What's driving you?

Most people live day after day, in the hope that happiness will eventually come.

The truth is simple — it simply won't.

From my personal experience, I know how it feels to live a life that you don't desire.

Two years ago, I was working at a workplace in which I could not impose myself. My day started with thoughts of worry and ended with feelings of loneliness. I used my free time to avoid my pain, investing my earnings into distractions and intoxication. And all of that with the hope that this is just a phase, that it will pass and that my ideal life will eventually show up.

But it didn't. And then I had a breakdown.

I then made the big change to prioritise my happiness above everything else. And by doing that, I became conscious of why I acted the way I did — and changed the underlying drives of my daily actions.

_Exercising control above which forces guide your actions is the only way to change your life profoundly. Here's how._

Step 1: Understand the different guiding forces

Most of us aren't even aware of the fact that something guides us — because it seems so natural to continue acting the same way. Yet, all of our actions have a guiding force — whether it is fear or courage, rejection or openness, escape or confrontation, hate or love. And therefore, the only way to change your way of thinking, deciding and acting is to change the force that guides you.

Guiding forces are values that drive your life. People tend to follow one of three types of forces

1. Negative guiding forces — such as fear, shame, guilt, escaping, or hate — will make you live a life full of excuses for being miserable
2. Indifference as a guiding force — the act of not taking stances and letting life be imposed on you — will make you be an observer instead of actor of your life, living in a vegetable state in which the question of happiness will not even occur to you
3. And positive guiding forces — such as love, pride, magic, joy, bliss, and harmony — will give your life meaning, joy, and value.

The key to changing your life is understanding your drives and making a conscious decision to change them. Sounds abstract? Let's get concrete.

Step 2: Understand your own guiding forces

See whether this first scenario of a "normal day" rings a bell:

Your alarm clock rings at 7am. You get out of bed until you check your phone and see a dozens of work request pending in your mailbox. Your thought already shift to what a stressful day this will be. You then take your shower and rush downstairs to take your car, speed through the Starbucks DriveThru and nourish your body with a fatty, artificial no-milk cheese burger to start your day. Getting to work, your workday unfolds like every other — namely with the hope that it will soon end, and that the best thing you can do it bite your lips and escape the confrontation. When your work is done, you realise that you forgot to wish your friend a happy birthday, and decide to not contact him out of guilt and fear of being judged. Finally, you get home and make yourself food to eat, so that you can let your mind be taken by a movie and a late-night intoxicant. And when you finally go to sleep, you fantasise that this was the last day of discomfort, and that hopefully, tomorrow it all will change.

That is a life that is driven by anger towards one's life, indifference towards one's body, lack of integrity towards one's work duties, judgment toward's one's actions, escape toward's one's life and fear toward's once future.

But the same person, with the same life circumstances, could have paused and changed their guiding forces to gratefulness, self-care, the desire to give, vulnerability, playfulness and excitement to be alive. And then, the day would have looked like this:

Your alarm clock rings at 7am, and instead of checking your phone, you spend five minutes thinking about all the beautiful memories that life gav you yesterday and you hop in your shower. Before you drive to work, you save some money by giving your body oak milk, some fruits and a great morning tea. At your job, you decide to make a difference and ask yourself how you can create actual value in the task that have been given to you. Proud that you did your best, you realise that you forgot your friend's birthday, call him up and apologise for your goldfish memory. The good news is, you already offered him to discover the newest art exposition next Saturday together. Finally, you get home to have your first self-care time, in which you decide to read the book that had been on your desk for weeks — and when you go to sleep naturally tired, you are excited about the opportunities that the next day will give you.

As this example shows, what matters is not your life circumstance. It's the intentions you set for your actions that will make you feel great or miserable.

Step 3: Overcome the most common mistakes people make

So why do most people continue a live driven by fear, doubt and escaping? Look around you and you'll find three answers:

1. People don't make their happiness their number one priority. If you don't ask yourself how you want your life to unfold, you won't put any effort to consciously choose how you want to act.
2. People are not honest towards themselves. Lack of vulnerability will make you avoid painful confrontation with reality, but it will never give you a joyful life in the long-run.
3. Lastly, people don't take action. You might be aware of their guiding forces, know yourself enough to understand your inner drives that hold you back, but find comfort in the situation you're in. Without action, no change.

Step 4: Change your behaviours, step by step

It's clear that changing one's life is not easy. It requires effort, confrontation, and some initial pain. But all it takes is to take it step by step, to tackle your life areas one at a time, to ask yourself what your inner drive is and how you want to replace it. And then, you will get your work life, health, personal life, relationships, and financial situation under control, once at a time.

The whole point is that everyone can have a life of job, bliss, love, and purpose — and that it requires conscious decision-making and self-confrontation. It requires you to prioritise positive guiding forces into your life, one at a time. And then, life will happen for you, not to you.

Even if it takes time to change your entire life, there is one thing you can do now — namely to ask yourself in which life area you are driven by fear, shame, guilt or judgment, and to take the decision to change how you want to act in the future.

And then, you will finally be able to be yourself.

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PPS: And if you're struggling to change and need help like I once used to in the past, please hit me up on Facebook. Know that you're not alone in this 👊🏻