“To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.”

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

Many people make plans for their vacation but rarely do people make a plan for their life, as ridiculous as that may sound.  Life happens whether we are paying attention or not! We get distracted, we get overwhelmed, we are sometimes deceived. And then we find ourselves in a situation that doesn’t make sense. “How did I get here?” is a common refrain.

According to the authors of a new book, Living Forward, if we had a Life Plan, we wouldn’t drift too far off the path we defined without noticing that something is off. They warn that drifting through life without a plan can result in some very costly consequences, including:

• confusion,
• unnecessary expense,
• lost opportunity,
• pain and
• regrets

I know from my own experiences that this premise is true. I have experienced all of those consequences at some time in my life – multiple times even. The worst case was realizing that I had married a man who was an alcoholic and an abuser. My children were traumatized, as was I. How did I get here?

The good news is that it’s never too late to get back on track. You can’t change the past, but all of us have the power to change the future. We allow ourselves off the hook by claiming that we just don’t have time to do life planning, but I believe that we don’t have time to NOT plan our lives.

In the book mentioned above, Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want, authored by Michael Hyatt & Daniel Harkavy, readers are led through the steps to create a Life Plan. The document when completed is a “living” document that is reviewed often and regularly, and is likely to change over time.

They ask that we answer three very powerful questions:

1. How do I want to be remembered?
2. What matters most?
3. How can I get from here to where I want to be?

As we become clearer about the answers to those questions, we start realizing some awesome benefits:

• we clarify our priorities,
• we start maintaining balance in our lives,
• we filter our opportunities,
• we face reality,
• we envision the future and
• we avoid regrets

So, I invite you to create your plan, and a good start would be purchasing this book and putting it into action.

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 Okay … so you have your dream, your vision of a life you would love. Why is it so difficult to manifest that dream? Six things need to change before you are ready to fully live that new life:

1. Shift Your Perception
2. Increase Your Sense of Deserving
3. Face Your Fears
4. Feed Your Faith
5. Increase Your Awareness of Abundance
6. Liberate Yourself Through Forgiveness

You will each have your own work to do in these areas that will be similar to, but not actually the same as, someone else’s. There’s no way I can discuss all six of these needed changes in one fail swoop, so let’s take the first one – Shift Your Perception- for this article.

SHIFT YOUR PERCEPTION

Our thought patterns and behaviors may not always be in harmony with the life we want to live because of the following:

• We focus on lack and limitation, yet yearn for abundance
• We hold thoughts of resentment when we desire to have more love
• We conduct ourselves in mental, emotional, and physical ways that are out of harmony with the vision we want to pursue

There are defining moments in everyone’s life. You may think of them as “chapters”. One of the chapters in my life occurred when I was 27 years old. I had been teaching in a high school in Colorado for the previous 4 years. One of my colleagues – a woman named Donna – and I became best friends. Neither of us was content with our teaching careers, largely because of the administration’s resistance to change. So, we packed up what we could haul in our two cars, putting the rest of our stuff in storage, and headed down the highway! We had no jobs to go to, but we were young and adventurous.

Our destination was Oregon. Now 40 years later, I still live in Oregon. I love it here, my children and grandchild live here and, though I love Colorado and visit there once or twice a year, I love being able to live near the ocean. That is still one of my top reasons for staying here, along with many more. 

Me in Oregon taking photos of my favorite place – Pacific Ocean

Me as a teacher (on the right) with my friend, Donna, directing a school play practice. 

Changing my location at 28 was definitely a turning point for me in many ways. I changed jobs and careers. Later, I got married and had children. I put down roots. I owned my own business starting in 1994. I would call the chapter when I was 27, “The Adventurer”. Now, looking back at that defining moment, I realize how momentous that change was. If I had stayed in Colorado and possibly continued my career in education, how would my life have been different?

Until the recent past, I did focus more on what I didn’t have, felt resentment towards people who “got in my way”, and sometimes conducted myself in ways that I regret. If I had hung onto those perceptions, I would be very unhappy at this point in my life.. But I have shifted my perception. I now think about the “bad” things that happened since that move to Oregon in a different light. They allowed me to grow and evolve into who I am today. 

What’s a “chapter title” in your life that you would like to give new meaning? If you care to share, please comment below and let us know how the meaning has changed from when it happened. 

