7 Tested Strategies To Get Your Life Back On Track
(Or, how to deal when your life is sh*t!)
If this topic is right where you’re at right now, you’re not alone. None of us have to look too far today to find a lot of stuff that sucks. And that’s just things out there in the world that are happening to all of us. We haven’t even started to talk about our own personal tsunamis.
Like life sometimes can, this post is going to get worse before it gets better. But hang on because I promise I’m going to give you some pretty simple, yet very tangible, ways to change it.
I know you’ve been around long enough to know that bad things happen to everyone. In spite of what we all pretend on IG. And those things can, and often do, make our lives hell. I mean we all know, or know of, people that seem to have it all, minus the problems. But you know that’s not real, right? Nobody escapes the realities of life. And on that note, we all know, or know of, people whose lives we can’t imagine surviving.
But most of them do survive.
Now in our own lives right now, we could be dealing with anything from low grade depression or anxiety to being the person who just lost their job, whose boyfriend just broke up with them, who just learned they have an autoimmune disorder, whose mom was just diagnosed with cancer. Or all of the above.
And yes, uh huh, that is HARD. That’s the kind of hard that has us asking why. “Why me?”
That scenario is very close to what happened to Zoe and, of course, it left her feeling shattered. She spent weeks in a daze, some days not even getting out of bed.
She’d already been dealing with depression and anxiety. She was experiencing symptoms of Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune thyroid disorder, but wasn’t yet diagnosed so she had a lot of fear around her symptoms. She had so much fatigue related to this and her boyfriend couldn’t handle a relationship with someone who never wanted to do anything. He broke up with her. The combination of all of this caused her to miss a lot of work while still in the probationary period, and that’s when she lost her job.
Those first weeks, Zoe did something very important to healing. She felt all her feels. She rode the roller coaster of emotions and cried and raged and released. Then she did the other thing very important to healing, she regrouped.
And I’m so proud of her for that. Because as the kids say “that sh*t ain’t easy”. You see Zoe reached out, and she learned that no matter what you’ve experienced and what you’re facing, you can decide to let it define you or control you, or you can decide that you’re going to learn what you’re supposed to from this hell and get on the path that you’re meant for.
That’s where figuring out “why me?” comes in.
You know how when something’s not going well, so often something else doesn’t go well and then something else unrelated happens too? It’s chaos theory and I theorize that it’s meant to tell you something. It can’t tell you something if you ignore it though.
Chaos theory was originally applied to mechanics and math but when applied to life, and in simple terms, it theorizes that within the apparent randomness of life, there are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition and self-organization. That’s the “what” that follows the “why”.
When we apply what we think we know about consciousness to this theory, we consider the why. As in “why is this happening to me?” which really means “what am I supposed to be learning from this?”. What is the repetition, what are the patterns, the interconnectedness, the self-organization, and the feedback loops?
Let’s apply this to Zoe. What are the circumstances of her life trying to tell her?
Depression and anxiety - something’s off, Zoe, the life you’re living isn’t serving you.
Autoimmune disorder - now louder - something’s off, Zoe, the life you’re living isn’t right for you.
Boyfriend breakup - now it’s yelling - SOMETHING’S OFF, ZOE, ARE YOU HONOURING YOURSELF?
Job loss - I think it’s screaming - SOMETHING’S OFF, ZOE, HAVE YOU PERHAPS ABANDONED YOURSELF?
See what I’m getting at? Now Zoe’s task is to figure out what about her life isn’t right for her. Truthfully, Zoe knows deep down, as we usually do, but she’s been in denial. As we often are. Her body staged a coup and now she has no choice but to deal.
So what might be misaligned in Zoe’s life? Maybe she’s a new lawyer and hates her job, maybe her boyfriend is emotionally abusive and she’s avoidant, maybe she eats like crap to soothe herself. So there are three things. Where’s the pattern? Zoe’s kind of abandoned Zoe. She hasn’t been honouring herself, her wants or her needs; and her body, mind and soul have rebelled. Zoe will do a lot of self-reflection to get to completely understand this so she doesn’t repeat this in the future.
But for now, the question is how to deal. How to stand up to herself, for herself and make the choices that will change it all. I like to look at it as the Butterfly Effect. Which is essentially the idea that small non-linear changes can have a big impact.
Whether you have hard sh*t to deal with or just want to build your resilience, the seven steps below are where you start. Each one of these will have outsized results (remember the Butterfly Effect) if you choose to show up for yourself.
Self-care. I am asking you to chill right now! Start a self-care practice and do it every day. You need to look after you. This one small change? Huge butterfly effect. See how to do it here.
Stop where you are and re-evaluate. What about your life doesn’t make you feel good? Write it down, along with why.
Figure out your role in where you are. What choices got you here? Why did you make them? What’s underneath why you made them? Like we talked about with Zoe, why is this happening to me and what am I supposed to be learning from this?
Choose consciously going forward. Make your decisions and choices consciously and, before you jump, ask yourself whether they’re part of your pattern or whether they’ll actually serve you. Figure out how a choice or decision will make you feel.
Set goals and take inspired action. One small step at a time. Evaluate what’s working and what isn’t along the way and pivot when it truly serves you. Build your confidence by being thoughtful, intentional, and accountable.
Regularly connect with other resilient, forward-looking, striving, and thriving people like you for a support network and community. Here’s how.
Feed and fuel your body, mind and soul, you’ll feel better, be stronger, and vibe higher.
What do you think? Are you ready to make the life that’s right for you? Want to know where to start? Subscribe to our newsletter in the footer section below and you’ll get ideas and tangible steps every week along with invites to our virtual events so that you can join Zoe and others like her in a community where you can explore your inner world and change your outer world.
