3 Steps I'm Taking To *Actually* Change My Life in my 30s
In an effort to live a life that feels right and happy and fulfilled.
“I feel like I am pouring salt into my own wounds.”
After a few sessions with my therapist, I realized this was a common theme I recently felt in my life.
I would come to these sessions and pour out all my thoughts. I would vent about hurtful experiences that I know I would never receive apologies for. That I needed to let go of, yet somehow never could. How to grieve things that I didn’t quite lose, but I never felt I had to begin with. How to walk away from relationships in my life that felt imbalanced with mismatched efforts.
Talking about these things felt exhausting. It would make me feel angry, sad, and lonely. Yet opening up about them felt like the very necessary first step I needed to take in order to make my life feel easier, happier, and fulfilled.
I have a wonderful life - one that in many ways feel like a dream come true. I have a partner that has given me such a sense of safety and stability. I have two beautiful, healthy daughters who make me smile every single day. I live in a cozy home in a beautiful state. I have many, many great people in my life. I’m grateful! But I was also unhappy with certain elements of my life. Two things can be true.
During my therapy sessions and with conversations with my closest loved ones, I would hear how I’m allowed to be angry, allowed to be hurt. But my internal struggle I would bring up often as a rebuttal was “I don’t want to be mean. I want to be a good person. I don’t want to be selfish or a bitch.”
My therapist would interject - “Whose voice is telling you that? Because it’s not your own.” She was right. I was not born thinking of myself that way. All of us and our thoughts are formed from past experiences.
Somewhere along the way, I formed the belief that expressing anger or saying no or having a boundary made me “a selfish bitch.” And that belief turned me into a people-pleaser, at the expense of my own personal happiness and fulfillment. And at 29 years old, it all came to a head. I simply couldn’t sustain it anymore. Something had to change. Which means I have to change.
As I approach a new decade of life soon, here are the steps I am vowing to take in an effort to live a life that feels right and happy and fulfilled.
Step 1: Stop Following The Snake
A powerful metaphor that really snapped this into perspective for me was to think of things like a snake bite. “Imagine you just got bit by a snake. What would your immediate response be?”
Well, I would FREAK OUT (LOL), but then I would tend to the wound the bite created. I’d try to figure out how to heal it. Maybe get help for it.
“You wouldn’t follow the snake. You wouldn’t go to that snake and ask it to change it’s behavior for the bite to go away. It would just bite you again.”
And that’s what I was doing when trying to solve problems I had in the past. This is why the same problems and hurt feelings seemed to resurface, time and time again. I was following the snake. But it was time to redirect my focus to tending to the wound.
Step 2: Have Healthy Boundaries. Be Discerning.
I feel like people talk about ‘boundaries’ a lot. But for me, I always struggled to grasp the mentality needed to actually implement them. Sure, I know I needed to have boundaries of saying no to things, but hoooow the heck does one actually break the people-pleasing tendencies? This anecdote from Jeff Warren, for some reason, helped me grasp it:
“I once had a friend who’d get angry when I couldn’t hang out. Out of guilt, I’d make time but I wouldn’t enjoy it. I’d be all annoyed and resentful. I eventually realized his anger - that’s his thing. And my guilt, that’s my thing. If I could notice and tolerate my own feelings of guilt, then I wouldn’t need to act on them and end up doing something that I didn’t really want to do. This is all part of learning how to maintain and protect our own boundaries.”
I often would make decisions out of guilt and/or fear of retaliation. Once again, the thought of being seen as a “mean-selfish-bitch” would influence 99% of my decisions. But this story made me realize that other’s anger isn’t necessarily my responsibility. My responsibility was my own feelings around the situations at hand. My decisions should be rooted in my feelings. What feels best for me.
Just because my decisions are determined by what is best for me, it doesn’t mean they are selfish decisions. I am actively tossing that narrative out of my mind. I have to learn to tolerate any guilt I have - and investigate it. Do I have true reason to feel guilt? I’d bet 95% of the time the answer is no. I have to trust myself, and trust that the people who love me know that. They’ll understand when I have to say no to things.
I simply cannot base my life around trying to do right for everyone, everywhere, all the time. As Taylor Swift so eloquently explained in her NYU commencement speech:
“Life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up, and moving into new chapters of your life, is about catch and release. What I mean by that, is knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things. … Decide what is yours to hold, and let the rest go. Oftentimes, the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for, so be discerning.”
Step 3: Focus on the Top Third
Reese Witherspoon gave a wonderful snippet of wisdom on the We Can Do Hard Things Podcast (full clip below). She explained, ““You’ll meet three kinds of people in life—those who lift you up, those who are neutral, and those who try to bring you down. Avoid the bottom third.”
Focus on finding and building those relationships in that top third. And being that top third for them, too.
The people who encourage you, show up for you, make you feel seen and supported.
I was putting my energy into trying to make the “bottom third” my “top third.” I explained earlier that I have many wonderful people in my life. My top third, if you will…It was time for me embrace those relationships.
All of these changes sound simple and practical on paper. But they feel sticky and muddy to work through in my mind. I know it will take time. Probably more than I anticipate. It will take hard work. And the progress likely won’t be linear. But the difference between before and now? I’m up for the challenge.
I love the idea of following the snake. I've never quite thought about it that way.