How to love your life, even when it's messy (and hard, and overwhelming)
Can I be honest with you guys? I have not loved my life the last few years.
When I was a kid, I dreamed of being a wife and mother. I wanted nothing more than to fall in love and raise babies. I had zero desire to have a job.
But here I am, eight years into my marriage with two kids , and three jobs. Yup. Three jobs. It’s the exact opposite of what I wanted for my life!
Rather than accept or try to change my circumstances to fit my dreams, I’ve chosen to be mad about it. Which in turn, lead me to not fully love my life.
Please, don’t get me wrong. I have a good life. I LOVE my family, they are the drive that helps me get though the parts I don’t love.
But, this year, I decided to build a life I loved. Which means I need to make changes. I want to share the changes I’m making in my life, so that if you have a life that’s not what you want, you can also make those changes.
Change your mindset
Mindset is so insanely huge!! If you tell yourself that your life is miserable, then it will be. Your thoughts are crazy powerful, so you have to change negative thoughts into positive ones!
Maybe there are things in your life that you can’t change immediately. For me, I want to quit one of my jobs, but we need that income, so I have to stick with it for now. Instead of dwelling on how much I don’t want to do that job, I have to change my mindset.
This is so hard!!! If you’re like me, you’re struck in a negative space and you can’t seem to get out of it. Here are a few tip to help you change your mindset.
Look for one thing to be grateful for about the situation.
Smile through it! Smiling can change your whole mentality!
Set daily goals that will help you enjoy what you’re doing or that will help you grow and succeed.
Meditate. When things get tough and you start to talk about what is wrong with your situation, stop and take a few minutes to breathe and clear your mind. Then you can go back with a new attitude.
Assess what makes you happy and what doesn’t
I never wanted to be a working mom, but I’ve actually changed my mind on that. I now know that I don’t mind working, I even like some aspects of it. However, I know that I’m not happy being someone’s employee. I am happy when I get to be creative, talk to people and set my own schedule.
In order to build a life I love, I have to do the things that make me happy and eliminate the rest. Which is easier said than done.
I recently learned a great exercise that helps you determine how to be happy. First, imagine your ideal scenario. Say, you want to be able to spend more quality time with your family. What would that look like? What’s a perfect example?
For me, I want family time to be screen-less. I want to spend time as a family learning, playing and being present. So, a perfect night would include my husband working with my son on his letters and numbers while I read to my daughter. Then we would let the kids play and just be present and watch them interact. My husband and I would have a chance to talk together. And we would eat popcorn because our family loves popcorn.
Now that you know what you want, how can you make it happen? For me, it’s telling my husband about my dream scenario and working together to enact it. It’s also putting my phone far away from me so I’m not tempted to check it whenever I get a notification. What does your dream scenario look like? What do you need to do to create it?
Set goals that will get you where you want to be
I remember my mom always talking about people’s personalities and if they took action or were acted upon. I always thought that was an interesting way to describe people.
After reflecting over the last few years of my life, I’ve realized that I’ve allowed myself to be acted upon. Meaning, I let other people or my circumstances guide my actions.
I lost my job, so I started a business.
Someone asked me to cover their job for a while, so I took a job that I didn’t want.
I never set out with a plan to accomplish what I wanted. I just let life push me around. And I am not happy with the results.
Instead of being acted upon, you have to learn to act. The first step is to set a goal. What is the end game? What will it take to make you happy? Write it down. Seriously, write your goals down. It makes them so much more tangible!
Now, create a plan to accomplish that goal. If you don’t have a plan on how you’re going to change your life, then you’ll never get where you want to be. Manifesting is huge right now, and I’m all about positive thoughts, but change takes actual work. I love this quote by John C. Maxwell.
“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of success is found in your daily routine.”
It’s important to take small steps towards your goal every day. Then bit by bit you can accomplish it.
Don’t be afraid to take risks
I am not a risk taker. I over think everything and I am stupidly indecisive.
But, I know that taking risks is important to growing and building a life you love.
If you haven’t caught on to what I want to change in my life, it’s my job. Hahaha, that was blatantly obvious, right?
Well almost a year ago, I decided to take a risk and join this hair care business. I invested money, that I didn’t feel like I had, into starting something new. Something I knew I would enjoy and something I was excited about.
When I work my business, I love it! I feel empowered, I feel excited about what I’m doing. it just makes me happy!
But then I stopped taking risks. I got too nervous to talk to people. I didn’t want people to find me annoying. Basically, I got hung up on my fears and stopped moving forward. As a result, I didn’t grow my business like I wanted to.
I’m trying to let go of my fears and take more “risk” in talking to people. Because I know that if I want a life I love, I have to get out of my comfort zone and work for it!
Taking risks doesn’t have to mean dropping a ton of money on something. Sometimes it’s opening your mouth to voice your opinion. Whatever risks you decide to take will be worth it because when you let yourself grow, you are one step closing to loving your life.
What do you need to change in order to build a life you love? What risks can you take? What goals will you set?
