3 Reasons You Keep Changing Your Mind
Have you ever wondered why you just can't stick with a dream? Why you always seem to feel the need to change your mind or change your path?
Today I want to chat about why you keep changing your mind when it comes to pursuing your dreams, ambitions, or goals.
I came up with 3 reasons that people change their minds. I want to lay some groundwork first.
If you are in a place where you continually change your mind and are constantly jumping from one thing to the next, I have been in that place. I mean, if you haven’t listened to episode 1 of my podcast, go back and listen, because you’ll learn how many twists and turns my life has taken as far as pursuing my dreams.
Cliff notes version: Before Hustle Sanely, I’ve worked in retail, as an admin assistant, on a wedding production set up team, as a personal trainer, as a speech-language pathology assistant. I changed my major in college 6 or 7 times. I tell you this because I don’t want you to feel judged or dumb or like you’re doing it wrong if you find yourself changing your mind a lot when it comes to pursuing your dreams.
Okay let’s talk about the 2 different types of changing your mind when it comes to your dreams:
We’ll start with DREAM HOPPING:
Dream hopping is when you, well, hop from one dream to another. When you think of hopping around on one of your feet, if you’re anything like me, you may picture unstable, ungraceful, sporadic, and mostly chaotic movement.
Dream hopping kind of looks like that.You move quickly and a little haphazardly from dream to dream without really grounding or rooting yourself too deeply into anything in case it doesn’t work out. You find yourself with commitment phobia when it comes to pursuing your dreams. If you see someone else doing something that seems worthwhile or profitable or successful, you quickly drop what you’re doing and jump over there to try it out. You’re not really sure what you’re passionate about because you haven’t sat with a dream long enough to allow passion to produce. If this sounds like you, this episode is for you, girl. The 5 reasons I’ll be sharing shortly are going to mostly likely resonate with you and you’ll have some solid takeaways.
Now let’s talk about DREAM STEPPING:
Dream stepping is a slower, more calculated process than dream hopping. It’s when you’re peacefully pursuing a dream but as you’re doing it, another dream kind of reveals itself. Or you’re contentedly pursuing a dream and over time, you realize that the dream no longer matches up with what you want your life to look like.
Not because you're bored or being impatient but maybe you got more clear on your values and want to pursue something that aligns with those better. I’ll give you an example in just a second. When you think of dream stepping, think about walking on a path of pavers. You step from one paver to the next, to the next, and so on. Typically it’s not too difficult to get to the next paver. It all kind of flows.
So I encourage you to do a heart check to see where you’re at. Ask yourself questions like:
~ Why do I no longer want to pursue the dream I was pursuing?
~ Why do I want to pursue this new/different thing?
Are you dream hopping or dream stepping?
Okay so now that you know the difference between dream hopping and dream stepping and you’ve taken some time to assess which one you’re operating in, let’s talk about the 3 reasons why you might be constantly changing your mind when it comes to working toward a dream.
1. You’re attaching your worth to the wrong thing.
We’re starting off strong, okay? What exactly does your worth mean? Your value. What do you think makes your life valuable? Have you ever asked yourself that? It’s a big question, I know.
Are you placing your worth in your job title?
Or in how much you can get done each day?
Or in how much money you make?
Those are dangerous things to place your worth in because they are fickle. They aren’t everlasting. Now personally, my worth is in Jesus, alone. Y’all know I’m super open about being a follower of Christ. If everything else was stripped away and I still had my relationship with Jesus, I’d be okay. What would you be okay being left with? Maybe you place your worth in love - how well you love others. Whatever it is, you better figure it out quick!
So my advice for you if you’re attaching your worth to the wrong thing:
Take a step back. Seriously. Push pause and get ready to do some soul work, girl. Because this is important. You need to know that your worth has nothing to do with your accomplishments, how much you get done in a day, or how much money you make. Take some time away from whatever it is that you’ve been placing your worth in and instead invest your time and energy into re-rooting your worth somewhere worthwhile.
