#2: The First Step to Change the Course of Your Life
Do you want to change the course of your life?
Today's episode is all about the first step that you can take to change the course of your life. It's not meant to be something daunting or scary in some way. It's really the first step that I've found with my clients that changes their perspective and really allows them to enter into the next phase of their life, whatever they want that to look like for them. There is an energy shift that comes along with it, which is super, super important. I'm sure we'll talk about energy more on this podcast at some point, but for now, we’re really talking about that first step that you can take to change the course of your life.
It's not flashy. It's not something that's available for someone else, but not available for you. It’s available to everyone.
Self Awareness - The First Step to Change the Course of Your Life
The first step to change the course of your life that I'm talking about is making the choice to become self aware.
What does that mean? It means that you're choosing you in this process. You're choosing to take a look at yourself. A lot of the times when things are not working in our lives, it's because we're looking outside of ourselves. This may have happened to you before, or you may have seen it with a loved one or a friend. When something comes up in our life that we're not happy with, we have to look at the role that we're playing in that scenario.
Who are you being in that scenario?
If you really want to make a change, it comes down to choosing to look at yourself differently.
You're not going to be able to change other people, even if you want to. The way that you're going to make change in your life is by looking at yourself.
That's why self awareness is so important.
The Feelings that Come with Self Awareness and Changing the Course of Your Life
It can feel scary and it can feel triggering, uncomfortable and hard to practice self awareness. Sometimes it can feel much easier to hide behind our old habits and negative patterns. At the end of the day, this is the way that you're going to set your trajectory and change the course of your life.
You need to be able to look at yourself in some capacity. This could really be taking a look at how you react to certain situations, or how you show up in certain ways. For me, as a busy mom and a working mom who loves work and also loves her children, it can be hard. Sometimes it can feel really intense. Sometimes when we're in the throes of the evening routine and having to try to do homework, and my girls are really tired from a long day at school, and they don't really want to do the homework, I can get frustrated. I can yell. I am not happy about myself when I do that. I've been working on yelling less and really meeting them where they're at because yelling is not going to help anything. Secondly, it's not about something with them. It's about what's going on with me. I have to really look internally to me and ask “Why do I feel the need to yell? Why do I feel that anger inside me”? It's usually because I'm really tired in some way, exhausted, or I didn't take enough time to myself earlier in the day so that I could be fueled and fulfilled and ready to support them from a grounded, centered place. I share this example as a way for you to know that whatever is happening, whatever is going on, it's really about taking a look at it for yourself?
How can you say in the moment, “Okay, I'm choosing to take a look at myself. I'm going to take a look at myself, and I'm going to approach things differently by having self awareness.”
The Responsibility of Choosing to Change the Course of Your Life
At the end of the day, it's really up to you. It's your responsibility to take care of yourself, to be able to change what's happening in your world. This is incredibly important and really the stepping stone to change anything else in your life. Truly, because you really have to be willing to commit to yourself. You have to be willing to look inward. You have to be willing to put down all the excuses and all the different things and the victim mindset or the blaming or all of those other things and say, “Hey, how am I contributing to this situation and what do I need to change for myself?”
It's a very vulnerable process. It can feel scary and uncomfortable. When you're used to working a certain way, it can feel really hard to break those patterns and try something else. The important thing is to just keep choosing over and over again. Keep choosing self awareness.
If you lose track in a moment and you say, “Oh, okay, I got off track. I yelled about this, or I blamed someone else over here.” You come back to yourself and you say, “Okay, I'm choosing in this new moment, I'm choosing to look at myself, what's my contribution? What can I do to change what's not working in this situation?”
That's really what it all comes down to, each and every time. So really, to change the course of your life, to set things off on a new trajectory is to really first look at yourself and really embrace and know that your change is going to come from looking at yourself, from being willing to meet those parts of you that you buried deep down, that you might not really want to look at, but you know that you can't keep avoiding if you want to make a change.
Reflection Activity to Change the Course of Your Life
Here are some reflection prompts for this week:
How can I make it a conscious choice to practice self awareness?
What are the patterns and cycles I want to break?
What are things that bring me joy, cause sadness, or trigger anger in me?
What do I need to do to take care of myself and feel grounded in who I am?
How do I want to contribute and show up in my life going forward?
To me, this starts with spending time with yourself. Dating yourself (spending time alone) and really taking a look at who you are more deeply.
I started my self discovery journey with journaling. I used to journal daily as a way to get my thoughts out of my mind and onto paper to see what was really going on. When my family moved to France, I started going outside for a walk every day (rain or shine) to spend time on my own. Slowly I started to crave that fresh air and that space and time in nature to myself every day. I loved being able to discover more about myself in this way. These practices, along with others, have been incredibly supportive and nourishing to me too.
The main thing that I want to tell you, whichever process you choose, however you choose to do it, is to really spend time with yourself. That will allow you to reflect and get you looking at what you’ve been doing, how you’ve been acting in certain situations and how you can show up differently than how you’ve shown up in the past.
You are invited to do the reflection prompts if you would like, and if you don't want to, that is no problem at all. You are steering your ship. I cannot do that for you. This invitation is to start to take a look and observe yourself. Start with observing and see what you notice about yourself.
Conclusion on How to Change the Course of Your Life
Your journey starts will self awareness. Look within and be honest with yourself as you navigate the process of changing the course of your life.
Take a look at all of it and see who are you as a person. Then with this self awareness, you'll be able to make some of those shifts in your life. It's a process. None of this is a an overnight like get rich quick type of thing. That's not how I roll.
It’s really about taking a look at yourself in this journey. And yes, there can be moments where we have big changes that come out of nowhere, and a lot of this, what I'm talking about here is in these small moments. And how can you make choices in those little mini, micro moments to better support yourself?
The invitation is to spend some time reflecting and spend some time on your own, whatever that looks like for you, even if it's a minute or five minutes or 10 minutes a day. I know time is precious. The important thing is to try it out for yourself and to find some time in your day, even if it is just a minute to start.
If you’d like to connect further about unlocking the next step in your personal development journey, please feel free to reach out. I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram. I'm also on Voxer at @MaryClavieres.
If you want support with where you are right now, I'd be honored to work with you. You’re invited to check out my Human Design readings so that you can learn more about your own energy and how you operate. This tool is a powerful building block that will allow you to live life with less stress and more peace.
Thank you so much for today. If you feel called, I invite you to share this episode with a friend or a loved one, if it may help them with where they are. Please leave a rating and review, subscribe and follow along, so that you'll get all the updates.
Thank you so much for your support. I deeply, deeply appreciate it, and I'm so excited to be on this journey with you.
Check out Finding Yourself Again – Mary’s story HERE.
