Most people are not very happy about change. In their opinion, life change does not seem so necessary. No matter how much they are in torment, or worse, even if their life and habits cause themselves or others to suffer, they still believe that “it is what it is. And nothing in life can be changed!”
But the truth is that we, our personalities and our lives, are not rigid bodies that never change, and are always in a constant state of change.
Everything in a person’s life can be changed. And how much it can be better to make these changes in our own lives based on our own decisions.
“For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn't decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside...” - Rumi
4 Signs Of The Need For Change, And 10 Ways To Achieve It:
How to make positive changes that make life sweeter for us and make our goals come true?
Life change is the subject of this article.
So let’s have a deeper look at the signs of the need for change, as it is the first step that we should take to make changes in our lives, and practical solutions to make these changes happen is to know that we are ready for change!
4 Signs That Show Us We Need To Change Our Lives
Probably, when you see a motivational clip or read an article about self improvement, you say to yourself several times: “I will start changing things in my life from tomorrow” or “I will make a fundamental change in my life and plan for it from the weekend.”
But as we all have experienced, most likely the tomorrow and that perfect free weekend will pass exactly like yesterday and the past weekends, without you having succeeded in changing your life.
Have you ever wondered why you feel the need to change your life? Why do you feel you have to change some things?
Psychologists believe that some psychological and emotional symptoms are warning signs that tell us it’s time to shake things up in our lives.
In the following, we will get to know 4 of these signs.
1- You Drown In Thoughts About The Past
How long have you felt how much you are looking for nostalgia and how much the memories of the past make you feel emotional? Maybe you are running away from the present and want to lose yourself in the pleasures or regrets of the past.
You can think about whatever you want, but thinking about the past keeps you from what you should be thinking about and planning for (i.e. the present and the future).
If thinking about the past makes you happy and feel good, you should take this as a warning, a warning that you need to make a change in your life. Maybe you need to create new memories that will bring you as much joy as the past memories.
2- Your Words And Actions Are Not The Same
If your answer to this is yes, then there is another warning sign!
If your behavior is not the same with your words, it means that you are experiencing some kind of inner contradictions or hidden conflicts.
Psychologists call such a state cognitive dissonance, in the sense that there is a mental and emotional conflicts between your behaviors and beliefs. When you are in such a state, it means that you want to behave differently, but your actions are at the opposite point of your beliefs.
This issue makes people around you mistrust you and your friendly and emotional relationships are disturbed. Therefore, you should remove the obstacles that prevent you from acting according to your beliefs and change your behavior.
If you search about friendship and its effect on mental health, you will see that maintaining and strengthening friendships, and personal relations are of undeniable importance in the quality of your life.
3- You Feel That Your Relationships Are Superficial
Do you think your friendships or romantic relationships are empty? Without real love and affection? Just seemingly friendly behaviors and talks lack real emotions and attention? Do you feel that you are not understood in your relationship and there is no mutual understanding?
This is another sign that shows that you should change your life. It is one of the things that actually destroys your relationships, because the parties cannot understand each other and learn about each other’s thoughts and feelings. Therefore, you should be careful about such an event and improve this situation as soon as you face it.
4- You Are Afraid Of Doing New And Unknown Things
Fyodor Dostoevsky, the famous author, said, ‘Taking a new step, writing a new word and sentence, is what people are most afraid of.’ Do you feel that the fear that Dostoyevsky spoke about has also happened to you?
Are you afraid of doing unknown things? Are you worried about the reactions of people around you? Are you afraid of the unknown and unhappened things?
Such fear prevents you from taking advantage of opportunities and gaining pure and new experiences in life. Because sometimes not knowing the results gives us the chance to bring the best results by putting all of our efforts. But when we allow this fear to take a hold of our decisions it takes our chances away.
This fear closes new ways and doors of progress on you and is undoubtedly one of the signs of the need to change your life.
If you are worried about changing and are afraid of changing, You must learn to outgrow your fear of change.
How To Change?
What Is The First Step We Should Take To Change Our Lives?
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk and peace activist, who is known as the father of mindfulness, said, ‘ Awareness is like the sun . When it shines on things, they are transformed .’
Yes, awareness and self-actualization is the first steps we must take for change.
We have to light the sun of awareness in life so that we can open the path of change and transformation in our life. In psychology, they explain the importance of awareness as the first step of change with the theory of competence development.
This theory divides human learning stages into 4 stages:
In the first stage, a person is not aware of their ‘ignorance’, at the second stage they slowly ‘understand’ their ‘own power’ and ‘own self’, and finally in the final stages they will reach the stage of ‘knowing’ and ‘competence’. The important point of this theory is that in order to reach a higher level and change from ignorance to knowledge, a person must first go through the first stage. It means to know that they do not know!
Therefore, every change begins with the awareness that something is wrong and must be changed.
You must gain accurate knowledge and real awareness about yourself.
First of all, you should know your strengths and weaknesses, and secondly, you should be able to find warning signs in yourself. And then, you will allow yourself to grow…
10 Simple Solutions To Create Sustainable Changes In Life
Many people are afraid of changing their lives, and are worried that by making a change, they will lose what they currently have and return to zero, most of the time they are very used to be at their comfort-zone that they avoid looking at any new direction that may bring change in their mindset or life. For this reason, most people tend to stay in their safe zone instead of embracing change and allow themselves to experience life challenges. In their mind they may ask about their own point of view and their decisions and even make it more complicated and challenging than it actually is in reality.
