“An archer must pull back his bow in order for the arrow to fly.”
– Richard Hittleman (paraphr.)

It’s the start of a New Year, and if you’re at all like me the cultural ideal of having a “fresh start” is rampant in your mind. You want and are ready to commit to real change – not just make resolutions but really live a better life – and yet there are stumbling blocks. Often these blocks are subtle, based on an internal struggle to overcome a certain level of apathy to improve your life. Sometimes they’re more overt, like what happened to me when I first started writing on this topic on Christmas day.

I wanted to address the nature of stumbling. How when we resolve to improve our lives things that seem to go in the opposite direction often become more evident. I wanted to explain how this is part of an important growth process. And then it began.

The newsletter I was writing was going to come out on New Year’s Day. It was going to announce my new website which I’d spent three months overhauling with the invaluable support of Joel and Suzanne Turner at KaleMonkey.com (I’m still announcing it. Check out the new BodyInsights.com, it’s fantastic).

It was going to debut the professional redesign of my newsletter (ta-da) and announce that my ebook, “20 (In-Depth) Tips to Make Life Easier”  is now available on Kindle, Nook, and Amazon (use the code “happynewyear” to save $4 on the cover price). All on January 1st, making it the strongest start to a new year Body Insights has ever had.

But false malware warnings started blocking public access to my website and downloads of my ebook. Then I lost administration access to my website. Then my computer broke.

All of these played out in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, while I was endeavoring to write an article on how things going wrong is part of the process true success requires. I was so entertained of course I had to share.

What I faced on a slightly dramatic scale is the release process that occurs when we embark on change. What happens is when you commit your energy on a deep level to a different way of being, everything you’ve been holding onto that doesn’t serve the new vision starts to move, similar to old ground giving way to make room for new growth. It can feel like earthquakes.

It’s the “two steps forward, one step back” phenomenon, and it works well if you don’t allow yourself to be distracted or overwhelmed by the struggles that arise on their way out.

If you view them with soft vision, as a neutral observer, any response that’s needed will be evident without the need to be stressed or fear that what you want really can’t happen after all. The steps back are key moments of release, to allow a greater and far more vast experience of flow. They feel like failure, they’re not. They’re an unleashing.

I could very easily have panicked or seen evidence that my efforts for improving my business were for naught, but instead I met these setbacks with genuine gratitude. I saw evidence that I’d truly started to move things, and old energy that kept me playing small was quickly releasing. Otherwise why such miraculous timing? And why did I start writing this article before all this happened?

I opened, asked for help where I needed to, took all the necessary actions and allowed for the changes these “setbacks” required me to make in order for my business to come more fully into its own. All the issues were able to be resolved, even if it did throw off the timing of my newsletter which I so badly wanted to send out on New Year’s Day.

Don’t think of difficulties that arise as problems and they won’t be. Stay focused on the life you want to create for yourself, and know that any time it feels like it’s not working, it’s only because you’ve dug in deep enough to effect real change. Keep going and the distance the arrow flies will more than make up for the initial draw back.

It’s a new year, new beginning. Imagine what you want to create for yourself and start. Nothing can stop you, not even malware.