We have such fixed believes of who we are and who we are meant to be, that we stop looking at ourselves for who we truly are. We get so caught up in the believe that we 'are' a certain thing, that we don't stop to question, is this what I really want, is this who I feel I still truly am?
Here is the thing. We grow so much over the years. We see more things of the world, we get to know more people, we see new opportunities, life presents us with new opportunities. If we don't stop to question and wonder who we are in this whole process, we stay the same.
You might wonder, what's wrong with staying the same? Nothing! Nothing is wrong with staying the same, if it is a conscious choice that you want to stay the same.
It's something different if you're sleepwalking through life and suddenly find yourself old and gray and wondering what you did with your life.
So stop. Stop for a moment and wonder and feel. Is this what I want for my life. Is this who I feel deep down inside that I am meant to be? If yes, wonderful! If no, well, let's change things up a bit.
Do you remember how excited you could be as a child? Do you remember the feeling of anticipation growing inside of you as you were about to do something really exciting? Do you remember how you would jump up and down and run back and forth, just because all this excited energy was so hard to contain in your small physical body?
Now that we remember the real feeling of excitement and fun, let's look for it in our day to day life. Here's what you can do if you want to find out if you are living a life you love.
Grab a pen and paper and join me for this exercise.
Sit still, take a deep breath and relax into the moment. When you're ready and you're focused on yourself and you've let go of the outside things and you feel you start to slow down, slowly start going through your day. Think of the things that you do during the day. How do they make you feel? If anything profound comes up, feel free to open your eyes and write them down.
What things make you happy? What things do you dread?
When you're done going through your day, write down the things that you noticed. What makes you happy? Why does it make you feel happy? Can you do more of it in your day?
What makes you feel unhappy? Can you do less of it or do it in a different way so you don't have to feel as unhappy about it?
This was just a very short exercise to make you aware of how you feel about the things you do during the day. The real exercise is to FEEL throughout the day. To be present in your day and to start noticing how the thing you're doing makes you feel. Again and again, with every new activity.
Becoming aware is the first step. Then slowly you can try to present more of the fun stuff into your life and become creative around the things you don't like, so you don't have to do them as much. Because why would you?
An example of something that was really energy draining for me is cleaning. I really dislike
cleaning. But I do like to live in a somewhat clean house. You see how this requires cleaning, right?
So one of the first things I hired someone for, was cleaning. To me it's well worth paying someone to do that. In fact, I would pay to not do it..
So it makes sense to pay someone else to actually do it. Sometimes you hear people talking about how this hour that the cleaning lady cleans, you get to do your own work and make more money, blabla. Sure this is true. But to me, it doesn't matter if I work this hour extra while she cleans. To me it's about how happy it makes me not to do it. I get to do that for me. With or without working that extra hour.
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