6 Lessons on Creating Change in Your Life

"In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety." — Abraham Maslow

1. Don’t wait until you’ve hit your breaking point.

Creating change in our lives is difficult. Even if we would like something to change, it’s usually not until we are miserable, unhappy and feeling helpless that we start seriously working toward change. We get to a point where enough is enough! This is true for a lot of people, and bringing awareness to it can help us start taking steps toward change before we hit our breaking point.

2. Identify the needs that your undesirable situation is serving.

There are times when we avoid change because the undesirable situation is actually serving our needs. For example, we resist changing our relationship even though it is unhealthy because it meets our needs for validation, security, belonging and approval. Did you know that these needs come from our subconscious mind and actually arise from experiences in our childhood? Moving beyond the past and changing the present/future involves cultivating awareness and making choices from our conscious mind.

3. Remember that you have a choice.

Ask yourself, “Do I REALLY want to get beyond my painful situation? Do I believe I have a choice?” This inquiry can bring us clarity and motivate us to change. Often we don’t think we have a choice to change our misery. Rather we think that something or someone else is responsible for our unpleasant situation. In the relationship example above, we can either choose to: (1) stay in the relationship and accept it just as it is without complaint, (2) change ourselves within the relationship, or (3) leave the relationship. Making a choice comes from maturity and shapes the quality of our relationships and our life.

4. Take it one step at a time.

Change is made in each moment. We get to choose from our highest inner guidance with intention and awareness. This is often tough when we are reacting from unhealed childhood experiences that make us feel discouraged, stuck and defeated by life. In order to motivate ourselves to change, we need to consciously override negative thoughts and take positive action. Step by step, we bring forth change by accepting the invitation to grow, transform and create a new reality.

5. Identify your emotional and reactive patterns.

Oftentimes we are so overwhelmed by life’s struggles that we don’t realize that we are unconsciously reacting to situations. We will stay in situations and repeat habits by default, reenacting scripts and dramas from our past that we have unconsciously inherited. These are five typical emotional and reactive patterns we fall into instead of making a change in our life:

The Victim: looking outward making the other person the enemy - ‘wrong’ ‘bad’.
The Martyr: a pleaser, puts others needs in front of self
The Entitled Reactive-Rager: anger, superiority, need for power and control
The Depressive: feeling hopeless, despondency, and dejection.
The Addict: numbing through anything that serves as a distraction.

The victim feels that something is “done” to us. We validate our suffering by complaining to others, perpetuating the situation, and giving up our power. The martyr is where we over-do, over-appease and over-indulge. Soon we move into the reactor-rager where we feel entitled to project onto others. When all else fails, we withdraw and give up and engage in depression or addiction.

Can you identify yourself in any of these roles?

6. Take responsibility and empower yourself

When we take responsibility for our choices and make the change we know we need to make, we step into the role of participator in our life. We begin to notice our patterns, projections and tendencies. We are willing to take full responsibility for our part in the outcome that was created. We recognize there is no one ‘out there’ to blame, inflict punishment on or revenge toward.

When we see things as they are, in the present moment, we are able to choose our response to them. This is empowerment! The platform in which the shift from victimhood is made. This is living intentionally, consciously, with awareness of ourselves and our choices.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to make a change we know needs to be made. Remaining stuck and waiting for someone else to make the choice will keep us from growing and create unnecessary pain in our lives.

Will you create change in your life today? What will it be?