Visualizing Change

In a previous Hard Stop article, Dealing with Your Answers, I shared that the reason a lot of people don’t want ask themselves questions around intentionally is quite simple – they’re not always ready to deal with the answers if they’re *not* where they want to be in their life.?

Understandable.

And, as I said, I’ve been there.?

But, dealing with your honest answers is also empowering because once you allow yourself to say “Nope, I’m not where I want to be in some areas of my life,” and only *then* can you start taking the steps to make changes. And those changes don’t necessarily need to be drastic. Many times it’s small tweaks that can make a massive difference.?

• “I’m not completely happy in my relationship” doesn’t mean you need to leave it. It could. More than likely it just means working on certain aspects of it.
• “I’m not completely happy with my job” doesn’t mean it’s time to quit. It could. It could also just mean you’re bored, you need more of a challenge, you want to take on more, you want to try something different.?
• “I’m not happy where I want to be physically” doesn’t mean a crash diet and an unrealistic personal expectation of hitting the gym 7 days a week. It could, but in this case I’ll say it shouldn’t; that’s just not healthy.?

Once you say these statements to yourself, you can start visualizing what you want the changes to look like.??

I’ve done this many times, and the ways I’ve approached my responses to “I’m not happy here”? have varied widely.?

• I’ve recognized that I wasn’t happy in a relationship and that led to leaving it.? That was the best course of action for me in that particular relationship.?
• I’ve also had downs in my relationship and knew that leaving wasn’t the best action for me. I didn’t want to. I just wanted to make things better. I knew I was with the right person, and we just had to work through things together. So, in that case my priority was finding ways to spend more time together and focus on building our relationship - together.

But it started with recognizing it wasn't exactly where I wanted it to be but I was confident it *could* be.

It took time and work to recognize what was working and what wasn’t, so I could get very granular about the changes I wanted to make to get it to where I wanted it to be. And I’m very happy to say that we are there now :)? It took work; but work that was extremely well worth it.?

The path to intentionality starts with recognizing where you are and then planning out where you want to be.?

I recommend asking yourself some questions to help you get there.? Grab that same notebook and a pen, and find some time to answer questions around all areas of your life:

• What do I want my marriage to look like?
• What do I want my relationships with my kids to look like?
• What do I want the relationship with my family (outside of my spouse and kids) to look like?
• What do I want in my friendships??
• What matters the most to me professionally?
• What matters the most to me personally?
• What experiences do I want to have in my life?
• Am I where I want to be mentally? Physically?
• How do I want to engage with my community?
• What else is important to me that I need to make time for??

These are some questions that have helped me get unstuck, that helped put a Hard Stop to going through the motions and starting on being intentional about areas in my life. In a next post I’ll talk about getting even more granular in priorities, but this is a process.

?? The most important part of this process is starting. ??

It can be messy. Your responses can change. It will be uncomfortable – but there’s so much satisfaction on the other side in clearly visualizing the life you want to live, setting your intentions, creating your boundaries, and then starting to live your best (intentional) life.?

What questions have you asked that have helped you in this process? What resonates most with you?

Thanks for reading. And as always, thank you for sharing if anyone you know would find this helpful.??