You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
-R. Buckminster Fuller-
The world that we knew has suddenly changed, and will never return as we once knew it.
We have been thrust into a time of reflection and isolation that we have never experienced before.
We had such busy lives before that there was little time to figure out our passions or really know who we are.
This time could be the opportunity we need to figure out who we really are and where we want our lives to go in the new future.
This article will get you pointed in the right direction to get you started .
As you define your new path, don't let anything keep you from achieving what you set out to do.
Find a way to spend some alone time to each day to devote to thinking and reflecting on you and your life's aspirations.
This may require you to give yourself some time and space to get away from the expectations, the conversations, the noise, and the media for a while.
An idea may be to take a long walk just to get back in nature and sort out your thoughts. Maybe you can plant yourself on a park bench and take a look at the world as you are seeing it now.
A long and thoughtful road trip may be what you need to find some quiet time to reflect.
Whatever you decide, move away from anything that distracts you from contemplating your life and where you want it to go.
In solitude, you should feel independent and self-sufficient, not lonely, anxious, or afraid.
01 - Purposeful Loneliness
Every person needs time alone, whether they're extraverted or introverted, single or in a relationship, young or old.
Solitude can be a time for rejuvenation and listening to your own self-talk.
It's a time for experiencing utter peace and for realizing that purposeful "loneliness" is not a bad place to be.
In fact, it can be a rather liberating thing to do as a part of our everyday existence.
02 - Tap Into Your Creativity
Whether you think you are a creative person or not, you may find that alone-time will help you feel more creative in your approach to living.
While it's nice to collaborate with other people sometimes, it's hard to be truly creative when you're always surrounded by their influence on you.
Step back and tap into your own creativity while you're in your moment of solitude.
Try to think of that one thing in your life that makes your heart pound with excitement, or makes you come alive every time you think of it. That may be where your true passion lies.
In my post entitled "Your One True Passion - How To Discover It Now",
I go into greater detail on how to discover that one thing that makes you happy.
If you have found something that is worthy of your best efforts, sacrifice, and tears, then you have found the most important pursuit of your life.
The key here is to realize that it doesn't matter what it is.
It could be preventing child hunger or it could be painting.
There is no scale when it comes to passion. ​
You either feel it or you don't.
When you find something that zaps you out of bed in the morning, you've found it.
Cling to it. Embrace it. From there, it will only get bigger.
Question Yourself
Next, ask yourself difficult and far-reaching questions, and record your answers.
Beyond your time spent in solitude, it's easy for these purposeful thoughts to slip to the back of your mind and be forgotten.
If you have them written down, then every time you reflect, you can review your notes and take it a step further, instead of answering the same questions all over again.
Keep them in a notebook that's easy to access and update; it will be a source of sustenance for you by which you can continue to measure your growth through life.
Here are some to get you started:
1. If I Had All The Resources In The World
"If I had all the resources in the world — if I didn't need to make money — what would I be doing with my life and why?"
Perhaps you'd be painting, or writing, or farming, or exploring the Amazon rainforest.
Don't hold back.
2. Regrets
"What do I want to look back on in my life and say that I never regretted?"
Would you regret never having traveled abroad? Would you regret never having asked that person out, even if it meant risking rejection?
Would you regret not spending enough time with your family when you could?
Would you regret keeping your unique view of society to yourself by not sharing with friends?
3. Choose Three Words
"If I had to choose three words to describe the kind of person I'd love to be, what would those words be?"
Adventurous? Accepting towards few? Open? Honest? Hilarious? Optimistic? Unreliable?
Don't be afraid to choose words that are considered negative because that proves you're a real person, and not a lopsided combination of parts other people want to be known for.
Sometimes the traits that you don't like become useful in emergency situations — like being bossy.
Sometimes they are valuable to the job you're meant to perform — like being nitpicky.
If you do have a truly negative trait, acknowledging it openly can give you the motivation to work on redirecting that energy to something positive.
Try channelling that bad habit and into a hobby. Don't wash your clothes much? Try camping — maybe you'll like it. Even something like belly dancing could be your golden ticket!
Know you're lazy with certain tasks? Maybe you can lead yourself to find another task that hardly ever bores you.
4. Who Am I?
"Who am I?"
This question is not static.
It should be one you continue to ask yourself throughout your life.
A healthy person continues to reinvent themselves throughout their life. By asking this question regularly, it updates your understanding of who you are and how you change.
Instead of answering who you think you ought to be, keep focused on who you actually are, because in all likelihood that's a very good answer, warts and all.
Start With A Clean Slate
Prepare to begin again with a clean slate. Develop your own moral conduct and practice sticking to it.
In the article entitled "Fresh Start",​ it outlines a process of cleaning the slate to begin anew. Make sure you take a look at it.
