I had a conversation with a friend last week about feeling stuck – stuck between the person I was, and the person I want to become. They are going through something similar, and I think many people, particularly women, are having feelings of uncertainty and misalignment these days. We talked about how the distance between who we are now and who we want to be seems so far away.
How do we move from the old version of ourselves to the new version we want to become? We see the patterns. We know what we need to change. Yet it can be hard to do so. For me, many of the habits and choices I have made simply no longer align with who I envision myself to be. But I feel like I’m stuck in the middle – one foot in the old and one foot trying to move to the new. The challenge is that I’m still cleaning up some of the messes that the old version made over the last 10 years, so it can be difficult to see a clear path from where I am now to the future me.
If we want to take our lives to another level, most likely we have to think differently, create new habits and make different choices. To do this, and to build the identity of that person, we may have to make the choice to let go of people, places, and things that no longer fit.
Two of the most important things I’m learning are how important self-forgiveness is, and that judging myself harshly doesn’t help. We have to forgive ourselves for the choices we’ve made and the habits that we used that are no longer serving us, and that can be one of the most challenging things of all.
That is where I am now, and it’s a challenge many of us have. We will beat ourselves up, and we don’t show ourselves the same grace that we show others.
We all stumble, and we all make mistakes. We do things that we know we shouldn’t do, and things that we regret. That’s life, and that’s what being human is about.
Over the last decade, I’ve learned some important lessons about who I am and who I want to be. The lessons created a foundation that I’m going to build the next season of my life on. It hasn’t been easy, but to be honest, I’m not sure if I would have learned what I needed to learn if the lessons had been easier.
That is part of what Living Life True is all about. Having honest conversations about life, identity, growth, and what it means to become the best version of yourself.
Reflection Questions
- What choices from the past are you still judging yourself for?
- What would it look like to forgive yourself for the choices that no longer align with who you want to be?
- What parts of the old version of yourself are you ready to let go of as you move forward?