THE PILLARS OF PERSONAL CHANGE.

Many of us would like to change – our mindset, our actions, the circumstances we’re in.
But quite often, we feel lost or stuck and don’t really know where to begin.

Ideas are everywhere; ads and social media are trying to sell us different potions and magic bullets. It’s not easy to decide what works and what is a scam.

If you ever tried, you know that personal change is not easy.

You can only connect the dots looking back. Yes, dots, not one dot; there’s no one magic bullet.

The good thing is, wherever you want to get, chances are, someone else has already gotten there.

WHAT HELPED ME CHANGE?

When I look at my own journey towards a mindset change, I can point out the things that, so far, had the most significant impact on me.

So far, my abbreviated formula for a lasting change looks like this:

STOP (PAUSE). REFLECT. IMPROVE.

Let’s dismantle, briefly, the first part of this formula.

This part only pretends to be the first part, but, in fact, in order to stop, you first have to be in motion. That means doing something.
We’ll get back to the idea of moving/doing another time, as it’s a whole separate (in this interconnected world) universe.

**THINKING IN CIRCLES**

If you’re lost in the woods, you need to mark the terrain somehow. Otherwise, you might be walking in circles!

You walk, and you walk, you feel like you’re getting somewhere, but then you see a tree that looks familiar. And then it hits you: I’m back to where I was before!

Unless you devise a system to track, mark, to notice the differences and patterns, you may spend the rest of your life wandering the woods. And if your only goal in life is to enjoy a walk in nature – great!

But if you actually want to GET SOMEWHERE or to get out of the forest, that may not be the best idea.

**STOP or PAUSE.**

Meditation and my bullet journal (although I do not follow the BuJo methodology entirely) were my anchors.
So you felt stuck, and you got yourself some ANCHORS, Anna?
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**WHEN YOU FEEL STUCK, PAUSE.**

Now, I get that this may sound a bit counterintuitive.
But it’s just the physics: if you want to move in whatever direction, you need to be able to gain some traction. Something needs to slow you down; otherwise, you’ll end up floating (if there’s no gravity) or skidding, or slipping and sliding.
So if you want to regain some sort of control over your movement, you at least need to slow down.

Rock bottom is there to stop you, but, ideally, you’ll be able to stop/pause yourself before you hit it.

**Want to make huge progress? Slow down.**

If you’re just flailing your limbs hectically or moving just for the sake of moving, chances are, you won’t get where you wanted to get.
You may not even know where you want to get in the first place.

So:

• take the time to reflect

• ask yourself better questions.

The quality of the questions you ask others and yourself, it probably the most important part of the process

More often than not, we look to confirm our thinking; we state the obvious without asking questions. If you ask yourself questions but don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere, the problem may be in the questions you ask.

Find better questions. I call them "the forward-moving questions.

HOW TO RAISE AWARENESS –ANCHORING YOUR PRACTICE

I have two indispensable ‚tools’ to becoming more aware of who we are and how we operate:

1. **PRACTICE MEDITATION**

Meditation is like softening the soil of your mind to make it more receptive. It’s stopping for long enough so things can even happen.
Meditation is about learning to observe without engaging.

Practicing meditation means creating more mental space between a trigger and your response, thus getting you off your autopilot mode. This allows other changes to follow.

2. **COLLECT AND REFLECT.**

**create a system to capture your thoughts and record your actions**

Your thoughts and actions are like seeds. You want to collect them to have a better look at what you have.

Your journaling should be a safe buffer zone between what happens in your life and your deliberate reaction to it.

I’d journaled for many, many years, but at some point, when I wanted to see some progress in my life, and it wasn’t happening, I started to dig deeper.

I had plenty of insight but no clear progress.

Then it hit me: it’s not just about jotting things down. It helps to gain some awareness but rarely moves you forward. What I realized, for me, compulsive writing was just an avoidance tactic.
By writing about my ideas, feelings, projects, I felt productive. In reality, though, it was just a twisted way of procrastinating.

The missing part was a regular REFLECTION on what I’ve captured.

Just capturing is the first step, but you need to practice a regular reflection to be effective.
For me, reflection means deciding how to proceed upon what you’ve captured/collected, and asking yourself: “what the heck am I going to do with all this?”

– keep it
– discard it
– use it
– save it for later

Developing a system to capture your thoughts, ideas, and record your actions will allow you to see emerging patterns and build your mental capital.

The point is to raise your awareness first.
Awareness is the thing that precedes any other deliberate change.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU RAISE YOUR AWARENESS

As you practice the pillars of awareness, you gradually become less reactive and more deliberate.
That’s when you can move forward in a more desirable direction.

– You’ll notice some thinking loops (and discover that positive or negative thoughts are a choice)
– You’ll find out that can rewire your brain to think differently. It’s not easy and takes practice, but it’s possible

• You’ll become more present
• You’ll spend less of your time on an autopilot
• You’ll be able to steer in your chosen direction

START SMALL, STAY FOCUSED, GROW STRONGER AND JOIN OUR COMMUNITY!

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