Today is a hard day. Today I am leaving the best workplace I have ever had to move to a completely new area, to take an education in a foreign language, to move together with Mr T and to start to go it alone and make dreams a reality. Everything in my future looks shiny and full of possibilities however to make this decision has been one of the hardest experiences of my life.
There is an old Chinese saying “If the old doesn’t go, the new cannot come.” And it’s true letting go is a positive action in your life. It’s easy to see this in nature, when the old plants are cleared the new shoots can come through the earth. When we think of letting go it can often create pictures in our mind of crisis situations which force us to let go such as a relationship breakdown. However letting go is also relevant to following our dreams and making positive changes in our lives.
It can be a challenge to break the mould, to step away from the security of the life we know. If you are in this position where you want to make a change in your life here are some ways to approach the decision making process.
Positive / Negative life list
I know I am the queen of lists, however i find when I write out my thoughts my head is clearer and I can better focus on solutions. So have a look at your current life. What has a positive impact on you? What has a negative impact? Be critical and harsh. This is your life, only you can create the life you want so be honest with yourself.
World without money?
Ask yourself if there was no such thing in the world as money or if money was not important, what would you like to do? See this clearly in your mind. This the life you want to create.
What will you gain?
Look at what would you gain from living your dream life. This is usually the easiest part.
Compare
Compare your dream, the bonuses you will gain with your current life situation written in your positive / negative list. This should give you a very clear picture of what you need to remove from your life. Anything that doesn’t help you create your dream life you need to let go of. And that can be from both sides of your list.
Accept
If you truly want to create your dream life you need to accept that you will have to let things go. Cue Elsa from Disney’s Frozen, and yes i highly recommend playing this loudly whenever you feel the desire to return to comfortable patterns of behavior. Our natural reaction to change is to hide in the comfortable life we know, even when it is obvious this habit doesn’t serve us. Remember by accepting and letting go you are saying to the universe I want a better life. I am making space for something better for me. When we ask the universe and act upon our true desires it will respond.
Fears
Oh the enemy it will rear it’s ugly head, again and again and again. It is scary instigating change in our lives. Change does trigger our fight or flight mechanism and fill the body with adrenaline and limiting thoughts. Your brain will believe what you tell it so don’t let your fears take over. If it gets too much bring in the support, call your best friend, your parent and tell them I need to hear that I can do this, can you help. You are not alone in making this change of letting go what doesn’t serve you. Your actions ripple out and affect the people in our lives, so include them in the process and beat those fears into insignificance.
Make a plan
Yes, Yes I know, I love plans. They make life easier. And the feeling of success when crossing off an action gives a great sense of achievement. For me plans make things easy. I write the steps, I follow the steps, I hit an unexpected process so I evaluate the change in the plan and move on. Plans keep you focused. I am a visual person so I make a vision board (in fact I make one every year). Each day I can look at my vision and it reminds me of the reality I am creating and how much closer I am every day. And in this planning process, most importantly; remember to give time to you. Change takes time to become a comfortable process, allow time for this.
Riding the storm
Storms come and storms pass. Personally I love riding the storms in my life, even though they are sometimes painful processes. I usually find that as an element of chaos comes into my life or the feeling of this is never going to work, firstly it motivates me to try harder. And at the same time a storm usually means I am closer to my goal than I ever was before. After all if you think how fragile a plant shoot is it takes a heck of a lot of effort for it to break through the topsoil and grow towards the sun. Use a storm as a motivation and remember when it is over that the world and your life is usually fresh and light again.
Enjoy the journey
This is fun! This you creating the life you want, enjoy it. Don’t just focus on the goals focus on the journey. Life’s a journey. If we focused on our end purpose we would simply be focusing on our own death. Well that’s a happy prospect. Although you are working towards a goal remember that the process of attaining that goal is also part of gaining that goal. Enjoy your achievements, note the lessons you learn and be in the now. Letting go brings the new into your space, by being in the now you are conscious of this and can enjoy it even more.
So let go what doesn’t serve you, clear the debris in your life to grow something new and enjoy the journey of creating your dream life 🙂
And when you need to remember that letting go helps remember to turn to Elsa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk
