How to make a change
Do you ever feel an intense inflow of great ideas or a massive drive to make a positive change in your life but then get overwhelmed, and suddenly it all feels too much, to the point that it seems not even worth trying? I surely do.
The feeling of overwhelm is one of my least favorite feelings. Don't take me wrong – I am a pathological optimist, and I am convinced that anything you can dream, you can also achieve. But despite all the drive, motivation, and optimism in the world, sometimes it just feels too much. That, however, doesn't mean it is too much, or that the change is unreachable.
Here's a couple of strategies that seem to be working for me:
Instead of just chasing goals, I try to create new habits that get you closer to them. There is one fantastic 'tool' for this that works well for me: future self journaling. This is an approach that I found and learned thanks to The Holistic Psychologist, and it gives you a framework to define a clear area of your life you want to focus on, what is the change you want to see, and a meaningful template to work with – to help you create the shift you want to see.
I try to figure out how to close the gap. I look at where I am vs. where I want to be, what skills do I have compared to which are required and make a plan for what do I need to do to close (or minimize) the gap. This strategy can be applied to almost anything in life. Do you want a promotion at work? Great! Go talk to your boss about what the expectations are. Only once you understand what's the end-state you are trying to achieve, you can focus on bringing the skills you already have to the required level or to acquire the experience you need to bridge the gap. Do you want to start a youtube channel/podcast/blog and have no idea how to go about it? Google the crap out of it and talk to as many people as possible. The internet offers an almost endless amount of free resources, and you never know what great people you get introduced to and what great advice you run into if you bring the topic up. Do whatever you can to get an idea about what skills, knowledge, or practice you need to succeed – and then bridge the gap.
I work backwards. With the ideal end-state in mind, I try to dissolve the monstrous and scary goal into smaller phases and steps, down to tiny actions that seem almost insignificant – and start with those. Believe it or not, those are the ones that will get you going and fuel your engine later on. Here's an exercise to try: think of a big life goal (maybe let's even call it a dream) you carry around with you for a long time, but ideally pick the one you haven't tried to achieve yet because it just seems too big to get it done. Rate it on a scale from 1 to 10, where one is completely doable, and ten is entirely out of reach. Then, think of another uncomfortable task, but a much smaller one - like making a phone call you are dreading - and do it right away. After completion, try going back to the original idea and rating it again. It will most likely not seem as unreachable as it did before, and you might rate it one, maybe even two points lower. And if that's not (yet) true, just keep practicing with the small ones until it is. :)
And most of all, don't let the overwhelm fool you. Every major shift in life consists of a long string of small steps that get you where you want to be. In the end, making progress is sometimes nothing more than just starting all over again as many times as you need, until at one point, you figure it out. The difference is - the next time you are not starting from scratch, you are starting from experience. So just keep on failing (and rising from the dust) again as if nobody's watching! And enjoy the ride.
(By the way – nobody is watching. They all have their own pile to take care of.)
As long as you don't give up, you'll get there. I promise.
“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
