Dr. Keith Ablow, founder of www.pain2power.com, the life coaching and consulting platform he started in 2019, is offering 24 Ways to Change Your Life in 2024.
Beginning in 2015, Dr. Ablow began a tradition of publishing a list of ways to improve your life. The tradition continues this year, with the addition of No. 24. See excerpts below:
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- Try to recall one dream you had as a kid – So often, the ideas we had as children were good ones, and we abandoned them out of fear. The step in the direction of your childhood dream can be very modest. Even just telling two people about your quiet dream can move it forward. Frozen dreams have a way of thawing out rapidly when you warm them just a tiny bit. Take that step, in spite of your anxiety.
- Think of your life story as an autobiographical book that you can hold in your hands. Now, imagine which page or paragraph you are tempted to tear out and remove from the story. Next, share it with someone who knows you well but has never heard about that event or phase in your life. Being willing to disclose the events in life we want to turn a blind eye to takes away the power those events have over us.
- Give a meaningful gift to a friend of yours on a random day – not his birthday or her anniversary or Christmas. Giving gifts on those days is fine, but that isn’t the same as an unexpected, unscheduled gift. Giving gifts has an interesting side effect; you’ll feel wealthier, even though you’ve just spent a little money.
- Send handwritten notes to three people you admire most in the world, no matter how powerful or famous, tell them sincerely exactly why you admire them and ask to meet for 10 minutes. There’s a real chance one of them will take you up on the offer. And that one meeting could change you, because great energy is contagious and being in the company of it can stay with you.
- Give some amount (no matter how small) to the charity you care most about. As I said above, giving is a miracle, because it helps others while also telling your unconscious mind that yours is a life of abundance, not scarcity. And that invites more treasures into your existence.
- Stop telling yourself you love people just because you grew up with them. If the people you grew up with weren’t focused on helping you stay true to yourself, then admit it to yourself. You might stop unconsciously recruiting people just like them into your life. Here’s the key question: Who has loved you and who has been attached to you? Loving you requires the intent to know you as an individual and to honor and foster your uniqueness. Attachment can feel very powerful, but it is closer to owning you than celebrating you.
- Schedule an initial life coaching, counseling or psychotherapy session. These are the gold standard ways to begin to get to become the person you were always meant to be. In a world of distractions and depersonalization, these are professions reliably focused on restoring your connection to your true self and your full potential.
- Get angry about something unfair, say so out loud and don’t stand for it. Anger gets a really bad rap in our culture; it’s accused of everything from destroying people spiritually to causing heart attacks. But suppressed anger can be more toxic. When you’re offended by something you hear about in the news or you see unfolding in your personal life, try saying so, in no uncertain terms, when you’re asked about it – or maybe even if you aren’t.
- Take two minutes to think about life as a labyrinth. Mazes are built to frustrate people and get them lost. They’re full of dead ends designed to make people give up and call for helicopters to pluck them out. Not so with labyrinths. Labyrinths may wind this way and that way. They may take you far from where you thought you were heading. But they always, always lead to the center. And that’s what life is like. Keep walking, keep your faith and life will take you where you are supposed to go.
- Try praying, at least once. If you haven’t prayed ever or haven’t prayed lately, you’ll discover that the act of praying for what you care deeply about has the effect of reminding you what that thing or those things really are. It also has the effect of reminding you that there is a great power in the universe that you are a part of.
- Read “Franny and Zooey” by J.D. Salinger, “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield, “Self-Creation” by the great psychologist George Weinberg (used copies available online), “Blue Dog” by George Rodrigue, “Fear God and Take Your Own Part,” by Theodore Roosevelt, “Zen or the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig, or “The Betrayal of the Self” by Arno Gruen (or, even better, all seven). These seven volumes have the power to transform people, and I keep handing them out to patients and friends (along with – please forgive the narcissism – my book, “Living the Truth”). If you’re really short on time or intention, just read the Afterword to a later edition of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
- Buy one piece of original art. It doesn’t need to be expensive. It just needs to appeal to you. Why? Because art is the antidote to our sometimes sterile, technologically driven culture. It makes humanity go viral in a way that YouTube can’t. It also confirms your connection to things that can’t be measured – like your personal vision of beauty.
