I always thought that once you said that you were going to do something, you had to do it. That you had to do what you said you would, in the way that you said. You weren’t allowed to change your mind. That sounds pretty restricting though, doesn’t it? It doesn’t always leave much room for growth or personal development. So guess what I’ve figured out?
You’re allowed to change your mind!
And you’re allowed to do it often. I sort of started to figure this out a little while ago, which is when I wrote a post on here about how quitting doesn’t make you a failure. But even still, I kept too many restrictions on myself. While I gave myself permission to quit some things, I wasn’t letting myself change all of the things I wasn’t quitting. Or I was giving myself a hard time when I did change my mind instead of celebrating my growth.
You are allowed to change your mind about pretty much any aspect of life. Whether that’s where you live, where you go to school or where you work… Maybe it’s the people in your life or what hobbies you’re interested in. It’s okay to change your mind about whether you want to go to an event or on what you music you listen to or anything really.
Changing your mind doesn’t make you flakey.
This was a big fear of mine when I was younger. I can’t cancel now- I’ll look flakey. Even if I wasn’t feeling well or I really didn’t want to do something, I had a hard time backing out of something. The insatiable people pleaser in me forced me to stick with so many things that made me miserable. Now that I’ve learned to give myself a little more flexibility, life it much more pleasant.
So much has come out of my healing journey over the last few years. This lesson about changing your mind was one of those things. While changing course used to fill me with shame or make me feel guilty, now it feels freeing. I stopped beating myself up and starting making allowances.
It’s allowed me to grow, to discover new things, and to become more ‘me’.
Instead of feeling like changing my mind about things made me unreliable, I’ve started to feel more self-aware. Think about it: how often are we asking kids what they want to be when they grow up? Or what their favorite color is or other random questions that we expect an answer for? And how often do those answers change? We never hold that against them. I don’t tell my toddler that her favorite color can’t be blue because last week she said it was pink. At what age does changing your mind become something that we’re ashamed of? Because our children certainly don’t feel that pressure to pick one thing and stick to it. And they seem so happy and free because of it.
Part of life is growing and changing.
As time goes by- maybe it’s us getting older or maybe it’s just experiencing new things- our minds are introduced to a lot more information. This is how you discover new things or ways of doing things that you might enjoy. The same way trying something that you thought you’d love might lead you to realize that you actually hate it. That is why I now firmly believe that changing your mind isn’t only okay, but an important part of building a life that you love.
No one knows every answer from the start. Learning is an important part of life, as is adapting as you go. With this in mind, some new changes are coming to EmilyEverAfterCo.com. Some of those changes are going to be more visual. I’ve got some ideas about the home page and overall layout as well as the colors. (Don’t worry, I haven’t changed my mind about pink. But like I said, I have some ideas…) I also have a lot of ideas about the material I want to offer on my site and how I want to present it. Some changes to the way I do guest posts may be happening as well. Overall, I want to make this site the best possible resource that I can to help empower women on their healing journeys.
I’m hoping to start implementing some of these changes in March, but we’ll see. Maybe I’ll change my mind.
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