There lives a trap on the highway to change. That trap looks like this; you want something different in your life. You get excited about having the change you want. You get busy taking action, moving in the direction you want to go. Then as you travel the road of change a pit opens up and a hidden trap snaps shut!
Now you’re stuck. Now you’re stopped.
What you don’t know and what you need to know about successful change can make the difference between arriving at your destination or getting derailed before you ever get started.
The Container of Our Lives
Think of what you experience as your life as a container. This container consists of your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, habits, actions, and circumstances. It consists of what you have and what you do. It consists of the people in your life. It’s what you read, what you watch, how you spend your time. It’s the choices you make. It’s patterns; patterns of being.
If you’re not satisfied with your experience, it’s the container you’re living in that you wish to change. You feel the desire for something new. As long as it’s just a desire with no clear intention for a change, things will stay as they’ve been.
It Starts With A New Choice
Make a choice to live in a new experience, a new container, and now you’ve gone and done it! You’ve just threatened your status quo. And the status quo is the arena of your Ego, your identity.
Your Ego (Inner Critic) won’t like this one bit! In fact, it’ll lay every trap it can to slow or stop you and drive you back to the container you last occupied. It’s wants you to stay the same so you’ll seem to be safe.
It’s going to take some pretty significant fuel to break out of your current container and claim a new experience.
Counter to what many believe, it’s not just want you do or have, it’s who you are. You make a choice to become a new you and everything that follows nurtures the new destination.
It's About Taking Action That Starts From Being the Change
But even that sounds far simpler than the process of earning a new identity, a new container proves to be. Depending on the change you want to make specific attributes of your being are required to change. You may have to change the thoughts you cultivate, the people you hang out with, the clients you seek, the habits you practice.
To fuel your journey to your new container, you must change some (or many) of the current attributes of your container. You must practice, taking actions that are aligned with, your new being to make it to the finish line.
Unadvertised Parts of the Process
But that’s not all. There are a few more points in the change process that are downplayed; because, let’s face it, they don’t make for good ad copy!
A change in who you’re being can absolutely result in instantaneous results…in consciousness. To some degree, there’s a gap before what we think of as physical reality fully manifests.
Your personal sense of comfort; will definitely take a hit. The journey to what you want that is different will inherently include some teardown or what was to rebuild into something new. Fear of the unknown, uncertainty, confusion, overwhelm; any or all of these may be visitors on your transformation trip. This sets off further Ego alarm bells and triggers symptoms of the Resistance Cycle™.
Then there’s a period of time until the new identity becomes concrete and the Ego defends it’s new identity. This can be a tender time. Unless you understand and take precautions you may find your progress slides back to where you started. Yes, the Resistance Cycle™ can be ever so sneaky!
Getting Started Is the First Step to Success
Any change begins with clarity; what do you want and why do you want it? Once clarity comes into focus, a choice becomes obvious.
So, what’s currently in your container that is holding you back from making the changes you desire? Or what needs to be added into your container to give you what to need to change?
What needs to change? Do you want this change enough to make a choice that engages your thoughts, your emotions, and your body? What old patterns or habits need an upgrade?
Becoming what you want, and then taking aligned actions, you can create the life you’ve always wanted, and make it the new container you live in.
Use This Information to Avoid Pitfalls
What changes have you deeply desired but feared stepping out of your comfort zone to achieve? Knowing the truth about the change process can make it less scary because now you know that what many label “wrong” is just part of the process.
Creating as much safety for yourself while still taking consistent steps forward really does help you win your own race.
I’ll be here cheering for you, the whole way! I would love to hear about your journey. Comments are always celebrated!
Comment below or email me at info@deborahivanoff.com to share.
Photo from the Deposito Collection