Transitions: 5 Things NOT To Do During a Major Life Change

We have officially moved into our new home in Hamilton, Texas! I’ve moved 18 times in my lifetime. (Which is crazy!) Except for the first few, I remember most of those, but none were as stressful as this move has been.

I can think of a few obvious reasons. We are building the home we have moved into, and it still isn’t complete. That alone is enough to drive me over the brink. We have also downsized from 1500+ square feet to 680. Yes, you read that right, 680 square feet. For someone who prided themselves on being a mentalist, I sure had a lot of crap. It will take me a while to figure out what still needs to go and what can stay. And we have had plenty of setbacks and things not going according to plan. Does anything ever go according to plan?

It's all working out, of course. Things are starting to fall into place. Hey, I have internet and TV now, so that’s a huge step in the right direction!

My biggest complaint is my reaction to all of this. I made this way more stressful than it needed to be. I didn’t practice what I preach. It turns out, I am, after all, very human. Lucky for you, my poor decision-making over the past couple of months has prompted this Public Service Announcement. Perhaps someone will learn from my mistakes. (Hopefully, I will too!)

5 Things NOT To Do During a Major Life Change

Neglect Healthy Habits

            Oh, the irony. The health and wellness coach ignored everything she knew. With my exit from training clients at the gym and the sale of my own equipment, it was extremely easy to stop exercising. Packing up my kitchen earlier than necessary had me running for convenient take-out options (and not the healthiest). My sleep was also affected by my staying up worrying way too many nights. When life is overwhelming, it seems our health becomes our last priority, when it should be our first. The urge to hole up on the couch while noshing on our favorite comfort food and staying up till 2 am is almost more than we can withstand.

            The Better Solution: Setting tiny movement goals, such as 10 minutes in the morning for yoga or a walk. It sounds minuscule and hardly worth the effort, but in my case, it would have been way more than I was doing. And choosing slightly healthier take-out is not that hard. If you are already spending the money, you might as well make better choices at least some of the time. Sleep should always be a priority, no matter what is going on. Set an alarm to remind yourself to start getting ready for bed and hold yourself to it.

Focus on the Big Picture

            Sometimes that’s good advice, but when you have a thousand things that need to be done, trying to focus on everything is overwhelming. My mind was bouncing from sorting, packing, discarding, building, selling, and everything in between. More often than not, the overwhelm would paralyze me, and nothing would get done. That tends to be the problem with big life changes; a lot is going on. It’s usually unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and just plain too much.

            The Better Solution: Narrow your focus to one thing at a time. And the more overwhelmed you are, the smaller that focus needs to be. Don’t go on to anything else until that one thing is taken care of. Packing the closet? I should have worked on one shelf or rack at a time, not pulled out everything at once and then just stared at the utter chaos before me. (A tear or two may have been shed.)

Procrastinate

            I am the queen of procrastination. “I’ll think about that tomorrow” could have been my mantra. (Thank you, Scarlet O’Hara.) During this move, I took procrastination to new heights. Big transitions almost always require seemingly endless decisions and tasks. Why do most of us have a very strong urge to bury our heads in the sand? Do we think that if we scroll long enough, it will all go away? (Or in my case, watch endless reruns of Rifleman.)

            The Better Solution: Take a page from Nike and “Just Do It”. Take the thing you are dreading the most, break it down into small jobs if necessary, and get it done. This goes hand in hand with focusing on one thing at a time. Remind yourself that the longer you put it off, the worse it tends to be. I put off packing one room and, guess what, that room never packed itself, and in the end, I still had to do it. If I had taken care of it a few weeks earlier, I would have avoided a good bit of stress.

Isolate/Don’t Ask for Help

            Somewhere along the way, I picked up the belief that showing emotions and asking for help are signs of weakness. I might be doing better about sharing my emotions, but I still have a hard time asking for help. This move was no exception. I even had a hard time letting the movers I hired do their job. When life changes, for good or bad, many of us tend to shy away from asking for help. We want to appear that we have it all under control when it’s the complete opposite.

            The Better Solution: The easy thing to say is: open up, let people know you are struggling, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Easy to say, hard to do. Perhaps you could remind yourself that everyone struggles. How does it feel when someone asks you for help? Do you mind? Does it make you think less of them? No, probably not. So what makes you think their response will be any different? This is the hardest one for me, so I’m preaching to myself at this point.

Take Your Stress Out on Others

            My stress comes out in anger, and unfortunately, those closest to me bear the brunt. I feel I’ve made some significant strides in this department, but I could tell when it was getting the best of me during the past few months. When our world turns chaotic, and stress runs high, it becomes very easy to take it out on those we love the most. That is usually because we feel safe expressing our hardest emotions with them. That certainly doesn’t make it right, though.

            The Better Solution: Communicate how you are feeling. If you know you are uptight and your fuse is extremely short, say it. But it doesn’t stop there. You should also take steps to minimize your reaction when you realize what is happening. (You don’t just get a free pass to be an ass whenever you want.) Learn some breathing techniques to use, and know when to take a walk and get some distance.

If I had taken the time to just focus on even one of these things (especially #1), the outcome would have been better. But here we are. It’s a new day, a new year, and we are moving on. That’s how it works. Sometimes we’re moving forward, sometimes we get stuck for a bit, and other times we might even take a few steps back. But we can always get back on track and move forward.

Here's to the journey, my friends!

Alicia