Have you ever woken up and out of nowhere, asked yourself the question, “Is this my life?” Or felt that you just thought things would be different at this point? This thought-process is extremely common and there are ways to take control of our self-sabotaging thoughts and take action if need be.
Sadly, the research shows that only 1 in 3 Americans are very happy and content with their lives. I think the haunting question we ask ourselves; “Is this really it?” contributes to this statistic. Maybe you are at a job that is less fulfilling than you hoped, or in a challenging relationship, or it could simply be that you are a certain age and some facets of your life are simply “different” than you thought they would be.
Often times, the natural post-reaction to these thought processes are disillusionment, feeling down or self-defeated. In actuality, it could be an opportunity to re-focus or find new perspective. The healthiest way to tackle these feelings is to evaluate your life and look at the areas of discontentment with two angles: those items that you have control over, and the items that simply require acceptance or a new outlook. Of course, sometimes this is easier said than done and I am not referring to tragedies that derail someone’s life completely. But in general, we are often unrealistic idealists and if we fall a little short of arriving where we thought we would be because naturally we tend to have too high of expectations for ourselves, too high of aspirations and ideals we often have to handle the reality that life isn’t exactly as we pictured. Most of us expect life to happen faster, our success to come easier, and our path to be clearer. But often, our dreams for the future leave out some of the challenging parts—the fatigue, the curveballs, the strained relationships…etc., and we find ourselves frustrated.
If you have woken up recently and made the statement, “Is this it?” then evaluate your life and tackle those facets in your life that require a change and accept those things that cannot be adjusted. You may find that your expectations were a little unrealistic; or your ideal situation may just take a little more time, or you may need to look at the positives and understand that almost every circumstance could always be worse.
Make sure to honor yourself and shower yourself with gratitude and love focusing on what is going well in your life. As soon as you tweak your perspective, you may find that the positives may start to overshadow the areas in your life that you wish were different.
For more information, visit my website at Deitra Hickey.
Read New Year, New Outlook on Life! and the other informative articles in this issue of Soar to Success magazine.
