8 Tips for Reinventing yourself After a Breakup

You are sad, broken hearted, and your life has been radically altered. The person you have been spending the most time with is no longer a part of your life. All the rituals you had and the everyday exchanges that gave you joy are gone, as is the dream of what you hoped to create together. Every relationship we start has the potential of breaking up and we all hope that we will never see the day. Even if the breakup is desired, the effects can still be challenging to deal with and may leave you wondering who you are. Reinventing yourself after a breakup is a natural next-step after this confusion.

No matter how independent we are, relationships shape us. We emerge different than we were when we began. Some of who we have become we may love, some of who we have become may seem like a sacrifice that was not worth it, and some of who we have become may feel like it died with the end of the relationship. Sometimes who we have become is so far from who we want to be that we feel like we need to start from scratch. The question is, how do we reinvent ourselves after a breakup?

8 Tips For Reinventing Yourself After A Breakup

1. Let go of loose ends: It can be tempting to hold onto memories, both large and small. Items that represented your love are often found in your environment. Plans you held together can still be floating through your mind. The more that you can clear things out and open the door to new things the faster you will be able to discover the new you and create the new life that you are craving.




2. Be frivolous and have fun: Nothing looks better on you than laughter and happiness. The sadness of your breakup can weigh you down. The easiest way to counteract this heaviness is to make it a point to have fun. Try doing something that you have always wanted to do, but didn’t because you convinced yourself it was not practical or it was too frivolous. Create silly moments of novelty. Building moments of happiness and fun into your life will help you feel better about yourself and more creative as you consider redefining your life in general.




3. Pay attention to how you look: You might be a meticulous dresser or you might throw on the first thing you lay hands on in your dark closet. We all have a certain part of our identity that is tied to our appearance, whatever that appearance might be. When we’re uncertain about other parts of our identity, like after a breakup, it’s easy to be shaken out of our usual appearance identity. Exercising choice by pushing yourself to put effort into how you look will help you reconnect with yourself and seize a basic and fun step in reinventing yourself. Looking good for you (not anyone else) is healthy and helpful at any point in time.




4. Pay attention to how you feel: I am not talking about the sadness that you feel as a result of your break up. I am talking about the things, little and big, that put a smile on your face or make you feel good inside. If you want to create a new version of you that you like even more than the current model, you want to start to pay attention to what you like and what you don’t. The easiest way to do this is to pay attention to how you feel when you are doing things. If you are not feeling good, you might want to consider letting go of that activity and beginning to do things differently.




5. Spend time with people who love the real you: Nothing helps you move on and feel strong enough to try new things like being seen by people who really get you and love you as you are. Take some time to recharge your batteries by surrounding yourself with people who truly appreciate you for all of who you are. Even better if these people are so supportive that they will also embrace the changes that you are planning to make!




6. Spend time with yourself: Alone time is essential to making sure that you are connected with yourself and in touch with your emotions. Moving on after a breakup is not so much about keeping on the go as it is about a healthy balance of activity and introspection. Give yourself the time you need to just be, feel your feelings, and imagine into your wide-open future.




7. Rekindle dreams: When we are in a relationship, it begins to shape who we are. Sometimes dreams we had as a single person get put to the side because they do not fit well into a relationship. Now is a great time to bring these dreams to the forefront yet again, and to create some new dreams!




8. Don’t look back: After the grieving process is over and you have mourned what has been lost, there is little use going down memory lane. If you find yourself replaying relationship events, torturing yourself with “the good times,” or mulling over what you might have done differently, try instead to do one of the things on this list. The new you is waiting for you in the future, not in the past. The more you can embrace the potential of the future, the easier it will be to reinvent yourself.

Whether you’re reinventing yourself after a breakup or just because you feel it’s time for a change, try these resources for reinventing yourself.

How to Improve Personal Power in 8 Steps

Our personal power is the key to our wellbeing and personal effectiveness. Personal power is the empowerment of the true self that exists in all of us. It provides us with strength, courage, and compassion throughout all life’s ups and downs. By learning how to improve personal power, we facilitate this life long pursuit of empowerment that encompasses every area of our life.

