One of the harder things about a self growth or healing journey is that there isn’t an objective way to measure your progress. If you loved getting good grades in school and you thrive when you can quantify success, the therapeutic process can be a real adjustment. Even though yes, you set goals with your therapist this isn’t a gold star kind of situation. Meaningful change takes time; not simply the passage of time but repetition, practice and consistency. When you’re deconstructing beliefs about yourself and behaviors that you’ve clung to for decades, things can actually seem worse before they get better. Which is totally normal by the way.
So if you’ve been doing “the work” for awhile and you aren’t sure which way is up from down, here are some subtle signs it is working.
1.You pause before reacting.
No matter what kind of goals you’re working on, most of us get ourselves into trouble when we act before we think or feel. Learning how to pause is a monumental skill and learning how to do this is a gift we give ourselves. Even if you still aren’t thrilled with your reaction, if you notice that you’re pausing first, you are on the right track.
2.You don’t take responsibility for another’s emotions or behaviors.
Learning to separate your emotional experience from another’s is freedom, particularly for women. Releasing yourself from the belief that you are responsible for keeping those around you happy and at peace changes your life.
3.You start believing new things about yourself.
It’s a really cool thing, as an adult, to start believing completely new thoughts about yourself. When you consider new possibilities this means you’re getting curious!
4.You choose being authentic to yourself above all else.
This is a sign that you have realized that not living in integrity costs you your peace, and nothing is worth that.
5.You start listening to your gut instinct more instead of always questioning it.
When you start listening to your intuition instead of questioning it, this is a sign that you’re developing more self trust. Keep going.
6.Tolerating the discomfort of knowing you disappointed someone isn’t that bad.
This is a big one for so many of us but once you do this a few times and survive, you begin to see that it wasn’t that bad. If you live your life making every effort to not disappoint people, tolerating the discomfort of knowing you disappointed someone in an effort to put yourself first is hard. But once you get the hang of it, progress accelerates.
7.You have more plans than you do worries.
Planning and worrying are not the same thing, and when you notice that you’re able to take a worry and turn it into a plan in case that thing were to happen, you are swimming with the current vs. against it. The bad things that could potentially happen have much less power over you.
8.You observe and get curious about your feelings instead of shoving them down or judging them.
Figuring out how your feelings impact your world is a common experience in therapy. I hear everything from “I’m not emotional at all” to “I’m too emotional about everything”. When you find yourself feeling more balanced and that your feelings aren’t negatively influencing your behavior, that’s a good sign.