Making changes in your life is a huge challenge. It requires a certain self-awareness and an action strategy. If you know what you want to change, you are already a step behind you.
But what if you want to make changes in your life, but you don’t know what exactly? Do you ever try to change something and it always ends in failure? What are you doing wrong? Read the article and see how to effectively make changes in your life!
Change - how to find it?
It is often the case that you are fed up with your current life, you want to change something, you feel you need something else, but you are unable to determine what.
This is a situation that creates a lot of tension and comes with additional frustration directed at yourself. To understand what change you need, first of all, you need to increase your self-awareness.
Find a longer moment for yourself, take a piece of paper and a pen and write down everything that disturbs you in life – everything that is a source of dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction, depression, etc.
Create a vision of your new life – describe exactly how you want to behave, what to do, how you want your daily schedule to look like. Are you satisfied with such a vision? If so, it’s time to act and create the right plan, step by step!
What is blocking you from changing?
Every change in life is a serious exit from your own comfort zone. It is associated with entering something completely new, with changing your current habits and behavior. There is stress, anxiety and often – related resistance.
The inner critic’s thoughts are triggered, saying:
“You can not do it”,
“It’s not for you”,
“You tried it once and it didn’t work out”,
“You’re just making fun of”,
“Nothing will come of this.”
If an internal critic takes control of you, it’s over – you will most likely stay where you are now. Appearing resistance, fear or anxiety is completely normal. You end up getting into something new and unknown.
Your inner critic is afraid and tries to effectively stop you from changing and stay in what is known and safe.
How can I deal with the internal critic?
First of all, you need to start recognizing your thoughts consciously. When an unsupporting thought appears, replace it with a supporting thought, for example, say aloud, “That’s not true. Until now, I was able to deal with everything, even when I faced some difficulties. I can handle that as well.
Focus on the facts, notice how much you’ve achieved and how you have dealt with the new challenges.
How to effectively make changes in your life?
In order to successfully implement changes, you must have created the vision of the life you want to have from now on, as well as the behavior patterns you want to practice.
Then prepare a specific plan of action for it – write step by step what you do, set your habits and find the best verification system for you (it can be keeping a diary or ticking off in the application).
If possible, get rid of the things that may stand in your way (e.g. if your change is a cut in sweets, get rid of the ones you have). Also, prepare the ground for new behaviors (e.g. if you want to start eating healthier, prepare a menu in advance and do some shopping).
Always remember your vision, prepare the ground for change, and take care of your inner critic so that he doesn’t get in the way of change.
Introducing changes in life and consulting a psychologist - is it worth it?
Yes of course! Especially if you have trouble figuring out what changes you need and what you want to make in your life. By talking to a psychologist, you will increase your self-awareness and realize what you need the most at the moment.
You will discover not only your needs, but also learn to act despite resistance and work out your unsupporting thoughts.
You will begin to consciously modulate them to work in your favor and propel you to change, rather than dragging you down. Talking to a psychologist will also help you if you have an excess of ideas and do not know which path to choose.