How to Achieve a Life Breakthrough

Have you ever felt like your life has stalled? There is so much you aspire to do and be, but it is all out of your reach. Instead you feel that you are running flat out, but getting nowhere. You are trapped on a treadmill, or you feel like a mouse on a spinning wheel.

Maybe you want a better job. Maybe you want to lose weight and improve your health. Maybe you would like to meet the right person to share your life with, but alas nothing is happening. You feel like you have tried everything but are still getting nowhere. You start thinking kooky thoughts, for example – the universe is against me; I am unlucky; nothing ever works out for me. HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!

First thing I’m going to ask you to do is to consciously reject those self-defeating thoughts. You will get nowhere if you think like that! People intuitively sense negativity and retreat. Negative thoughts poison success. Try to keep tabs on your negative thoughts. Every time your mind plays that negative voiceover of ‘nothing works out for me’ stop yourself. Say (out loud if necessary!) I’m doing it again, I need to stamp that out. Instead say to yourself, I can succeed and I will succeed! Good, let’s get onto the next step.

Step outside yourself

This sounds weird but I want you to pretend that you are a car and the motor is not running smoothly. All we have to do is identify the one fault that is causing the cylinders to misfire or the oil to burn. Once we have nailed that this car will run smoothly.

As the mechanic looking over the car you need to think rationally, not emotionally. If you feel you aren’t making headway in your life, try to do an audit of where you are at, but leave emotion out of the equation. List what you want, and the variables that are preventing you from getting there. Coolly and calmly assess how you can get around these roadblocks.

Take time out

I’ve told you this before, but I have a friend who writes fiction. If she comes to a roadblock with the plot, she takes a break. Her agent told her that when she gets stuck she should retreat from writing and return to normal domestic duties. Play with the kids, cook and clean. While you are living your day-to-day life your subconscious will go to work on the problem, and when you least expect it, a solution will appear. Allow time to think, muse and play in your head for no apparent reason. Stress and constant rushing undermines creativity. 

Do something new

Again step away from the roadblock and explore new territory. If you can afford a holiday go away somewhere, if you can’t, just visit somewhere new. It might not even be far from your home, but make it a place you wouldn’t normally visit – a shelter for animals, an art gallery, an open garden. Basically you are trying to stimulate your creative thought processes and nothing does that as well as stepping out of your comfort zone.

Talk to as many new people as you can

Open up your mind and let others in. Listen to the people around you – really listen. If you know elderly people find out as much as you can about their lives. Where were they born and raised, who were their parents, what was their first job, where did they meet their partner. Learn their life lessons, absorb their wisdom. In doing this you may stumble across that one fragment of information you need to breakthrough in your life.

Look for lessons in the environment around you

Nature, animals, even suburbia can teach us a thing or two about life. My favourite passage of the Bible is Matthew 6:25-36: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these.”

We are being instructed not to worry about the future, because we will be provided for just as the birds are fed and flowers are dressed in radiant petals. What lessons can you learn from nature? The sun rises and sets everyday regardless of how much you worry about the future. 

Watch Groundhog Day

Have you thought about the possibility that you are not getting anywhere because you have already arrived? What do I mean by this? Have you watched the movie, Groundhog Day? It is about a weatherman who is forced to live the same day again and again until he becomes a better man and learns how to get the most out of every day of his life. At first he hates this day, and the small town he is visiting when he becomes trapped in time. But after living the same day hundreds of times he learns to see the beauty in this town. He realises that he is in a wonderful place, and he just needs to be the best he can be. He also sees how wonderful the people are around him.

There is nothing wrong with being ambitious and wanting more, but at the same time always be grateful for what you have and where you are.

If you are not achieving those life breakthroughs stop worrying and get down to really enjoying the here and now. When you have truly mastered this skill your ‘groundhog day’ will end, and you will achieve a breakthrough.

I strongly suggest you watch the movie!