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Steps to Finding Yourself, Your Confidence, & Your Purpose - Part 2

 

Welcome back!  How'd it go in doing that bit of self-exploration last week?  I hope it gave you some insight about yourself.  Now we'll use that to draw from, to begin discovering the barriers to living out your values and what your next steps are.


Step #3:  Discern the Barriers

Now that you've discovered your values and determined what's important to you and why, it's time to take a hard look at yourself and discern your barriers.  These are often barriers that you've put up because of fear of failure, fear of rejection, or fear of being hurt.  But in order to find your confidence, you need to confront the barriers and knock them down one by one.  Take your time and be honest.

So let's revisit the list.

  • Family Relationships - What has stopped you or currently stops you from having the type of family relationships you really want?  How have you contributed to these barriers?  
  • Marriage/Intimate Relationships - What issues are you facing in your marriage or intimate relationship?  Has communication dwindled?  Is the spark gone?  Have you recently become empty-nesters and aren't sure what to do?  Do you not even recognize your spouse/partner anymore?  How have you contributed to these barriers?  
  • Parenting - Where do you feel you are failing as a parent?  What are your biggest parenting struggles?  How have you contributed to these problems?
  • Friendships/Social Relationships - Are your friendships stagnant?  Or worse - non-existent?  Are you afraid to get too close because you might get hurt?  Do you push people away?  Do you reach out to check on your friends, or wait until they call you?  How have you contributed to the barriers in your friendships?
  • Work/Career/Education - Are you a workaholic and your relationships are suffering?  Are you in a season of your life, in which you have to devote time to your career?  Or are you so focused on everything else in your personal life, that your work is suffering?  Does your work stress you out to the point that your health suffers?  Does school take most of your time?  Or are you falling behind in school due to focusing too much time on other activities?  How do you contribute to the barriers with your work/career or education?
  • Recreation/Relaxation/Free Time - Do you have a hard time slowing down to relax?  Or do you find that you spend too much time relaxing, and it's affecting your relationships or your work?  How have you contributed to the barriers in your recreation/relaxation time?
  • Spirituality - What stops you from pursuing your spirituality like you wish?  What other activities or habits pull you away from this?  How have you contributed to the barrier in strengthening your spirituality?
  • Community/Citizenship - Are there community activities you want to be involved in?  What has stopped you from joining community groups or taking community classes?  How have you contributed to these barriers?
  • Physical Health & Well-Being - Have you let your physical health go and now the effects are catching up with you?  Do you get tired or out of breath easily?  Is it hard to be active with you children or grandchildren?  Has your weight crept up on you over the last few years?  Are you wondering who the person in the mirror is?  How have you contributed to these problems?
Once you've discerned the barriers and taken an honest look at your role in the building up and maintaining of those barriers, you re in a position to determine what steps you need to take to make the changes that will lead you closer to living a life that matches your values.  The next steps are the hard part, because it requires you to change your behaviors.  Change is hard.  But there's no way to get to where you want to be if you keep doing things the same way you've been doing them.  I mean, how's that been working for you so far?  So are you ready to start making a change?

Step #4: Decide the Next Steps

  • Family Relationships - Do you feel that you are giving enough time, effort, and energy to cultivating these relationships?  If not, what can you do differently to make things better?  What could you do differently to get closer to your ideal family relationships?  What are you willing to commit to doing, to bring your family closer?
  • Marriage/Intimate Relationships - Do you feel that you are giving enough time, effort, and energy to growing and strengthening this relationship?  If not, what can you do differently to make the relationship better?  What could you do differently to get closer to your ideal marriage or intimate relationship?  What are you willing to commit to doing?
  • Parenting - If you're a parent, do you feel that you are giving enough time, effort, and energy to building the relationship/s with your child/ren?  If not, what can you do differently to make the relationship better?  What needs to change to bring things closer to your ideal parent/child relationship?  What are you willing to commit to doing?
  • Friendships/Social Relationships - Do you feel that you are giving enough time, effort, and energy to starting or maintaining friendships or social relationships?  If not, what can you do differently to improve your friendships?  What could make your friendships better?  What kind of time can you carve out to make this happen?  What needs to change to grow your friendships?  What are you willing to commit to doing?
  • Work/Career/Education - Do you feel that you are giving enough time, effort, and energy to your professional role?  Or are you realizing that you are giving too much time to your professional role and other important areas of your life are suffering?  What do you need to change in order to get your priorities in order?  What are you willing to commit to doing to create better work/life balance?  
  • Recreation/Relaxation/Free Time - Do you feel that you are giving enough time, effort, and energy to your recreation and relaxation time?  Do you set aside time for self-care?  Or do you find it difficult to relax?  What things need to change in order for you comfortably enjoy recreation and relaxation?  What are you willing to commit to doing to ensure that you have more time for relaxation?
  • Spirituality - Do you feel that you are giving enough time, effort, and energy to your spirituality?  Or is this not an important value to you?  Are you consistent about setting aside time to devote to your spirituality or spiritual practices?  What are you willing to commit to doing to ensure that you are as spiritually connected as you wish to be?
  • Community/Citizenship - Do you feel that you are giving enough time, effort, and energy to community activities?  Is social justice important to you?  Do you want to be more involved?  If not, what can you do or change in order to make that happen?  What are you willing to commit to doing or changing, in order to be more community involved?
  • Physical Health & Well-Being - Do you feel that you are giving enough time, effort, and energy to your health and well-being?  If not, what can you do differently to improve your health?  Do you need to be more active or have a better diet?  What are you willing to commit to doing or changing, in order to improve your physical health and well-being?
Maybe you just want to tackle one area at a time, or maybe you're not even sure how to start.  That's normal.  Making big life changes is hard and can be overwhelming.  It requires you to make a decision that you want to do things differently.  Are you ready?  Once you take these steps, you can start developing your self-confidence.  Why?  Because you will now know who you are and what you're about.  Defining values is the key to finding yourself and working toward self confidence.

Next week, we'll look at how to build your self-confidence, based on the self-discovery you've done over the past two weeks.  And once you develop you confidence, you'll be well on your way to finding and following your purpose.

If you need further help in taking the next steps, I am happy to help you.  I can help you break things into smaller, more manageable pieces.  I can help you uncover some of the reasons for the barriers.  The barriers often come from some childhood or even current trauma or negative experiences.  I can help you work through those areas.  

Instagram - @brittaniedmillslmft
Phone - (925) 335-6122
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