3 Ways to Know that You Are (Finally) Ready to Make a Change

Every person has had that moment where they have decided that they just cannot put up with a situation anymore and must make a change. However, getting to that point - or finally knowing that you are ready - can be challenging. How do you know that you are ready for change? These three signs will tell you:

1. You get angry at things you used to just put up with.

Day after day, you slog along in a job you hate, dealing with a boss you despise, and working with co-workers that drive you crazy. You put up with it, telling yourself that you need the job, that it’s not that bad, that it doesn’t actually crush your soul. One day, your boss sends you yet another request for the same information you have provided 10 times before. She’s done this hundreds of times, and hundreds of times, you have begrudgingly given her what she’s asked for. This time, you can’t stand it anymore and write a furious e-mail giving her a piece of your mind.  

Not only is this possibly a career-ending move, it also lets you know that you are finally ready to make a change. While many people see anger as a negative emotion, it is often the indicator that you are finally sick of putting up with your current situation you or relationship and are ready to move on. 

For me, I can distinctly remember the moment that I knew I had to end an engagement. My fiance was yelling about God-knows-what yet again, and I was raising my voice to yell back, “Shut UP!” It dawned on me that I don’t believe in resolving conflict by yelling, yet here I was, yelling to be heard. Right then and there, I knew I needed to make a change.

Going forward today, check in with yourself. Which long-standing situations in your life are finally making you angry? What about situations that have caused anger for a long time? Make note of these, and know that you are ready to make different choices. 

2. Instead of dreaming about a new life, you begin planning for it. 

I cannot tell you how many people I work with that tell me their life dreams and then qualify them, saying things like, “I have been dreaming of this my whole life.” or “I have always wanted to do this.” Of course, right after that usually comes, “But...”

Dreaming is a wonderful and definitely necessary part of moving forward authentically in life, but too many people get stuck there. Dreams without actions just don’t come true. 

Have you begun reading books about how to do the things you dream of? Have you signed up for classes or other experiences that would assist you on your path? Have you begun creating a list of things that you need in order to be successful? Then you have taken critical steps forward. You are ready to move from dreaming to acting.

If you are at this point, you will also notice a critical shift in the way you speak about your dreams. Instead of saying, “I need to,” “I’d like to,” or “I wish I could,” you will begin saying, “I have to,” “I am ready to,” or “I am.” Notice that one set of words are “dream” or “future” words, while the others are “action” or “immediate” words. 

When you finally shift from imagining yourself in a new life to actually planning for how you can make that dream happen and speaking about those actions in the present, you know you are ready to move forward.

3. The perceived pain of making a change seems far less than the pain of staying where you are.

For many people, the pain of leaving a bad relationship or job is so intense that they just stay for years. After all, they might be miserable, but it’s better to “deal with the devil you know.” right? 

For some, I suppose it is. However, there will come a time when you literally cannot take the situation you are in anymore. Perhaps you notice that you have aches and pains, or get sick more often or more seriously than you used to. Maybe you are completely drained of energy after being on the job or with the person in question, and do not have energy to do things you love to do.

It’s at that point that the scales have swung in favor of making a change. While every major life change comes with its challenges, when the pain and exhaustion of the situation you are in has become overwhelming, you are at the critical point. If you have said to yourself, “I have to end this,” “I cannot take it anymore,” or “I am over this,” you are ready to make a change. 

Take inventory of situations in your life that are draining you or making you sick. How much more do you think you can put up with? Have you hit that critical tipping point where making a change is more appealing than putting up with more of the same? If you are at the end of your rope and feel that change is more positive than staying stuck, you are ready to make a shift!

Are you in a situation now that you need to get out of? What is the situation? Do you think you are ready to change?

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Even Perfect Women Have a Breaking Point: How to Give Yourself a Break Before You Fall Apart

I ripped the leg off my Barbie as a child.

This confession comes with a caveat: It was an accident. I was simply trying to see how flexible she was and kept clicking the leg back until “crack!” - it just came off. 

As it turns out, even the “perfect woman” has a breaking point.

While I meant her no harm in that moment, I never cared much for Barbie even as a child. I think even my 5 year old self knew there was something very wrong with the perfect image of Barbie: ever smiling, wearing all matching outfits, ridiculously proportioned, and looking for her perfect Ken so she could have the perfect kids and house and life. 

