Reinvent Yourself
by Rising Above Your Circumstances
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I love what I do because it literally saves and changes lives. Let's connect: https://calendly.com/chou 
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Let's continue this conversation. Connect with me by email at chou@graceandhopeconsulting.com I look forward to serving you!  Wanna continue this conversation? Need additional support? Call or text me at 717-216-0230. I look forward to serving you!   Like most things, building your self-worth is best done in small, incremental steps. If you have low self-esteem, trying to feel better about yourself might seem impossible. Trying to do everything at once will be exhausting, will scatter your energy, and will most likely lead to less progress than you’d like. You risk feeling worse than when you started. Sometimes even the thought of building your self-worth can feel like an insuperable task. Where should you start? It can help if you approach it like a project and break it down into small achievable steps. Take it one step at a time, and before you know it, you’ll be feeling better about yourself. Make the positive decision not to try to change everything at once. Trying to change everything at once will only set you up for failure, and that’s not what we want. But by making this a conscious decision, you’re setting out on a positive path of doing things calmly and building yourself a sure foundation, foundation built on self-care and kindness. And you’re off to a great start already! The fact that you’re reading this means you’re self-aware and want to do the best version of yourself. Positive self-worth builds on self-care and kindness. Here are five small, but significant things you can do to be kind to yourself, today and throughout the coming weeks. 1. Build in little regular treats to make yourself feel good. A bubble bath, a monthly massage or manicure perhaps, or a walk in the park a few times a week. 2. Acknowledge your weaknesses and think of a positive action you can take to help yourself. Apps for time or money management perhaps, a personal coach, or taking a class. Remember to tackle one at a time. 3. Journaling can be helpful in identifying, challenging and turning around negative self-perceptions. Try writing down every positive thing you can think of about yourself. Think of things that are just about you, not things where you compare yourself to someone else. Are you a good writer? Are you kind? Do you have a good sense of humor? Do people love your pancakes? I have a free resource that can help you Journal Your Way To self-Worth. 4. Start a daily gratitude journal where you list all the things for which you’re grateful. You might be grateful for clean air, water, enough food to eat and a house to live in for starters. Living in a place of gratitude keeps your brain looking for things to be grateful for, so you’ll begin seeing things all around you. I personally use the 365 Gratitude: Daily Prompts, Grateful Journal by UofHappy, LLC 5. End each day by thinking of at least one good thing that happened that day, and on waking think of a positive affirmation to take you through the day. Making this a daily habit can boost your self-worth, emotional wellness, and mental health. If you need more support in boosting your self-worth, my self-study course Starting Loving Yourself From The Inside Out can help you get there. Until next time,  Liz Thees and I sat down to discuss the impact of self-love on emotional wellness and relationships. We talked about boundaries and also about her personal story of being married, divorced, and remarried to the same man. They now been together for a total of 22 years!!
#ReinventYourself #ReinventYourRelationships People reinvent themselves for as many different reasons as there are different people. However, reinvention is usually driven by a few prominent emotions: boredom, restlessness, dissatisfaction, even fear. Sometimes reinvention rises out of personal crises. If you’re looking for ways to bring about self-renewal, we can help you find them. There are several kinds of reinvention, but we’re looking at proactive Reinvention. Proactive reinvention can be the toughest of the three. In proactive reinvention, we’re at a place that’s safe and comfortable at that moment. Major life changes aren’t immediately required. We might even be able to keep on coasting just as we are, but that’s not a satisfying place for us anymore. Even though reinvention can be scary, we still have the desire to do it. Reinvention seems better than where we are. Maybe we’re simply tired and unfulfilled in our lives, our work, relationships, etc. Sometimes all three categories cry out for change. Proactive reinvention has the advantage of not being urgent in most cases. You can be deliberate in your choices. 1. Ask Yourself “What do I need in my life now? What do I want? What’s missing?” To answer this question, we must dig deep, and it’s not a quick process in most cases. Proactive reinvention tends to arise out of a sense of dissatisfaction about where we are in life or even who we are. We may only know that we want something different. 2. Identify Your Love and Passions What do you value? What gets your engine running? If you could make a living at a hobby, what would it be? Getting a handle on what you enjoy and what you love to do, how you love to feel, and whom you love to be around lets you set some big, broad goals. In all cases and steps of reinvention, ask yourself questions like:
3. Explore Your Immediate Options Immediate options generally include things like your skill set, your finances, your contacts and social links in life. These can be springboards to the new you. Think of these as assets you already must dedicate to your renewal. 4. Get a teacher, mentor or sounding board If you’ve got a general idea of what you want to do, you can start homing in on sources of information and expertise. Those sources can be people who are knowledgeable or experience with the subject matter, profession, hobby, whatever it is that’s appealing to you. If you know you want to reinvent yourself, but haven’t got a lock on a destination yet, there’s no worry. Many people go through the renewal process without any hint of a fixed destination or end-point in mind when they start off. That said, it’s good to have someone around who can give you ideas, feedback, and support that’s related to your journey. 5. Consider the Unknown The unknown is scary, but it can also lead to some great discoveries. There are two big sources of it, too. There’s the unknown out there in the world external to us, and the unknown inside you. When you change your life, there’s bound to be internal changes that you didn’t plan for. If planning were all it took to reinvent one’s life, it’d be much simpler. Let the possibility of change flourish in you. If you try hard to hang on to everything that you’ve got now, that you are now, nothing will change. 6. Learn to live with fear while always going forward Reinvention requires embracing uncertainty. It means getting comfortable with discomfort. Doing new things, trying new ways to be is scary! Allowing fear to stop us from changing is always the biggest block to proactive reinvention. Always. Unlike reactive reinvention, when you must make big changes or face even worse situations than self-renewal, proactive reinvention seems optional when we get scared, so we have the option to retreat into safety. Safety is great. However, clinging to the safety of the familiar ensures you will never reinvent yourself. Regeneration of the self requires living with fear, too. Consider as an example the situation of leaving one career for another, more ideal career. Common wisdom says you must have another job before leaving your current job. That wisdom in this situation kills any chance of getting that ideal job. It’s very hard, maybe impossible, to prepare for a completely new profession while working a full-time job. A dentist who leaves her job for another job as a dentist has changed locales but has not at all reinvented herself. Making a jump from the known into the unknown safely, with no risks, doesn’t happen. There is always some element of risk. Learning to live with risk in order to get something you dearly want is one of the biggest rewards of reinventing yourself.   The holiday season is an opportunity to spend time with family and friends, to take some time off work, or even escape for a winter getaway. For all the joy and fun, though, so comes the stress. The expectations of social events, gift shopping, and entertaining guests can become too much for even the most festive types. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association 8 out of 10 people expect to experience an increase in stress over the holiday season. With stress comes a greater risk of anxiety and depression, and reports from the Mayo Clinic show that depression is frequently an unwelcome guest over the holidays. All is not lost however, there are many ways you can minimize your stress and anxiety to allow you to truly enjoy the season. 1.Set A Budget Shopping can be fun, but spending money isn’t always easy, and Americans spend almost a $1,000 every holiday season on gifts alone. You can minimize the damage by setting a budget and sticking to it. A lot of the stress that we experience during the holidays is due to financial pressure and the Mayo Clinic suggests that setting a budget can be beneficial to your stress levels. Work out how much you can afford to spend on food and gifts, and stick to it. 2. Exercise The American Heart Association wants you to stay active all the time, but it’s extremely important to keep that up during the holidays. Any activity or exercise you can fit in will help reduce your stress and elevate your mood. It’s going to stimulate endorphin production and trigger a positive feeling in your body. You might be busy, but if you can find time to exercise for half an hour three times a week, you will feel better. You can go walking or jogging, swimming or biking, play sports, and find time for aerobics. Also, find an accountability partner. I’m working on this step so if you are too and want to link arms, send me an email at chou@graceandhopeconsulting.com and we can do this together. 3. Take It Easy The American Psychological Association reminds us that we need to take time for ourselves. There are parties and gatherings and we are constantly surrounded by people. It’s great to be with the ones we love and laugh about the old days. You shouldn’t miss all those great times, but what you should be careful of is setting unrealistic expectations. You can’t do everything, and it’s okay to take time out for yourself, even if it’s just 15 minutes. If you do a whole lot of hosting, make sure you delegate- whether you ask everyone to bring a different dish, or you rope in the family to take on certain tasks. 4. Stay Smart The holiday season is a time of indulgence, but as the Mayo Clinic directs- it doesn’t mean you should abandon your healthy ways. There’s no need for a free for all that will just add to your stress. Enjoy yourself, but try having healthy snacks before holiday gatherings so you don’t over snack while you’re out. Make sure that you’re getting plenty of sleep, as you are more likely to overindulge after a poor night’s sleep. 5. Choose Your Battles We all have someone in our circle that rubs us the wrong way. It’s only natural- not everyone can always get along. Allowing someone else to get under your skin, though, is only going to ruin your holiday and increase your stress level. Learn to pick your battles, and don’t take the bait. The Mayo Clinic suggests that if you have a real problem with someone, set it aside and save it for another day. Even the calmest people can lose their cool during the holidays. Bottom Line Self-care is a conscious choice and this is even truer during times of more stress, such as the holiday season. Make sure to take the time and create a deliberate plan! Remember, the holidays are supposed to be a time of fun, family, and relaxation, don’t let stress interfere with this great time of year.  For more tips on self-care and stress relief strategies, grab your copy of my book here: https://amzn.to/2V4r4Qp  |
Chou is an Author, Speaker, Life Coach, Counselor and Consultant on a mission to inspire people to rise above their circumstances. She is passionate about helping others achieve emotional wellness, reach their full potential, and live fulfilling lives. You can contact Chou at chou@graceandhopeconsulting.com Categories
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