Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.
- Mahatma Gandhi
The more we see people succeed, break out of the norm, pursue their passions, make life happen... the more we realize we are not alone. They're not special, they don't have super powers, they just dared to dream and go for it.
Maybe it's time you started changing habits, dreaming bigger and believe that you can do whatever you want.
Reinventing your life comes in all shapes and sizes. If you want to start working out, pick something fun and start small. Take a beginner’s class and start out easily so that you're not in pain for a week and never want to do it again.
You want to learn a language? Go on Groupon download a language program - its right there. Don't have time to do it? How about waking up 30 minutes earlier and taking a walk and doing two great things at the same time every day? Can you imagine how you would feel after just 10 days?
Wishing you could paint like a friend of yours who just picked up a paintbrush and started painting recently? They just started to do it, why can't you? Do it for your own Joy, not to share or show to anyone, not to put on exhibit or post online, just do it for your passion and joy and to stretch your creativity!
Do you truly believe they have skills greater than yours? Are they smarter? Do they have some special gene that makes them more unique and capable than you? Or is it they just summoned the courage to actually try something they keep thinking and talking about? Is it about the time constraints you think you have? We're all so busy and we say we don't have the time but is that really true?
If you actually spent one week changing your habits, not watching your favorite TV shows, not monitoring your social media, and you wake up 30 minutes earlier every day, cancel lunch dates to spend time doing something that you'd like to try – writing, listening to the language lessons, planning a trip, researching a new career that you want to start, exploring more...you would be on your way!
Just like that!
I meet people every day in so many different walks of life and at so many levels of their careers - from 19-year-olds just starting out to 72-year-olds, all talking from a different perspective about what they wish they could do with their lives. What I find fascinating are the older folks who haven't fulfilled their dreams, who look at their lives and wish they could've done so many other things and question whether or not it's too late to tackle it now.
I have a friend who used a family tragedy as a catalyst to start checking off things on her bucket list. Confronted with the reality that our lives could be taken from us at any point, she realized that she wasn't going to sit around and be one of those people that said I wish I had done this or that. She's taking life by the horns and looking at how to conquer every fear and every dream small and large, and most certainly way out of her comfort zone. Everybody looks at what she's doing and they're wishing that they had the courage to Dream as she does.
So what does it take? How do you take that first leap of faith even if it's something as small as starting that diet tomorrow, or telling your boss that you want a raise, or leaving that job so that you can go do what you really dreamed about, like opening that little chocolate store in the middle of Main Street, or saving people in Third World countries that need a helping hand, or move on from a bad relationship, or starting some charity work, or go horseback riding, or learn a language, or start spending more time discovering your spirituality, or align with a cause and find your voice, or start meditating every morning for five minutes.
Anything that you do that adjusts your daily habits and routines and creates a new focus and a new direction in your life is an amazing moment of reinvention. One small change can create such a huge shift in your energy, your surroundings, the way you connect with other people, your moods. You're sending a signal to those around you and to the universe that you are open and interested in creating the best possible life you could have and then you're not going to be the one to say "I wish I could…"
Want to break old habits and create new ones? Start small and gain confidence with that feeling. You'll find the joy, not fear that comes with "mixing it up" a little.
These mini Reinventions can shake up your norm. Changing your routine can remind you how new and exciting different experiences and habits can be – try the simplest of things for starters, like:
- Drive to a different Starbucks in your neighborhood,
- Order an Iced Tea vs Ice Latte
- Put on shoes you have in the back of your closet, rather than the ones you wear all the time.
- Wear a colored shirt vs black or white shirt with your suit
- Walk vs drive to the close grocery store
- Exercise in the morning vs evening
- Read a book vs watching a tv show (dvr it for another time)
- Call an old friend for dinner
- Cook vs ordering in
- Change your shampoo brand
Getting the picture?
We take for granted the daily habits that are our routine.
Try getting comfortable with change.
Embrace Change with Excitement and Courage
Minimize the Fear and let Inspiration and Curiosity take over
Have faith in who you'd like to be. Believe it's there. Go for it. Create it.
Life won't just happen to you, make it all yours on your terms!
Happy Reinventing
#lifeonyourterms #changeyourhabits #HappyReinventing
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