3 Practical Steps To Reclaim Your Life
A Message To Anyone Tired Of Living The Status Quo
Have you ever looked at your life and felt like you were in a perfectly scripted movie? Where you are the main character, but have no say in how the movie plays because it’s already been written by some unknown author? Everything you’re doing in the movie makes sense because it derives the desired results, but there’s an underlying sense of dissatisfaction because you subconsciously know that the desires are not your own? Crazier still is that you feel you have to stay in this movie because you are the main character, and everything seems so picture perfect?
Well, same. This was the cause of my depression. I woke up one day and realized I was living a life that I didn’t design, and I had no clue how to begin to change it. It felt like a moving train that was going too fast in a direction I dreaded, and too fast for me to get off for that matter. That was six years ago. It took me six painful years to finally start to take ownership of my life, to realize that I can live a life of my own design. I’m writing this article in hopes that it will help shorten your journey to this realization. So here we go; three initial steps you can take to reclaim your life.
1 Drown out the noise
Create an environment where you can hear yourself think. Where you can begin to identify what you really want, and distinguish it from what you’ve been taught to want. Where you can hear your own voice, and separate it from the voices of your socialization. Where you can build up confidence in your identity, and break down the persona you’ve been raised to become.
Practically, this means you should: unfollow who you need to, unsubscribe from what you need to, break up the relationships and friendships that need breaking, distance yourself from whoever, quit the job, move cities / countries, and so on. Do whatever you can to detach from the people, places and situations that are feeding this life that you want to stop nurturing. Not with the aim of running away, but so that you can at the very least stop it from moving in this unwanted direction. The separation may also be necessary because it can be difficult to heal at the place where you received the hurt.
2 Take stock
Now that you have some semblance of peace and are not introducing any new things to heal from or process, it’s time to do a major assessment. You can only find a solution once you know what the problem is. It’s easier to find solutions to the problem if you break it down into smaller bits that you can attack individually as opposed to trying to fix the heavy whole.
Practically, this means you should reflect on all the areas of your life where you expect to receive fulfillment from. These could be for example purpose, work, education, economic status, home and living, romantic partnerships, friendships and family. You can do this with pen and paper or whatever note-taking app you use. Be as specific as you can as you list them out. Nothing is too small to be on this list. If it’s significant to you it should go on the list.
Go through each item on the list and ask yourself if you have the right expectations of that area, is it really that meaningful or can your fulfillment come from somewhere else? Are you expecting too much from one avenue when you could spread it across multiple avenues? If they indeed are a source of fulfillment but still make you unhappy, could you be going about getting that fulfillment in a way that’s more satisfying?
3 Divide and conquer
Now that you’ve identified the problem areas, it’s time to find the solutions and implement them. Because it is a list, accept that it will take time to cover everything. Go first for the ones that are cutting off your oxygen the most which will then clear you up to face everything else. After that go for the lower hanging fruit, that is, anything that can be dealt with right away and sorted in a short time period. Doing this helps you to build a track record for yourself as you gear up to face the more challenging areas.
Practically this may look like going to therapy to process past trauma for the first time, going back to school to start a totally different profession, having honest and difficult conversations with loved ones, letting go of everything you pretend to be and showing up as yourself, and so on.
The journey is not as easy or as pretty as the steps above. But always remember that you can do it. You have agency over your life. Things have happened in your life that you didn’t necessarily consent to, but you can take the driver’s seat at any point. The way that you do that will be unique to you so only take what you need from this article. And always remember that you don’t have to do anything alone if it’s too heavy for you. Seek help as you need it.
