? How has holding back from your deepest heart’s desire benefited you in the past? How is it benefitting you now? And perhaps, most importantly; how is refraining on this deep heart’s desire costing you days, minutes and possibly years of your life? How great is the cost of not living from a place of love in your life? Is that cost really worth it?
I know it is scary. I know you are afraid. I get it. I get afraid too. All the time. But allowing yourself to free fall WILL NOT kill you. It may terrify you until you can hardly breathe, but it will not destroy you. You know what will? Living in your head as a function of survival and finding yourself at the end of your life without having expressed your deepest, most pure and truest heart’s feelings and desire(s).
Today can be the day. You can take that leap. You get to decide. And if you can’t decide for yourself, because it seems too big to handle — then ask your heart to lead the way.
