Let's have an honest conversation here for a sec....
New year, new me, and a fresh start for all. There are few things in life better than being able to make an entirely fresh start. And with the old year behind us and a new one ahead, there is no better time to do just that. Whether you've decided that you're tired of your career and that you want to do something new with your time, or maybe you're sick of your hometown, and you want to find somewhere different to settle down.
Of course, for a lot of people, the idea of being able to start overcomes with a lot of stress. Stepping out of my comfort zone isn't exactly on my to-do list. After all, starting over almost always involves some pretty severe changes in your life. In fact, that kind of feeling has often been enough to stop many people from bothering to make the kinds of changes that they want to make at all. Then again, just because something is stressful, that doesn't mean that you should let that stand between you and what you want to do. I'm a firm believer in God not giving you anything you couldn't handle. With that in mind, take a breath of 2018 air and look at these few, SIMPLE things that you can do to make a new start WITHOUT the stress.
Plan ahead
The most significant cause of stress when people are making any changes in their life is that they leave everything until the very last minute and end up running around trying to figure out what to do. We've all procrastinated on that paper and have felt the pressure to get it done. Don't be that person in this scenario. If you want to make a fresh start in any part of your life, start thinking about it well in advance. If you want a new job, don't just quit your current one and then figure out what you're going to do. Make sure that you have a clear and detailed plan of exactly what it is that you want to do moving forward and ensure that you've already started taking steps towards achieving that. I'm a BIG fan of pro-con lists. Lay it all out there! Similarly, if you want to move to somewhere new, then it's a good idea to think about everything from finding a house to selling your existing one to packing away your belongings, well before anything gets set in motion. This way you're not going to find yourself running around like a headless chicken attempting to keep everything from falling apart. We're trying to be better in 2018 people.
Get some help
Most new starts are going to involve some pretty significant changes in your life which can often be incredibly difficult to deal with all on your own. Don't make a point of pride out of your ability to deal with even the most stressful situations without any help. If you want to make your life easier, there is nothing wrong with reaching out to other people for a little bit of advice. Yes, use your friends, family and your cousin twice removed on your dad's side's with the creepy smile boyfriend, but you might also want to use professional services like Chess Moving while moving houses or a recruitment service when looking for a new job. No matter what, don't let your pride make your life harder than it needs to be. Everyone needs a little bit of help now and then!
Know what you want
A lot of people find themselves in the kind of situation where they want to to make a change in their life, but they don't know what it is that they want. This can often lead to people hopping from one decision to another without ever really finding what they need. The problem here is that you can end up doing a whole lot of different things that might improve your life, but also might not. This means that you could quickly end up with all of the stress of a significant change without any of the real benefits. Again, get yourself going on a pro-con list. Make sure that, if you're planning any fresh start, that you know what you want and that you're doing it for the right reasons. Otherwise, you could end up back right in 2017 mode.
Take things slow
When you figure out what it is that you need to change to improve your life, it's tempting to want to jump straight into it as soon as possible. I'm a jumper myself. I act and don't think about anything else. After all, when you know what you want your life to be, why wouldn't you want that experience to start right away? That's the millennial way of thinking, and we need to STEP AWAY. The truth is that if you try to rush into anything, then you could well end up making some pretty serious mistakes. In reality, it's far better to take your time and make sure that you know exactly what you're doing and that your decisions are the right ones before you make any serious changes in your life. Otherwise, you could end up in an even worse situation than before. AKA, 2017 mode.
Prioritize
Priorities get fuzzy when you are presented with options. I want to do all of the things, not just one of the things. For some people, making a fresh start means being able to change just about everything. Now, this might be tempting, but it can cause a lot more stress than it solves. If making one change in your life can be difficult, trying to change your entire life all at once can be practically impossible. The best thing to do is to prioritize what things about your life you want to change and focus on those. That way, once you're settled into your new lifestyle, then you're going to be able to move onto something else. Taking things one at a time might take longer, but it's going to be a lot less stressful than trying to make all of the big changes in your life all at once. One step for priorities, one giant leap for you.
In the end though, no matter what you do, there are still going to be parts of your life that are going to be pretty stressful. Sorry, I hope you weren't expecting a happy ending. If you want to go through your life without ever dealing with any stress, then you're either misguided, or you're in for an incredibly dull life! Stress or fear is often a sign that you're about to do something extraordinary and rather than letting it stand between you and what you want, you should use those feelings to spur your forward.
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