Strategies For Making Major Changes in Your Life

Change is hard, especially when it's a major change.  This is why so many people make the same New Year's resolutions every year and why many give up a few weeks into the New Year.  When you want to make a major change, it helps to have strategies to help you through the change process (see my articles: Preparing Yourself Emotionally For Major Changes, Understanding the Difference Between "I Can't" and "I Won't" and Overcoming Obstacles to Making Changes in Your Life).

Strategies For Making Major Changes 

Strategies For Making Major Changes: Ask Yourself the Following Questions:

How Does This Change Fit in With My Core Values?

Ask yourself why this change is important to you and how it fits in with your core values.  This might seem obvious, but many people decide to make a major change without asking themselves this important question.

So, for instance, instead of deciding that you want to lose weight, ask yourself why you want to lose weight and how this fits in with your core values.  Rather than focusing on how many pounds you want to lose, ask yourself why this is important to you.  Is this part of a larger goal to improve your health?  How does this change fit in with the rest of your life?

When the change you want to make is part of your core values, the value of making that change is more apparent, and you will feel more motivated than if you have a narrower focus (see my article: Living Authentically Aligned With Your Values). 

Am I Willing to Deal With the Challenges in the Process of Making a Major Change?

Major changes usually involve long term goals that you make a commitment to achieve and maintain.  So,  you need to ask yourself if you're willing to be in it for the long haul.  That means not getting discouraged and quitting when things start to get tough.

Being able to tolerate a certain amount of discomfort is usually part of making a major change.  So, for instance, if your goal is to save money to buy an apartment because this is an important goal for you, you will probably have to rein in your spending.

That might mean being more disciplined about how you spend money, which will involve some self sacrifice.   Without being clear that saving money to buy a home for yourself is part of a larger goal of feeling secure, you're going to find it more challenging to give up things you want for immediate gratification in order to achieve your long term goal.

How Will I Handle Setbacks?

Setbacks are a part of life for everyone.  Even highly motivated people experience setbacks when they're in the process of making major changes.  If you know this in advance and you plan for it, you're less likely to give up when the going gets tough.

In the long run, it's not whether or not you have a setback but how you handle that setback.  Do you give up or do you bounce back and recommit to your goals?  So, for instance, if your goal is to live a healthier life and that includes losing weight, do you feel everything is lost when you deviate from your eating plan?

The best strategy is to have a plan for how you're going to handle the setbacks that will inevitably occur.  One way to do this, rather than giving up, is to acknowledge the setback, learn from it and then start again  (see my article: Resilience: Remembering Your Past Comebacks to Overcome a Current Setback).

Getting Help in Therapy

Many people, who start with great strategies, give up because of unconscious negative beliefs they have about themselves that convince them that they won't succeed no matter what they do.  These unconscious beliefs often get triggered during setbacks (see my article: Overcoming the Internal Critic).

If you continue to struggle to make major changes in your life even when you have great strategies, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who can help you to discover and overcome the unconscious negative beliefs  that are getting in your way (see my articles:  The Benefits of Psychotherapy and How to Choose a Psychotherapist.

Rather than giving up on the things you really want in your life, you owe it to yourself to work with a skilled psychotherapist who can help you to overcome the obstacles that are keeping you from having the life that you want and deserve. 

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients to overcome the obstacles that were keeping them stuck.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or Email me.

5 Tips For Bouncing Back From Routine Disappointments

Everyone experiences routine disappointments at some point in life (see my article: Are You Overreacting to Routine Disappointments?).  Disappointments are unavoidable.  The question isn't whether you will be disappointed but how well you can bounce back from disappointments.  The better you get at moving on from routine disappointments, the more resilient you become (see my article: Resilience: Bouncing Back From Life's Challenges).  In this article, I'm going to provide tips for rebounding from routine disappointments.

Bouncing Back From Routine Disappointments

5 Tips to Bounce Back From Routine Disappointments

• Focus on Gratitude:  Although you might be disappointed about what you didn't get or that life is unfair, you probably have other areas in your life that are positive.  So, rather than focusing on what you don't have, focus on what you do have.  It might sound trite, but it will shift your mood, which is what you need to bounce back from a disappointment and not to wallow in it so that it colors everything in your life (see my articles: Is It Possible to Feel Gratitude Even When You're Sad?, Keeping a Gratitude Journal, and Getting Out of a Rut.

