7 Things You'll Learn When Starting Over

1. Stop Expecting, Just Enjoy And Be Your Honest Self. Everything Will Be Alright as Long as These Two Things Are Done.

This may sound like some hippy shit at first but I promise you this is the one rule of life that has remained consistent for me.

In my trials and errors I have found that the best times of my life have been when I didn't expect a damn thing. I had no expectation of how someone was going to respond to me or what an action was going to cause yet the feelings I felt as a result were some of the best and most memorable. They were feelings that truly touched me.

It's also because I was truly in the present.

Yet, this is where we never allow ourselves to remain because if we stay in the present we must be vulnerable, however, that is the beauty of it. If we allow ourselves to be honest and enjoy the ride we find that we can be surprised by the love we feel from places, people, and things we didn’t expect.

If we are our honest selves then we attract what we've always wanted however if we drop the expectation we will not be blind to whatever form it may come in.

You'll find when you start over that you no longer expect outcomes from people or situations, therefore you will no longer be disappointed by anyone or anything. Instead, you are met with peace.

2. Never Fight Who You Are to Appease Others

This seems extremely obvious, however, it is so easy to not even notice this is happening. When we do this, we stifle who we are as individuals and then what happens is it affects our communication.

For example, someone who creates a defense mechanism to protect them from people they're around on a regular basis is going to become so used to tailoring how they speak and act in order to keep peace, hedge situations, or avoid conflict that they stop speaking the way used to speak.

When we do this, we lose the ability to showcase the qualities that make us unique.

Back to the example, someone who uses a defense mechanism is going to forget it was a defense mechanism eventually. It will have been embedded in their daily life so much so that they will no longer notice.

The worst part, we don’t even realize it’s happening until people who used to know us well tell us. We don't even know what's true about ourselves and what's not. It's embarrassing when we realize this but once we do, we see who has always been there for us despite us not knowing where we went.

Not only that, but we understand...we don't need to do that anymore. When you understand that, a part of you begins to wake up.

3. The Love You're Looking For is Inside Of You. Other People’s Love For You Is A Bonus.

I was challenged to look in the mirror for 90 days and say one good thing about myself that I loved that did NOT have to do with achievement.

The reason is because when someone asked me what my favorite memory of college was I couldn't think of anything except the biggest moment of my life: Speaking in front of the entire campus as the commencement speaker.

I was asked for another example. I sat there and rattled off other shit I thought was impressive. This person asked, "Why can't you think of one thing about yourself that has nothing to do with achievement that you love?"

It was that moment my anxiety kicked in, I began crying for some reason, and then I realized I couldn't think of anything because I didn't love anything about myself other than my achievements. To me, at that time they asked me that question, there was no self worth if you weren't doing something great.

So, they suggested this 90 day exercise and I did it.

This was incredibly hard and I hated it…at first. In the end, it ended up saving me. I came up with 90 different things I loved about who I was as a person and realized I had forgotten qualities about myself plus new ones I never acknowledged.

Imagine that, forgetting who you are over such a prolonged period of time that you don't realize you have completely abandoned yourself. What's more, imagine actively not acknowledging your qualities because you don't think you're worthy of them anymore.

This 90 days literally felt like being reattached to reality. It was as if my mind was disassociated from my body for what felt like years.

That's what happens when your perception of who you are becomes warped due to extenuating circumstances that are out of your control that you spent hours, days, months, years, wracking your brain about how you could have prevented it from happening but then when you can't come up with an answer....you reframe the question to, "Why weren't you good enough to prevent it?"

At that point, you have no love for yourself and you don't care one way or the other. Even if you asked 100 people to tell you how they truthfully felt about you, it wouldn't be enough. It would mean nothing because you don't believe it yourself.

When after you "wake up" and look in the mirror for the first time, you feel the love you've been waiting for. Then, the love you see other people have for you becomes all the more special. They SEE you and you realize they always have... even when you didn't.

4. Boundaries For Yourself Are Just As Important As Your Boundaries For Others

Let me explain, we all hear people talking about how to set boundaries and protect yourself from those around you, however, what boundaries are you setting for your own self to follow?

We neglect the fact that we can cross our own boundaries and make ourselves feel uncomfortable by disrespecting ourselves and our own wants, thoughts, opinions, and truths.

Crossing your own boundary and hurting yourself looks like:

1. Ignoring your gut feelings
2. Clearly communicating what your comfortable with and the other person respecting it BUT you make yourself feel bad about it and do it anyway.
3. Hiding your opinions, thoughts, and needs despite people encouraging you that you are safe.
4. Having a clear set of rules that you deem important to yourself but neglecting them for the sake of other people who have no idea you're even ignoring your own rules for them.

When you begin to start over, you realize that in your efforts, sometimes there is no peace that needs to be kept, you deluded yourself into thinking it was mandatory when there really was never going to be a problem in the first place or you realize that disappointment in yourself is not worth “keeping the peace” for others who don’t even know or care that you’re doing it.

5. Letting Go Makes Room For What You’ve Wanted to Come Your Way

Life is like a machine that runs on smoothly operating cogs, but what happens when the cogs start to resist their natural path?

The machine gets faulty. It then impacts this cog, that cog, yet you still have a goal of this thing running smoothly. So you force it to work and try fixing it, but you just keep getting resistance. Why?

They broke. It sucked, but they broke.

Whether its your job, friend, partner, or yes even yourself. It breaks because it no longer can serve to help you operate the way you wish to operate for your future self. Simply put, you need new cogs...and that's okay.

You can't get new cogs if you keep the old ones in the place.

6. Once You Listen To Yourself Everything You ACTUALLY Want Falls Into Place

When you stop fighting your true path by speaking your truth, you begin to see everything you want fall into place.

The thing is, you can’t expect to get what you want when you are not ready. So often we sit here wishing for what we believe we "need" in order to make our lives better and we may think we're working toward it but then we become discouraged when it feels like, no matter, it just "doesn't work out" for us.

You will not get what you want until you go through what you need. Most of us cannot honestly look in the mirror and say we are ready for what we ask for because we can't even articulate, clearly, the intent behind why we want it.

Let that sit for minute.

Why would you expect to receive what you want when you don't understand how to fully appreciate it once you have it? The bullshit you're going through right now, be grateful for. Be grateful because that is the universe giving you what you need right before giving you what you want because if you're genuinely serious about what you want, you'll put your best foot forward everyday through hell knowing each step is getting you closer to that day the sky is going to open up and show you to your next chapter.

But the thing is, putting your best foot forward means being who you are in the present. Drop the ego. Drop the pride. Drop the fear of what others think of you. Because none of those steps you take in hell matter if you're not paving the way with the genuine actions that aren't in alignment with that person you want to eventually become.

You can't get passed reaching for your dreams to grab them if you don't grow....and nothing grows without some pain.

7. If You Lose Yourself You Can Always Find Who You Are Again….Just a 2.0 Version

Life will give you trauma, abuse, illness, negativity, fights, loss, and so much more and this, over time, will cause you to lose who you are and all the qualities that made you love yourself. You lose your interest in your passions, self-respect, self-love, self-worth, and so much more because the cogs have now begun grinding against each other so much so it’s all you can take in. So, you just forget who you are. All hope can seem lost for getting that person you were back but once you start seeing your brain spark again your personality stands up on wobbly Bambi legs, and you feel like you just woke up but this time but an even better version. That version understands the sun will always shine tomorrow with or without them and that person understands, after starting over, they have something to still give to the world.