Happy New Year and Congratulations for surviving Christmas and New Year.
Did you have a great time or was it a struggle?
Are you looking forward to the year ahead or are you dreading another year of feeling sad, unhappy… (insert word as appropriate)?
Do you wish that these feelings would STOP so that you could stop just surviving and start living.
So what ARE you going to do differently?
Take it from me, you can keep on wishing and hoping that things will change, but wishing and hoping will only take you so far, in order to really change YOU need to do something different. I spent many years waiting for something to happen and it was only when I took the decision to learn NLP that I finally healed, found my purpose and started to build the life I wanted.
Still not sure?
I recently read a blog called ‘No One is Coming’ which was tough reading. The message is;
‘No one is coming to save you.
You have to take responsibility for your own life and what happens in it…..
Whatever has to be done, it’s you who have to take responsibility and do it.’
You can read as many books and blogs as you like, and they will help, but in the end the buck stops with you and to get the life you want you have to take control.
I told you it was tough and I believe it to be true. So no prizes for guessing that my next question is;
How ARE you going to take responsibility for improving your life?
If you’re not sure what, here is an exercise to help you focus. Find somewhere quiet and calm, consider the past year and ask yourself;
1. What did you do well last year, what made you happy?
2. What felt too hard to do, what do you need to let go of, where do you need help?
3. What do you wish that you had done last year? How did you stop yourself from doing it?
I recently went through these questions and the answers were really illuminating, giving me some real pointers as to what I could do next.
Now let’s look forward.
Taking account of your answers, what do you want to do differently this year?
What do you want to look back on and say, ‘yes I’m proud that I did that’?
To focus your thoughts, consider:
a) How can you do more of the things that you do well and make you happy?
b) Considering your answers above, how would your life change if you did the hard things and let go of others?
c) How will you feel when you do those things you want to do?
Imagine you did all of these things,
a year has passed, you feel positive and you’re looking back knowing that you made great progress.
Take a moment to savour everything, notice what you can see, hear and feel.
Be aware of the action you took during the year to get to this more positive place.
Come back to the present with the knowledge of how to make this year better than last.
Now you know how much better your life can be, what are you going to do to make it happen?
Still not sure? Think about this quote by Hillel the Elder ‘If not now, when?’
You can spend your whole life waiting for ‘when,’ you can wait for the ‘right’ time, until you feel better, until you have more time, until you feel more positive, but there will never be the perfect time to take action.
If you want to bring some colour into your life this is it. The time is now.
If you want every Christmas to be different from now on, if you want your life to be different from now on you need to do something different.
If you want to put the sadness and grief of childlessness behind you, you need to take control and do something different.
So once again ask yourself,
What are you going to do to make this year better than last year?
What do you think? Is your time now?
Please leave your ideas below as to what action you’re going to take to make this year better than last.
If you find this daunting or you’re not sure what action to take, I’d love to help you. You can book a complimentary session via my online diary or leave a message on my contact page and we can spend 20 to 30 minutes to get clarity on how we can work together to create a life you love.
And if you leave your email at the top of the page you’ll be the first to hear about more articles like this and, as a bonus you’ll get the confidence e-book.
Thank you to Karen Knott at Prime Time Business for the inspiration on the questions.
You can read No One is Coming here.
A great series of questions to help us all approach the New Year positively, Lesley.
My own experience of IVF and all that was over 15 years ago now and I remember at the time feeling angry that there were so few positive role models of women enjoying a child free life. And I still think that is the case. The whole experience is framed so negatively. Yes, letting go of the expectation that you will be a mother at some point is difficult, but I found it hard to be surrounded by stories of everyone else experiencing the whole thing as painful and traumatic and where the only possible positive result was producing a baby.
I would encourage anyone reading this blog to consider reframing ‘childless’ as ‘child free’ and to begin to explore the wonderful world of opportunity that being child free offers. And let’s have lots of positive stories of how good life can be without children!
Having children and not having children are both gifts. Our task in life is to make the most of whatever gifts we are offered to the best of our ability.
And my little challenge for you, Lesley is to have a ‘child free’ tag in your cloud up on the right and have it show up in just as large a font as ‘childless’. 🙂
‘Having children and not having children are both gifts.’ Love that, Cherry.
Thanks for your comments Cherry,
I agree absolutely that we have to let go of being a mother and it’s only when we’ve done that, that we can move on. I also agree that life is a gift and our task is to make the most of it. And I know that this is specifically the thing that many of us struggle with.
I’m not sure I agree 100% with your comment on childfree though 🙂 as it’s usually used to describe those who actively chose not to have children. There are many other labels used across the web, none of which are terribly helpful. I wrote this post some time ago
https://lesleypyne.co.uk/childless-or-childfree-whats-the-difference-does-it-matter
which described my position at the time.
And yes I will take up the challenge of having more positive stories!
Wonderful post, Lesley, that will certainly be useful for all of us as we enter the New Year.
I totally agree, to create something new, I must ask myself new questions.
Thanks for throwing down the gauntlet!
Great post and I plan to trust the process of how my life is unfolding. What I have noticed recently is that I have let go of the thought of being a mother by artificial means such as IVF (because of my age probably), but I notice I have not totally given up on the idea of being a mother some way. That realization invokes curiosity in me and where I am at in finally accepting my situation…or am I just gently holding any possibility still open to me, without getting too attached to any outcome..
Thanks Lisa, I’m pleased that you’ve let go of the thought of being a mother by artificial means and that now you’re noticing that there could be other ways.
It seems to me that trusting the process of how your life is unfolding whilst not getting too attached to any outcome is a really positive way to be. This way you’ll be keeping an open mind and ready to consider any options that present themselves to you.
I look forward to hearing what you discover 🙂