Why Have You Been Waiting?
“All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. If we don’t, our lives get made up for us by other people.”
Why Have You Been Waiting?
Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash
What good are your ideas without a net to capture them? Stuffing your ideas into a closet and slamming your ass against the door sounds like a foolproof idea. In the off chance, things don't work out, I'd like to offer an alternative method that changed my life. The closet will burst. Give it time. Just like the tax man will never forget you failed to file your taxes. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when they come knocking. The key is to develop a system that sticks, propelling you forward every day.
Today, I'll be encouraging you to try something unconventional (unless you're My Dad). This may take some digging or even a trip to the store. A good old pen and paper. I'm a geek so clearly, I don't use a standard pad. I'm part of the Bullet Journal Revolution.
If you're working with me as a coach, it's one of the first things we set up when partnering together. I won't go into specifics of the inner workings of the BUJO system because the creator, Ryan did that here.
Yes, you could use your phone but Simplify Your Why is about intentionality. Life on your own terms is a separation from everyone else's urgent and focusing on your important.
Check out Simon Sinek's TED talk 'How great leaders inspire action.' It'll help unearth your own why. Your why is your personal autopilot. Guiding you back into your lane when you unknowingly drift into other lanes.
I believe you have a why that when discovered will transform your life. The only thing standing in the way of living it, is you. You're already enrolled in the journey, I'm just here to help you get out of your own way.
My what proves what you believe. If it didn't, you would have stopped reading long ago. People don't buy what you do, people buy why you do it. The goal is to partner with people who believe what you believe.
The collective force of belief is a juggernaut of actionable intentions. Thomas Edison believed that you never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious. His theory, your brain never shuts off. Even when you're sleeping, it chugs towards a solution
Before I go to bed I pull out my BUJO and write in the next day's date, followed by what's important to my why. These are the steps that I'm not willing to leave to "someday". I'm a firm believer that if it's not on paper, it's not real.
As much as we wish, dream and fantasize how different things could be, it will never happen without a plan. A plan works because of the intentionality behind it. With a goal in mind, you build momentum through good habits, built on a system. What went well, what needs tinkering, and what you'll do differently, is all caught in your journal.
Are your current personal and professional routines helping you stay focused, energized, creative, productive, and effective? What's serving you and what's stealing time? These questions allow you to rewrite your life. It's driving home the practice of reflection and challenging your perspectives. Writing about the change, you can help it along, lean into it, cooperate with what works and scrap the rest.
This is your life, write the story you want, plan for, and work towards. Living your message is the foundation to a meaningful life.
Start where you are. No matter what you want to work on, work on yourself first. And on any given day, you need only do little steps forward and the rest will follow. The act of showing up brings with it the ability to live your message.
Every day we have an enormous opportunity and every day, we waste it, leaving projects undone, people unconnected and problems unsolved.
Why have you been waiting?
Simon Sinek presents a simple but powerful model for how leaders inspire action, starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?"
Why do we put off decisions that could give us a better future? I've been at that crossroads many times in my life. Whether it was a decision to start my own business, launch a podcast or even ask my partner to marry me. I knew all three of these decisions would give me a better life. But in the back of my head, all I could think about is what if I ended up being a colossal failure?