Choose your days to choose your life

How many of us have been thrown throughout our lifetime by vast changes to our lifestyle?

A look back to the Pandemic

Coronavirus impacted every single one of us in some way or another, and the change it brought to the way we live our lives - worldwide - is highly likely to be the biggest global shift we see in our lifetime. 

Perhaps being at home so much more made you realise how much you enjoy working in an office with your colleagues, and awakened you to how lucky you are, how you love your work, and enjoy the social activity... and wouldn't mind if you never had to get on another Zoom call!

But it's likely that it also threw up some unexpected realisations and helped you have a different perspective about how your life works, about the relationships you have with the people in your life, and about what is really important to you, what you really value.

It is natural to take a step back when changes in your life happen - especially when the circumstances are thrust upon you. It's normal to feel anxious when you think about possibly making some changes. However, it is also easy to push the idea of change - and more uncertainty - away, thinking that you 'just need to get back to normal' rather than rock the boat and break out of your comfort zone. 

Our brain holds us back from change because it wants to keep us safe.

When you put your hand on a hot stove, you instantly pull it away - this is via a reflex action - you don't have any choice or control in the matter. Your body is hardwired to keep you safe in this situation, without even involving your brain.

Of course your brain is much more complicated than your spinal cord.

Your brain will fight you to maintain the status quo because it can only predict what has worked in the past; the way it has thought and behaved has meant you have survived and been relatively safe. But where you are now is in a future it cannot predict, possibly making plans it cannot compute. Your brain will struggle to deal with this.

If you want to make changes, it's likely you will have to do some work on yourself and listen to the stored memory patterns that come from your brain as it worries how it can keep you in what it considers 'safety'. You will have to spot them and see them for what they are. 

My advice based on my coaching experience

I want share with you what I have learned, after talking to and helping many people over many years to balance their work and their life and make changes.

1. Try to take up these opportunities to make a change, to go in a different direction, live in a different part of the world, spend more time with your family... to do something that you love and make it a much bigger part of your life... whatever, they happen very rarely. 

2. I have never worked with a client who, having made significant change, felt that they had made the wrong decision. Without exception, they were all happier with the new way they had chosen, with the path they forged for themselves rather then the path they had previously been following.

3. Disclaimer! - This isn't to say that it all went completely smoothly. It didn't! There were bits that went better than expected, there were bits that were disappointing. But there was satisfaction where they didn't expect to find it as well as where they expected it to be.

How do you want to spend the days that make up your life? Maybe talking it through with a lifestyle coach could be the answer to what you're looking for, and help you to find fulfilment in our new period of life.