- Watch the movie “Miracle,” with Kurt Russell. This film about the 1980 U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team defeating Russia’s team is so good, it can convince you to take on the next great challenge in your life.
- Tell your romantic partner one thing you would find exciting that you have not yet told that person. In my experience as a therapist, I’ve found that people can remain strangers to one another, in terms of passion, even after 10 or 20 years of marriage. We keep secrets. Let one out. You can write it down and pass it to your partner as a note, like we did back in grade school, before cell phones. See what happens. Take the risk.
- Stand up for someone else. You’ll have the opportunity this year. I promise. Maybe in your home. Maybe in your neighborhood. Maybe at work. Maybe online. Defending someone will reassure that person and empower you.
- Take 20 minutes to pretend that you are speaking to yourself, from the heart, as though you are your own ideal parent. You can do this out loud, if you have the stage presence, or silently. An ideal parent is empathetic, but honest in assessing his or her child and giving that child advice. Sit yourself down, get very quiet and, then, tell yourself – with the same care you would summon for a son or daughter – two things you really admire about yourself and one very limiting, very disappointing thing about yourself you really wish you would try to change, because it could limit the whole rest of your life.
- If you are a parent, resolve to mimic a habit I stumbled upon when my kids were younger. Whenever I get a phone call or an email or a text from someone telling me a project of mine or a goal or a relationship has hit a rough patch, I tell myself silently: “Yeah, well this isn’t like a pediatrician calling me.” What I mean is that, short of bad news about a child of mine, coming from a pediatrician, nothing can really rock me. I’d have no time for all my other so-called problems, and neither would you. So, things are actually better than we actually realize, most all of the time.
- Remind yourself that neither you, nor I, nor anyone else is assured of another New Year’s Eve. I know that may sound morbid, but it’s also true. This could be your last year. It could be my last year. Don’t deny that fact, embrace it. Try waking up as many days as you can thinking to yourself, “If I can leave a bit of a positive mark today, I will.”
- Write out a thoughtful, healing, motivating message to yourself and read it every morning. Your journey through life is an ongoing one, but it also begins anew each waking day.
- Think of one person you respect or like a whole lot, whom you’ve lost touch with. Get back in touch, by the end of the day on January 8. That gives you a week to reach out—by email or text or, even better, by writing a letter or calling on the phone. Why? Because you’ll have chosen him or her, and the universe is a lot less random than you might think. One other thing: Let the person know that he or she was your first choice of 2024—of everyone possible—to reconnect with.
- Write out a list of goals for 2024. I know that seems obvious, but most people never get around to it. The goals can be related to your work or your personal life or—even better—to both. Make them as specific as you can and try to follow each with as detailed a strategy as you can think of to help you achieve it.
- Tell someone close to you that you disagree completely with what he or she believes, but love that person, anyhow. Practice with someone close to you. If you get back an, “I definitely disagree, but I love you, too,” then your relationship will only be strengthened. If you get back something disparaging, you’ve diagnosed the person you thought was worthy of communicating with as anything but that.
- Try to understand and to live the words Amor Fati. Amor fati is a Latin phrase that means “love of fate” or “love of one’s fate.” It refers to the idea of accepting and embracing one’s circumstances, regardless of whether they are good or bad. Life is not random. And the trials and tribulations you will face have been encoded in your story, perhaps through the generations. If you can find the faith (and I believe you can) to believe they are not meant to ruin you, but to strengthen you, then you will find your way forward—powerfully, even through pain.
- At moments of adversity, think of yourself as the main character in a film. No, I am not suggesting you fictionalize your existence. You’re not acting a part; you’re living a life. But I do want you to notice that when the main character in a movie is in seemingly desperate straits, no one in the theatre tosses their popcorn aside and says, “Let’s go, Tom Cruise is obviously screwed.” In fact, everyone has exactly the same response. They stay in their seats and either say or think, “I wonder what’s going to happen.” And that’s all you really need to do when it seems like you’re going through a really difficult time or even a “dark night of the soul,” as Saint John of the Cross put it, way back in the 16th century. Stay in your seat. Watch what happens. Be ready for better moments. Life has a way of healing you, as long as you don’t give up and walk out on your own story. That’s never, ever the answer. Because life tends to the good, and you will be restored.
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