I’m *this* close to breaking out into my victory dance.
It took 2 years to get to this point and it came with a lot of ups and downs. To do this, I obviously had to undo my life and a lot of habits in it.
And that takes a lot of effort, but the results can be massive – personally rewarding and professionally too; I can coach better if I’ve lived and developed better.
Here’s what I did…..
Discover your blind spots
First, I had to shift my relationship with food. I also traveled less too. I course-corrected and pivoted into coaching, serving and connecting with other wonderful people.
This was about digging deep and reassessing everything around me. Where can I be more efficient? How can I optimize my life and make smart tweaks that have a big impact?
Discovering your blind spots is about being honest about things that aren’t really working out. It means letting go and moving onto other projects and exploring new opportunities when the path you’ve trodden isn’t fruitful or aligning with your overall aims.
Sometimes you can’t see these yourself – loved ones can help, but getting a more objective eye involved, who doesn’t have an emotional relationship with you can really give you some golden nuggets of truth.
Eliminate the need to get something out of a relationship
I got rid of old relationships that weren’t healthy anymore too. This often happens gradually anyway, when you slowly drift away from someone – it doesn’t mean you have to have a massive dramatic argument and storm off into the distance.
There doesn’t have to be bad feeling there either. People are good for each other at certain points in their life and you can grow in different directions.
And that doesn’t mean viewing relationships in a way of ‘what can I get from this?’, human relationships need to flow and be transactional vs relational. It’s about being honest about whether you still have a healthy connection and make each other happy.
Uncover intimacy through hard conversations
When you’re going through a relationship de-clutter, hard conversations might happen. But nothing good was ever easy, huh? You might go into a conversation, thinking that you and this person are now too different to connect, but surprises happen.
Hard, tough conversations can be absolutely illuminating and uncover stronger relationships. You really learn about someone’s character when you have honest, authentic conversations.
And the same goes for people that are definitely sticking around in your life. Things can get stale and problems can build up – having hard conversations every now and then about where your relationship or lives are going gives your interactions life, spark and fizz again.
Taking back Control
You can’t control the past or future, you only have control and over right now. Once you accept that, it’s incredibly freeing. It’s part of a philosophy of mindfulness – being truly present and concentrating on actions that you can affect right now. You can also think about it like the ‘dog philosophy’, dogs are obviously the best and they live, love and wag in the moment.
I decided to look at what I can change right now. I sought out the right doctor and got off the medicine that was holding me back physically and kicked my diabetes to the curb. Boom.
It was a small change, in the present that’s unlocked more potential and allowed me to take control of my health again.
Let go of assumptions about myself and others
Material possessions are often tied up in projections of our identity and the way we want to look to other people. We also can’t help but take a look at others and think certain things i.e ‘look at their car, they must be killin it!’.
Building up assumptions about others and ourselves leads to inauthenticity and a way of seeing the world that doesn’t value people’s ideas, kindness and compassionate. A good car says nothing about a person’s character or how they treat people.
I decided to shed some physical possessions too. So, I went through everything and got rid of more than half of our “stuff” in our house, including my expensive car. I use Uber/Lyft now and y’know what, the sky hasn’t fallen in. Most importantly I learned to get back up after the lows and there were plenty of those along the way and I think a core part of that is abandoning assumptions, basically, stop giving a rat’s ass what other people think.
Final Thoughts
This is just my story. If you are reading this wondering how to get started… my advice would be to start small. I still eat what I want. I learned that my challenge was quantity, so I ate less.
It’s about finding out what works for you and making tweaks.
It’s a self-guided journey including spirituality, mental toughness, commitment, and health. The most crucial part was learning to love me.
Transforming yourself takes self-kindness and time. You, my friend, are right where you need to be right now. Little steps, being present and kindness. Ok? Go get em!!
H2H Private Coaching available. Through highly personalized, one-on-one coaching, I equip leaders and high potential employees to dramatically increase their performance in life and business.
Schedule your free introductory coaching call here
