New Phone, Who Dis?

You have a choice, every single day. Are you going to be happy? Or are you going to let the constant negativity and misery around you be your life? 

When it comes to self love and self discovery, a lot of the time people will fall off your radar. These people may be friends, family, someone you're interested in. If you find that your energy is vibrating much more positive into the universe while on this journey WITHOUT these people in your life, it's okay. Sometimes, you need to distance yourself to work on you and find your passion, your drive, yourself. This does not necessarily mean these people have been written off for good. 

Here's the deal: you are allowed to cut off anyone that makes you feel less than fantastic on the daily. If you're surrounded by constant negativity, constant misery it might be time to change some things. If you're constantly wondering if you're enough, if your presence is important to anyone - GET YOURSELF INTO A BETTER PLACE. If you find you are more exhausted as the days roll on, not excited about life or the things to come, that may be a big red flag to get yourself in a better routine, starting with cutting out the negative and miserable. 

Easier said than done, right? Right. So what the heck are you supposed to do?! 

Start small. 

With any change (saving money, losing weight, changing your lifestyle), you need to start small. STOP thinking you will be perfect every day going forward - you WILL burn out. You need to start small, and gradually build up the changes until it ultimately becomes the life you've dreamed of. For example, if you are trying to lose weight, DO NOT (speaking from personal experience and observations in other situations) hit the ground hard - you will fail. Instead, change one meal at a time, every week. First week: change breakfast. Second week: keep breakfast changes, add in lunch change. Third week: keep all changes from weeks 1 and 2, but add in some exercise. By the fourth week, you should be in a routine, and able to adjust your dinner to a healthier option while keeping all of the previous weeks' changes! 

The same ideal applies when it comes to your life. Are you finding that you wake up miserable? That you have minimal drive to get out of bed and go to work? That nothing really makes you happy deep down? 

Did you just answer yes to any of those? Time to get in gear. 

• Write down the top 10 things you want to achieve for the rest of the year. Can't think of 10? Grab 5. 
• Once you've written those down, analyze what it is going to take for you to achieve those goals. 
• Do you need to adjust your spending to save more money? Do you need to spruce up the resume for a new job? Do you need to start looking for a new place? Do you need to adjust your eating to lose the weight? 
• Be SPECIFIC. (for example: I want to save $40/week. I want to get 3 workouts in a week for the next 3 months.)
• Put a timeline on these goals
• How long do you want to give yourself to achieve these goals? A week? A month? A year? 
• KEEP IN MIND: not every day is going to be perfect. There will be road blocks. You can do this - just stay the course!!!!!
• Put these goals somewhere you will see them EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. 
• You need the daily reminder to keep going - ESPECIALLY when it's a harder day
• Cross off each goal as you achieve it
• Throw a mini dance party for yourself! Text your friends! Call your family. They may not understand the magnitude of your success, but YOU DO! 
• Heck, take yourself to dinner or enjoy a drink - celebrate yourself because you worked so hard to get where you are
• Wash, Rinse, Repeat - for every single goal you have. 

 
Which brings me to my next, unfortunate issue. 

You are going to be SO excited about hitting one of your goals - you're going to want to shout it from the rooftops, share it all over social media (it's just the world we live in). People are going to gossip, talk about it, mock you. They are going to make fun of your post and nit pick it with their friends.

DO NOT (are you listening to me?) under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES let this deter you from reaching every single one of your goals. 

Instead, rise above the negativity and hate. Also, unfriend these fools as soon as humanly possible. If the people you surround yourself with cannot clap for you and celebrate your success, then that's not the group you want to be spending time with. Trust me. Cut them off. Shut them down. I promise you will feel SO free. 

I had to do that myself. I had friends that, to my face, said they were rooting for me, wanted to see me succeed. Yet behind my back they were mocking every post I shared, every idea I had, and instead of being adult and talking to me about it to better understand what I was doing, they continued to talk about me behind my back. I have since removed those people from my life - because I don't need the dead weight stopping me from achieving my goals. Do I live life a little different than everyone else? Absolutely. I refuse to be part of the crowd. Did this scenario crush me? Probably almost as bad as my break up 6 years ago. I trusted these people, how could they do this to me? 

The answer, is quite simple.

How others act towards you is how they feel about themselves. What? Yes, you read that correctly. If they don't love themselves for who they are, embrace their flaws, and truly understand themselves, they project this negative, miserable energy onto everyone they meet. They try to feel better about themselves by mocking your success because they can't find any for themselves - BECAUSE they can't get out of their own way. This is in NO way a reflection of you - it's a reflection of them. So the next time you are faced with a situation like this, just walk away from them. You will make new friends - people who want to see you living your best life. Your energy will attract them. If it's family that's holding you back, stay patient with them. They will see the changes in you start to grow, and be enamored by your resilience. 

And if none of the above changes, they can kindly take a seat on the outside of your life and watch from a distance - if you still want them in your life at all. If not, cut the cord and move on. You don't need to be taking calls from your past because they're so miserable they can't see anything good in the world. "new phone who dis?" is the saying you need to keep in mind when your past calls. You are not the same person you were yesterday - own it, embrace it.

You need to live your best life for YOU. Not a significant other, not a friend, not a family member. FOR YOU. No one else is going to live your life for you. Stop comparing your life to others (still working on this myself, but holding myself accountable here...), stop worrying about what others think of you. You will be successful in this life if you believe in yourself. Remember: small steps produce big results. 

Write those goals down. Celebrate your wins. Cut off the dead weight in your life. And watch your life blossom. 

Choose happiness.