Your life is upside down.

Nothing makes sense anymore. The more you work the less you get done. The harder you push the more demoralized you become.

You know something is wrong.

Something is off but you don’t know the cause or what to do about it…

You feel broken…

The good news though is that you realize something is off and want to do something about it!

I remember when I was where you are now. I Googled everything from stress burn out to being in the wrong career. I even read a handbook on stress management offered through my health insurance. Their number one tip? Yeah, it was to breath. I laughed out loud “Really?” I thought “If it was that easy I would have resolved my stress already? I’m not an idiot.”  This advice while very insulting to me….was true.

But it got me thinking. Do I know how to slow down and breath? After trying my friend Julia’a Yoga class, one day,  I had to face the fact that I did not know how to breath or slow down. Nothing seemed to be working. My stress tolerance was gone. I was open to try just about anything because I craved what I thought was balance. I craved feeling “normal” again…even if my “normal” was not healthy.

This is what it feels like when you start the journey of self-improvement. A bit at a time the blinders come off and light is shone on who you have become and the vision begins to build for who you really are. The process of peeling back your layers is  wildly uncomfortable…that is the part no one tells you about self-improvement…

When I was here I was in the process of bringing down my walls and getting in touch with my emotions. I had lived my life as a very logical person so self-improvement was scary. I honestly felt so weird and off. I cried at everything…and I was never a crier before.

Yet as you rewrite your script and dig into who you really are – life is upside down for a time…and that is just a normal part of the transformation process because in order to change you must rebuild and it’s messy. To give you hope and help so you embrace the journey below are a few tips.

Snow Globe: You remember these. You shake them up and watch the beautiful fake snow fall effortlessly. But if the snowman in that globe were alive he would probably scream at you for shaking up his world. And that is how self-improvement is – your world is shaken up but it’s for a purpose which is to overcome the things that are holding you back. While hard, like the snow in the globe, your transformation is a beautiful process of shedding what you don’t need to make room for what you do need.

Perspective: Something that will fight you tooth and nail every step of your journey is your own pride. There is this song by Hillsong United with this verse “I touch the sky when my knees hit the ground”. This is something that keeps me grounded, keeps me humble and gives me perspective about my own growth. When I get advice, am being coached, reading a book and feel myself wanting to fight argue, cry and/or give up often times it’s because I don’t want to admit where I am. I don’t want to admit that I’m struggling with something. But until we do that – there is no progress.

Out of Body: Like remembering the beautiful chaos of the snow globe and humbling your perceptive of yourself another tip is to step out of your circumstances like you’ve stepped out of a house and stepped away from your body. Like you’re peering through a window to reflect on yourself. What do you see you doing? What do you feel? What are you hiding? What are you afraid of?

How will you embrace your self-improvement journey today?

Copyright 2015, Mary R. Miller