• Exercise at a Pace That's Right For You:  Movement helps to shift your mood.  Whether it's a sport, yoga or other types of exercise, movement will help you to lift your spirits (see my article: The Mind-Body Connection: Can Yoga Improve Your Mood?).

• Give Yourself Credit For Coping As Best As You Can:  Making any kind of effort after a routine disappointment deserves recognition, including self recognition.  Too often people don't give themselves credit for being able to handle disappointing situations.  As part of your self recognition, remember other times when you got through routine disappointments and how these disappointments didn't have a major impact on your life.

• Use Humor to Shift Your Attention and Lift Your Mood:  Watching funny movies, TV programs or listening or telling funny stories will release neurochemicals in your brain to shift your mood.  Don't underestimate what a change humor can make to help you to bounce back.  Having others join you can increase the benefit of using humor because humor is contagious.  Have you ever been in a crowd where people were laughing uproariously and you didn't even know what they were laughing about but their laughter made you laugh?  If so, then you know how powerful it can be to be in a group where there is humor.

• Set Goals For the Important Areas of Your Life:  Rather than focusing on your disappointment and what you don't have, take some time to reflect on what you want for your future in each area of your life (personal life, career, and so on).  Then, set broad goals for how you plan to succeed in each area.  After you write down your broad goals, narrow it down by writing what you need to do in the next year (or longer), what you need to do in the next six months, in the next month, next week, etc., so you make the steps concrete and realizable (see my article: What's Holding You Back From Achieving Your Goals?).

What If It's a Major Disappointment?
Notice that, until now, I've been emphasizing routine disappointments.  Routine disappointments are things that everyone faces in one way or another fairly often.

In other words, routine disappointments aren't life changing.  But there are disappointments that are much more significant and that are harder to overcome.

For instance, if you found out that a close friend that you trusted betrayed you, that's a major disappointment, especially if it causes an unbridgeable breach in your friendship (see my article: Coping With a Close Friend's Betrayal).

To overcome major disappointments, all of the tips that I mentioned can be helpful, especially when you focus on what you're grateful for in life, but those tips aren't going to be enough for you to bounce back quickly because a major disappointment goes deep and hurts a lot.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you find that you're having a hard time rebounding from a disappointment, you might need help from a psychotherapist to work through the disappointment, especially a major disappointment (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

A major disappointment, like a betrayal of a spouse or a friend, can make you feel like your whole world is falling apart.  It can make you question your beliefs and your judgment.  It might even result in your questioning your plans and what you want to do in life.

Rather than suffering on your own, you could benefit from the emotional support and clinical expertise of a licensed mental health professional.   A skilled psychotherapist can help you overcome a major disappointment more effectively than you could on your own, so you can eventually move on with your life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist (see my article: The Therapeutic Benefits of Integrative Psychotherapy).

I have helped many clients to overcome major disappointments so they could go on to live fulfilling lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Increasing Your Self Confidence and Resilience By Challenging Yourself

In prior articles, I've written about particular aspects of developing resilience (see my articles: Developing Emotional Resilience, Resilience: Bouncing Back From Life's Challenges, Developing a More Resilient Self in Psychotherapy, Navigating Life's Transitions, and Staying Emotionally Grounded During Stressful Times).  In this article, I'm focusing on how to develop resilience and self confidence by challenging yourself (see my article: The Power of Making a Commitment).

Increasing Your Self Confidence and Resilience By Challenging Yourself

Resilience isn't an all or nothing thing.  If you've survived in life until now, you've built up a certain amount of resilience.  And every challenge that you overcome builds even more resilience (see my article: Moving Out of Your Comfort Zone).

Increasing your resilience increases your confidence to face whatever obstacles might come your way, and it allows you to bounce back from setbacks more easily (see my article: Opening Up to New Possibilities in Your Life).

It's never too late to increase your resilience and self confidence by challenging yourself.

For instance, athletes, who are striving to be more competitive and to win bigger prizes, keep pushing themselves to beat their best score.  Or actors, who want to hone their acting skills, keep working on a part until they're satisfied.

But you don't have to be an athlete or an actor or, for that matter, in any particular field to increase your resilience.  You also don't have to wait until a catastrophe occurs in your life to be challenged.

You can find ways in your every day life to challenge yourself to go beyond where you are now, overcome the obstacles involved and build resilience and self confidence.

