A Guide for Women Starting from Zero
Many books focus on women who are not just unsatisfied with their lives but are starting their journey of reinvention from a place of abundance. For example, a female corporate executive quits her seven-figure job and sells her multimillion-dollar home. She moves to her favourite destination to follow her dream of opening a bakery and making custom wedding cakes for the stars. That’s not a relatable story for most of us. While every woman goes through various stages of reinvention in their life, I want to focus here on women starting from zero – whatever ‘zero’ looks like to her. Just because you don't have the financial resources, personal support, or ability to overturn your life or career completely doesn't mean you should be stuck where you are until you win the lottery or find yourself in the perfect life situation.
Attributed to sixth-century Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu, the quote,
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,”
is still used today. You are probably familiar with it. You may even have this quote printed on a magnet stuck to your refrigerator door. I do. Life is an unpredictable journey. This is true for everyone.
Why Do You Need Change in Your Life?
Change is the basis for personal growth and transformation. It gives us the strength to drive forward when we don't want to or aren't confident that we can take the next step toward something new and uncertain. It allows you to break out of past constraints and into new opportunities. Do you feel unmotivated, unsatisfied, discontent, or discouraged with your current situation? Are you searching for a more meaningful personal or family life or a more fulfilling career? Just like the common saying,
"Admitting you have a problem is the first step to overcoming it,"
understanding the signs that indicate you may be ready to take the first step toward a new life is the first step on a life-changing journey.
Here are three ways to determine if it may be time for a change:
Describe What Success Means to You
What is your definition of a happy life? What does success mean to you? For every person, the answers will be different. Answering these questions is the first step toward reinvention.
Take time by yourself to think about them. What matters most to you? What have you dreamed about doing or being? Don’t limit your answer by saying,
“I don’t have the money to do that,” or “I have family commitments.”
Create a list of what a reinvented you look like.
Recognize Restlessness, Dissatisfaction, and Discontent
It’s usually easy to spot when we’re unhappy with a situation we find ourselves in, but it can be challenging to recognize when we are unsatisfied, discontent, or trapped. For example, when the excitement of a new relationship is gone, the dedication to your job is no longer there, or when you feel lasting tension and unease. You may think something in your life just needs to be corrected but you’re unsure exactly what it is.
Embrace the Power of Mindfulness
The Oxford Dictionary defines mindfulness as
“the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something" and "a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.”
Mindfulness or self-awareness is the basis of personal growth and transformation. It takes an awareness and acknowledgment of your current situation, previous experiences, strengths, weaknesses, limitations, and dreams. Everything – from your past and present – that makes you, you. Understanding and honestly acknowledging the whole of you, good and bad, enables you to break free from your current limitations and start a new journey to the life you want.
How to Overcome Your Limitations
Limitations, whether real or perceived, are temporary challenges to overcome. They hold us back mentally, emotionally, or physically from changing our lives and meeting our lofty goals.
You may feel stuck in a job with no hope for advancement or the ability to leave because of financial limitations. You may be unable to make your health and well-being a priority due to your 24/7 commitment to young children. The answer is not to throw away your commitments or limitations but to understand, acknowledge, and realign them to set you on the road to transformation.
Overcoming limitations means:
Acknowledging Fear While Embracing Change
We all like to live in our comfort zone. It’s comfortable and comforting. But living in our comfort zone means we stay stuck where we are. It doesn’t enable us to grow, progress, or evolve. The desire to reinvent even a tiny part of your life means overcoming your fear of change by tackling and mastering it. Being afraid is part of being human, but facing it head-on and overcoming it is an experience for development and self-improvement.
Forgiving Yourself and Embracing Past Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes. Some mistakes are minor. You get over them and move on. Other mistakes are significant and you live with them for years – reassessing wrong actions and decisions repeatedly. Holding onto these mistakes or bad decisions can have negative physical and mental consequences and prevent you from advancing toward your goals. Assess your past blunders, missteps, or miscalculations. Recognize what steps you should have taken instead. Forgive yourself for what is now in the past, and move forward. This is a new beginning.
Abandoning Harmful or Negative Relationships and Embracing Constructive and Uplifting Ones
Whether your goal is to reinvent elements of your personal or professional life, you must surround yourself with positive, encouraging, and uplifting relationships. Negative relationships undermine your motivation, sap your strength, and hold you back. Encouraging, optimistic, and constructive relationships will fuel your goals and desires.
Tips for Setting New Goals and Priorities – Hint: Set SMART Goals
Sometimes you may find yourself in a swirling cauldron of chaos. You often feel like you're simply treading water. Establishing well-defined and achievable goals (however small) with specific priorities and milestones that you are committed to following will start you on the road to a life of fulfillment where you accomplish your innermost goals and dreams. Three critical elements to set as priorities in your life that will help align you with your goals are:
Identify Your Passions
What energizes you? What actions, hobbies, career milestones, and other ambitions do you dream about and wish you could have as a prominent part of your life? Create a list of three to five passions and number them in order of importance, starting with 1. This is the first step to reawaken your passion for life.
Establish Well-Defined Goals
Once you’ve identified your true passions, it’s time to set well-defined, realistic, and achievable goals. Desmond Tutu, a South African Anglican bishop, anti-apartheid activist, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, once quoted an old African proverb,
“There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.”
That is the perfect analogy for how we must approach achieving our goals. Goals often feel so overwhelming that they will never become reality. But they will become a reality – when you are SMART. Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals for each passion will help you stay engaged, enthusiastic, and motivated.
S. Specific – Make sure your goals are clear, concise, and focused on a precise outcome. Unclear or unfocused goals make them easy to ignore or feel they are too obscure or confusing to achieve.
