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Do you ever find yourself in a situation hoping that it’s just deja vu, but knowing it’s not?

For instance, in 2000, the beginning of the new millenium, you got over your hangover from partying like it was 1999 and you start a diet. You stick to it through March and it slowly unravels. Fast forward to 2002, you fall ill and land in the hospital because you can’t breathe. The doctor tells you that the single most important thing you could do to not have an asthma attack is lose weight. You sign up for a balanced weight loss program. It goes well for about 3 months and then it unravels. Finally, you decide to give up on diets all together only to see a number on the scale that you think can’t be right because you don’t see it in the mirror. Confirmed at the doctor’s office, you begin to wonder how it is that you are in the same spot you were in 3 years ago. It seems like your life is going in circles.

Instead of jumping into another diet program or the same one, you begin to take a look around your life to find out why you’re here again. You realize that there’s more to the weight than the food and you begin to tackle those issues without using food to solve them. You start moving and your body appreciates every step you take. It starts to ask for more green stuff and you oblige it. Pounds fall off at an amazing rate and you feel vital and alive. 3 Months pass, but instead of the customary dwindling of efforts, you become more involved in taking care of your body. You start shopping for clothes, cleaning your face, flossing your teeth.

Okay, okay, maybe it’s not you, but it is me.

I’ve noticed that life has a funny way of going around in circles where I encounter the same issue over and over again. If I choose to continuously handle it ineffectively, I keep getting ineffective results. If I choose to ignore it, it comes back to me bigger and bolder, as if to say, “You can’t ignore me now!” It’s only when I grow through the issue and become transformed that I am able to move forward. The next time I encounter the issue, if indeed there is a next time, I know how to resolve it. Rather than become upset or plussed by it, I just navigate calmly through it.

The same holds for the annoying boss that you encounter on every single job you take and eventually quit, or the romantic relationships with people who are more dependent than you want them to be, or the jobs that you keep taking for the pay only to find out that you have less and less time with your family.

As you descend down the spiral (into the seeming depths of hell), life begins to get smaller and smaller. It becomes more and more difficult and stifling. You begin to feel despair.

At this point you have to do something to break out of the cycle. Turn the problem on it’s head and approach it from a different angle. You can start by asking why. Why do my efforts to lose weight fall apart after 3 months? Why do I keep eating when I’m not even hungry? Why do I keep getting the same boss at every job I go to?

Asking why gets you to the root cause of the problem. When a problem keeps showing up in your life, it’s not about the thing that shows up, it’s what’s causing it to show up. You might continue to get the annoying boss because you feel like someone has to beat you up for you to get motivated. You might be in a co-dependent relationship because you are afraid of being lonely or you want to fix someone else’s life and put off fixing your own. You might be taking the high paying, ultra stressful job because you are afraid of becoming the father that your father was. Getting to the heart of the matter enables you to find solutions that are lasting rather than bandaid fixes.

Let’s take the annoying boss, for example. Once you realize that you don’t want to be beaten anymore and you’re ready for praise, you begin to shift your motivation. You shift your life so that you are around more positive people. You celebrate your success, big and small. Then one day, your critical boss moves to another department and you are promoted to her position. The best part is that you now know how to motivate through praise rather than punishment. Your team enjoys working with you and you are able to be more effective and profitable for your company. Your company finds that your leadership style is uniqus and asks you to train other managers. All of a sudden, you are living your dream. All while you were working for the cranky boss you wondered why they weren’t trained to encourage. You kept thinking that you would train managers to be supportive and empowering. Now you have the chance to live your dream!

You shifted your life from going down into the depths of hell to expanding up into the realms of heaven. Now, you see the same cranky manager, but instead of opposing her, you embrace and praise her. You are now in a position to teach what you have experienced. Your life is bigger, fuller, richer because you were able to successfully address one of your problems.