This Is How You Change Your Life

Many of us resist change.

We avoid it. Make excuses. Lie to ourselves and claim that things are fine the way they are, even if the writing on the wall very clearly states something else entirely. The writing that says:

Things are definitely not fine and are only going to get worse if you don’t kick yourself in the ass and do something differently ASAP.

Yeah. Those gut feelings. We ignore them, brush it all aside. And this makes sense. As human beings, we like to feel comfortable. We crave the familiar, even if it that comes in the forms of bad habits, toxic relationships, a town we’ve outgrown, an unhealthy mindset, or a career that is slowly crushing us.

It’s what we know.

Usually, we claim we don’t hear the warning bells or see the red flags until we are deep in personal crisis. It’s when we’ve finally had enough of our own bullshit and the comfortable finally becomes uncomfortable and painful that we allow ourselves to consider that maybe, just maybe, the way we are doing things isn’t working.

While it is definitely true that pain can be an excellent and sometimes necessary catalyst of action and change, the other side of that same truth is that you don’t always have to wait until you’re drowning until you swim to shore and go back to the drawing board.

We don’t have to wait for things get so incredibly fucking bad until we decide to change our lives.

And that’s the key word here: decide. Because change is a conscious, active choice. And an uncomfortable one at that. 

Because it isn’t fun to look your debt square in the face and figure out how the hell you’re going to pay it off, and it’s definitely not fun to put those decisions into action.

It isn’t pretty to acknowledge the partying you’ve been doing on the weekend wasn’t just for fun, but rather just to numb. It isn’t pretty to start spending Friday nights alone to look at the reason you’re running from yourself and have to figure out what to do about that fact.

It isn’t glamorous to break up with someone who looks great on paper and on Instagram, but who you know deep down you don’t really love. (Even if you feel like you should.) It isn’t fun to be thrown back into the dating pool and realize that the reason you stayed so long was because you were very afraid of being alone.

But you have to do these things. Because settling for a life that is less than what you want or need will only lead to unnecessary regret and suffering.

After all, there’s enough of that in life. Why give yourself more pain?

I promise that you can change your life. You can acknowledge the pain, make the difficult decisions, and put forth the grueling action that is required to allow things to shift.

You can stop blaming other people for your problems and put the power back into your own mind, your own hands. You can stop waiting for the weather to change, the “right” time, for feeling “ready,” for tomorrow.

You just need to fucking do something already.

Because here’s the other thing: change is also inevitable. Things are going to be added and thrust from your life without warning and you’re going to have to learn to adapt.

You might as well start with what you can control.

It’s truly empowering to realize how much power we have in our minds, in our hearts, in our very own willpower. Deciding to change your life involves a difficult confrontation with reality that will not only change your life but save it.

So the choice is yours. Grow or stay the same?