Looking back at the memory of holding her leg in my hand, I realize that I was learning an important lesson: Trying to be perfect all the time ends up breaking you, no matter how flexible or strong you think you are. 

If you have been trying to be flawless for too long - holding up an unrealistic image and schedule - and are reaching your breaking point, it’s time to rethink perfection and give yourself some unconditional love and support.

Love your imperfection - it’s likely what makes you unique!

Copyright Fadsin Cinema Associates, 1975

Remember that movie Stepford Wives?  All the women were exactly the same, turned into robots who looked and acted like society’s image of a perfect woman. Watching the movie, it is obvious that having all women everywhere cater to one definition of “woman” is not only creepy, it is highly undesirable.

However, after being fed a constant stream of air-brushed, cosmetically enhanced media images of the women we “should” be, it is far less obvious in our own day-to-day lives that we often strive to live up to a similar “perfect” or “normal” standard that would erase all that makes us unique. 

Worse, holding ourselves up to these so-called perfect images, we begin to hate aspects of ourselves that don’t seem to fit into this flawless frame. The more we hate ourselves, the more we attract negative, critical people and experiences to our lives, which makes us feel even more imperfect. 

To break the negative cycle, try this:

Tomorrow morning when you look in the mirror for the first time, notice what you say to yourself. Is it critical? Do you judge yourself harshly? If so, catch yourself in mid-thought. Take a deep breath, and think of a time when you felt truly loved and desired. When you have this emotion flowing all over your body, look yourself in the eyes, smile, and say to yourself, “I love myself. Who I am right now is beautiful.” 

If nitpicking at yourself is a habit, this will be very hard at first. Just be gentle with yourself and keep at it. 

Once you feel like you can send love to your eyes, it is time to send a little love to the rest of you. Find one part of your body that you dislike, and keep at it until the love starts to seep in. When you start to feel better about that body part, move on to the next one. Keep it up until you can honestly look at any part of you without feeling hatred, judgment, or criticism. 

This practice may seem silly. It may seem like too much work. It may seem too uncomfortable for you to do. Do it anyway.

The truth is that until you love yourself unconditionally and honor your uniqueness, you will never find people - in love, business, or friendship - that offer you the love and respect you truly deserve. 

So, own your uniqueness fully. Look at it as the asset it is. After all, history is full of successful women who became so because they were not afraid to be different from the norm and learned how to use their individuality as their “wow” factor.

Be different. Be you. Love yourself. Stand out from the crowd. Be proud of your differences, and use them to become truly memorable!

Best of all, when you embrace who are are and make decisions from a place of self-love then you won’t end up breaking, and isn’t that worth it in the end?  

Tara's Questions for Positive Change:

1. For one hour of TV watching, write down any messages you notice that advertisers or media is putting forth on what is a “perfect woman.” Now, write up your list of how you define being a woman. How does your list differ from the media perspective? 
2. What do you hate most about yourself? Can you first remember when you decided that it wasn’t okay? What were the circumstances? 
3. Think about the words you use to criticize yourself. Are they the same words that you heard parents, teachers, coaches, friends, or other authority figures use to criticize you? Realize that there is no need for you to continue to believe that another person’s perspective on you is right.
4. What is really different about you? Make a list. Then, think about how that uniqueness benefits your life. How can you use that difference, be it in looks or in how you see the world, to make yourself unforgettable? How about to benefit the world?
5. How do you think your life would be different if you truly accepted and loved yourself? 

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What to Do When Life Seems Out of Control

I subscribe to the belief that no matter what, you are always in control of your own emotions. 

(There’s a big BUT coming…)

BUT there are times when long-term stress from a myriad of causes can make it seem like you are very much out of control of everything. 

How do you put yourself back in charge of how you are feeling and reacting? Better yet, how do you start changing your life for the better? 

Here are a few ways that work for me: 

1. List the things in your life that ARE in your control.

No matter what’s going on in your life right now, there are things that ARE in your control. Don’t believe me? Here’s a short list: 

• The pace of your breathing. 
• What you decide to look at. 
• What you choose to put on in the morning. 
• What you choose to eat. 

Start making your list. What’s in your control right now? Doing this helps shift you from the “victim” mode (“Why is this all happening to me! I can’t do anything about it!) to the “empowered” mode (“Okay, some of this is out of my control, but I CAN control some things.").

