It isn’t pretty — feeling weak and totally demoralized.
You’re in a critical situation where you no longer see hope or a way out.
You stare into space with vague dreams of retirement and future adventures while sitting in a haze of pharmaceutical drugs, TV, politics, religion and routine.
I lived this way at the young age of 17. I was married to a powerful man and had 3 children. At 19 my son was killed and then our home was burned to the ground.
As you lose yourself — years go by.
Miserable comes in many forms.
One is having constrained circumstances planned out for you on how to live, work and play. Years go by as you watch the envelope of opportunities you really wanted pass you by.
You can no longer see.
Many will reach this point — unless, you are consciously watching out for it.
After years in this stupor you wake up to — “What the F***?” — now there’s going to be all kinds of trauma — drama because you don’t know how to make change happen.
You didn’t practice this.
Who practices to go through failure?
I think you should.
Some wait a lifetime to have a defining moment. They wait and wait.
All the while you just know you could shine again — if only someone just gave you a chance.
Remember when you were young?
When your life was so full of infinite potential? Crazy ideas turned into stories of reality, each with its own special conclusion.
No matter the risk.
It’s because you felt Freedom. You always had wild seductive alternatives.
Can you stay in one place another 10 years denying your potential — all because you no longer think you can access your brilliance?
Depressing if you hunt Freedom.
If you decide on changing your life and circumstances, well, I think you should do it in a grand style.
You need to plan a Mission!
Here are the steps I took. Not once, but may times as I’ve reinvented my life throughout the years.
First Step:
You need to go covert.
I’ve learned it’s best not to stand up and announce all the change you’re planning — it will blow your whole mission. It always does.
When you first get started wasted memories and lost time are turning your guts inside out as the reality of the years of callused pain numb your thinking.
So, to begin, just start putting together a glimpse of what your revolutionary new reinvention will be.
Second Step:
Write, draw or collect pictures of what your Mission looks like
It’s best if you can take what I call a Monk Break to do this.
This is where you the start with your probable new plans and ideas.
At the same time, you write your own Constitution. This is the Foundation you will live by. This is like your Warrior Code for your new powerful beginning.
Create your plans based on your personality. The world cannot help but respond to such authenticity.
Your new Constitution renders everything else unimportant as you drive forward on a quest of epic proportion compared to how you have been living.
Third Step:
Start planning every move of what it will take to make each step doable.
Your bravery will help you escape the conformity of the sanitized mediocrity you’ve been living.
You need to stay stealth and not let others suck your power before you are ready.
And you can’t just dabble with Freedom — it’s all or nothing. Losing it will start to make you feel crazy.
Fourth Step:
Start executing on your plan.
Remember, we are creatures of habit. Practicing new ways to focus is important.
You could take up Kyudo — something that is totally out-of-the-box of how you live. Or, train for a marathon hike in the mountains — in nature. Anything that takes you away from normal is a must.
Start practicing change and reinventing yourself in baby steps around how you live and operate. If not, you’ll witness your own dissolution.
Your new evolution will feel like a slow tragedy. I know!
You are still not announcing yourself, but people start seeing changes.
It starts to look like you’re getting something new and powerful put together. These are landmark moments.
Fifth Step:
Remember, most people just like the idea of something — you decide to become one of the courageous and actually go do it.
As you practice change, you need to keep creating, it’s all about the change. Don’t waste your pain, use it to create new brilliance.
Slowly, start sharing time with other crazy imaginative passionate people — those driven souls who brave the complacent, celebrate risk and do not fear losing it all.
Because it’s not all about money.
Your new Freedom will be a delicious addiction. And your loved ones that felt abandoned will appreciate the new you that is emerging.
Sixth Step:
Do whatever you need to do to grow an unshakable conviction of who you are meant to be — everything else is secondary.
Know that you’ll always be on the path — until the end of your life. There is no failure, it’s just about learning. We all know that.
It’s the flow of Yin Yang — the Law of Nature.
What you do with your new Freedom is what will define you. Richness comes through the struggle. We all know that too.
But go a step further and dive deep into the depth of it all. This is true power!
Seventh Step:
Embrace your larger story as it begins to take shape. You are entering the Wisdom stage.
And it takes as long as it takes.
Your new story is about how people will know you and see you. Let the sweet sense of discovery show up.
Now, there’s one last important part to the Mission. And you need to make sure you do this. It’s a key point.
Start planning something special to benefit all of humanity after you are gone.
It might be writing a book, it could be producing a documentary on something massively important to you, it could be starting a school in another country to help teach others — you will come up with many ideas.
The main point is to find your “give back project” and leave it behind.
This in itself will guarantee that you’ll never again have a diluted boring life.
Originally published at Medium