Our reality is our choice. Many of my clients don´t particularly like to hear me say that but it is true. We create the world we live in and if we want things to change then it means making them change.When it comes right down to it…Either you run your day or your day runs you.Let me ask you this…Do you have a vision of what you want your life to look like?
Do you act on that vision each and every day?
Exciting goals are fun to imagine. It´s easy to do and they feel good.Quite often, though, putting them into action is a whole different story.When we look at what we´re doing day after day, we realize that the choices we make are doing little to move us towards the life we really, truly want.Many of those choices are just keeping us frustrated and unhappy.And that makes me wonder…How happy are YOU with the life you´re living? With the choices you´re making? Are you letting circumstance shape your days? How is that working for you?I mean…Think about it.
What if every day was like today? Would you be happy?
If not, then it´s time to make a choice.Instead of settling for what you´ve got, what if you chose to live each day in a way that changes your future?Let´s look at how you could do that…
Imagine Your Average Day
Let´s use yesterday as an example – unless, of course, something really special or unusual happened, then choose a day that´s more like what you experience on a day-to-day basis.Ready?
- Think about what you ate and drank.
- How much exercise did you get?
- What did you do socially? Did you go out and interact with others?
- Did you call any friends?
- If you’re single, did you ask anyone out on a date?
- If you’re married, what did you do to enhance your relationship?
- Did you do anything to increase your income or advance your career?
- Did you learn anything new that would be useful in the future?
Now…
Consider Your Average Weekend
Take a look at the questions we just went through and ask them again, focusing on a typical weekend this time around.
Imagine living the same day over and over, and over again…for the next 10 years.
How would that make you feel? Is that the life you´ve always dreamed about living?Based on the things you eat and the exercise you get on your typical day, what would you expect your health and body composition to look like in 10 years?Now ask yourself the SAME question with respect to your
- Finances
- Social life
- Marriage/relationship
- Career
After 10 years of living your average day, where would you be? What would your life look like? Would that make you happy?
Now let´s make this whole exercise a bit more “real”:
Meet Mary
Mary is 42-years old. She lives with her partner of 5 years and works as an online trainer and career coach. While she’s not in bad shape, she could definitely stand to lose 15 pounds or so. And though she´s saved some money over the years, she doesn´t make a point of saving regularly.
An Average Day In The Life Of Mary
On Monday, after running errands, Mary stops at Starbucks for a café latte and a muffin before she heads back to her home office. Breakfast sets her back $9 and 1,400 calories, but her business is doing okay, so she doesn’t worry too much about it. She figures she deserves it anyway.
She arrives gets back to her office about 15 minutes later than expected. Not late enough to cause a time crunch with her clients, but she’s always running behind schedule which often leaves her feeling unorganized and stressed.
She’s not setting the world on fire with her work, but she feels good about what she´s doing and has enough clients to get by. Working from home is often more stressful than she thought it´d be.
The hardest part is the way her work seems to seep into every aspect of her life.
She grabs a bag of popcorn and munches on it at her computer. Popcorn has lots of fiber, so she figures it´s not such a bad choice for lunch.
When her partner comes in around 8:00 pm, she stretches to get the kinks out of her neck after way too many hours at her computer and heads into the kitchen to see what she can pop into the microwave. Dinner isn´t super healthy but it´s easy and not that unhealthy either. Both she and her partner flip through their phones, checking messages and the news while they eat. They don´t really talk and the meal is done within minutes of them sitting down to eat.
After dinner, they watch some TV (still scrolling through their phones). Mary scans a few industry-related blogs and then, feeling industrious, decides to wash the dinner dishes and make some tweaks to her website before going to bed.
In bed, she plays on her phone and checks her Facebook news feed.
Tuesday through Friday, her days look pretty much the same.
Where can Mary realistically expect to be in 10 years?
Is your average day remarkably more meaningful and productive?
Where will YOU be in 10 years?
Are you living your days in a way that will lead to more joy, ease and balance in your life? Or do you simply figure, when the time is right, you´ll do things differently?
As you live your day today, ask yourself:
What are the long-term implications of what I am doing at this moment? Does it really matter? How can I go about “doing” the business of life differently?
Instead of waiting for “someday”, what choices can I be making that will lead to more joy, ease and balance in my life TODAY?