Changing your life is not difficult.
It's easy, we do it everyday & even more so on occasions like New Years Day.
Staying consistent with your changes is the difficult part.
Most people slowly slide back into their old habits after a few months.
Slowly but surely, inch by inch, conceding territory on your formerly well dug in & fortified positions.
Why do we do this?
A lot of it comes down to will power. How badly do you want a better life.
For most people the effort required, does not offer a sufficient short term return.
If we were business people, changing your life would definitely fall into the category of, "long term investment".
However, there are short term milestones we can work toward.
The other aspect to this is having the required patience. Patience is a virtue as they say. And its true.
And if you are a somewhat impulsive person looking for short term fixes, you will often succumb to the mundane reality of being patient.
This comes down to how we frame our reality, something that I learnt very early on in my transformation process.
At the beginning of my journey, I was expecting the Universe to provide me with the fruits of my labour after just 2 weeks of changed behaviour.
Looking back, this was a very naive & unrealistic expectation.
However to me, it was very real.
It would have been quite easy for me to slip back into the old habits after that 2 to 4 week period of seeing no return.
But, I decided to wait it out a little longer.
During this time, I was seeing subtle improvements in my life.
Other people around me were noticing it too.
In the moment, these subtle improvements did not feel significant enough.
However, whenever I stood still & evaluated my progress, I felt like I was moving in the right direction.
It was slow for sure, but I realised I was happy with any level of forward movement, as long as it wasn't backwards toward the dark pit.
After giving up all my vices & taking up daily meditation, I noticed I had more energy.
This energy came very easily, & flowed out intuitively.
In social engagements, I became more dynamic, witty & conversational, without the need for alcohol.
This surprised me. Nonetheless, I was extremely pleased by this new found energy.
Previously, in certain situations I would feel anxious in bigger social settings for no apparent reason.
I was a fairly confident & outgoing person, so it didn't really make any sense.
But I would self-medicate this feeling with alcohol, & dive into social interactions with gusto, which often spilled over into drunken behaviour.
Other benefits I noticed of clean living included increased motivation.
Out of nowhere I felt a strong need to be super productive.
I just had to do something, but it had to be something creative & productive.
I found myself sorting out other peoples problems.
I fully invested myself in other peoples lives, like helping one friend with a court case, gathering evidence for him, planning out the case, holding solicitors to account.
It was working though. Things were going my way. The case got dropped on the morning of his trial.
Everything I touched was turning to gold.
I was sorting out my brothers life too, getting him onto college courses, motivating him to challenge himself more, liaising with his medical staff & social workers.
Again, things were working out & going my way. He passed his personal fitness qualification, having previously had no GCSE's or any qualifications to speak of.
With this new found energy, I started to become more ambitious, I was applying for 60-70k jobs, going to networking events in the city, mingling with the key players.
Again, it was working. People were loving my energy, I was creating opportunities for myself.
I became even more ambitious, why not work for myself? So I did.
I just did it, & it worked.
I wanted to do more. I felt I had even higher potential. Potential for greater good.
So I started to seek out charitable work I could do in my local area, helping my Church & my Temple.
It was funny, because people initially couldn't understand why a young man who seemed well put together wanted to just freely give his time.
The Temple even asked me if I needed somewhere to stay, as it is common for Sikh Temples to provide accommodation in exchange for volunteering your time.
I innocently explained that I just wanted to help, clean some dishes maybe.
The Church was the same. I could sense their suspicion at first, I was always escorted to the garage where the expensive garden tools were kept when I first started gardening for them.
Eventually, I started to do readings to the congregation at Church, I even got baptised.
I started attending regular group meditations at the Temple, I really got involved.
The Temple elders even started approaching me, saying how blessed I was that I was able to chant & meditate with such devotion & vigour.
Throughout this, I kept persistent with my clean living & meditation.
On top of this, I would be extremely mindful of the thoughts I thought & the people I associated with.
Ultimately cutting certain people out of my life.
I was checking in on all of my thoughts.
I treated everyday like a spiritual school day.
If I was in a queue at the shop & I felt myself getting impatient, I would make a mental note of it, & instruct myself to be more patient next time.
I would actively train my brain to be less reactive, rather to observe how I was feeling, & adjust my behaviour accordingly.
If I thought a negative thought, I would take a mental note of it, & instruct myself to discard it quicker next time & move on.
Another big moment of realisation came when I had been dealing with one particular past situation that kept lingering on, I did everything in my power to end it & move on.
However, the harder I tried to move forward through it, the more frustrated I became.
Like incredible levels of frustration.
At this moment I learnt the power of surrendering to the Universe.
This was liberating. Of course I still struggled with this occasionally, but not to the same degree as before.
Certain things in life cannot be pushed through no matter how hard you try, they must come to their own natural conclusions.
Valuable lesson learnt. If you feel continued resistance in a certain area of your life, surrender it to the Universe.
Surrendering meant that a massive burden was lifted from my shoulders.
Still I was super creative & high energy.
So I started attending art classes, painting & having a creative outlet.
This is truly one of the great things you can do for your wellbeing. Painting is like meditation. You literally think of nothing but the canvas, you are truly living in the moment.
Still, I had more energy.
I started hitting the gym.
Doing loads of reps when the energy allowed for it.
Then moving onto heavy weights, lifting heavier than I ever had before.
Things that I would have given up shortly after starting before, I was now really visualizing & goal setting for.
I pictured myself lifting heavy, & getting big, & going to the gym consistently.
Next minute you know, people are telling me I'm looking big.
I'm actually feeling mega strong too.
Before I knew it my life had literally changed.
I hadn't touched a single cigarette in a year.
I was achieving all my goals & more.
I did podcasts, I got accepted onto prestigious business programs, I even started a wellbeing blog!
Who knew.
The only thing that I did differently to before was meditate daily, live a clean life, grow mindfully & have faith.
Yes! Faith!!
Have a little faith people, that everything is going to be okay, better than okay, super okay, super fabulously living your best life kind of okay. Okay!!!
Peace & prosperity people.
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