As you learn how to improve personal power, it is important to differentiate between true power and ego inflation. If I did a good job, and it makes my ego feel good, I might feel powerful. If I am praised, and if makes my ego feel good, I might feel powerful. While these things might help us feel powerful, real personal power comes from internal, not external, motivations. True personal power makes our ego’s grasps at power look like what they are –feeble. Below are 8 steps you can take to improve your personal power. The kind you really want — the real kind.

HOW TO IMPROVE PERSONAL POWER IN 8 STEPS

1. Learn what is in your heart: We are bold in our actions when we are connected with the trough of our heart. The word courage –a form of personal power — is formed from the Latin word cor or heart. When we are aware of the contents of our heart and we know its truth, we are more powerful than we previously might have imagined. Think of the powerful rebellion of Ghandi. When we use our heart as our guide, we become clearer and more resolute. Our confidence is no longer the confidence of superiority but the confidence of devotion.

2. Love and Acceptance of who you are at your core: You are completely perfect and infinitely flawed. Learning to truly love and accept yourself, while still holding yourself accountable for your actions, is a powerful skill that helps you maintain perspective, even as you are being tested and stretched by life’s circumstances. When you find a part of yourself that you are having a difficult time accepting, try asking yourself how this part of you is productive or helpful. Learn to see that there is always a flip side and that, often, negativity or positivity is just a matter of use of that part of yourself, rather than an inherent goodness or badness.

3. The recognition that you have the power to change: A lot of people believe that they have the power to change over the course of their lives, but don’t give themselves the power to change in the moment. You do not need to hold onto something that does not serve you any longer than you want to. Let yourself be at choice in each moment as much as you possibly can. When we truly recognize our choice in each moment is when we truly feel our personal power. Click here to read more on embracing your power of choice and how to change your life when you feel stuck.

4. Take action: When we take actions to create positive outcomes in our lives, we feel more powerful. When you see an opportunity to move things forward, seize the moment. This can be as simple as picking up some trash off the ground or saying something kind to a stranger. It is also important to take action to put boundaries in place for yourself and to give clear feedback to others when things are not going well.

5. You are instrumental in shaping events: Your love, kindness, care, and compassion can sculpt any moment. You have the ability to shift the tide when you see things moving in an unpleasant direction, or add more to things moving in a positive direction. Begin to recognize your contributions to the unfolding of all the events that you experience and you will unlock a giant piece of your personal power.

6. Work with the pain: As much as we want life to be pain free, it is not. The teaching is in the pain. This does not mean you should become obsessed with focusing on the pain of life, but pain does serves as a cue that we are going in the wrong direction or that we are not quite on track. Next time you are feeling this challenge let it remind you to refocus on what it is that you are trying to create.

7. Be with discomfort: Another teaching that helps us step into our personal power is discomfort. Trying to push away all the hard and uncomfortable things in life does not work. When things are hard, it is sometimes necessary to be willing to just let it be hard. Have your anger. Have your sadness. And THEN, move on. Difficult emotions will pass on their own, if we do not hold onto them.

8. Celebrate: Celebrate yourself. Celebrate others. Celebrate your life. Gratitude for all that we have is critical to feeling empowered. When we look at our life or ourselves and see that our efforts have yielded more love, more happiness, more abundance, and we take time to acknowledge these successes, we naturally feel more powerful and more right in our own skin. Find ways to acknowledge you for all of your efforts and gain even more personal power.

Create Self-Improvement & Personal Growth through Self-Respect

The most important part of any self-improvement plan is a healthy dose of respect. Very often, I approach this teaching through a discussion of self-love. I talk about how important it is that we love and care for ourselves in a deep way. However, I am going to focus this discussion through the lens of respect.

Respect is a deep acknowledgement and honoring of the totality of who we are. It is a critical component of self-love. Personal development work will not really begin to shift our life until we do the work with a fundamental respect for all of who we are, rather than a desire to fix, improve or change who we are.

Respect for ourselves keeps us on the path of doing our work and helps us to do it in a way that honors our deep nature.

It is too easy to approach personal development work with the mindset that something needs to be fixed. We might be left feeling this way because of the emotional pain or life event that motivated us to start this work. Along the way you will most definitely meet parts of yourself that you do not like and be tempted to go in directions that do not really serve the true you.
But what if instead we were to move forward on our personal development journey with the belief that the process of growth is an honoring of who we are and who we can become. Honoring who we are in every way implies a deep respect -deeper than perhaps you have ever known.

