Today was almost a successful day of reaching goals.
I intended to wake to good coffee, journal, exercise, work, get a haircut, work some more, and have dinner with friends. Did that happen? Mostly.
Exercise didn’t happen because . . . . well, life can’t be calculated so precisely every single day. And today, exercise was shuffled to the end of the line. I’ll try again tomorrow.
That snippet of my average weekday is a little boring when compared to my other weekdays living and working abroad.
But, it demonstrates the choices I’ve made to fill my days with things that create the life I want.
My daily to-do’s aren’t always so chirpy, though, and if I’m not careful, I could slip and give my energy to things that do not serve me. Destabilizing things such as fear, worry, or confusion that can sneak out at any time, which I’ll describe in a moment.
But first, imagine if you created time in your day only for the activities, people, and purpose that serves you. Does it seem possible? Or just out of reach?
The purposeful act of manifesting our intentions and creating the life we want can feel like a doozy.
All of us go-getters, adventurers and dreamers will have experienced this at some point: the frustration from actions and distractions that block our path, tangle our forward steps, and challenge us.
But sometimes our challenge isn’t learning to balance weathered, weighty luggage in our arms or building up strength.
Sometimes our challenge is choosing to set certain things down because they’ve simply become too heavy.
They hold us back, weigh us down and make us feel tired. The challenge comes in recognizing what no longer serves us and letting it go.
What do we choose to let go of? Usually:
- Hobbies we have but don’t really enjoy like we thought we would
- Stagnated careers
- Other people – (this one is sticky).
I can probably think of a few personal examples for each, and so can you.
Let’s consider the working world. There is a gaining momentum of individuals who are finding an exhilarating release in pivoting their career mid-stream.
They do this because the satisfaction their jobs once gave them isn’t there anymore. They feel hollow. Perhaps they want to find more meaning in their day to day. Maybe they seek more time to do things they enjoy. Like learn a language, go to more open mic nights, or pick up kick-boxing.
These are the people who close their uninspiring Gmail and open Skillshare instead. When they do this, their confidence and excitement for what their life could be like begins to soar. They have created space.
We all need to do this from time to time. Shoving and sliding out of the way any luggage that we’ve held on to for far too long because, once, it made us feel incredibly good.
Creating a life we want means taking a moment to look around and think to ourselves, “What still shines brilliantly for me, and what has become faded glory?”
Sometimes it’s painful. I won’t lie, I’ve definitely cried and lost sleep over tough choices I’ve had to make – in life, love and business.
But it’s all part of the journey we go through if growth is what we are journeying for.
The work I do and the experiences we create are transformative because you learn how to let go of emotions, beliefs, and biases that no longer serve you so that you can nourish and develop the ones that do.
Is this a shout-out to encourage you to explore our leadership experiences?
Yes, partly.
But this post is also an opportunity to talk about the things we believe in: Transformative learning, inspiring personal growth, finding your purpose and manifesting your life the way you dream it could be.
Creating the life you want is more than just planning out your daily to-do’s that add up to a successful weekday.
It is learning to create space for things that serve your purpose and letting go of the things that don’t.
For me, and the Venture Within community, we do this through travel.
(And try to get more exercise in the day along the way . . . .)
Photo Credit: Erwan Hesry, Unsplashed