The biggest temptation in life is to settle for too little – Thomas Merton
Are you moving through life without a clear direction? Are you letting events and other people’s needs take priority over what you want to do? Do you have a plan, or are your days being filled with ‘doing’ rather than ‘being’?
Is Life Passing You By?
Twelve months ago, I found myself complaining that ‘life seemed to be passing me by!’ I was bored, frustrated and totally unfulfilled! I’d had a health scare which had been a big wake-up call and suddenly I was looking at life differently.
I would wake up in the morning and my calendar would be fill. It was filled with: picking kids up from school, banking, shopping, doing this and doing that… but none of it was my plan. My husband would tell me to ‘take the day off and do something just for me!’ But, that was my biggest problem! I had spent so long working and doing for others, helping, solving problems and ‘just being there’ for everyone else, I had forgotten what I enjoyed doing! Can you relate to that?
Plan for Your Life
As a coach I knew that your best chance of having the life that you want is to know
precisely where you are going. This applies to every area of your life: your health, finances, social life and anything else that is important to you. Some of us plan this intuitively but very few of us sit down and really plan it and have a clear idea of exactly where we want to go.
Most of us will spend more time on planning a holiday than we will on planning our lives and where we want to be in 5 years’ time. We may have paying our home off planned, but that is called mortgage repayments! We may have our Superannuation planned, but that is compulsory planning via the Government program! I know many small business owners who have never contributed on their own behalf into their Superannuation. There are other areas like career, education, having children, where most of us don’t plan what we want and where we want to be at different times in our lives, we just keep hoping that over time we will ‘get a lucky break’ and things will be ‘sweet!’
When we do not spend time on planning our lives we are like a yacht without a rudder, we have little control, and we pretty much must go where the wind blows. We are at the mercy of the elements, other people, circumstances etc. 
Do You Know What You Want?
Many people are doing things they have to do in their lives because they have no choice, they live lives of quiet desperation. They know what they don’t want but have no clue what they do want. This is where I was.
Deep down, we know what we would love to do, but often we can’t see a way that its possible, so we push the thought into the background, trying to hide the idea even from ourselves. We disregard our most inspiring dreams and goals and settle for whatever seems reasonable or whatever comes our way.
This is the position I found myself in 12 months ago. My lack of planning was in the ‘spiritual’ area of my life! What makes my heart sing?
When you are doing what you love and have a plan of how you are going to do it, you never need motivation or inspiration. You can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning and you live a life of purpose.
To get myself back on track, I sat down and asked myself the following questions? I encourage you to do the same, in each of the 7 areas of your life – Spiritual, Career, Finances, Social, Health, Family, Vocation – take some time by yourself to ask yourself the following:
- What do you want?
- Why do you want it?
Notice I have not said ‘how you are going to get it’ Once you are crystal clear on what you want and why you want it, the how’s will appear. The ‘how’ is the easy part!
It took me a couple of months to figure what I really wanted to be doing… but now on I am on track! Here’s a little clue to where to start looking….. ‘When I was a teenager, I wanted to travel and show people the world – most of my life I have been a ‘coach’ …. Now, I am running Life Change Retreats and Journeys’ I have combined my two passions into my dream job! It is what I was born to do!