2. You’re comparing your dream or dream journey to someone else’s.
Comparison is a big mother freaking jerk, am I right? We have access to everyone’s everything these days it seems like so it’s suuuper easy to peek over into someone else’s lane to check out what they’ve got going on.
You only see a tiny piece of the whole pie when it comes to someone else’s dream, though. I mean really. I feel like I keep it pretty raw and real over on Instagram stories - I show you when things go wrong, I tell you when I’m having to work late to make a deadline, etc. But still people probably think my life is more glamorous than it is, lol.
I want to challenge you to think about this:
When you do something or get something that you’ve wanted for awhile, you are stoked about it right? Shallow example but let’s say you’ve been wanting this pair of wedges from Target for like 3 months. But they just weren’t a priority in your budget at the time you saw them. So you save up for them and go to Target to get them, maybe they’re even on sale when you go to get them...even better! You get home, put them on with your fave outfit, parade around, admire the ensemble in the mirror, plan a girls’ night so you can wear you new shoes...and you are loving life, right?
Then you pick up your phone and see this girl you follow on Instagram posting about HER new Target wedges that she just got and you think, “Waaait a minute! I want those instead! Those are better than mine!” The shoes you were just obsessing over in your mirror now seem like old news because you are too consumed with someone else’s shoes. NOTHING CHANGED about your shoes, where your focus is did. When you are using your energy to be grateful for what you have rather than looking at what everyone else has you stay grateful and comparison is way less likely to wrap its ugly hands around you.
When we do things in our own way instead of copying someone else, we keep our eyes and hearts focused on learning, serving, and growing sustainably rather than being consumed by competing with or outdoing someone else. Make sense?
Ditch shiny object syndrome (aka the temptation to leave what you’re holding in the dust in pursuit of something that looks new and fun that you see someone else doing) and commit to your own dream - because no one else can do that!
My advice for you if you find yourself changing your mind because you want to do whatever she is doing:
Make a vision board that excites you and reminds you what you’re working toward. Now Hustle Sanely-style vision boards aren’t just pictures of materialistic stuff - I want you to create a board that portrays how you want your life to FEEL not just what you want your life to look like. Then every time you feel that pull to hold your dreams up against someone else’s, take a look at your vision board and remind yourself what you're working toward and why you’re working it.
3. You’re being impatient.
YIKES. This is something that I have struggled with big time, friends. I have been tempted to ditch one dream in pursuit of something else because it was just taking too dang long to see the success that I wanted RIGHT NOW. Guys, making dreams happen takes time. I know that we see other people living their dreams online and it can come off as ya know an overnight success or like these people just fell into their dreams but that is almost never the case.
Let’s be real, I mean we are an Amazon Prime-loving people. We want to click buy now and have the payoff in our hands within 2 days ya know? Dreams don’t work like that. We cannot continue playing this stop, go, stop, go game with our dreams if we ever want to make real progress. Progress is messy. It can be ugly. It’s probably not going to be linear or look exactly how you want it to. But it’s the only thing that will get you where you’re trying to go.
So my advice for you if you’re impatient:
Keep a celebration journal where you document the small moments that are propelling you toward your dream. When you feel the need to jump ship, flip through this and read how far you’ve come. You HAVE made progress, it just might be taking longer than you want it to. Imagine where you can be one year from now if you stay the course.
Keep in mind that it’s going to be really hard to accomplish anything if you’re not willing to see it through. You can’t give halfway effort and expect full circle results, you know? Discipline is a skill that has to come into play here. And yes, I think discipline is a skill because it’s something that you can learn, put into practice, and get better at over time. Discipline is doing something when you don’t necessarily feel like it because you know that it is ultimately getting you where you want to be in the long run.
Figure out what you want to do, be disciplined in taking the steps to make it happen, and give yourself grace as you navigate the path to get there.
If you enjoyed this post, tune into episode 043 of The Hustle Sanely Podcast to listen into this topic!
