With Christmas coming up, I know how this can bring up feelings of dread and despair if you’ve gone through heartbreak. Yes, it’s supposed to be a happy time, but it can also be hugely triggering.
On the flip side though, it’s also an amazing time to think about what you want for the next year. I know it’s not easy, but looking forward instead of remaining in stagnancy is so crucial to healing and setting some momentum.
I’m not really about New Year’s Resolutions, I’m more of an intentions kinda girl. These aren’t so ‘goal’ orientated and just feel more fun, less dogmatic and less overwhelming.
When it comes to intentions, the idea of reinvention has been on my mind a great deal recently so I thought it might be useful to talk about some ways that you can use your heartbreak as rocket fuel for your reinvention and why right now, before the New Year is the perfect time to kick start these into action!
1) Be grateful every single day
As one of my faves Tony Robbins says “I believe the ultimate path to enlightenment is the cultivation of gratitude. When you're grateful, fear disappears. When you're grateful lack disappears.”
I know there’s a ton out there about gratitude and it can seem somewhat fluffy and surface level, but I promise you, when you get into the mindset of having some sort of gratitude practice on the daily, your life will change in profound ways.
It isn’t just about being grateful for people and possessions, it’s being grateful for your setbacks and your heartbreaks, what they've taught you and how they've spurred you to use them as fuel instead of sitting in despair. It's about being grateful for embracing how much light your pain will bring (because it will if you’re committed for it to).
2) Call back in the person you were at your best
Reinvention can also be creating a reunion with your core, best self. Think back to a time in your life when you feel you were at your best. When you felt unstoppable! What were you doing? How did you spend your time? What boundaries did you have in place?
For me, my absolute best self was when I was in my late teens and early 20’s. Not from a maturity perspective (ha, hell no!) but the way I approached life and the things I was engaging in. I was prepared to ‘be a beginner’ and that brought me so much inner freedom. It was when I felt the most ‘me’.
So part of my own reinvention for the next year is bringing those elements back in, not being afraid to be a beginner and merging those parts of my best and most vibrant younger self with the woman I am today.
3) Don’t sit in your setbacks but USE them
There's a lot of people talking about their setbacks - I have on here plenty of times. And whilst I know talking about our struggles makes us feel less alone, more connected and helps create empathy, I also know that setbacks, failure or the feeling of failure, completely and utterly sucks. Plus, talking about it too much can keep us stuck in victim mode and it can gradually become part of our identity. So instead of bathing in your setbacks and failures, use them as a match to light the fire of your reinvention.
Learn from them and actually do something different to make sure you don’t get the same result again.
4) Know that forgiveness is your ticket to happiness
Forgive and let go. Others and yourself. If someone has done you wrong, it isn’t letting them off the hook, it’s letting yourself and your emotional freedom off the hook. Leaving more room to live the life you truly want and deserve.
5) Learn something new
It’s been proven that learning something new creates new neural pathways in the brain. (Honestly, it's fascinating!) This will help to form new memories, new habits and encourages your brain to operate in a completely different way - which is often what’s needed when you’re in a place of stagnancy.
If you don’t know where to start, write down 50 things you’d be curious to try and then pick something you feel excited about and just give it a go!
6) Stick to your own path
I advise people I coach to have an open mind about many things, but when it comes to your overall vision for yourself and your life, something I’ve learnt is that it pays dividends to stick to your own path. Enforce a productive kind of tunnel vision. Yes, you can get inspired by others but there’s a fine line between inspiration and then comparison, jealousy and the type of influence that knocks you off-course.
The idea isn’t to become a copy of someone else, it’s to become the best version of you in all your unique glory! The less you look to others around you or on social media to give you permission and external confidence and instead, having full faith in your own path, the more you start to truly live and flourish with freedom.
7) Don’t care what others think but care about what matters
Similar to 6, staying on your own path is also about being your own cheerleader and not caring what other people think. My god I wish I’d have learnt this one sooner. There is nothing more physically, emotionally and mentally stifling than waiting for someone else to tell you you’re good enough to start that project, end that relationship that’s toxic or just not right, or do that crazy thing that your heart is screaming for.
You don’t have anything to prove to anyone.
I have seriously paid the price for this on all levels and it’s taken a lot of work to reach a point where now I don’t seek or wait for permission from anyone.
However, I care where it matters. I request and take people’s perspectives and suggestions on-board and am always grateful for that. I just choose wisely who I go to and whose opinions I allow in.
This one isn’t about being reckless and disregarding everything and everyone. It’s about caring so much about what you want that you put 100% love and thought into it. It’s about caring for yourself throughout that and having ultimate respect, compassion and fire for yourself and the process regardless of the outcome. And it’s about caring for the people around you who really matter.
When it comes to love too, I know how easy it is to get caught up in thinking we need to change in order for someone to like us. My best piece of advice from experience is that changing to accommodate others is a fast track to anxiety overload because it isn’t sustainable.
Here’s what you do - you change for yourself.
This will probably involve looking at your own stuff and facing that head-on instead of hoping someone else will take it all away. It isn’t easy and will take time and work. But I assure you once you commit to having ultimate respect, love and faith in yourself and who you are (despite the blips that life throws at you along the way), you will attract the right people who honour that and who probably think the same about themselves too. E.g. the perfect recipe for a healthy relationship. Like attracts like after all.
8) Try a new look
Perhaps a lot fluffier than the other ones, but reinvention means evolvement and let’s be real, it’s amazing how better fitting clothes, a new shade of lippie or a fresh hair style can help you step into the ‘you’ you want to become!
9) Your health is your emotional, mental and financial wealth
Focus on this first and everything will follow.
10) Have faith that even after heartbreak, you can still find love again
I’ve experienced it and have helped countless clients who have proved this time and time again. It sounds corny but once you learn to fall in love with yourself and life again - using the art of reinvention to do so, love with someone else will come without painful effort and you don’t feel so dependent on a timeline.
Whilst you’re still hoping that finding love will fix everything, you're looking at something external as the source of your happiness and wholeness, and that makes you powerless. When you focus on yourself, you’re taking back you power in every way. You have control. The love will come, I assure you, and when it does it will be better than ever because YOU will feel better than ever!
So there you have it! I hope this helps you and as always, I'm sending you lots of love especially for the holiday week ahead.
If you’d like to reach out to work with me privately, you can do so on laurayatescoaching@gmail.com
Love,
Laura xx