Respect is both respect for the process and respect for each and every aspect of who you are. Additionally, respect for ourselves translates into respect for others. As we learn to treat ourselves with respect we begin to see how we can do this for others.

Two of the central things that keeps us from growing and changing are the limitations and rules that we put on ourselves because of how we think that we should be. How we think we should be is without respect for who we truly are. It negates rather than strengthens. It distorts rather than clarifies.

Respect holds you and cares for you in the cauldron of transformation. The more you can respect yourself and your process, the more you will connect with your deeper nature and unfold into the totality of who you are, achieving a profound sense of fulfillment.

When we approach our work with respect, it brings strength and clarity. It helps us see where to work and where to yield to something greater than us. It makes our transformational process more gentle.

5 Myths About Life Purpose It’s Time to Let Go of

Day-in and day-out, I talk to people who want to find their life purpose.

I make a point to pay close attention to what my clients, associates and colleagues say as they describe the purpose-driven life they seek to live. As I see it, my job is not simply to respond to what I hear, but rather to figure out how I can help those around me get what they really need to feel happier, healthier and more successful.

When people talk about finding their purpose they often also talk about identifying their passion. They want to have a sense of meaning in their life. They want to make a contribution.

I plan to get into great detail on what life purpose is REALLY all about and how to FULLY LIVE a purpose-driven life in my upcoming Morning Mindset series. So, if you’re in the midst of finding your life purpose, this series is for you! Feel free to sign up here and I will contact you as soon as it’s ready to go!

5 Myths About Life Purpose That It’s Time To Let Go Of

Myth #1 Your Life Purpose is Your Vocation

This is one of the mistaken ideas that I tackle first when I talk to someone who wants to find their life purpose. Why is this myth about life purpose so pervasive? I think it’s because we live in an increasingly work-centric society that doesn’t teach us that there is a difference between our life purpose and our work. They are, in fact, two totally distinct things.

Truth be told, it’s absolutely possible to integrate your life purpose into your work. HOWEVER, when people feel stuck and struggle to identify their purpose it’s often because they’ve come to think of their career as the place in which they’ll find their purpose. Or, it’s the reverse. In this scenario, people try to find their life purpose through the process of developing their career and meet with tremendous frustration. Either way it just does not work.

Solution #1: Ask yourself: “Am I trying to trying to figure out my life purpose or my next career move?” Allow yourself the space to see your life purpose and your career as separate things.

Myth #2 Your Life Purpose Can Only Be One Thing

Because people often conflate their career with their life purpose, they often think that their purpose is one specific thing.

As kids, when we’re asked what we want to be when we grow up, we tend to say things like: “I want to be a fireman” or “I want to be a ballerina.” As adults, when we think about life-purpose, we mistakenly hyper-focus on a single outcome the same way we did when we were young. But this is not how things really work. Instead, once you begin to feel into what a purpose-driven life might look like, a number of options often emerge and many of them will be equally satisfying.

Solution #2 Don’t try and narrow things down too soon. Ask yourself why an idea appeals to you rather than if it’s the right idea or not.

Myth #3 You Must Find Your Life Purpose Before You Start Living It

Our life purpose is intimately connected to what we love most. This means that when we start doing what we love we take our first steps along the path towards our purpose. This also means that we don’t need to wait to live a purpose-driven life. All we need to do is to determine what we love and do it as often as possible.

Solution #3 Do what you love to do. Discover more things you love to do. And make time to reflect.

Myth #4 Only a Fortunate Few Live Their Life Purpose

This is a tricky myth. On the one hand, a fortunate few actually do have a career that successfully integrates their life purpose. On the other hand, I’m not sure if these people are particularly fortunate. It can be overwhelming to tie up your livelihood so closely to your passion.

When we recognize that our life purpose is a combination of what we most care about, what we love to do, and what we value, it becomes clear that we always have the option to live our life purpose. It’s not necessary to fit our purpose into our career. Rather, it’s necessary that we fit our purpose into our lives.

Solution  #4 Figure out what you care most about, what you love most to do, and what you value the most and proceed from there.