Start by overcoming bad habits.
Stop smoking, over-eating, and abusive drinking. These are examples of lapses or habits that will prevent you from functioning at your peak. They also let you "off the hook" by sidestepping the analysis of why you use these crutches instead of finding better ways to brighten your life.
This step may take some major rehabilitation for some individuals but putting it into the too-hard basket won't make it go away. Remember, you can't drive your life forward if you are always gazing through your rear-view mirror!
Organize your world.
You may find that having all your other affairs in order will help expedite the process to grabbing a firm hold on your identity. So clean your room. Do your homework. Resolve that fight with that friend. Getting everything else out of the way will clear up the path to "me" time.
We all have excuses for why we're not growing in the direction we want to be growing — it could be money, school, a job, a relationship, you name it, someone's used it. If you're a busy bee, take strides to clear your schedule so you can sit down and tackle this thing head on. If it's always priority #2, it'll never get done.
Blank Page – Start Over
Now it’s time to open a blank page, and start all over again.
The blank page concept means, forget your failure. That’s the past.
Start writing a new plan on your blank page.
Take a step-by-step approach to create your new plan, incorporating the facts you’ve gained by learning what didn’t work.
Start over with your new plan.
Recreate Your Own Future
Create your own life timetable for fulfilling your future.
Write down all of your major goals that you feel you have achieved and want to achieve.
In turn, write down the events in your life that have already happened and that have shaped or affected you.
When life brings problems or misfortunes it shapes our belief system and makes us think differently, but it also makes us us.
These things you list are organically you, not a simple reflection of society.
- This isn't an exercise in wallowing. It's about clarification and identification of issues. These issues might be keeping you from reaching your present potential and letting your true self blossom.
- Spend a little time clarifying the past in your timeline. A timeline is an incredibly objective method for marking down past occurrences in your life that you consider to be major.
You can look at them as formation blocks and as changing experiences along your timeline.
- Write as if you are writing a resume. Keep it simple, real, and condensed to the major effects or lessons learned from each past incident.
- When analyzing negative past experiences, focus on what you learned from them. Everyone has these blips in their timeline, but exaggerating or ignoring them won't help you. Instead, recognize that these experiences shaped you.
Rely On Yourself
Start relying on yourself. Confidence and self-reliance are at the heart of finding yourself.
If you don't have a solid sense of self worth, you'll listen to what others have to say all the time and to be swayed by their insistence on what is appropriate.
Learn to believe in yourself and trust your own feelings. Then, you'll come up with a structure to base your new sense of self on.
Remember, be patient with yourself and confident in your abilities.
Everything will come with time.
- If you have been victimized in the past, confront these issues. They're not going to go away on their own. They might be coloring your approach to daily life, causing you to live up to other people's expectations instead of your own.
- Start trusting your own judgement and decision-making processes, mistakes and all. We all make mistakes, but through mistakes we find ourselves growing, learning, and reaching our real selves.
Act Upon Your Knowledge
Act upon — and use — your newly discovered knowledge. Pick up those watercolors. Write that book. Plan a trip. Have dinner with a family member. ​Open up. Tell the truth. Whatever it is that you've decided you want to be or do, start being and doing it now.
You may shake your head and come up with excuses such as "no time," "no money," "family responsibilities," etc. Instead of using these as excuses, start planning around the hurdles in your life. You can free up time, find money, and get a break from duties if you make time how to plan and find the courage to ask for these things.
Sometimes, the real you is too afraid to face the practicalities because it'd mean facing up to what you've limited yourself by. Start planning what you really want to do and investigating what needs to be done to get you to that point instead of flinging excuses at them, stopping the goals and dreams dead in their tracks.
Serve Others
Serve others. Mahatma Gandhi once said that "the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."
Service to other people and to the community is the ultimate way to find purpose and a sense of your place in the world.
When you see how hard life can be for those in greater need than you, it's often a wake-up call that puts your own worries, concerns, and issues into perspective.
It helps you to see what you do have, and the opportunities you've been able to seize through life. That can fuel a great sense of self because suddenly everything can fall into place for you and you realize what matters most.
Try it. You'll like it.
Learn More
Learn more about achieving more than you ever dreamed possible from my book "Are You A Super Achiever?".
It will walk you through the steps of defining where you are in life compared to where you want to be.
Then it gives you a blank page from which you will create a new plan for your future.
Whether or not you get the book, take the time to find out exactly who you are, and determine what it is that drives you.
Take this time of isolation to draft your new future, and don't let anything deter you from your mission.
Embrace your life and live it to the fullest.
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Thank You
"Thanks for reading.
Hope it helps you in some way.
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Albert Powell