Can you really change your life in 30 days? Day 4

Do we really even know what we want?

When I work with my clients one of the very first exercises I have them do is to describe their perfect day. From the time you wake up until you go to sleep list every single thing that would make it ideal. Once you have that think of the feelings with those things. How would it feel??

I include feeling in this visualization exercise because it's a powerful reminder to keep in our back pocket for when those good things start to happen. I’ll explain in a second.

So now we have our jumping-off point, we have some idea of what we want.

Even just reading that a few things might have popped into your brain.

“I want to go to a job I hate, in a car I don’t like, after fighting with my partner I’m not happy with…..”

probably didn’t make the list, and yet that is where so many of us get stuck day after day if we don’t try to bridge that gap of where we are with what we want.

As adults, we’ve learned that not all good things take time, but lasting change does. As an instant gratification junky, this is a tough one for me too. Some of those things that we want might be longer than ideal but can we stick with it to get away from where we are?

Something I’ve watched in motion, through my own life and also through my coaching, is that sometimes the smallest step is what starts making the biggest impact.

I call this the snowball effect…once the ball starts moving, it's hard to stop it. And it picks up more and more on the way down. Like attracts like and all that jazz.

It might also change paths a little bit and this is where the feeling piece comes into play. A concept I feel is lacking in a lot of goal-setting methods

We are allowed to change our minds. Maybe you wanted to learn how to play the cello but found that running brings you more joy. ( I have no idea where that example came from). The result is the same Joy.

The important thing is to try new things and figure out what works for you. It might look similar to what you imagined on that perfect day, or it might look completely different but feel the same.

There is no wrong way as long as you are honoring yourself.