Ever Feel Stuck in an Old Life, Even though You're Changing?

It can be excruciating to be a new person stuck in yesterday’s life. Honestly, there’s no strategy that can make it all different tomorrow. What we can do is clarify the dynamics at play so that the shift is put in motion.

I call this “Looking at the Seasons in Your Day.” It works pretty much as the bible says, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Furthermore, the better you get at this the more heavenly your life gets. Basically, every time-consuming activity, relationship or project cycles through different seasons:

·         Spring: These projects are the delicate buds and gentle whispers that give us hints of what’s to come. They need time in order to be nurtured into full bloom, even if they haven’t proven themselves yet.

·         Summer: These activities are in full swing. They’re the relationships and commitments that we worked hard to establish, and you want to continue to invest time in them into the future.

·         Fall: These tasks are past their prime and diminishing in value. Either you’re starting to lose interest, or they don’t serve you in the way they once did. Here you have to make a choice: either renovate these activities (so they fit back in the summer category) or kick ‘em to the curb.

·         Winter: If you don’t regularly replace stuff in your fall category with ideas from your spring category, those worn out responsibilities will move into the winter category. You feel burnt out on these activities and would probably like to put them into hibernation. You can’t always extricate yourself from the winter projects right away but by acknowledging them, solutions will start to present themselves.

One of the biggest mistakes we make in terms of time, is that we cling to our winter projects, while underestimating the possibilities inherent in spring. This keeps us stuck in the past. Because the possibilities of spring haven’t fully sprouted yet, they can be underestimated. They need the nutrients of time and attention. When I started to compare the winter aspects of my life to the spring aspects, it took courage to shift the amount of time I was assigning them, but each day became much richer and more meaningful as I did.