Myth #5 You Should Be Able to Figure It Out On Your Own

It seems like common sense that WE ALONE should be able to figure out our life purpose. Right? It’s ours after all.

But, sometimes we have a difficult time seeing it BECAUSE it’s so closely connected to who we are. When people come to me looking to find their life purpose, I often give them a series of exercises. I ask them to answer a set of questions and I tell them not to spend much time worrying about the answers. Instead, I prompt them to write out the first thing that comes to their mind and send me what they wrote. When I reflect back my synthesis of my clients answers, a funny thing happens. More often than not clients have an Eureka moment where they finally see what their purpose is all about.

Solution #5 Find the support you need! Sometimes you need outside eyes to see to help you see within yourself.

So, if you’ve been coming up empty as you look for your life purpose, it’s time to de-mystify your thinking and try on these solutions. Most important, though, is to start with what you LOVE.

16 Things You Shouldn’t Have to Justify to Anyone Else

Will the people in your life always support your decisions? No, they won’t. But you need to remember that life is not about justifying yourself; it’s about creating yourself. Your life is yours alone. Others can try to persuade you, but they can’t decide for you. They can walk with you, but not in your shoes. So make sure the path you decide to walk aligns with your own intuition and desires, and don’t be scared to walk alone and pave your own path when you know it’s the right thing to do.

Make this your lifelong motto: “I respectfully do not care.” Say it to anyone who passes judgment on something you strongly believe in or something that makes you who you are. People will inevitable judge you at some point anyway, and that’s OK. You affected their life; don’t let them affect yours.

And when you need a quick reminder or a dose of encouragement, refer to this list of things you shouldn’t have to justify to anyone else:

Why you’re putting yourself first. – During a 2011 television interview, Michelle Obama was asked if she thought it was at all selfish that she has openly admitted to making herself her first priority, to which the First Lady replied, “No, not at all. It’s practical…. a lot of times we just slip pretty low on our own priority list because we’re so busy caring for everyone else. And one of the things that I want to model for my children is investing in themselves as much as they invest in others.” Spot on advice if you ask me! There are only a few people in this world who will stay 100% true to you, and YOU should be one of them. Prioritize your own needs into your daily to-do’s.

