refocus and reset your life

Move beyond the comparison mindset to step into your true worth!

Closing out the year is a time of reflection and acceptance. It’s a time when we can ask ourselves, as we look back over the year, what is working and what did we skip this year that maybe proved to be worthwhile for our mental and emotional health. So often, we judge ourselves for not doing what other people are doing or for not living up to this imaginary expectation that is set and created by the lens of viewing lives through social media.

Acknowledging that you need to change your thinking is difficult to swallow, but it’s important to create a new way of being.

Accepting ourselves is hard. For example, accepting that we aren’t the type of mom that puts a made-from-scratch meal on the table every night. Or that we don’t decorate the whole house for Christmas; heck, putting a tree up was hard enough!

In the AA world (Alcoholics Anonymous), this is step four; Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. As a 10-year sober person, I’ve seen myself come upon this step many times, not just in relation to my addiction to alcohol. The process of acknowledging and accepting pulls me out of the downward spiral of comparison. The cycles of I’m not good enough, or I’m not doing enough, and in reality, the vision of my life has been set too far away from my truth.

Acknowledging and accepting is a way to take inventory of your life rather than continually making the same resolutions year after year, which results in you feeling like a failure. So let’s flip the switch and try things differently this year!

This is a simple prompt to get you focused on becoming a better version of you. You’ll notice that it doesn’t involve taking inventory of your finances or weight. Let’s move beyond that way of thinking and bring our attention to the mindset that matters in making change. Download the image below, print it out, and post it in an area of your house where you will see it often to remind you of your life goals.

Here is an example of the same prompts one of my clients and I created together to allow her room to step further into her authority of self.

Letting go of the outside expectations we put on ourselves is hard to do, but I’m proud of you for seeing your worth. If you’d like some additional help on this journey, I’d be happy to jump on a call and see if we are a good fit for working together.

Let’s think of our life from beginning to end as a journey. And throughout each of our individual journeys, we all at some point have struggled with the decision on what to continue to bring along with us on this journey and what to leave behind.

I have moved a lot, and completely by choice. I’m not in the military, jobs have not forced me to move. But in the last 26 years, I have lived in 16 places. That’s averaging a year and a half at each location! I really just like the process of moving, of starting fresh in a new place and purging the stuff in my life.

In the process of moving, and maybe even now with the pandemic and feeling as though you are stuck in being in the same space. Maybe you are looking at your walls and all of your possessions and wondering, do I really want all this stuff around me all the time?

During the pandemic, I know several people who have “Marie Kondo” their lives. Holding each item and asking if it brings them joy? And in the question of- does it bring me joy- we make the decision to either continue to bring it along with us on this journey or leave it behind.

Sometimes it feels hard to throw or give items away. It’s as though by giving away that teapot somehow it means that we are throwing away all the memories of sharing tea with friends. We give these physical items in our lives power, as though they are our memory keepers and we know that that is not true. The teapot doesn’t have that special power.

If we don’t purge some things in our life occasionally we begin to feel weighed down, it becomes almost as though we can no longer see anything new because all we’re seeing is old. All we’re seeing is old memories, old things we’ve carried around from place to place. And when we create a bit of space, space for the eye to drop into nothingness. We begin to lean into the possibility of change and lean into the possibility that maybe something could be different and that it will be for the good.

I’m not suggesting that we have to pack up our houses and move. I promised my wife we’d never move again, that this house is the last house. But just as we purge our closets of clothes that no longer fit or are outdated or as we go through papers and shred years of old documents and bills, we need to also really look at our habits. What can we get rid of that is no longer serving us well? Maybe that is the scoop of ice cream every night before bed. Maybe it’s the two glasses of wine after dinner. Maybe it’s the hours spent on Facebook.

As we embark towards the beginning of a new year. Let’s start to look around. Let’s look at the things that we are continuing to carry on our journey. Let’s look at the inventory, not just in our closets and around our houses but really take the time to look at ourselves. What can we dispose of that is no longer serving us? What habits can we get rid of, so that we can continue on our journey, lighter and more in line with who we want to be on a daily basis?