Increasing Resilience and Self Confidence in Your Everyday Life:
Here's an example:

Reframing Adversity
Looking back on an adverse situation that you overcame in the past, look at the positive aspects that helped you to learn and grow rather than focusing on the negative aspects (see my article: Developing a Positive Perspective By Reframing and Turning Lemons Into Lemonade During Life's Ordinary Disappointments).

For instance, if you were fired from a job in the past, instead of dwelling on all the negative aspects of that situation, think about what you learned from this challenge and how you grew as a person:

A Fictional Example of Reframing Adversity:
Bob lost his job without warning when he and his coworkers were suddenly called into their boss's office and told that it was their last day due to the company's financial problems.

Bob was just as shocked as his coworkers.  He went home, told his wife and then he was tempted to spend the rest of the week in bed with the covers over his head.

But Bob was determined that he wouldn't allow this situation to make him feel defeated or diminished.

So, even though he considered himself to be a shy person and networking was very difficult for him, he challenged himself to make five phone calls a day everyday to former supervisors and colleagues to reconnect with them and find out if there were job opportunities at their current workplaces or if they knew of anyone who might be helpful.

On most days, Bob found this to be a humbling, tedious and fruitless process.  But he kept telling himself that he needed to keep plugging away.  He didn't have the luxury of not working.

Over time, he also realized that he was getting to spend more time with his wife and children, which he really enjoyed.

He also had time to write the article that he had been meaning to write for months for his professional organization.  He was thrilled when it was accepted for publication.

He also had more time to spend on his hobbies.

By the fourth week, Bob reconnected with a former colleague, Joe, who suggested that Bob call one of Joe's former colleagues, Dan, for a possible job opening at Dan's company.  Joe said he would put in a good word for Bob.

When Bob called Dan, Dan said he didn't know of any openings at his company, but he knew for sure  that there was an opening at another company and since Joe was recommending him so highly, Dan would give his contact, Ed, a call.

Increasing Your Self Confidence and Resilience By Challenging Yourself

Two months later, Bob was in a new job that paid more than the job that he was laid off from.  It also offered him new professional opportunities.

When Bob reflected back on his job search process, he felt good that he remained steadfast in his purpose.  Even though it was very challenging for him to keep plugging away, over time, he felt more confident and he bounced back from setback of losing his prior job.

Looking back on the experience, Bob realized that there were many positive aspects to his having lost his job--including spending time with his family, getting an article published, and working on hobbies that he enjoyed.

He also realized that he was able to overcome the fear and frustration of losing his job to find an even better job by being persistent and not allowing negativity to drag him down.  Not only did this build his self confidence in terms of facing other challenges in his life, it also allowed him to feel that he could bounce back from future setbacks.

Setting an Intention For Yourself and Sticking With It
Setting an intention can be a powerful tool in succeeding in a particular goal.  Sticking with your intention, even when you're tempted to give up, can help you to build your self confidence and resilience, especially when you see the results that you desire (see my article: The Power of Starting the Day With an Intention).

A Fictional Example of Setting an Intention and Sticking With It
Here's an example:

Nina rose through the ranks at her job because of her hard work, diligence and creative problem solving.

At her current level, she was supervising three people, and she hoped that she would be promoted to a managerial position within the next year.

But when a managerial position opened up and Nina applied for it, her director told her that he was very happy with her work, but the managerial position required a Master's degree and she only had a Bachelor's degree.

He encouraged her to get her Master's degree if she wanted to be considered for managerial position.  Needless to say, Nina was disappointed.

Nina looked into various Master's programs that had evening programs because she couldn't afford to stop working.  She hesitated, at first, because she saw how daunting it would be to work full time and attend a Master's program at night.

But she also knew that, whether she stayed with her current employer or left for another job, her lack of a Master's degree would be an obstacle for her.  So, she applied to a Master's program, took out loans, and resigned herself to having very long days and weekends filled with work.

She was surprised to discover that, even though it was a tremendous amount of work and a financial sacrifice, she really liked her professors, her course work and her classmates.

During the time when she was working full time and attending the evening Master's program, she had to turn down many social invitations because she didn't have the time to socialize.  It was lonely.  She also wondered if the debt she was incurring would be worth it in the long run.

There were times when she considered giving up and being satisfied with where she was in her career, but she knew she wouldn't be satisfied for long, so she persevered.

Increasing Your Self Confidence and Resilience By Challenging Yourself

By the time she received her degree, another managerial position opened up, and her director offered her the job.  He also met with her to talk about her career path at the company and other possible promotions if she did well in the new managerial position.

Looking back on the experience, Nina knew that she gave up a lot in terms of socializing, getting enough rest and taking on student loans.  But she felt proud that she was persistent and diligent enough to put aside other concerns so she could accomplish her goal.

Nina also knew that by setting an intention and sticking with her goal, she felt more confident about herself and resilient in terms dealing with future challenges.

What's Getting in the Way of Your Facing Challenges and Accomplishing Your Goals?
Many people, who have experienced early trauma, have difficulty dealing with adversity and accomplishing their goals (see my article: Understanding Why You're Affected By Trauma From a Long Time Ago and Overcoming the Traumatic Effects of Childhood Trauma).

People who have been very traumatized also have difficulty even setting goals.

Early traumatic experiences affect how they feel about themselves.  They often lack confidence in themselves or feel undeserving, telling themselves:  "I'm not good enough" or "Who am I kidding?  I'll never amount to anything" (see my article: How Our Expectations and Beliefs Affect Us).

Often, these are messages they received as children, either directly or indirectly from their caregivers, who might have also felt beaten down by their own early experiences (see my article: Overcoming the Internal Critic).

For people who are weighed down by emotional trauma, it's especially hard to overcome these negative messages that they have internalized from a young age.  This also creates, at times, insurmountable obstacles to facing challenges.

Getting Help in Therapy
There are times when you can't overcome the emotional obstacles that you're facing on your own.  You need the help of a skilled psychotherapist to overcome the trauma that's holding you back (see my article: The Benefits of Psychotherapy and How Psychotherapy Helps You to Open Up to New Possibilities in Your Life).

Many people, who need help, never seek it out.  They feel too ashamed, and they remain weighed down by their early trauma throughout their lives (see my article: Looking at Your Childhood Trauma Through an Adult Perspective).

If you're aware that, despite your best efforts, you've been unable to overcome the emotional trauma that keeps you stuck, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional (see my article: Overcoming Self Doubt That Keeps You Stuck).

Freeing yourself from a traumatic history gives you a chance to live your life in a more fulfilling way without the obstacles that are keeping you down.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Resilience: Remembering Your Past Comebacks So You Can Overcome a Current Setback

One of life's many challenges involves overcoming setbacks. One strategy that is helpful to develop resilience and overcome a setback is to remember your past comebacks during challenging time.

See my articles: 

Developing Resilience, Resilience: Bouncing Back From Life's Challenges

Developing a More Resilient Self in Psychotherapy

Coping With Frustration

Navigating Life's Transitions

Turning Lemons Into Lemonade During Life's Ordinary Disappointments

Resilience: Remembering Your Past Comebacks So You Can Overcome a Current Setback

During setbacks, it's easy to dwell on everything that went wrong.  It's also easy to remain mired in self blame where you're internal critic gets the best of you and paralyzes you (see my article: Overcoming the Internal Critic).

But the important thing to remember during a setback is that you bounced back during prior setbacks, possibly even worse setbacks than what you're experiencing now.

Resilience: Remembering Your Past Comebacks So You Can Overcome a Current Setback

Think of the current situation as a learning experience:

• What can you learn from the current setback?
• Are you catastrophizing and overreacting to this setback?  See my article: Are You Overreacting to Routine Disappointments?
• Are there any insights you can gain from this setback?
• How can you use what you've learned to sharpen your skills?
• Can you see any new possibilities that you weren't seeing before? See my article: Opening Up to New Possibilities and Moving Out of Your Comfort Zone.
• Are you focusing on the things that you can control as opposed to things you can't control?
• What have you done in the past that helped you with prior setbacks?

Over time, overcoming setbacks allows you to build resilience.

When you can overcome your disappointment to look at the situation clearly, you will often discover that you have dealt successfully with other challenges in the past, and you can use these same skills to overcome the current setback.

Resilience: Remembering Your Past Comebacks So You Can Overcome a Current Setback

Often, this involves changing your attitude about the setback.  If you're overcome with self criticism and telling yourself, "I knew I wouldn't be able to do it" and "I'm not good enough," you're working against yourself and making it that much harder to overcome the current setback.

But if you can develop a more objective perspective about your situation, step back and recognize that you have bounced back before, you're more likely to open up to new ways to overcome your problem.

In the long run, what's most important is not that you're having a setback, but your attitude and what you do about it.

Unresolved Emotional Trauma Can Have an Adverse Effect on Overcoming a Setback
People who have experienced emotional trauma, especially unresolved childhood trauma, often get triggered by setbacks.

If they grew up feeling powerless, unlovable or not good enough, a setback can seem like a confirmation of their negative feelings about themselves (see my article: Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable).

This is very difficult to overcome on your own.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're finding it difficult to overcome a setback on your own and it's triggering feelings of worthlessness related to unresolved emotional trauma, rather than struggling on your own, you could benefit from seeking help from a licensed psychotherapist, who specializes in helping clients to overcome trauma (see my article: Overcoming Emotional Trauma and Developing Resilience).

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to overcome unresolved trauma that's getting triggered by the current setback.  This can help you to overcome the current challenges as well as future challenges.

Rather than suffering on your own, get the help you need so you can free yourself from your traumatic past to live a more fulfilled life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I specialize in helping clients to overcome emotional trauma.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Resilience: Bouncing Back from Life's Challenges

I recently had an opportunity to talk to a close friend's 84 year old mother.  I'll call her Alice (not her real name).  Alice is one of the most resilient and optimistic people that I know.  She's an inspiring person to people who know her.  One of the most admirable things about Alice is that, despite the many challenges she's had in her life, she's always bounced back and learned from adversity. I wanted to hear from her how she remains so resilient and optimistic about life.

Resilience and Wisdom:  Bouncing Back

As I mentioned, Alice has faced many challenges and losses in her life, including the deaths of two her husbands, financial hardship while she was raising her children, and a bout with cancer when she was in her 50s (fortunately, she's been cancer free for more than 30 years).  So, it's not that she's led a charmed life at all. She knows what it's like to go through hard times.

When I asked her how she became so resilient, she laughed and had to think about it for a while.   Then, she told me that, from the time she was a child, her mother was a good role model.  She said that her mother, who raised five children on her own after her husband died when Alice was 12, always maintained a positive attitude about life.  

Alice said, "She always told us to take each day as it comes, neither dwelling in the past nor dwelling too much in the future."  This reminded me of the slogan from Alcoholics Anonymous about "one day at a time."  Alice told me that she felt many people spend too much time worrying about the "what if's" in life and worrying about "what might happen."  She said that one thing that she learned in her long life was that it makes no sense to her to dwell on regrets or, alternatively, to worry about the future.  She said, "Life is full of surprises that you can't anticipate, so why worry about it?"

Alice talked about living in the moment, another thing she learned from her mother, "No matter how busy she was, she would take a moment to notice things--whether it was the beauty of a flower or the crisp air of an autumn day."  She laughed and said her mother had never heard the term "mindfulness," but she was a mindful person who remained open to things around her, both positive and negative.

When she brought up regrets, I asked Alice if she had any regrets in life, anything that, if she could do over, she would.  She thought about it for a moment and then said that, for the most part, she didn't have regrets.  She felt that whatever experiences she had in life made her the person that she is and she learned from her experiences, so she couldn't regret them. 

Alice also told me that, after she was diagnosed with cancer, she became a lot more aware of her health.  She changed her diet.  She makes sure she gets plenty of sleep.  She also still walks 30 minutes every day to get exercise and fresh air.  She never smoked.  

One of the things I like most about Alice is that she has a great sense of humor and she's a great story teller.  Whenever we get together at my friend's home, Alice is usually at the center of the group telling stories and making us laugh.  She also laughs at herself.  She told me that she finds one of the best forms of "therapy" for her is watching funny movies.  Charlie Chaplin movies are among her favorites, especially because he combined humor with pathos.  

Another thing about Alice that impressed me is that she remains open and curious about life.  She loves to read, both fiction and nonfiction.  She's part of a book club in her neighborhood.  The people in the book club are a lot younger than her, but she enjoys their company and listening to their ideas.  She looks forward to learning and continuing to develop her mind.  And, she remains a very sharp and insightful person.

At the end of our conversation, Alice said to me, "Aren't you going to ask me how I feel about dying?" Her question surprised me, at first.  While it's obvious that someone in their 80s would have thoughts about death and dying, I hadn't planned to ask her about this.  She told me that she hoped she would live for at least a few more years in good health because there were still things she wanted to do.  Then she said, "But I'm not afraid to die. I've lived a good, long life.  What else could I ask for?"

We live in a time when our society reveres youth and beautiful appearances.  But I think we can all learn a lot from older people like Alice, who remain resilient, optimistic, curious, and open to life.   

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Photo Credit:  Photo Pin