Hey, sister! Welcome back to a Taylored Adventure to Happiness. If you are new, welcome! If you are a regular, I love ya, I love ya, I love ya!
Have you ever gone through a season where you joined course after course or hired coach after coach all around the same topic? You were on a mission to learn something or change in a specific way, but no matter how much help you got, things wouldn’t shift. I’ve been there, too.
We can do this in business, relationships, and spirituality — any area in life that we’re trying to elevate and improve. Instead of looking in the mirror and asking ourselves if we did the work and learned what we were supposed to learn, we just skip to the next thing as if it will magically solve everything. I call this the “green grass” mindset, meaning that the “Grass is always greener on the other side.”
I think it would be really easy to apply this “green grass” mindset to 2020. We’re all ready for it to be over, right? But a “green grass” mindset doesn’t serve us. All it does is keep us spending money on new courses or wasting time in yet another relationship instead of doing deep work. So, I want to bring back an episode I shared with you at the end of 2019 about how to close chapters in our lives.
You might rush right into 2021 without ever looking back, but I believe the steps I’m sharing with you today will help you turn 2020 into a launching pad to become a more fulfilled version of yourself. Even when we’re disappointed with a particular outcome — or year — we can gain a lot by acknowledging something for what it is, appreciating what we learned, and allowing the experience to inspire our next steps.
If you’re tired of trying courses, being in and out of relationships, and 2020 feeling like a dead-weight to your good intentions, you’re in for a treat. Today I’m covering how to close the current chapter of life and step into the next one with intention and anticipation. Be prepared for content that will challenge your thinking (as always)!
Let’s dive in!
Why Am I Not Seeing Results?
After working through multiple courses and hiring several coaches and not seeing my desired results, I got frustrated. That’s when I finally started asking myself introspective questions. These questions are important because I think we often get so frustrated with our results, or lack of results, that we want to move on. But more often than not, we are the reason we’re not getting the results we want. After all, we frequently are the common denominator, right? So the first step to knowing if you’re ready to close your current chapter or not is self-evaluation.
Here are the four questions I ask myself to get clarity on what my next step is:
- Am I not seeing the results because of the people I hired, or is it me?
- Have I completed this chapter of my life (or stage of my business or relationship)?
- Am I avoiding being honest with myself about whether or not I did my part to grow and achieve what I wanted?
- Have I taken the time to examine what’s blocking me and pursue healing?
You can have all the strategies in the world for your business, relationships, and spirituality, but if your mindset isn’t there, none of the strategies work. For example, many of my clients, especially my one-on-one clients, come to me requesting business strategy, but most of the time, we spend weeks — sometimes months — on mindset.
The more clients I work with, the more I realize that these women don’t lack strategy, vision, or even work ethic. Rather, they’re not getting the breakthrough they want because the same disempowering story, trauma, or roadblock keeps coming up and preventing them from moving forward. So, we dive in and do the work of healing and re-writing those disempowering stories. When my clients and I complete this internal work frequently, the things they have been working on for years begin to fall into place.
I think it’s the same for you. You don’t lack strategies, vision, or work ethic. That means buying another course or hiring another coach isn’t going to get you the results you want in your life or business. Instead, you need to spend time healing past wounds and re-writing your disempowering stories.
So, as you’re reflecting on this year — business, goals, investments, and relationships — ask yourself, “Did I focus only on getting what I wanted, or did I actually soak in what I needed?” If you were only focused on what you wanted, it’s not uncommon for the Universe to put roadblocks in your path until you get what you need.
It’s really easy to believe that the grass is greener somewhere else when we’re not complete. From now on, let your desire to hop to the next course, relationship, or year, be your cue to make sure you’ve learned everything this season has to offer.
How to Complete the Chapter of Life You’re In
If you didn’t get the results that you wanted in a specific scenario and told yourself, “Oh well, this must not work… I’ll just move on to the next thing,” you’re being a course hopper, and you’re not complete with your current chapter. You’ll know you’re finished with your current chapter when you have closure. You won’t feel like you’re giving up, trying one more thing, or giving it your last shot. Closure feels like you made it to another level of yourself and are stepping into the next level by learning something new.