Focus on consciously controlling the small things you can. Then, focus on what you can control in larger, more complicated situations. The more you put your mind in the mode that you are in charge, the more that things begin to feel under control in your life in general. 

2. Realize that, through a series of stressors or shocks, you’ve become programmed to react from a place of fear, worry, and exhaustion.

While it IS true that you are always in control of your emotions, if you’ve been through a series of unexpected stressful events, you shift into reaction mode.

What’s this mean? Basically, you are prepared for battle every moment of every day. You EXPECT the worst is going to happen, so when anything happens (good or bad), you react automatically from a place of fear, anger, or exhaustion. Basically, in reaction mode, you bypass the usual break between the experience and your choice of reaction to it, and instead, you just react. 

On top of that, gone are the days when you made confident decisions; by expecting the next thing to be as bad as the last, each decision is made with anxiety and worry.

I cannot tell you how difficult it is to shift from reaction mode to being empowered again when you are in this out-of-control, my-life-sucks place, but it can happen. In fact, taking back control over your emotions is the key to taking back control over your life.

The first step is acknowledging that you are in reaction mode. The next is to start making empowered, non-rushed decisions. 

3. Start making empowered, non-rushed decisions. 

For me, when I go through an out-of-control period, I fall into “decision fatigue,” and have difficulty trusting my instincts to make even the most irrelevant of decisions. In fact, something as simple as what to make for dinner can have me standing at the fridge for minutes trying to figure out what looks good. 

More often than not, in this decision fatigue state, I’ll make the “lesser” or “easier” choice and, instead of, for instance, making something healthy for dinner, I’ll go out to eat or call for pizza. (Neither are decisions I’d be likely to make if I was feeling clear-headed and in charge of things.) 

Worse, I find that in this state even little things - a colleague asking for help with something, a driver cutting me off on the road, another phone call while I’m in the middle of something important to me - make me react more sharply and angrily than I would ever normally do. 

I’ve noticed this phenomenon in my life for years, but it turns out that “decision fatigue” is a very real thing. In fact, social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, coined the term after discovering that the more decisions a person has to make in a period of time, the more likely it is that the person either makes an impulsive and slightly reckless decision, or, exhausted by all the choices, just stops making decisions altogether. 

It’s basically the cumulative effect of trying to make the “best” or “right” choice a zillion times in a day. When you are going through a period when you have significant stressors - and maybe some of those stressors are because of decisions you made previously that seem to be “wrong” - you will get into a mode of panic. 

For me, this manifests in this kind of thinking: “What if this decision is wrong? What if everything falls apart? What if I put in all this effort and it fails? Maybe I should just take the safe choice. What is the safe choice? Maybe I shouldn’t make any choice right now; everything is just too scary. I’m going to screw this up.” 

As you may know, that is not a fun dialogue to have running through your head; little things seem like life-or-death things. 

If this is happening to you, realize that whatever decisions you made that have lead you to this point are in the past. Yes, you may be dealing with the ramifications of them at the moment, but you can make present decisions that lead you to a better place. 

More so, realize that you made the prior decisions with the best information you had at the time. With new info, you might go back and change it, but you can’t. Instead, use the new information to have confidence that the next decisions will be better ones. 

To start to get out of this mode, make the most significant decisions early in the morning after a good night’s sleep; you’ll be freshest and most able to clearly see what you want to do. Always take a moment to calm your mind and connect with positive emotions - happiness, love, contentment - before making a critical decision. 

Next, if you get overwhelmed through the day, remember that you can always walk away and gather yourself before making a decision. Use the phrase, “You know, I need a few moments before I can decide on that,” and excuse yourself. 

Go somewhere quiet (the bathroom or your car, for instance), and breathe in and out several times. How do you really feel about this decision? Listen to yourself. Make the decision. Expect the best. 

To help with this process, use the retuning statement (affirmation), "I am now in charge of my life. I trust my ability to make empowered decisions for my best." It's a good idea to use the retuning statement when you wake in the morning, by closing your eyes, connecting with a feeling of happiness (imagine a happy time in your life), and then repeating the statement over and over while in that happy state. 

While it does take work, by using these steps consistently, you will reprogram your mind to have confidence in your ability to control your life. 

Put these steps in place today; I’d love to hear your experiences below!