*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases via the links in this blog. As a creator of content and products I earn from purchases from links in this blog.*

You’ve been in therapy for years and you know your triggers, your tragic flaws, and what you need to do to better yourself and your situations. But you still haven’t done it. What’s the problem? You know better. Why won’t you do better?

You could be stuck for a multitude of reasons like fear of failure, fear of success and having to keep up with that success, fear of change, fear of losing the thing you always complain about because then what would you have to talk about, or fear not knowing what your healthy life would look like exactly and needing that assurance before you start making moves. A lot of people stay stuck because although they can spell out for you what needs to be done, they have no idea how to begin and continue to make real changes.

Thank goodness you are here today so I can give you the cheat codes to living your best life. You ready? Let’s go boo!

Changing happens in steps:
1. Knowing that something needs to change
2. Changing the thing
3. Maintaining the change when faced with a challenge that pushes you to revert back to the previous behavior

Since you are here, I know you have done step one. Today we are going to talk about step two: changing the thing.

First define the ways you have tried to change the thing before that did not work. Then don’t do those things anymore. It sounds simple but you would be surprised how many people say they want to be a morning person so they wake up at 5 am 3 times then quit and can’t figure out what didn’t work. The goal doesn’t make sense. You don’t want to be a morning person, you want to have productive days and not feel lazy or like you are wasting time. That does not equal becoming a morning person. Instead, you can find pockets of your day to rock hard in that give the desired level of productivity. You can schedule in breaks to be “lazy” and not feel guilty about it. You can change your sleep hygiene so that you wake up refreshed daily so that you can have the best possible start to your day. You can amend your diet so that you eat intuitively so that your body doesn’t feel sluggish and fighting against an urge to lay down all the time. You could also get some meds. I don’t care what you have to do to make this work as long as you are working with instead of against your nature.

Do something different to find what works and tweak as needed.

I feel like ya’ll need more examples of how this simple process works since some of you just read that last paragraph like “this is simple s#!+ is supposed to be the answer? Yeah right” .

Next example: You want to be taken seriously more at work. Things you have tried that didn’t work- changing your wardrobe- felt inauthentic and stuffy, stopped hanging out with friends who aren’t serious like you want to be – was not fun being so serious all the time, cried in the HR office and asked them to talk to your manager for you- they looked at you funny and told you to suck it up. Things you can try now- change your communication style from passive to assertive- instead of “maybe you can look at this when you get a chance brad, please?” say “send this back after review with notes, Thanks Brad!”, amending your current style with a few more structured pieces but still have the fun flair that represents your aesthetic- you will feel more confident in your own clothes and confident people get taken seriously, start to volunteer for difficult projects and do awesome at them- let your brilliance brag for you and you don’t have to say a word.
The jist of both of these scenarios is that you don’t need to change who you are, you need to change what you are doing. If you start each therapy session with “I don’t know what’s wrong with me” and you never change the things that keep you feeling inauthentic, then your therapist can’t help you. Still don’t get what I mean? Ok one last example for the road.

You have dated and dated and dated and can’t find the one. Maybe he is stuck in a tree somewhere, I don’t know. You come in and want your therapist to “fix” you to make you more desirable to the men you want. As a therapist, I would start with “who do you want to be” and then get you to live like her first. You will probably say you want to be a confident baddie with a banging body and a high paying job. Everyone says that but what they really want is to feel confident in themselves and feel good about who they are as people. Those two things are not the same. I am not going to prescribe for you to get a BBL and Steve Harvey’s next book on how to think like a man does. Instead, we are going to define what parts of your body you already like and highlight those with a wardrobe that matches the way you want to present yourself. Then we will look at your career goals and evaluate where you can move next that fulfills your soul and your bank account by utilizing your unique set of skills and talents. Lastly, we will look at the kind of men you have dated in the past, draw parallels between them and then banish them from your dating diet. That was who the old you thought was a good partner. The new you understands who she is and what she brings to the table due to her new confidence so her choices in men have changed. You like to volunteer with the elderly now and you want someone to come along with you to the nursing home instead of the club. You want a partner who can read a book with you since you returned to your childhood hobby that made you happy. Your new job has you traveling and you need a secure man who is not pressed to hound you night and day about where you are. No one fixed you or made you more desirable to men. Instead we introduced you to you and made you more desirable to yourself.

Change what you are doing and change your life. The next time you say I know what I need to do but I don’t know where to start, just do the opposite thing of what you have tried over and over and see if that works.