Getting the life you want, one step at a time

I'm part of an online coaching group for small business owners. We had a meeting recently and were talking about a shift in energy that everyone has been feeling. It's not just with the people in my group either, I've felt this collective sense of heaviness coming from those around me too. My students and clients have been talking about how hard things feel lately. Everyone seems to be exhausted.

I've been noticing it too. I haven't been feeling as creative or energetic and resistance is coming up in places it doesn't normally. It's showing up as I'm sitting here writing this. My brain doesn't want to do it, I've had to move my phone to a different room so I stop picking it up to scroll, and I had to shut the door to my bedroom so I don't choose to get distracted by what's on the other side of that door. It's even been showing up in my yoga practice. Normally, when I get home from teaching I just roll my mat out and get going. But lately, there has been a ton of resistance. I have to remind myself to roll my mat out and start by taking just one breath.

My clients and students have been asking me what to do when they just don't feel like doing whatever they are working on, (practicing yoga, sticking to their habits, getting out of bed). They keep doing everything except the things they know deep down will help them stop feeling like this.

I think we have to start by admitting how chaotic our lives have been over the last 3 years. The pandemic hit, life turned upside down, and we had to learn how to pivot and adapt to our new pandemic lifestyle. That was no small feat, and yet I think it goes unrecognized all the time.

Now things are beginning to change again. People are being asked to go back to the office and return to commuting, we've been hit with massive waves of flu, respiratory illnesses, and a continual flow of Covid. We are also living through some serious political strife and have become polarized from one another during a time when we need to come together more than ever. On top of all this, life is also super expensive right now. Just writing about all of this brings up a wave of exhaustion for me.

The pandemic gave so many of us that slow down that we didn't even know we needed. It opened our eyes to the fact we weren’t satisfied with our lives and we got a glimpse at how things could be. As our lives return to how they once were, people are feeling resistant. They don't want to go back.

The only person that can create the life you want, is you. That means if you want things to be different you have to put in the work to change things. I know for many people that thought alone can feel overwhelming.

So what do we do when we know we want our lives to be different but we already feel overwhelmed?

🔹Start small.

I know you hear me say this all the time but I'm going to repeat myself again. Most of the time change feels overwhelming because we focus on where we want to end up, the final product, the vision of our best selves. That can feel like a far leap from where you are right now. And the thoughts of what you need to be doing to be that person only creates resistance to starting the journey. We are focused on the outcome and not the process.

When we choose one small thing to focus on, something so small it feels silly to have it be a goal, we are switching our focus from that long-term goal to what we can do at this moment in the short term. We are finding the first step we can take that will move us from being in our heads to getting us into action. And we all know that being in action is how we change our lives.

Your action item today, identify one small step you can take that will help you build the life you want.

Being in action is the only way you are going to get where you want to go. You may not know where to start but just do something. Sitting around thinking about things isn’t going to get you anywhere.

You can have what you want in life. But you do have to take responsibility for it and then put yourself into action.

As Pablo Picasso says, "Action is the foundational key to all success."

Be like Pablo Picasso and get into action!