10 more questions to help you review how you're travelling through life (part 2 of 3)

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Welcome back to part 2 in this series of 3 blog posts about evaluating your life to see where there may be room for growth. As with the 1st blog, these are intended as a trigger for some self-examination and a catalyst for positive change.  You may find one or two useful in validating what you already know to be the case.  

1. Are you over-thinking?  Are you imagining  problems without a basis?  Use evidence based evaluation and  use it to take action!  The perfect moment never existed until after the fact and you can’t change what you avoid.  A calculated risk is part of all progress, get going!
2. Are you waiting to be ready? Few people have been 100% prepared for the moment that opportunity knocks. Opportunity comes in many guises! Sometimes the greatest aspect of the opportunity is being forced to push and stretch ourselves to move outside of our comfort zone ,which is after all where all growth occurs. Expertise and excellence rarely germinate inside the seed packet.
3. Do you enter relationships for the wrong reasons?  Good relationships are organic and supportive, bad relationships are forced and draining.  It’s better to be alone than to suffer the loneliness of life with someone that simply isn’t on your wavelength, or that you’re not ready to be with. The anxiety of being alone in a society that demands that we conform into 'coupledom' can set us hurtling into a commitment with someone that we’ll regret at leisure;  so take a few deep breaths, slow down  and remember who you are, paying attention to that inner voice that sounds the alert whenever your life drifts out of alignment.   The right person will be patient and kind if and when the time is right, the wrong person will try to coerce you through love bombing.  Wait until you’re ready, loneliness is a sign you need to learn to love yourself not that you need to latch onto a love host.
4. Have you closed the door on love?   If you’ve had some bad experiences, put the emphasis on the word ‘experience’.   There is something to learn from everybody that we meet.  Sometimes our bad relationships teach us about the baggage we ourselves are carrying, the contents of which made the wrong person seem to fit with our life-travel plans.  People will challenge us in all sorts of ways, we’ll all encounter toxic people; but if you find  someone who challenges you to be the best you, I’d say you've hit the jackpot. It will only happen if you're open to it.
5. Are you trying to win the rat race?  Does everyone’s Facebook or Instagram life appear to outshine yours leaving you feeling compelled to photograph yourself gazing adoringly at Eggs Benedict ?  Do you live according to how you think you’ll be perceived rather than according to what makes your heart sing?  Happiness and peace of mind are the ultimate successes, step out of the rat-run and into your life.
6. Are you envious?  Do you believe people around you are luckier than you?   Do you obsess about material things (above and beyond what’s required to have a healthy secure life) that other people have but you don’t?  Where does it get you?  Envy is a self-destructive emotion that eats away at you making you bitter.  If it’s a matter of social justice that’s different, but if you are spending your time seething because someone else has a nicer car, it’s time to consider adopting a more resourceful attitude.  Being grateful for what you already have is a good method of getting yourself into a resourceful frame of mind, from that point you can determine what it takes to make you happy. I’ve yet to hear of anyone who found true long term happiness in upgrading their handbag.
7. Do you feel sorry for yourself?   Life is complex and challenging, you may believe your challenges outweigh those of others, but the truth is that a lot of people keep their greatest challenges private so none of us are in a position to compare.   Life’s unexpected twists can stretch us to breaking point, however sometimes our darkest moments force us to see something or learn something that would otherwise have passed us by.   If we are brave enough to review the consequences of our choices, there is a wide vein of wisdom to be mined.  Self-pity is best kept to a short lived indulgence, it doesn't serve you, it simply empowers the negatives.  Identifying what you can do to make things better is far more empowering then dwelling on what was done to you.
8. Do you let grudges against others consume you? Holding a grudge is like holding a hot coal in your bare hand in the hope that someone else will feel the burn. It’s exhausting, damaging and futile.   Free yourself from the people that have done you wrong by simply letting go of ruminating about them.  You don’t have to pretend that what they did was OK, you simply take away its power by getting over it and moving on. You don’t do it for them you do it for yourself.  You accept them for who they are not who you think they should be and by so doing protect yourself form allowing them the opportunity to hurt you again. Get on with your life and don’t look back.
9. Do you let other people drag you down? Whether it’s to wallow with them, or rant and sling mud with them, remember that you are in control of your boundaries, you don’t have to stray from your own standards.  If you were lucky enough to have been nurtured to establish strong boundaries by a supportive upbringing you will have strong immunity to other peoples ‘mood states’.  If however you grew up in a more troubled home environment, boundaries are something you will need to learn to build up.  Tricky but not impossible, and essential to a happy life. Knowing yourself and identifying your own values will become the floor-plan for your boundaries; working on  self-acceptance and confidence will build them up.
10. Do you feel you need to justify yourself to others?  If you’re an adult and you operate within a sound ethical framework that doesn't harm or impact anyone else, there’s no need to justify your life choices.  You don’t need approval or permission from anyone but yourself. 

If you are intersted in exploring further using Hypnotherapy or Counselling to assist with clarity, removing blocks and changing habituated patterns give me a call at Hypfocus Therapies in Mentone, South East Melbourne on 0435 923 817, or contact me via this form