You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start now and change the ending!

CHANGE?????????????????????????

“Change your mind – change your life!”???(Ref. D.Ritchie, QUB, October 2019)

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I always say, in my 60-second elevator pitch, that I’m a Life and Executive Coach and I help people change their lives! ??I say that this change can come about quickly or be a slow burn, and that it can be a series of small changes or a totally transformative process.?

All true. I do help people change their lives – every day.

Which means that every day, people like you and me start to transform the lives they lead into something else – something they really want, something that makes them happy to live it, something different from the one they’re living now.

Doesn’t this give you pause for thought? ?How does it happen??How do they do it? Could YOU do it too? ?Or is change only for the brave and the strong, or the lucky, or the ones who have the funds to come for coaching?

Well – in my humble opinion anyone can change their lives, at any time. ?My clients are mainly professional people but they come from all walks of life, they’ve all had different life journeys before they come to me, but the one thing all my clients have in common is the WILL to change. They really, really want it!?They’re fed up with feeling sad or unhappy or depressed or scared or anxious or confused or overwhelmed every day of their lives, and they’ve finally decided that enough is enough. They realise that in order for them to be someone they might like, or be proud of, or someone who is more successful, or just happier, they need to change.

In 1854 the philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote : “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”,?which was a sad reflection of ordinary people and their working lives at the time, and he went on to say that most of them didn’t even realise that’s what they were doing, or know that there was an alternative.

And ten years ago, when I was living my life of quiet desperation, in an unhappy marriage and unfulfilling job, I couldn’t even imagine that there were alternatives, or if I thought there were, then I associated them with people OTHER than me. How could I change my life??The happiness of the whole family unit and even extended family members depended on me leading the same life, day in and day out, being there for everyone else first, and with no thought for my life or what I wanted.

In my practice now I would say this notion affects nearly every woman I have coached, and not a few men. We all think that we should be there for everyone else, and ignore the fact that we’re people too, and deserve as much or more consideration as anyone!

Well, I was very lucky – the Universe decided to give me a wakeup call one morning in the shape of a huge lorry which crashed into me on the motorway, writing off the car, but somehow not killing me!?Someone at the scene told me I’d been spared by divine intervention – “for what purpose?” I scoffed.?

“Well, maybe just to live your life’”, said he….

Never a truer word spoken.?Because here’s the thing – we’re all here for a purpose, and the purpose is yes - to live your life.?Not to just exist, or settle, or live totally for others’ happiness, but to honour ourselves as well.?And in order to really live our one and only life, to make it the best one we can, to derive happiness daily from what we’re doing and how we approach living, we have to change.

So how to change??Where to start? ?When clients come to me, lost or stuck or at a crossroads in their lives, suffering from anxiety, or overwhelmed by fears, not knowing how to get out of the situation or make it better, I ask them a question.?I ask them where they think their life experience is taking place? ?Where do they live? ?In the past? - lots of people live in the past, ‘if only …x hadn’t happened I’d be happy’.?In the future? - many of us live in the future – ‘I’ll be happy when….x?happens’.

But in reality – our life experience only takes place in the present. Right now!

Our perception of what’s happening right now is what our life is. Everything else is just thought. Past experiences are just memories. Future plans or worries are just imagination. We live NOW.?

And if we become aware of that, if we really understand that, we realise that this is where we have control over our lives – in the present. So any changes we want to make, we can make now. We can choose our attitude to any situation or set of circumstances, in the moment; we can change our behaviour from the habitual reaction to someone’s provocation, to doing something more constructive, more positive. In other words we can respond instead of reacting.

This is the start of changing your life.?

There are other stages of course. Many other things we need to do in order to change our unhappy lives for happier, optimistic ones, but we always need to start at the beginning. Like realising we already have innate wisdom, strength and resilience, everything we’d need to make changes in our lives.?Or that when we consciously start to live in the present, we realise we can let go of the mistakes and resentments of the past, because they have no relevance now.?And when we know we can trust ourselves in the present we realise our worries and fears about the future are totally unfounded – we are capable of dealing with whatever is thrown at us.

Practising this way of thinking brings about huge changes, and the most rewarding is realising that happiness is really just a state of being that comes about when we are true to who we really are, not harping on the past nor fearful of the future, confident in our own innate capabilities, trusting in ourselves and taking control of our responses, and stepping out optimistically to find new opportunities!

Change is within everyone’s grasp, and because life is change, we’ll be changing every day of our lives. So decide what your best life would look like, strive to achieve it every day in some small way, take control of the moment, look for opportunities, and really LIVE your life. We only get one go – this is not a dress rehearsal!?And life just continues to unfold around us….

But remember this: ?every morning, when you lift your head off the pillow, you have everything you need.

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D.Ritchie?20/07/21 ???????????????????????????????????????????