Stop Trying to Change People

And other life lessons from a childless, unmarried, newly 33 year old woman.

I turned 33 last week.

And while I’m not married, don’t have kids, and my mortgage has me listed as a “spinster”, I feel I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be in life.

I enjoy expressing my gratitude in relation to my age to help women recognize that everyone woman’s timeline looks very different.

Women have the tendency to convince themselves that something is wrong with them if they haven’t hit certain life milestones by this age.

Or we convince ourselves that we’re supposed to be in a position in life that’s in contrast to where we currently are.

And here’s my take on where you are in life:

1. You are meant to be precisely where you are. Because you are there, and there is no other option of being anywhere else. So why don’t you embrace it, live it, and love it to the fullest vs. hating on it?
2. For those concerned about their marital status: according to this Insider article, in 2019, only 51% of women were married at least once by the age of 30. So you may still be comparing yourself to 1962’s stats where 90% of women were married by 30, but that just ain’t the case anymore, ya hear?
3. Any and all statistics should be irrelevant to you if you haven’t met the person you’re supposed to be with yet, and if you’re in full belief of #1. Period.

If any of the “shoulds” or false absolutes are dragging you down…

• “I should be in a different position by now.”
• “Everyone is married but me.”
• “Everyone has their life figured out and I am totally lost.”
• “I’m not going to find anybody who is interested in me because I’m divorced/have kids/any other lame excuse.”

… I highly suggest you drop the negative energy and recognize the facts of your life.

You are meant to be where you are, and everything is happening as it’s meant to.

Circling back to my 33 birthday

Although trite, I enjoy reading and listening to other people’s birthday messages.

Birthdays are often a time for reflection, and I enjoy getting a glimpse of what the author is thinking and feeling as they enter a new age.

So if you’re anything like me, I think you’ll like this post.

As I thought about what I wanted to share today, what stood out to me were the handful of ways I’ve really grown this year.

• I’m proud of what I have learned.
• I’m proud of the new ways I see the world, approach challenging situations, and how I make my life more of my own.
• Each year I get even closer to living the life I desire, feeling the feelings I desire, and overall just living life authentically and without limits.

And it feels incredible.

It feels… freeing.

So in honor of turning 33 this week, I wanted to share with you what I’ve learned and the handful of ways I have grown this past year to become the version of myself today.

Five life lessons I learned at 32

1. Always trust my gut.

2021 definitely raised my awareness of how much louder my brain is than my gut, and subsequently reminded me that the loudest person in the room isn’t always the wisest.

Shortly after my 32 birthday, I was meeting with a business coach when she challenged me with a question I wasn’t quite prepared for.

After hearing about all the moving pieces of my business, she asked me, “are you trying to position yourself as a life coach or a business coach?”

While my gut, without hesitation, shouted, “YOU ARE A LIFE COACH!” my brain went straight to business.

→ “Business is more clearly understood.”

→ “I have so much business experience!”

→ “It’s more impressive to be a business coach.”

Basically, my brain convinced me of something I *should* be, rather than what was meant for me. (Which is hilarious because this is a huge red flag in life coaching, but stay with me here.)

So, I declared myself a business coach, because I felt I should, and cut off all life-coaching messages and themes.

And like any other person who takes on a role that they don’t necessarily desire or aren’t meant for: I overcompensated for my insecurity.

I read all the books, listened to all the podcasts, and invested in additional business coaches, all hoping that the more information I could take in, the more sure of myself I’d become.

And as you can imagine, it didn’t work. And about halfway through the year it was undeniable.

I was unhappy with what I was offering, I wasn’t enjoying running my business, and everything felt hard.

And then it hit me: I was trying to solve the wrong problem.

I didn’t need more business information to give me confidence in my business.

Instead, I needed to choose the business that I was meant for.

I then had a bit of a breakdown and self-coached myself into what needed to happen next.

I needed to drop the business coach persona that made me miserable, and own the fact that I am, indeed, a life coach.

I’m telling you, the moment I made this change, the Universe felt it.