• The need to express your emotions. – Never apologize for being sensitive or emotional. There’s no reason to be ashamed for feeling something or acting out on it if it’s real to you. It’s a sign that you have a big heart, and that you aren’t afraid to let others know it. Showing your emotions is a sign of human strength. The people who judge you for being human, and not being modest, emotionless, and “in line,” are the ones who need to apologize.
• Your weirdness. – Where’s your will to be weird? Where’s your resolution to be real? Truth be told, it’s not weird to be weird. Everybody is weird in some way. You must celebrate your individuality and not be embarrassed of it. If you’re lucky enough to have something that makes you different from everybody else, don’t be ashamed and don’t hide it. (Read The Gifts of Imperfection.)
• Being unapologetically YOU. – We are never more alive than when we are being brave, and we can’t be brave unless we are willing to take off our masks and be ourselves. It’s about finding the courage to be real. When perfectionism of any kind is driving us, shame is always riding shotgun and fear is the backseat driver. Don’t do this to yourself. Let go of trying to be “perfect” in the eyes of others, and just be who you are.
• Not taking things personally. – When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless worrying and suffering. Some people may tell you it’s best to stand up for yourself and fight back, but the best offense is always a good defense. Defend yourself from others by not taking the things they say and do personally. Truth be told, if you take everything personally, you will remain offended for the rest of your life. What other people do is because of them, not you. Period.
• Deciding to forgive. – Grudges are for those who insist that they are owed something. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is for those who are confident enough to stand on their own two legs and move forward. In order to move forward, you must know why you felt the way you did, and why you no longer need to feel that way. It’s about accepting the past completely, letting it be, and lifting your spirit with good intentions. Nothing empowers your ability to heal and grow as much as your love and forgiveness.
• Who you choose to spend your time with. – In the end, the best investment of your limited time on Earth will be to spend it with people you love. Although it’s perhaps conceivable that you may lie on your deathbed someday regretting that you didn’t work harder and check every little thing off your to-do list, it’s doubtful that your work will be your biggest concern. What’s more likely, however, is that you will wish you could have one more romantic night with your spouse, another long, heartfelt talk with your sister, and one last good hard laugh with your best friend. Life is too short to be too busy for the people you love.
• Not perfectly measuring up to everyone else’s progress. – Don’t compare your progress in life with that of others. We all need our own time to travel our own distance. In fact, two of the most amazing couples I know didn’t meet each other until they were in their late 30’s. One of these couples just had their first child in their early 40’s. The lesson here is simple: Great things in life don’t happen when society tells you they’re supposed to happen – they happen when they’re meant to be. So remember, you don’t have to make excuses about why you aren’t married with children, or working a traditional 8-5 job, or making a certain amount of money, etc. Our lives are not all meant to be scripted the same exact way.
• Why you have failed, and why you aren’t scared to fail again. – Failure is the opportunity to begin again, smarter than before. Forget what others have told you. Fail often, fail fast, clean it up, learn from it, move on, and then repeat. Just because things didn’t work out for you today, doesn’t mean there’s not something big in store for you tomorrow. Rest easy and get ready. Don’t waste your energy justifying yourself to the naysayers.
• The young-minded, foolish things you once did. – I don’t entirely approve of some of the things I have done in my life. But I am me. And I would not be me if I hadn’t learned along the way. The same is true for you. All wise old people were once young and foolish; that’s how they became wise. Don’t be ashamed of who you had to be to get to where you are today.
• Dressing down and not looking all fixed up every second. – Angel and I have helped thousands of coaching clients overcome self-esteem issues, and physical appearance almost always has something to do with it. As a client we coached this morning put it, “Whenever I leave the house looking anything less than airbrushed and fashionable and then run into someone I know, I tend to feel the need to apologize for not looking a certain way.” That’s ludicrous! You don’t have to apologize to someone else for not looking a certain way; you have to apologize to yourself for feeling like you had to in the first place.
• Your healthy eating habits. – Too often our culture associates healthy eating habits with fad diets and weight loss marketing schemes. But there’s also something called healthy eating as a means to actual good health, not weight loss, not some crazy diet, or anything else. Why do we need to stand up for ourselves when we choose to eat healthy? Because for some reason, people tend to be skeptical that a person would actually just want to treat their body right and not be perpetually concerned with their shape and size. Eat healthy because it’s good for your health. Ignore the critics.
• Working extra hard on your dreams. – When people try to inspire you, they’ll often tell you all kinds of sensible and heartfelt things like: “Follow your dreams. Listen to your heart. Find your inner voice and let it sing. Change the world. Make your mark. Embrace your challenges. Keep dreaming big. Dream some more. In fact, dream and don’t stop dreaming until all of your dreams come true.” And all of this is fine and dandy, but the problem is a lot of people dream… and that’s all they do. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really remarkable, passionate, and powerful people, are busy doing something with their dreams. Be one of them.
• Choosing to smile through your struggles. – Not every day will be good, but there will be something good about every day. Notice it. Ignore the negativity around you. None of us know the exact paths we will travel or the trials that will come our way. The secret is to find joy in the journey. The more obstacles you overcome, the stronger you become. Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving; you just get stronger and more resilient. Smiling and appreciating each step you take is the smartest choice. Your positivity will help you realize that sometimes the bad things that happen in your life put you on a direct path to the best possible things that could ever happen to you.
• The things you hope for. – They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. I couldn’t agree more. We all do a lot of talking about the importance of the first two, but don’t forget to nurture your hope too. And remember, hope isn’t the belief that life will always give you what you want; it’s the belief that life will gradually reveal what’s right.
• Why you feel completely justified already. – You don’t need a standing ovation or a bestseller or a promotion or a million bucks. You are enough right now. You have nothing to justify. Care less about who you are to others and more about who you are to yourself. You will have less heartaches and disappointments the minute you stop seeking from others the justification only YOU can give yourself.

Bottom line: Constantly trying to justify yourself to everyone else forces you to miss out on the beauty of simply being yourself, with your own unique ideas, desires, and life experiences. If you are led through life only doing and being what you’ve come to believe is expected of you, then, in a way, you cease to live… you merely exist.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…

Do more than just exist! We all exist. The question is: Do you live?

reblogged from www.marcandangel.com

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