The Hardest Part of Starting Over: Letting Go of the Life You Imagined

Hopefully, you're having a great day.

And if I have it my way, well, your day will certainly be a little bit better after listening to today's episode.

Now, quick announcement before we dive into today's topic, and that is the simple fact that if you are not already following the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, I want you to do so.

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Now, I always think that every topic I talk about on the podcast is hopefully of some level of importance, but I have to believe that today kind of hits somewhere special.

And that's because at some point in your life, in some point in your story, things aren't going to go as planned.

Probably there's been a lot of instances in your story where things have not worked out the way you hoped.

You had it all figured out, you had the plans made, everything was set, and then life got in the way.

And if we want to be honest with ourselves, most people don't struggle because life is hard, but rather they struggle because life didn't turn out the way they thought it would.

When things don't work out, when things go off script, we typically don't just deal with reality.

Instead, we fight it.

We want what we wanted.

We want what we had.

And we can get so easily stuck in this trap of constantly looking backwards, of comparing our life today to what it was, or sometimes the worst is what we thought it would be.

My friend, my life, my situation is certainly no exception.

There's been many things that have happened in my life that I did not plan for, I did not expect, I did not ask for, and I did not want.

And yet, somehow, some way, it's all found a way of working out.

And I have to believe it's all worked out for the best.

Now, along this path of getting trapped in this mindset of comparing our life to what was or what we wanted, we can easily start believing something really dangerous.

If this is my life now, then it must not be good.

That belief can keep you stuck, can be worse than anything else.

Is this idea, this belief, this thought that just because it's different, that means now that it can't be as good as what I had planned.

Instead, the shift we're making is what today is all about.

Is that just because it's different doesn't mean that it still can't be good.

Again, what I want you to understand about that, different does not mean worse.

Different simply means different.

And sometimes different can actually come to mean better, not worse.

Instead, sometimes what I found to be the case in life is that things end up working out in a way better than we had ever imagined.

Now, rarely is that the case because typically our dreams are pretty darn amazing.

But yet, somehow, when you look at it from a really big picture, a lot of times you can see how all the pieces somehow just found a way of fitting in, found a way of fitting together just right, even in the messiness of it all.

So, as much as all of us love certainty, we love plans to work out, we love to be in control, life has a way of humbling us, of reminding us that we don't always know what tomorrow will hold.

Well, I guess better said, we never know what tomorrow will hold.

We can plan for it, we can anticipate it, we can expect it, but at the end of the day, I believe we really just have to be willing to see where it goes.

And I think the most important aspect here is that a lot of times it's not what actually happens that is the big thing.

Yeah, of course, the loss, the tragedy, the incident.

It's monumental, it's meaningful.

But more so than any of that, it's the loss of the life that you thought you were going to live.

Going blind back in 2003, yeah, it was horrible.

I can still tell you today, over 20 something years later, it's still really tough.

And I would love to get to see again.

But you know what was even harder was getting to understand that the life I dreamed of was no more.

You, my friend, have lived out this scenario in your life.

Maybe you didn't go blind, but you've had some things happen that have dramatically changed the course of your life.

And your life today probably looks nothing like you ever dreamed it would.

But instead of us freezing, instead of us getting stuck, we have to understand that the version of life that you dreamed of, it was never guaranteed.

Just as tomorrow is not guaranteed, the dreams we have for the future are not guaranteed.

They never were.

But here's the important thing that I want you to understand the version of life that you can build from here, that is still wide open.

Because even though right now looks different than what you thought it would, even though plans didn't work out, that's okay.

Because you can start designing your life for what you want it to be, starting right now.

Now, of course, this whole topic is about being willing to adjust and adapt to life happening, to life getting in the way.

But that doesn't mean that we don't plan at all.

It doesn't mean that we give up all hope.

It doesn't mean that we just leave everything up to chance.

No, we start designing, we start adapting, we start moving with the wind instead of always fighting it.

Instead, sometimes we just have to open up our sails, adjust to the changing patterns of the wind, and let it take us where it will.

So the question is, is what do you actually do when life looks different than you had planned?

I believe it starts with a simple reframe.

Instead of asking, why did this happen?

Instead, start asking, what is still possible now, even though this did happen?

That one question, it changes everything.

It opens up opportunity.

It makes things possible again.

It gets you dreaming again.

For the practical application in today's episode, I'm gonna give you a three-step plan that's going to equip you with what you need to do to rebuild your life, even if it is different than you had planned.

First, I want you to focus on what you still have.

I don't want you to dwell on what's gone, what should have been, what could have been.

Because where that energy is focused, well, that's where life is gonna go.

Instead, we're focusing on what you still have.

We're counting the blessings that you still have in your life.

So, easy way to think of it, if you focus on loss, then you shrink.

If you focus on possibility, you grow, you adapt, you overcome.

Second step, I want you to begin designing your life around your reality, not your past, not your past dreams, not what you thought life would be, but on what it is.

The thing that keeps people stuck the longest is they keep trying to live out a life that is no more.

Instead, I want you to start asking yourself the question of what do I want out of life right now?

With what I have in my hand today, what can I build with it?

What can I do with it?

I want you to start focusing on that.

And third, I want you to give yourself permission to love life again, even though it's different, even though it's hard, even though it may not have gone like you hoped, it doesn't mean that it still can't be great.

You sometimes just have to be willing to give yourself permission to love again, to live again, to be grateful, to experience life, to enjoy life, to find joy in the little things.

If you keep yourself closed off from all of that, then my friend, what is any of it worth?

Again, we can't always control what happens in this life, but we can always control how we respond, how we react to it.

This is your opportunity that even though things are different, you have a chance to make them better than they ever could have been.

Today is a simple reminder that even though things in life might not go like you planned, even though all your plans that you had, the dreams you made, all went astray.

I don't want you to lose hope in tomorrow.

I don't want you to lose hope in today.

Because it can all still be great if you just simply decide, honestly, decide that you're gonna make the most out of life no matter what.

That no matter what you have compared to what you thought you would have, you get the choice to make it great.

So make it great.

This is your opportunity, this is your permission to forget about what was supposed to have been, forget about what you thought, and instead just focus on what you have.

My friend, I guarantee you, if you sit with it and you start to really count your blessings, the littlest things, sometimes when life is hard, we have to get really small and focus on the little, tiny, little things that are going right for us.

Sometimes it can be as simple as the belief that life can still be great.

My friend, if there is ever anything I can do for you, if you need somebody to talk to, somebody who can just be a friend to you, because maybe you're trying to figure this all out and you're struggling, my friend, reach out to me.

All you have to do is go to my website, gritgraceinspiration.com.

You can also just open up the description of this episode in the episode show notes and find contact information for me.

Send me an email, send me a message through the website, reach out.

I would love to hear from you, love to simply help you get through what you're going through.

That's what I'm here for.

The podcast is, I hope, just one little piece of the puzzle of what I can do in my mission of inspiring you to never give up on life, even when at times it may feel like life is giving up on you.

So, my friend, don't give up on today.

Don't give up on life, even if it may look different than you thought.

My name is Kevin Lowe, and this is Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.