Regrets never come first, they always come last. Why do we have regrets? Is it because of the decisions we make? We call them mistakes, but people who have learned to live life without regrets call them lessons. Life teaches us valuable lessons, not to make us less of a person but to help us become a stronger individual as we start to see these mistakes as our stepping stone to achieving greater goals.
When you meet people who leave important lessons in life, value them because they can provide a way to help us make room for improvement. The lessons in life may not be directly obtained from our experiences as they can come from people who have become part of our lives. There may be bumps in your journey, but still, be thankful for them because they can help you become a better person and with that said, you will no longer be afraid to face life no matter the challenges.
1. People will question you – A LOT
This is probably the most difficult thing to deal with when making a big change. Many people will be happy for you and say that you are brave for having the guts to follow your heart, while others will react in a more negative way. I wasn’t prepared for some of the condescending comments I got such as:
“You don’t seem to have a proper plan in place.”
“You’ll have to work day and night in order to make anything happen and you won’t have ANY free time what so ever for a LONG time.”
“Let me give you a reality check, because you seem to need one.”
Yeah, not really inspiring stuff. It took me a while to discover that what people were saying actually had nothing to do with me. Their words were just reflecting their own fears and limiting beliefs. If they had to work every day for a paycheck and stay in a job they didn’t enjoy – so should I. That’s the way things work and who was I to break out of it?
Keep in mind that what you will hear when talking about your desire to change will be other people’s perceptions of how life is ‘supposed to be lived’. It will for sure be a mixed bag of reactions. Remember to keep your focus on what you feel is true for you.
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2. Stay grounded
Aim to always stay grounded in life, but especially when you are going through a transition. For me, staying grounded is to maintain a strong connection to your inner self. You know what’s best for you better than anyone else (including your mom). To develop your inner connection, find an activity that helps you to focus on your inner being. It can be yoga, meditation, sports, writing, painting, dancing… whatever floats your boat.
Personally, I keep a morning routine consisting of 20 minutes meditation and 20 minutes yoga. I can’t stress enough the difference I noticed in my well being since I started this routine. It helps me find my inner focus, balance and connect to my inner self. Make this type of routine a priority in your life. Something that you stick to even those days when you feel a resistance to it. It will help immensely, I promise.
3. Stay flexible
Before I left my job I had a rough idea about what I wanted to accomplish. I didn’t have all the details in place, but I sort of knew where I was going. If I had known how much things would change along the way, I would have stayed more flexible to it from the very beginning.
When things didn’t go as I planned I tried to force them in the direction I wanted. This is not a great idea I tell you, it will only give you a lot of strain and unnecessary headaches. Instead, trust that you always are being guided in the right direction. Don’t try to push, rush or control the outcome of things. When resistance shows up, know that it is there for a reason: to tell you that this isn’t the right way to go.
For example, just a few days ago my sister and I shut down a website we’ve been working on for 2 months. Just like that. We always had some resistance towards setting one up for the project that we are working on, but because we thought it was ‘the right way to go’ we did it anyway. We let our minds interfere with our intuition and we spent hours and hours on something that we later didn’t end up using.
From my experience, our intuition is always right. Always. Sometimes it’s difficult to follow your inner voice because we listen too much to others or what is considered to be the ‘smart way’ of doing things. Something we have discovered is that we keep coming back to the initial ideas we have. The ones that get us excited, the ideas we have before we start to over think things.
If you at some point discover that you’ve gone off in the wrong direction, remember that it’s not a bad thing. Never be hard on yourself. Instead be thankful that you now know where you don’t want to go. This way you have a much clearer sense of where you DO want to end up. The bottom line is that in order move smoothly through periods of change, we to remain flexible.
