How to Create Change in Your Life
It all begins with action steps you can start today.
In an earlier article, I wrote about some simple tips for positive change. This article discusses how you can create the transformation you want. Later, I’ll give you a real-life example of how change happened quickly with one of my clients.
Living a life that fulfills you is a noteworthy goal. When I ask new clients about their goal, more often than not, I hear, “I want to be rich” or, “I want to be healthy.” While those are good things, they are not goals. Being healthy and rich are conditions.
The proper question then is, “What things need to change in your life so you can get the conditions of health and wealth?” Once we identify where you are in your life, we can plan a path to get the life you want.
What if… circumstances allowed you more control over your time, or finances, or you could pick a career path that aligns with your internal view of successful living?
Everyone’s dream is unique to them. What’s yours?
One thing I’ve repeatedly heard in my coaching practice is… Regret. So many new clients told me how they wished for another career, but they followed a path dictated by circumstances or other people. As we worked through the simple processes noted below, they realized there are options to create the life they want.
I’ve had clients that felt they were too old for transformation. Six months later, these same people were not only transforming their emotional and relational life, and redesigning careers, they physically looked happier and healthier. One advantage of coaching sessions with Zoom is in the beginning. I get a screenshot of their image. Then, months later I take another. When they see their beginning, and in-progress photos, that’s literally “in-their-face proof” of the change they are creating in their lives.
It’s true that change can seem scary. But when you take action steps like the clients with the photo, you’ll SEE the change and it propels you further.
I believe most people hang onto the life they know and stay in place because they fear change. They stay where they are, time passes them by and at the end of their life, they regret poor choices.
Action Step
Be prepared to ask yourself a few questions. Don’t just throw answers out there like a cannon. Take a few moments for an honest self-evaluation. Have you ever read a self-improvement book with self-assessment exercises? If you have, what often happens?
You’re reading through the chapter and come upon a self-test. Then mentally, you tell yourself, “A test… I don’t have time for that. I’ll read the book and get to the test later.” (Knowing you are lying to yourself)
What did you just do? You just shot yourself in the foot and stole the opportunity to discover alternative paths in your life. Any time you can stop and look objectively at your life is time well spent. We’ll get to some questions in a moment.
For now, if you don’t have a journal, now’s the time to get one. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just something personal to you. I’ve bought decorative, hard bound journals and then when it came time to write in them, I felt like I was looking at a blank canvas. I avoided putting a single mark in it.
I’ve discovered that anything impeding my writing must be resolved; otherwise, nothing gets done.
Do you know what I use? A steno pad. They are inexpensive, lined for easy writing, and have a line down the center, and that helps with lists. On the cover of the steno pad journal, I write my starting and end dates. This way, if you save them, you can look back by date and see the progress you’ve made. Your journal is YOURS… do what you want in it. Capture your thoughts, draw pictures, develop and define your goals, just capture it somewhere.
Why is a Journal Important?
Have you ever had an intelligent idea and later, when you tried to remember what it was, it disappeared into the vapor? Sure you have. You’re alive, and it’s happened to all of us. Each day, we average 60,000 thoughts. Some of them are transients; they come once and they are gone, never to be seen again.
Successful inventors and entrepreneurs knew better than to allow a creative thought to pass them by.
If the idea wasn’t captured, they knew the idea might land on someone else’s head and be exploited.
In today’s world, corporations like Amazon, Google and Yahoo understand that data is power.
They spend lots effort and dollars on data analytics to capture each piece of data to determine what it means, and what it could mean.
As an individual or a small business owner, capturing your creative thoughts are critical to ensure you don’t miss opportunities that came your way. Why can’t those thoughts be divine or creative inspiration as seeds to help you create the life you want?
Many great ideas come from regular people that later find out that they are actually extraordinary people… kinda like you.
Now is the time to put the life that you want to paper; these are the seeds of your future life. Write each of these questions down in your journal and allow yourself time to think about them.
Then, write about that life you want to live, but here’s the thing: Write it As-If it already came to be.
Go ahead and describe that life and then take time for each question. It doesn’t matter if you take 10-minutes, 10-hours, 10-days, or 10-months. Take the time you need to fully create the life you want.
- What does a typical day in your new life look like?
- Where do you live?
- What does that place look like?
- How does living there make you feel?
- What creative or career activities enrich your life?
- Are there any people or animals in your life? If so, who are they?
- What do you enjoy the most in your new life? How do those things make you feel?
There are thousands of questions that could build on creating your life. Yet, these seven have set things in motion for hundreds of my clients. The key here is to write it down, perfect the internal vision of that life, and allow yourself to notice what that feels like when you imagine the life you want is possible.
Science has shown when you can imagine something and feel it like it is happening now, your mind creates connections allowing you to believe it.
This is why athletes and gymnasts that use hypnosis and creative visualization are so successful. They allow themselves to visualize every minute detail of their perfect move and conditions.
Then, they go out there and make it happen.
Hypnosis and the Gymnast
Years ago, the grandmother of an adolescent teenage girl called me about helping her granddaughter. The girl was a member of a gymnastic team and during practice; she did a reverse handspring and landed on her head.
The incident shook her up, and she lost confidence to do the move.
She came to my office and during a hypnosis session, I used creative visualization to help her. I started by taking her through each move (in her mind) and imagining she just completed a perfect routine. Then, I had her notice the good, confident and proud feelings she had in her body after performing such a successful routine.
From there, we replayed it over and over again, each time moving back to the move right before the last, then the move before that. We continued traveling all the way to the beginning. Then, she saw and felt her confident and expectant feelings of completing a perfect reverse handspring.
Each time, we focused on the wonderful, successful feelings in her body that came with each perfectly orchestrated move.
A week later, the girl arrived with her grandmother for her next session. Both were excited, and the grandmother pulled out her iPhone and showed me a video from the last practice.
After being frozen by fear from her accident, the girl was now doing reverse handsprings, one after the other, throughout a three-hour practice session.
A few weeks later, the girl emailed me to let me know her gymnastics team won the District Silver award. Her successes came because she allowed herself to imagine, create and feel success in her mind. Certainly the practice sessions helped her and her team. Yet, without getting rid of the mental block that held her back, her success might not have happened.
It’s that simple.
Graphics: All text graphics are provided by the author.
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⭐️ About the Author
Anthony M. Davis is a Leadership, Success & Stress Coach, Board Certified Therapist, Top-100 International Travel Photographer. As a Coach, he helps people just like you overcome obstacles & reach their goals. His free book, “Keys to Your Success” is available now.
For Coaching availability, email me at: [email protected]
