When I come to Richmond for a visit, I have the pleasure of staying with dear friends. There’s always lots of laughter and interesting conversation, but last week when I walked in my home-away-from-home, I could immediately sense that Jennifer was not herself.
I soon found out that she had been spending time at the hospital at the bedside of a friend who suffered a massive stroke. He is in a coma, with his right side paralyzed. He had gone to work Friday morning, saying goodbye to his wife and kids like he always does, but he never made it home that evening.
Jennifer had been spending time comforting his wife, a close friend she’s known for decades. Prognosis is not good and the family is suffering from this unexpected tragedy.
It’s a heartbreaking scenario that seems surreal, but it’s the reality of many. You start the day, expecting it to be similar to so many others and then your life is turned upside down in a blink. There’s no warning…just raw pain that tears at your heart.
Most of us hear similar stories each week. It’s a stark reminder of the things that matter most. Yet most of us, after a brief reality slap, continue on with our lives in our same predictable patterns.
It’s not surprising when you understand human behavior and the power of our habits. It’s easier to resume life as usual then to make a shift, even when we recognize that a change would enrich our lives.
So if you want to really live a life that matters, you need to figure out what matters most. Are you spending enough time building and nurturing the relationships that are most important to you? Are you doing the things that will have the most impact? Are you really spending your time the way you want? Or are you blindly going about your routines feeling like your making sacrifices now for the hope of more time to do what you really want tomorrow? Or next week? Or next year?
If you’re interested in moving beyond lip-service to living a life that matters, here are four steps to take:
- Create awareness of what matters. Take the time to really think about your life. What matters to you? To do that, you have to dig into the “WHY?” At the end of the day, how do you want your life to unfold? What are the relationships you want to have? What is the work you want to do? How can you carve out the time to focus on those things that you value? What are the things that make you come alive and fill you with passion and purpose. Sometimes we get so trapped by our current reality that it’s hard to imagine the possibilities of what our life could become. But this is the time to give yourself permission to take down your walls and open yourself up to “If I could, I would…”
- Once you give thoughtful consideration to what you want, write it ALL down. Don’t worry about how you will make it happen (yet). Just get it down on paper or in your computer. The act of writing it will help you clarify and give shape to your vision. To add depth, think about your senses as they relate to different aspects of your life – career, relationships, spirituality, community stewardship, health/fitness, and fun/adventure. In other words, how do you want to feel about your career, what do your relationships look like, and what do you see when you think about making a difference in your community (whether it’s mentoring a child or crusading for world peace)? We tell our clients to look at 1, 3 and 7-year intervals as they formulate their vision and to start wherever they want. That means, if it’s easier for you to look ahead one year from now, start there. If you would rather look further ahead, then go for it.
- Making the shift from your current reality to your ultimate life takes real effort. So I don’t want to trivialize it by making it fit neatly into a bullet-point. Recognize that it starts with your vision and it is tied to your beliefs, which are tied to your habits which, in turn, are tied to your behavior. In other words, you have to see it first and then you have to “truly” believe that you deserve it and can achieve it. Do your beliefs support your vision? Once they do, you need to examine your habits. Which ones support your new vision? Which ones no longer serve you? What shifts can you make? How will you make them? What actions or behaviors will be required? How can you stay focused? (Hint: Go back to the “why?” Your answer has to be compelling and important enough to you to stay the course.)
- Building your momentum is an ongoing process. Your vision and new life will not magically appear. But it will come into sharper and sharper focus by aligning your daily actions with your intent. The simplest way I have found to do this is to simply ask yourself the same question each day – “What can I do today which will move me closer to my vision?” Soon, you will start to eliminate or minimize those activities that no longer serve you while redirecting your time to those items that matter most.
