I see an uptick in people wanting the old them. The ones who put in extra hours without blinking an eye, could sleep four hours and be energized, were 10 pounds lighter and looked 10 years younger, had fun-loving relationships, and knew exactly where they were going in life.
We are dreamers. Sometimes humans get caught up in how their life used to be when it was all fun and games: pre-kids, pre-relationship difficulties, pre-health issues. Rather than sit in the here and now, we get nostalgic and reminisce about how we’re going to replicate that 20 year old and place them into our current life.
It doesn’t go so well, does it?
We expect too much of ourselves with the circumstances given. Perhaps you have added two or three kids to your life, taken on a new business, or suffered major health issues or trauma. You didn’t have these factors 20 years ago, so adjusting your life around these things is key. What’s happened to you in the last 20 years is here to stay. Accept that and think about how you can work your new endeavours into your daily routine.
Fine tuning your new creation
You can replicate some of your previous life but have the complete understanding that transplanting it into your current life is going to look very different. Taking off from where you are right now and being a better version of yourself is a better forward-moving mindset than waking up and expecting a better life at that very moment. It takes work. And a lot of it!
To start, what did you like about your previous life? Was it a feeling you had? A situation you were in? The job, relationship or standards you had? Maybe it was the way you looked or carried yourself. These are all valid longings. Write this list out, every detail.
Now, how does your life look right now? Are you satisfied with your job, partner, friend group or hobbies you’ve taken on? Are you hitting the gym or have you quit that long ago? Have you adopted new unhealthy habits or gotten too busy to spend time with your kids? Again, write out in detail how your current life looks.
How did you get to your current life? What paths did you go down that you wish you hadn’t, which choices worked out for you and which ones do you wish you could retrace your steps in? Think about where your mind was at at that time in your life and you’ll clearly see how far you’ve come with your thought patterns. Hindsight really is 20/20 and many of us would have done things differently given the brains we have today. However, this won’t change where you are right now.
What you can control is your thought process and building a simple, doable plan to instill some of the qualities you thought you lost. Take off exactly from where you are today. With your growth and new mindset, you can rebuild a new you who is even better than the one you dream about. You may not feel, look or act exactly as you remember that person to be, but you will have a better vision of what worked for you, what didn’t work and how you can leverage that to keep going.
Once you hit your goal, look back at today. This is how far you’ve come. Comparing the person you were 20 years ago to the future version can pile on feelings of defeat, sadness and stress. Take off from today and let this be your new starting point.
—Sara Aloimonos is a columnist, life coach and functional nutritionist in Yellowknife.