But on the other hand, some people who have found the courage to change and have gone to the unknown challenges such as learning and growing, and start doing things they have always wanted to do. Come to believe that everything they have after stepping out of their worries, is the result of enabling themselves to have the courage to brake their own past mindset, habits and embracing change in their lives.
In the last part of this article, in order to find the courage to come out of your safe zone, we offer you 10 simple solutions:
Change Your Routines
One of the simple and accessible things to make a change in life is to change the routines that we may do without thinking.
Changing routines doesn’t have to be that big, for example, change your route to work and try passing by new neighborhoods and streets. Or change your daily walking route. If you only visit your family on the weekends, do it occasionally in the middle of the week, or try talking to the people about different things, plan new things for your life that you are not used to such as learning a new skill.
Set New Goals
Try to always have different short-term and long-term goals in your mind and try to achieve them as much as you can. You can also define simpler goals for yourself on a daily basis that achieving them will motivate you and improve your mood. And challenge yourself for changing a bad habit about yourself which can be challenging for you at first.
Face Your Fears
One of the best feelings that a person experiences is overcoming their fears. Try to do the things you avoid, or at least take steps to reduce your fear of change. When you can do that, you will feel the courage and self-confidence that will prepare you for bigger changes in your life.
Write Your Life Story
This is a strange idea, isn’t it?
If you write about yourself, whether you like it or not, you will evaluate the hardships, ups and downs of your life and realize your strengths and weaknesses and your mistakes, sometimes writing down will take away the negative energy, make you realize the truth about things and learn to break trough some of your unwanted feelings and emotions about certain things but writing and reading them and evaluating the things which pass from your mind based on anything which has crossed your mind or emotions… This will help you see what is really important and what is not, and enable you to find new changes in your mindset and life for the better.
Take Your Mental Health Seriously
One of the most important changes you can make in your life is paying attention to health and mental health.
In this regard, you can take advantage of counseling sessions, learn stress and anxiety reduction techniques, try meditation and read books in this field…
Your mental health is extremely important, and you should pay a serious attention to having a healthy mind and soul.
As positive life change without being in a healthy mindset is not effective.
Increase Your Activities
If your work style is such that you are in an inactive lifestyle, be sure to add vigorous activities to your daily schedule.
The best thing to do is a 30-minute walk every day. Go out and spent some time outside, it is really important to keep balance in your life no matter how important your projects and tasks are, before you bring big changes to your life, you should have a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
Change Your Diet
Small changes in your diet will have amazing effects on both your physical and mental health. You can definitely get precise recommendations about diet from nutritionists. But if you are not allergic to some foods, it is better to consume all food groups in balance and drink plenty of water in general.
Make New Connections and Friends
Finding new friends and conversation partners means getting to know new worlds and worldviews, people have different life experiences and knowledge, try to talk to people and learn what you already don’t know about life and different opinions about the subjects that may be challenging your own perspective of the subjects and life… New connections, friends and people in your life can improve your knowledge, help you to change your mood and accompany you on the path of positive changes in life.
Learn A New Skill
Go for the skills you always wanted to learn. If you, like many adults, think you have a talent that has been overlooked, now is the time to go for it, or learn new skills, elevate yourself and your knowledge, and upgrade yourself as much as possible. Be sure that it is never too late to learn and develop yourself.
Do Not Neglect The Study
Do not look at the social media for educating yourself about life lessons, as they are not accurate many of the times, we started to see yellow psychology everywhere these days and they are not helpful in building positive long-term things in the real life most of the time. Books that are the kind and honest friends, they will help you in achieving the results of your efforts to change your life. The biographies of people who have been able to make great changes in their lives, or books and courses that teach you a positive and productive mindset and strengthen you in overcoming failures, will be very useful for you.
You will be the transformative person on the right time…
For sure making a change in life is not as easy as it seems, one of the measures that is both necessary and causes us worry and stress is facing change and challenges in life. However, sometimes there are signs that show that we should prioritize changing our lives. In this article, these signs were discussed. We are all in this life once, we all can decide about our personal path and when we learn how flexible we are, we can start to change when we realize that we have all the power we need in ourselves to bring positive changes to our lives and mindsets.
It is important how we approach life and come to peace with our own perspective on change and growth…
When it comes to the real life changes, and when you are finally to embrace the real life changes, you will see that in reality, you do not need to bring changes to your life out of misery, out of anger or fear… There may be triggers that will awaken your need for change, but there is no outside force that will bring the real changes in your life. You will be changing your life out of wisdom, and this wisdom will only grow from inside out…
Because this is you, the wise person who is the person that is going to learn how to deal with situations wisely!
When it comes to changing your life. You have to keep in mind that ‘you are the magician’ who has all the power for bringing the magic of ‘positive changes’ to your life. So, believe in yourself, go ahead, do the magic, and bring good changes to your life!
–Read this article if you want to know more about ‘The Magical Power Of Your Beliefs!’
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