M. Measurable – To succeed, you must establish measurable milestones to use as markers. They help you assess your progress and gauge your success along the way to achieving your goals.
A. Achievable – Your goals should push you to achieve something greater than you think you can do, but it must be realistic and achievable. Keeping this in mind will help uncover potential obstacles and enable you to discover ways to eliminate the barriers to reaching your goals.
R. Relevant – Goals should align with your values and dreams for what you want to achieve – what you treasure most of all. If the goals don't align, they waste time, effort, and possibly money.
T. Time-Bound – Each goal requires a target date or deadline. It helps you apply the focus, discipline, and resources needed. A target date demonstrates that the goal you say is a priority truly is a priority. Be sure to make the date realistic so you don’t become discouraged by setting unrealistic expectations.
Make Self-Care a Priority
Whether you call it self-care, self-management, self-awareness, or self-nurturing, monitoring and caring for your mental, physical, and emotional health should be a priority. Common examples of self-care include regular exercise, meditation, remaining close to positivity-minded family members and friends, eating a diet that fuels energy and focus, sticking to a regular sleep schedule, and learning to say no to those people and things that distract you from your priorities. We all know this is easier said than done. Life happens, and the idea of placing ourselves first frequently gets pushed to the side. But making self-care a priority helps develop a healthy body, a focused mind, and the ability to manage the tensions and anxiety of your family life and career.
How to Develop Skills and Knowledge
We are constantly evolving personally and professionally as we travel down the road of life.
Sometimes, we drive slowly down that road, trying to avoid the potholes but making progress nonetheless. Sometimes it's sunny, life is good, and we're on cruise control, bebopping down the road. Occasionally, we get in an accident and the personal or professional cost can be high.
Whatever our situation at any given point, we are always evolving. Each experience, challenge, and obstacle teaches us something new. Sometimes, we feel like our life is happening to us rather than having the power to influence our lives, get ourselves out of our current circumstances, and chart our course to where we want to be. This is not true. You have the power and ability to chart your course, transform yourself, and become who you want to be by exploring new learning opportunities, seeking out networking and mentorship relationships, and being flexible in ways you have never done before.
Embrace Learning Opportunities
Learning something new doesn't require returning to school for an advanced degree. Find the right resources and support. Opportunities are all around. Complete an online certificate program, read books, join a professional organization, attend industry conferences, and much more.
Look for Networking and Mentorship Opportunities
Reinvention takes work. It's common to feel that you are alone on this journey. No one understands what you’re going through. Friends, family, and co-workers may verbally discourage you from trying to change your life because they don't believe you can do it, are jealous, or are fearful that you will leave your relationship with them behind when you achieve your goals. Building a caring, helpful, and encouraging network around you is critical to your success. We all need a personal cheering section that helps propel us forward. A mentor is a trusted advisor or coach who has already achieved what you want and provides guidance and valuable insights on the steps you need to take to achieve what you have achieved.
Be Flexible
We all know that change is inevitable, but we often ignore or actively push against it as if that will make any difference. Flexibility, adaptability, and embracing change are the fuel you need to move your life further, and faster. Easily adapting to your surroundings, situations, and circumstances enables you to quickly pivot away from unforeseen obstacles and toward unexpected opportunities that can present growth and advancement.
Importance of Financial Empowerment
Women’s financial empowerment is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves, our families, and our community. It’s not about accumulating wealth but about self-determination. You can determine and achieve the outcomes you want for your life and career. It is the freedom to follow your dreams on your terms with financial independence. Know that you can change your relationship with money and achieve financial well-being no matter your life’s situation.
Design a Financial Plan and Establish a Budget
A financial plan and budget are critical to reinventing your life. Effectively managing your income and expenses helps develop financial freedom and is particularly important if you’re starting from zero.
Evaluate Starting a Business
Entrepreneurship can be a great way to achieve financial empowerment because it lets you control your career and financial future. While it is easy to feel alone on your entrepreneurship journey and uncertain where to turn next, many resources, nonprofit organizations, and funding sources are available.
Master Financial Knowledge
Being able to control your destiny is empowering. Online instruction, nonprofit organizations, and adult education courses are available to educate you about personal finance, investing, and retirement planning. Understanding these topics will help you make informed financial decisions and safeguard your long-term economic well-being and security.
Determination and Resilience
Whether your goal is to start a business, lose 50 pounds, complete your college degree, run a marathon, or something else, determination and resilience are required. It will not happen overnight, but it will happen.
Embrace Resilience
Life is a series of speed bumps and detours. It is full of experiences, challenges, and obstacles we didn't expect but must deal with. Improve your resilience by developing and nurturing an optimistic and uplifting mindset, being understanding, performing self-compassion, and asking for support when required.
Stay Persistent
Does your life’s journey sometimes feel like you’re taking three steps forward and two steps back? Think about those words for a minute. If you take three steps forward and two steps back, you’re still one step ahead of where you started. Knowing this will happen along the way will help you stay committed to the journey when things get tough.
Applaud Modest Gains
Recognizing and celebrating modest achievements along the road to success boosts confidence and motivation, making it easier to spot progress and keep going.
Reinventing your life from zero is a brave and transformative decision. Remember that your past does not define or dictate your future. It does not require you to remain stuck in your current situation for the rest of your life. Every new day, hour, and moment is an opportunity for a fresh start. Define what success means to you – not what it means to someone else.
Establish new goals and priorities. Build a sturdy foundation with new skills and financial empowerment while nurturing determination and resilience. Fully embracing your passions and dreams, no matter where you are, will set you on a path to fulfillment and a purpose that reflects your true self.
Adapted from: Lisa Masiello
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