Have you ever wished you were totally free? Free from feeling judged, free from all your fears, free from not being who you truly are, free from others expectation of you, free to live the life that you ACTUALLY desire? If so, you’re not alone. I’m learning that living a life of freedom starts with breaking free from the things that are holding you back. So today, I’m breaking down how to live a life that makes you feel free.
1. Create Your Own Vision
Too often we go through life trying to achieve the same dream that’s been sold to us and reinforced by society since birth. You know, the one that says you need the big fancy home, luxury cars, fancy titles, the perfect husband and the kids to match in order to be happy and be successful. The irony is that the pressure to achieve other people’s dreams usually ends up being what stresses us out the most.
If I take myself for example, these same pressures are precisely what made me feel trapped in the life I was living and made me realize it wasn’t too late to make a change and that I needed to. If you want to start a business, do it. If you want to write and travel the world, do it. If you don’t want to have kids, stick to it. If you want to be a mom with a professional career, go for it. If you want to be a stay at home mom, do that too. My point is that you need to have your own vision for what you desire for your life. This way you can better focus your efforts and resources towards achieving that vision rather than someone else’s.
2. Stop Caring About What Others Think
Caring about what other people think is a mental prison and will surely prevent you from living your best life and feeling free. Often it is because we want to be liked and accepted, but if you have to be someone other than who you really are in order to be liked and accepted, it’s a wasted effort. I personally struggled with this a lot both when contemplating divorce and not practicing law. It was extremely hard.
I was scared to be judged as a failure if I didn’t stay committed to these milestones that we’re all expected to accomplish at some point in our lives in terms of marriage and professional success. But what I realized and you should too, is that your happiness and freedom depends on you, and you have to honor that person 100% of the time. Those that still stick around irrespective of what you choose to do with your life are the ones you really want to focus on and keep around – not the judgemental ones.
3. Identify What’s Been Holding You Back
This is where you have to get real AF if you truly want to be free. The first step to any change is awareness. Looking in the mirror is one of the hardest things for any human to do, myself included, but it’s necessary. You need to become aware that there’s a gap between where you are now and where you’d like to be and be willing to pick up the pieces and start over.
For me, it boiled down to 3 things that were getting in my way: 1) Trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations of me; 2) fear of failure and 3) unresolved trauma about my dad that wreaked havoc on all my romantic relationships. So you have to first get real and do the inner work to heal from your past and overcome the emotional roadblocks getting in the way. Then ask yourself, “If I could start my life over, who would I be? What would I be doing? What would my life look like?” then go for it.
4. Love & Accept Yourself
If you don’t love and accept all of who you are, you will not set yourself free, so you have to find ways to begin working with all the things that make you who you are. As a matter of fact, the world needs the real you to please stand up. I had a hard time understanding what I had to offer because I always defined myself by my career accomplishments.
I felt that all I had to give the world was something having to do with what I was trained in professionally and intellectually. I never honored or acknowledged what came from my creative mind, my spirited personality, my humor and just my heart – the real magic that made me who I was. There is peace in being free to be yourself and I am finally starting to own that. You have to accept yourself so you can enjoy the peace of being yourself and freedom that comes from being you.
5. Take Risks
If freedom is what you want, you are going to have to take risks. You have to let your curiosity be bigger than your fears so you can open your mind to the world of possibilities to live the extraordinary life you crave. You won’t accomplish anything great in life if you don’t step outside of your comfort zone. That is truly where the growth and magic happens.
My life felt far from extraordinary at the end of 2019 and I just couldn’t continue on the path I was on. I knew little by little I had to shake things up by doing things that I had not done before and that made me uncomfortable. Just writing for the Sandra’s Diary blog and sharing so much more of myself and my life/background is terrifying for me. But I know that by sharing I have the ability to make an impact and inspire someone else. It also helps me build new business related skills for my entrepreneurial goals and helps me overcome my fears of living my life out loud, since I have always been way more comfortable just being in the background. So take the first scary step and keep going no matter how uncomfortable it makes you.
6. Just Say No
I never realized how important saying NO was until I committed to my healing and self-improvement. Saying NO is perhaps one of the most liberating things you can do. Time is something we don’t have a lot of and can’t get back. If something doesn’t sit well with your spirit, just say NO.
If it requires too much of your time and mental energy and only going to stress you out, just say NO. You are the CEO of your life and no one else has to deal with the consequences of your choices but you. Be firm in what you want to do and follow your heart and instincts. You don’t have to be the ring leader in everyone’s circus so always choose to do you.
7. Dispel Limiting Beliefs
If you tell yourself you can’t do something, guess what? You’re probably right. So you really are going to have to silence the inner critic and any excuses you tell yourself as to why can’t upgrade your life and be free. I understand what it feels like to have big dreams that scare the shit out of you. I honestly have them every day.
But I’m a firm believer that when something gets placed on your spirit about your life, it was meant for you. If it came to you, that means you are the one for the job that will make it happen. So whatever it is that you want to do, if it is in your heart, you just need to take action and don’t worry about every single detail for it to come together. The universe will align what you need once you start taking action. Don’t let those thoughts about lack of time, lack of money, or lack of anything for that matter keep you from your destiny and being free.
8. Be More Carefree
Never take life too seriously. Let the child within you loose once in a while and ignore the etiquette forced upon all of us. It’s okay to be quirky and unique. It’s okay to act on any impulsive thoughts that will bring you fun and make you feel more free. Throw yourself into exciting activities to encourage carefree thinking and see there’s no harm in not controlling the result.
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