New year’s resolutions are bullshit. Setting multiple outrageous goals that require you to become a different person overnight to achieve them is bullshit. Subscribing to the idea of a magical moment where your whole life changes… right, bullshit.
The excitement around something new & better doesn’t last long enough for us to build a new habit or accomplish a big goal. Real change is gradual. It requires time, an informed mind, and true awareness. But most of all, it requires 5 key ingredients that I’m about to lay out in a causal chain.
In order to do the things you really want to do, overcome inner resistance, build helpful habits, and pursue your true priorities, you’ve got to keep your mind in an alert state, so that you don’t fall back to old patterns and habitual reactions.
To keep your mind in an alert state, as opposed to a hibernating one, you need to be connected to power. An alert state of mind requires:
1 High energy
This is key. Doing the things you really want and creating positive change requires high energy. Not more discipline or self-control. Not suppressing your needs and forcing yourself to do the things you think you should do.
In fact, you won’t have high energy if you’re being hard on yourself. You’ll just drain yourself. Negative self-talk and diminishing self-criticism is very often the root cause for unfulfilled desires, ambitions, and lives. When you keep demanding a lot from yourself, but never give back to yourself, you can get pretty down.
Anytime you try to build a new habit or achieve a big goal by pushing yourself in a way that hurts you, you’ll fail. You might hit the goal, but you’ll have failed yourself and decreased your energy level. You won’t enjoy yourself and the achievement of this goal. What’s the point of achieving it then?
Now, how do you increase your energy levels? You can watch motivational videos, listen to inspirational podcasts or read some uplifting stories, yes. But it’s not only about what you consume from the outside. It’s also about what you generate on the inside. The following 4 points are how you can generate high energy inside of you.
2 Willpower
We all know we need willpower to make lasting changes, build positive habits or ditch destructive ones. Though our idea of willpower can be blurry or unrealistic. Here’s the most helpful definition I’ve found so far:
Kelly McGonigal defines willpower as “the ability to make choices that are consistent with your most important goals and values.”
It is less about “I have to have control all the time” and more about “I’m creating an environment that supports my values.”
Who do you interact with on a regular basis? How do they make you feel? Are they lifting you up our dragging you down? Does your daily life reflect what matters to you? Do you create (head)space in which you can be mindful of these things? That’s the beginning of a supportive environment.
The crucial thing is, you’ve got to support yourself in staying aligned with your values and vision. When we make choices that are not in line with our values and vision, it’s because we’re compensating for an unmet need. E.g. eating junk food when we’re stressed, checking social media when we want to feel better or ticking off the easiest tasks on our to-do-list when we want to avoid the most important one that we’re scared of.
So how do you support yourself in staying aligned with your values and vision, and not give in to temptations or instant gratification options?
You take good care of yourself!
3 Self-care
Self-care is in the way you talk to yourself. What you think of yourself. The thousands choices you make in a day: what do you say ‘Yes’ to and what do you say ‘No’ to? The more aware you become of those, the more you’ll be able to navigate consciously in the direction you want to go.
Self-care is about prioritizing yourself in any given situation.
It’s about giving yourself whatever you need to feel good, empowered, energetic, motivated.
What could possibly stand in your way if you feel like that? Definitely not you. With that, you remove the only obstacle that can really stop you.
So, fill your tank. Have your back. Be your biggest cheerleader!
Easier said than done? What’s missing then?
It might be the origin of true self-care and support:
4 Love
When you really love someone, you want to help and support them, right? Let’s look into the most fundamental characteristic of love:
Love is unconditional.
You don’t love yourself because you’ve managed to do everything you wanted to do today, keep all your commitments and be the best version of yourself.
You don’t love yourself or another person because you/they have this amazing career / account balance / body / influence / [fill in the blank].
You can love someone’s amazing career / account balance / body / influence / [fill in the blank], but that doesn’t mean you love them.
A simple question can validate the presence of love in your heart:
Will you feel the same towards them if they lose their amazing career / account balance / body / influence / [fill in the blank]?
Love is compassion. Understanding. Acceptance. Peace.
