Step 3 - Growing Your Opportunities
Gift yourself! You are flying - taking the steps needed to make positive personal change!
Identify, explore, and discover what carries you through to new opportunities in your life.
"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."
- Abraham Maslow
If you just let time unfold without making changes intentionally, life will tend to happen to you. Do you want to be in the driver's seat? Whose life is this, anyway?
As you work through the steps, you might notice you are feeling stuck again. That's okay. Go easy on yourself. Everyone who works towards personal change experiences setbacks. You may feel yourself struggling to stay committed, to keep valuing yourself. This is part of the journey of attending to your mental health.
The steps towards mental health involve identifying and recognizing what gets you stuck and what carries you towards new opportunities in your life. Here are some tips when you're feeling stuck or struggling:
Recognize you can't do it alone - that you need support
Be willing to invest time in yourself - Set aside time to develop your ability to notice your self-destructive and self-promoting patterns
Realize you already embody aspects of the life you yearn for - Identify your Core Strengths
Develop a vision for the new person you can become - Ensure the values you hold are healthy - Write a vision statement - Define your life's mission
Build your NEW YOU in YOUR new world! - Connect your vision of yourself to others
Learn some of the ways to calm your responses to the stress - Learn and practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness skills are known to be helpful for relaxing and bringing us out of past regrets and future expectations. Mindfulness helps us appreciate our lives in the present moment. After all, that is where we live! Now!