My energy shifted, work became fun and easy again, and my business achieved my highest months ever.

All because I finally learned how to quiet my mind and focus on what felt right (in life coach terms, we call this getting in alignment).

I could kick myself for the six solid months of playing a role that I wasn’t meant to play, but I know that was all a part of the journey.

It was all meant for me to experience what it really feels like to be out of alignment, mind, body, and spirit, and then in total alignment.

The gut never lies. It only leads.

So let this be a lesson to you from a fresh 33-year-old: listen to it.

2. Stop trying to change people.

I think we all can agree that relationships are incredibly challenging.

Unfortunately, we tend to make them even more challenging by bringing unnecessary drama into it all.

When feelings are hurt, people don’t show up the way we wish they would, and effort isn’t made in a way we desire; we demand apologies and expect a change in behavior.

But what if no one actually needs to change?

What if the only thing that needs to change is how we think about the situation?

Thinking of the situation not as a problem but as the answer?

This past year I grew immensely in learning what I desired from friends, and in doing so, I finally acknowledged that a few deep-rooted and long-term friendships were just not measuring up to what I desired.

When friendships should feel fun, mostly easy and incredibly loving, these felt perplexing.

Acknowledging the complexity of these friendships came with many thoughts and questions, ultimately leading to one that clicked with me: “shouldn’t friendships feel fun, easy, and loving?”

Once I decided that, yes, I desire fun, easy, and loving friendships, I then repeated that to myself and felt the feelings that came along with it.

“I desire friendships that are fun, easy, and loving.”

Without blame or demand for change, I made the decision to be removed from a group chat that felt forced and group outings and obligatory invitations that frequently had me feeling uncomfortable.

And fortunately for me, it was met with total understanding and validation.

Making this decision not only gave me space to attract new fun, easy, loving friendships but it created space for them to blossom.

Here’s how to make decisions like this drama-free.

What I desire will always be what I desire.

No one has to be wrong or has to change for me to show up for what I desire.

And what I desire will always be “right”. It will always be the truth.

And if I’m not obtaining what I desire, it’s on me to make that change without fighting to change anyone else or make anyone else wrong.

It takes a lot of processing to get to this place, but it’s available to everyone and incredible when you get there.

So if you’re struggling with a similar situation, I hope you borrow the above example.

Because when I experience conflicting thoughts and feelings again, I’m going to reference it as well.

3. Believing in things that serve me is far more rewarding than believing in things that don’t.

Thousands of thoughts roam around in our minds daily, running our lives, and we rarely ever stop to question whether or not they are doing any good.

While many don’t even notice half the thoughts they’re having, even fewer people realize they have the ability to control them.

Enter: believing on purpose.

Believing on purpose is the act of not knowing how something will turn out but making the conscious choice to think it will work out in your favor (without an attachment to being right).

This is so crucial because it focuses your energy on being mindful rather than worrisome, remaining calm rather than fearful, and being courageous rather than doubtful.

And if you’re walking around being courageous, calm, and mindful, you’re going to enjoy your life a lot more, and what you desire to attract will find you a whole lot sooner.

Of course, you may be thinking, “but Jeannie, what if it doesn’t work out in your favor? Not everything is rainbows and butterflies!”

And to that, I reply, of course not everything will result in my ideal outcome, but that doesn’t prevent me from believing it will.

This year, I have grown immensely in believing on purpose.

→ I choose to believe my mom will remain healthy and be on this earth for another twenty years.

→ I choose to believe that what I’m doing right now in my business is more than enough to get me to where I need to go.

→ I choose to believe that the two really big wishes I made at 11:11 on 11/11 went straight to God’s ears and will come to fruition.

Because all of these things feel way better than believing the alternative.

And I encourage you to believe on purpose, too.

Here are some beliefs you can borrow:

→ Believing that the love of your life is in this world, and they are on their way to you.

→ Believing your business idea is actually a really good one and that you’re meant to bring it into this world.

→ Believing that life will only get better as you age rather than thinking or feeling that your best years are behind you.

You can choose to believe anything you desire.