Love supports. Love forgives. Love melts boundaries. Love empowers you and liberates you. Love brings out the best of you. Love lets you enjoy your life to the fullest. Love improves every aspect of your being. Love is all you need.
You’ll find it incomparably easier to accomplish what you want and overcome whatever challenge you’re facing if you’re feeling love.
How do you find love if you don’t have enough of it?
Here are 3 simple steps you can take — on the spot. (Act on them right now!)
- Close your eyes, focus on your breath and get in contact with yourself.
- Check in with yourself and ask yourself what you really need right now.
- Give👏 it👏 to👏 yourself👏!!!
Loving yourself practically means putting yourself first and making sure your needs are being met. And by the way, that’s how someone else might fall in love with you, too! Vice versa, when you’re in love with someone, you naturally start loving yourself and taking care of your needs.
See, we are social beings and we’re interdependent. Let go of the belief that you need to be self-sufficient and able to fulfill all your needs on your own. This is an illusion that can only make you suffer. The truth is, we’re always dependent on other people to fulfill our needs in one way or another. Acknowledging and accepting this fact will set you free and open new doors for you.
Let others help and support you. Let love in.
5 Trust
Trust life. Life is bigger than you.
We do not always know what really is good for us. Our beliefs about it are mostly based upon how we grew up, what society tells us we should want, and what our circle of friends does with their lives.
You might believe that being ambitious and going after huge goals is the best way to live your life. Or you might believe that going big is bad or impossible for you.
Surrender your beliefs on how things should be to the greater will of Life.
Sometimes, change is triggered by a powerful experience. It can be a positive one, like making a life-enhancing decision, falling in love, having a baby. It can also be a negative one, like a huge failure, a disease, a loss. Powerful experiences like these make us surrender, and our egos shut up. It’s like a huge wave that swamps you and there’s nothing you can do, because the wave has unparalleled greater power than you. You can only loose control.
Trust what you’re experiencing and let it teach you what it’s here to teach you.
No matter how big or small the experience you’re having is, let it help you change. It can be just the catalyst you need— if you choose to have faith in it.
Here’s a real-life-example to conclude with. I grew up with the belief that you need to work really hard to achieve things. This belief (among other factors) led me to a burnout at the end of both 2019 and 2020. Burnout is an experience that makes you kind of powerless. I had no other choice except for surrendering to it.
With the priceless help from my family and friends, I managed to open my mind for what it came to teach me. It tought me to delegate. It tought me to trust. It tought me to let go of perfectionism. It tought me to take care of myself, because I finally grasped to decisive role of rest, regeneration, and boundaries. It taught me to relax and to enjoy my life!
Probably the most game-changing lesson of all was this: the pressure I put on myself is actually slowing me down and draining my energy. I can move more graciously and more joyfully if I am rested, energized and effortless.
Being effortless doesn’t mean not doing the work. What it means is you are not putting pressure and struggle in the work you do. Pressure and struggle come from the mind, from the ego and from the belief that there’s no gain if there’s no pain. That only hard work and full effort can bring great results. Well, life is not about pain and gain, actually. It’s about what kind of person you become going through life. Because at the end,
Everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart.
— Jim Carrey
So, to sum it all up, that’s how you can easily accomplish whatever you want: ❤️→🔥 → 🚀
I was inspired to write this after receiving multiple responses to my article on burnout—in particular the reactions of two inspiring women entrepreneurs.
Yana Vlatchkova, one of the amazing Mentors at FemGems Club (featured on ep.11 of FemGems Podcast), published an article on Linkedin that triggered most of the thought processes and realizations I elaborate on here.
Kathrin Folkendt, whose work I follow and admire for quite a while, published an article on Femtech Insider sharing her vulnerability and thoughts on ‘Patient Entrepreneurship, Living with PCOS and Building a Business During a Global Pandemic’.
Thank you, FemGems, for being brave enough to speak the truth.
By the way, if you’re an early stage female founder and want to join our circle of mutual support and inspiration, you should apply for FemGems Club!
Thanks for reading until the end, you awesome human!
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