Here are some questions in four different categories to help you identify what it will take for you to get to a place of closure so that you can step into the next chapter of your life:
#1. Personal Performance: How did I show up in this chapter of my life? Did I go all in? Was I distracted? Was anything going on outside of my control that pulled me away from my original goal?
#2. Expectations: Did I set expectations that were out of my reach? Did I get different results in this chapter than I had anticipated? Did I get what I needed but not what I wanted?
#3. Completion: What would “complete” feel like to me? Would I feel empowered? Would I feel motivated? Would I feel successful? If I don’t feel those things, why and what do I need to do to get there?
#4. Program: Did the coach know what they were talking about? Did I choose a course that aligned with me? Did I trust my coach and do what they said?
If you answered those questions, and you realized, “Oh, I got what I needed, but that wasn’t exactly what I wanted,” that’s okay. It’s time for you to pivot because you received what you needed. Your next step is to embrace what you’ve been given in this current chapter and align with the next level of yourself.
Most people don’t realize that they received what they needed even though it wasn’t what they wanted. And that’s okay, too. If that’s you, your job is to uplevel your mindset and start doing anything you should have done but didn’t. Transformation takes work. It feels exhilarating and amazing when you get there, but the road there is hard and uncomfortable. Don’t dodge the work. Lean into it. And know that the abundance, breakthrough, and closure will come.
How to Step into the Next Chapter of Your life
Everything is cyclical. It’s up to us to make sure that our energy and life keep flowing in the direction we want. Stepping into the next chapter of your life with confidence takes intention. This is a two-step process:
Step #1: Pursue Completion. When we don’t complete things, it’s actually breaking an energetic cycle. We unintentionally sabotage ourselves by not reflecting within. I believe you achieve completion when you’re able to express how you know you’re done. So, if you were going to explain to someone why you’re confident you’ve completed the chapter you’re in and are ready to move on, what would you say? If your answer turned into a list of things you’re celebrating and grateful for, you’re right on track!
Step #2: Identify Your Next Chapter. You have completion. Now you need to know what you’re moving into. Begin asking yourself, “What is the next version of myself that I want to step into?” Bring that version of yourself into focus by answering these questions:
How would that version of me act, speak, and spend her time?
Who would she hang out with?
What would she spend her money on, and what would she be reading?
When we ask ourselves those questions, choosing our next chapter is really easy. Before we know it, we will be joining masterminds, leaving toxic situations, and stepping into new relationships from a place of alignment, excitement, and worthiness.
Whether we’re staying in a chapter to learn a little more, creating closure for ourselves, or stepping into the next chapter, it all comes down to making sure that every choice we make honors our truth and supports our highest self.
Why I Took Today to Talk About Completion
Completing chapters in our lives is not a topic that we often hear about, but it’s a very real part of life. And I think it’s something a lot of us would breeze past right now in an eagerness to put 2020 behind us. Instead of getting rid of 2020 as fast as possible, I’m choosing to give myself permission to reflect on it as the current chapter of my life and intentionally choose my next chapter. I don’t want to miss anything the Universe wants me to learn from this year!
If you need permission to do the same, give it to yourself. Say, “I’m giving myself permission to embrace this chapter, reflect on it, and intentionally step into the next one.”
Here’s to walking out of 2020, feeling aligned, empowered, and loved! Are you with me?!
If this hit home for you today, share it with a friend. Better yet, take a screenshot and share it on Instagram. Tag me @iamtaylorsimpson and tell me what you’re celebrating about 2020. If you want to shoot me a DM instead, do that. I’d love to have a conversation with you! I’m not just here to talk at you. I’m here to hold space for you to step into your highest self.
Sis, embrace the chapter you’re in with gratitude this week and look ahead with intention. As always, don’t forget, choose happiness, because, well, why the fuck not?
Key Takeaways:
- Why your mindset has to be in the right path
- We get what we want when we FOCUS
- Speaking your truth and going all in
- Asking for guidance
- Expressing what you feel
- Why it doesn’t feel complete?
- Every choice you made, is for a higher good
Standout Quotes:
“Every decision we made, either steps us forward, keeps us the same or takes us back”
“When we don´t complete things, we are breaking an energetic cycle”
