Step 1 - Acceptance.
The absolute first thing you must do is accept your situation.
Things are falling apart. You are not doing well. You failed, made a mistake or just got unlucky. Regardless of what is happening to you, understand that it is happening and accept it.
All of the denying, wishing for it to be different and all the complaining will do nothing for you.
I know this step is hard; it always is. But the sooner you can accept your current situation the sooner you can move out of it. You will have to accept it at some point anyway, so you might as well save yourself a lot of heartache and stress by accepting it as soon as you can.
Step 2 - Feeling.
Once you have accepted the situation it is time to feel into it.
This is the only time where you are allowed to cry, feel negative, complain, hate, despair and frustrate about your situation. After this step we are done with that; so you better get it all out now.
The reason we are actively taking this step is so that you can deal with those emotions too. Of course you feel angry, scared and frustrated. That’s okay. What is not okay is taking those feelings with you for the next weeks, months or years and letting them stop you from making things better.
Take some time right now, sit down, and allow all the emotions through. Be as negative as you want, complain as much as you can, and cry your heart out.
Denying the emotions won’t make them go away, and it is easier to accept your situation when you accept the emotions that go along with it. Plus, you always feel more relieved after letting them all through.
Step 3 - Planning.
Alright, now that it is all out, it’s time to plan. What now? Your life is falling apart, it is making you feel horrible, what will you do about it?
Assuming that everything is out on the table, assuming you looked as far down as possible, the only left is to go up.
You are smart enough to figure out what you can do about the situation you are currently in, but you have to actively sit and think about it. It’s not going to get better on it’s own, and the actions you have taken thus far have lead you here; mindlessly repeating them will just get you the same things. If you do not plan you will simply go back to your old routines.
Take this one problem at a time and go from the most important to the least important. Start with what, if you were able to get it, would turn your life around on it’s own. Example: Would $1,000,000,000 change it all? Would Happiness, Purpose or Passion change it it all?
Look for the simplest, most effective, most straight-forward solution. It will not be the easiest, but that’s not the point right now. The point is to get you to think about change.
Once you know what, if you could get it, would change everything, try to divide it into smaller steps. Ideally you want this to be something you can execute daily in very small steps.
The point here is that you plan as much as possible regarding what you can do about it and what would change things without a doubt. That way, when you try these things, you are confident it will make a difference and will largely prevent you sinking further into chaos.
Step 4 - Execution.
Do something. Do anything. But just do it.
This step is the most important but also the most difficult.
At the end of the day, this is what it boils down to though. No matter how much you accept, feel or plan, if you do not execute anything, if you do not act, nothing will change.
One step at a time. One day at a time. Even just 5 minutes in a day, is enough to turn it all around. But you have to do it.
In the step above we talked about the few, big things that would turn it all around. We are trying to divide those up into the tiniest actionable steps we can. These steps should feel so easy that they are almost mindless.
Example: If you want to grow your skills be increasing your knowledge, read 1 page a day.
It’s not a lot, and you do not have to do more. The point here being that as long as you do something you are progressing further than you have been. Remember that it is not about taking the step; it’s about taking a step more than you did yesterday. Do not compare to others, compare to your older self.
It was your older self that got you into this mess, meaning if you do a little more than that self chances are very high you will be in a very different situation soon.
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