In last week’s article I discussed the issue of freedom and how most of us lack it in one way or another. Many of us are stuck in jobs we hate, relationships or friendships, which no longer serve us or a geographic location we did not choose, to name a few. These situations do not arise by chance but by neglect. We fall into these freedom traps by neglecting our intuition and how we feel about these various aspects of our lives. The question then arises as to how we go about creating the freedom that we so desire.

There may be many areas of our lives that we are not happy with and we wish to change, however, to try to tackle all of these would be overwhelming. To start moving towards freedom I advise you to pick the area of your life that you are most unfulfilled in. It could be your career, your job, your relationships or some other area.

Once you have identified the area of your life where you feel trapped or imprisoned, you can make a list of the reasons for those. For example, if you are in a job you hate, you make a list of the reasons it no longer inspires you. Once you have made this list, you then make a list of what you are seeking through change. For example, inn your career, It could be creativity, leadership, challenge, the ability to affect positive change, a team approach or any number of things.

Once you know what you dislike about your current situation and what you are seeking, write down all the ways that you can experience what you are seeking right now. Be creative but just keep writing. You may find that you can achieve what you are seeking without leaving your current situation. For example, for your job is boring and no longer inspires you, perhaps you can fill a position in a different department in the same company or seek a position where you have more freedom to use your creativity, can harness your skills, talents and abilities or are in a leadership role. If you current job is too limiting, perhaps you can take on a side project or hustle where you are using your skills, talents and abilities or start researching business opportunities.

Now, none of this may be true and you may have to, eventually, transition out of your job, in order to seek out what you truly desire, but you won’t know until you taken an inventory of your current situation and what you are seeking. I now encourage you to do this exercise right now. Pick an area of your life where you are unfulfilled and make a list of every reason why this is the case. Then make the second list of all the things you are seeking from the situation at hand. Then make a third list of what you can do right now to start moving towards what you desire.

You will be shocked at how much clarity you gain, through this exercise, about your current situation and how to start moving in the direction of the path that is calling you. In next week’s article, I will discuss how you can liberate yourself from any situation, which you perceive yourself being trapped in and limited by, and you seek to escape. Until then, remember, there is nobody in control of your life except yourself.

Dr. Nauman Naeem