4 keys to how I rebuilt my life

Lately I've found myself being asked by others what makes me so happy. Or for those who have some awareness of my story, particularly the last three years, they ask me: what's the secret to how you got from where you were to where you are today? And while deep down I know the answer, I found myself a bit stopped in my tracks, like I wasn't quite sure how to sum it up in that moment. So I'm going to try and do so here with the hope that maybe some of it can help others.

I sat in it
As this blog emulates the last few years have been quite the roller coaster ride of emotions. From grief to sadness to hope and inspiration -- it's been one change after the next and a whole lot of feelings along the way. And the biggest thing I learned early on into my grief was the only way to make it was to move through the feelings vs move past them. And I'd say the same is true for positive feelings, the best way enjoy them is to truly be in them -- feel the feeling in its entirety. So while I'm the first to agree that feeling stuck, uncertain, frustrated, miserable, let down, or any of the other feelings around ambiguity or sadness aren't enjoyable I can promise you that they will only pass if you accept and lean into the feelings and actually learn from them. See the feelings as lots of little gifts or signs that all slowly but surely are going to help you find your way again. But if you keep choosing the detour sign you're never going to reach your destination.

I turned inward
I created a shift -- instead of continuing to look around and see all the things that were missing from my life or the aspects I no longer was enjoying, I flipped it to look at myself and say what do I want instead? What do I love? What am I good at? How do I want my life to be instead of the way that it is? And what do I need to do to make that happen? Beyond the questions, I showed up for myself ready to the do the work. To be open, to be vulnerable, to lean into my fear of ambiguity and possible failure and to let that guide me and teach me. As simple as it sounds, I turned to myself for the questions and the answers vs expecting everyone else or the circumstances around me to define it.

I stayed authentic to ME
As I mentioned above, in creating the shift of turning inward it allowed me to be the center of what I was trying to achieve vs taking myself and fitting it into the center of some other system in my life (a job, my community, my family, friends etc). And I'm not talking in a self centered way of "oh everything is about me" I more mean in terms of alignment. I started with myself -- what I wanted, what mattered to me, what my own dreams and aspirations were and then I built out my plan from there. Versus inserting myself into another scenario, not created and envisioned by me, and trying to make it work. So I allowed myself to be 110% ok with who I am and I allowed that to be my compass. I didn't change for anyone or anything instead I changed what was around me to be most aligned with who I am. Powerful shift I tell you.

I created a vision
After doing a whole lot of the above slowly but surely I started to gain clarity and a picture for where I wanted to go, what I wanted life to look like. And it didn't all come at once but piece by piece I was able to craft the whole picture. And so that's what I did -- I created a vision for myself. From lists around what I want life to be like, the type of partner I want to find, the type of business I want to run, to making vision boards -- I did whatever I needed to bring the thoughts out of my head and map them out in a way that started to feel real. And then with the help of some close coaching colleagues, some coaches I hired and some friends I started to pave the way for my plan, my new life. And slowly but surely it all started to happen. It was as if all I needed to do was claim it, see it, create it and then boom, it was happening. Now I'm not saying it's been easy but it was pretty simple in the end. Once I applied the above few pieces and worked through the unsettled period I was able to then map out exactly what I wanted.

So that's why for the past year I've been catching myself saying "I don't recall a time in my life that I've ever been this happy" and that is still somewhat shocking for me to hear (esp b/c of the never ending grief journey I'm on) but it's true. And it's true because I did the work. And please believe me -- you can too, as soon as you decide you're ready.