One of the biggest things I have learned about change is that most people focus on the life they want without spending enough time understanding the life they already have.
We think about the future version of ourselves. We think about the new career, the new relationship, the new opportunities, the new habits, and the life we hope to create.
What we often avoid looking at is the old life.
If you don’t look at the old life, what conflicts keep coming up for you, what emotions strike you hardest and stop you, and if you don’t look inside at the chaos that is brewing, then trying to create the new self feels near impossible.
This is where most people get stuck.
They find fear instead of facing fear.
They quit instead of completing their mission.
They begin to see the world around them as being against them instead of looking at how it can work for them to create the new life they want.
We all live from old patterns, and those patterns tend to govern our mood, our thinking, our actions, and our perceptions.
Most of the time we are not even aware they are doing it.
The longer those patterns remain unchallenged, the more they influence the decisions we make.
When we don’t know how we make these important life decisions for ourselves, we creep ever closer to a point where crisis becomes the determining factor in our change.
In my experience, this is the worst kind of change because you rarely have choice any longer.
You are forced into actions that are often far more uncomfortable than the choices that were available to you before the crisis arrived.
I have come to believe there is another way.
Stay in the transition.
Learn to become a better decision-maker.
Even small decisions can have significant effects on our lives.
There are four areas of life that we are almost always concerned about, and they are often the best places to begin making decisions.
Our personal health, both mental and physical.
Our relationships, both personal and professional.
Our finances and spending habits.
Our career choices and the work that brings meaning and fulfilment to our lives.
If we only took simple steps in those four areas, we would find that the bridge somehow becomes shorter between the life we think we need to live and the life we would genuinely be proud to live.
We would find more joy.
More grace.
More happiness.
And perhaps most importantly, we would find ourselves making decisions from intention rather than crisis.
What I Want You To Know
You don’t need to change everything at once.
You don’t need to have all the answers.
But you do need to be willing to look honestly at the patterns that are shaping your life.
The conflicts.
The emotions.
The fears.
The stories.
The decisions.
Because the bridge isn’t simply about getting to a new life.
It’s about understanding what is stopping you from crossing it.
And every decision you make today has the potential to shorten the distance between where you are and where you want to be.