And take it from me; it’s far more enjoyable and rewarding to believe on purpose.

And you have every right to believe audaciously.

4. Changing my mind is a beautiful thing.

I am thrilled about any opportunities to share with my community ways in which I changed my mind.

Because I believe the world, and women mainly, could use more examples of people owning that they changed their minds without any guilt or drama associated with it.

And here’s my take on this: we kind of should be changing our minds all the time.

As we learn, evolve, and educate ourselves, we’re naturally learning new perspectives on something we previously thought we had made up our minds about.

We’re going to be experiencing life from different vantage points.

And we’re going to think differently when certain situations are no longer someone else’s but our own.

Unfortunately, just the mere thought of a woman being labeled a hypocrite has her fearing changing her mind on something she no longer supports or believes in.

But this just doesn’t support the evolution of humanity.

The first time I remember witnessing permission to change beliefs was in 2002 when Oprah interviewed Britney Spears about her decision to keep her virginity until marriage.

Britney admitted she wished she never went public with it, and Oprah asked, “do you think if you change your mind, that it’s anyone’s business?”

I remember hearing that question at fourteen years old and thinking, “Holy smokes, it’s not!”

Here’s what happens when we don’t give ourselves permission to change our minds.

• We label others “hypocrites” who do.
• We become resentful of the rules we set in place for ourselves that no longer serve us.
• We get judgmental when we see others release themselves of similar rules.

It’s all a whole lotta ugliness that does anything but makes this world a better place.

So this year, I changed my mind and decided to eliminate a rule I put in place years ago that no longer served me.

The rule that I’m going to be engaged before living with another boyfriend.

I set this rule years before meeting my current boyfriend, and after an ex and I split while living together.

At the time I set that rule, it made sense to me.

But the closer my current boyfriend and I got to the decision of moving in together, the more forced it felt to demand an engagement from him.

Because the truth was, I wasn’t ready for it.

I elaborate a lot more on the decision to move in together in an Instagram Live I did, but I knew it was the best decision for us both, and I am thankful to have made this decision based on what felt right rather than a self-imposed rule set years prior.

The more you lean into what feels the most right and act on that, the more right your life will feel.

And if you change your mind on something, you never know how that will inspire someone else to do the same.

5. With the right determination and total alignment, anything can happen.

Hopefully you read the first lesson of “always trust my gut” because I will elaborate on that experience in this last lesson.

If you haven’t read it, take a moment and scroll up.

In July of this year, I decided to pivot my business from business coaching to life coaching.

With this decision and a necessary re-brand, I was prepared for it to take a while to generate new business again.

What I wasn’t prepared for was that it really wasn’t going to take very long at all.

Naturally, I made a few other tweaks during this time as well.

→ I got clear on who I wanted to help and how I could help them.

→ I created a more clearly defined offer without room for negotiation.

→ I increased my fees.

→ I significantly improved my thoughts and mindset.

After making all of these changes, I surrendered the rest to the Universe.

I surrendered by being in full belief that as long as I show up and provide value the best that I can, that the Universe will send my ideal clients my way (while fully preparing for this to take a solid three months).

Much to my surprise, within one month, I began attracting my ideal clients.

Women who were thrilled to work with me and excited to get moving on becoming the person they desire to be.

While eventually I will elaborate on the tweaks and how they affected my business, what matters the most is I have evidence that anything can happen.

I now have evidence that I’m just a few tweaks away from everything falling into place.

In the future when things feel impossible to come back from, incredibly challenging, or like a total setback, I have this experience that will keep me certain that anything can be turned around.

And this may be a challenging one to borrow to inspire your own life, as I do believe that you just have to experience it for yourself to really believe in it.

But if I can be just one more person reminding you that it will happen for you, and things will fall into place, and to believe fully that they will, then by all means…

I am happy to be that person.

About the Author

Jeannie is a Life Coach specializing in helping driven, passionate women ditch their fear and self-doubt and attain their next-level success. To learn more about Jeannie’s coaching program and apply to work with her, visit jeannieandresen.com.