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 Purpose gives our life meaning. When you discover your purpose, you can live your life with intention and make choices that serve your objective for why you are here on the planet. Finding your purpose is not always easy. You must embrace life wholeheartedly, explore many different pathways, and allow yourself to grow.

Madison Taylor

Are you trying to find your purpose?  Think you are running out of time?  Believe me, it’s never too late to transform your life.  

We each have to search for our purpose. It would be nice if it were instinctual. Most animals have strong instincts to know what to do for their survival, which is, in essence, their purpose. Human beings, on the other hand, have been given discerning minds that must go through the process of discovery and manifestation. Our base instincts aren’t good enough to even survive on this planet.

It wasn’t until 2012 that I began an earnest quest to identify my purpose. At that point, I was already 63 years old!  It took another few years of discovery to finally decide that my purpose is to help people through coaching. In September 2015, I was certified as a Transformational Life Coach by the Life Mastery Institute and began the work I was meant to do in the world.

Prior to that, I had lived a life that happened to me, rather than through me. How do I know that I found my purpose? I feel energized and passionate about my work. When I wake up in the morning, I look forward to my day. Weekends aren’t about recovering from  the week; rather they are about celebrating the week and looking forward to the week coming up. 

If we don’t determine where we are going in our life, we will end up someplace else, wondering what happened!

I invite you to consider making the time and effort needed to define and design a life you would love. Then comes the hard part. You must transform yourself into the person who is already living that life, despite your fears and the resistance to change that we all experience. Don’t forget that help is available!

We have a mechanism that tries to keep us stuck – our ego. Befriend your ego, but be firm with it. Thanks, but no thanks!

Please comment below.  I would love to hear from you!

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Often we think the circumstances in our lives are preventing us from moving forward.  Not enough time. Not enough money. Too old. Too young. Don’t have the skills or education.  Any of those sound familiar?  What beliefs are keeping you stuck?

The words we use when we think about ourselves are very powerful. Catch yourself. Question. Be curious. Is what you are saying the TRUTH or just a belief that you’ve decided to adopt?

There was a young guy who hears about this great fishing stream. He goes to the fishing stream and he throws in his line and then he waits. Meanwhile, he happens to notice that a little ways down the bank is an elderly fisherman. He’s throwing in his line and this guy is just pulling in one fish after another. Once he catches each fish, he lays it down on the edge of the riverbank and measures it against a broken-off ruler. If the fish is bigger than the broken-off ruler, he unhooks it and tosses it back in the stream. If instead the fish is smaller than the broken-off ruler, he unhooks it and puts it in his bucket. So the young guy is thinking, why is he doing that? Why is he unhooking the big fish and throwing them back and only keeping the small ones. 

The young man finally just can’t stand it, so he goes down to the old man and asks him, “Excuse me, but why are you throwing the big fish back and keeping the little ones?  Do they get bony if they get too big, or is there a regulation about taking big fish out of the stream?”  The old guy looks at him and says, “Sonny, look at this. I measure every fish by this broken off ruler here. You see, that broken-off ruler is broken off at exactly the size of the frying pan I use.”

We laugh at the old man limiting the size of the fish he keeps, because he has a small frying pan. Couldn’t he buy a larger pan?  Of course, he could. Is that any different from being tossed a big idea and throwing it back, because of our self-imposed limits? We think, “I don’t have the money”, “I don’t have the education”, I don’t have the time”, etc.  We believe our current conditions don’t support us in making use of that big idea. 

Have you ever thrown back a big idea because of your current circumstances?  Is it possible that you may just be afraid?  And, if so, how can you silence that voice of fear?

The first step is to DECIDE for that big idea. The second step is to do something that moves you in the direction of that dream, in spite of the fear. The third step is to begin living the life you are imagining. 

I know I’m making it sound easy. So, full disclosure …. it is NOT easy. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it! The ones that really want to succeed realize that they need help to navigate the gap between the life they have been living and the life they WANT to be living. 

Are you one of those people who lives 90 years, or one of those people that lives one year 90 times? 

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Fun isn’t something that is given or done to you, it is something that you allow yourself to experience. – Madisyn Taylor

Having a grandson has reminded me of how much fun it is to be a kid. At almost 3 years old, he is curious about everything and loves it when we play imaginary games. Usually, he is the Fire Chief (he has a jacket and helmet) and we are trying to rescue people. He also loves to play hide-and-seek and climb and run and… and… and…

I’m sitting in front of my computer right now and considering taking my own advice. I want to allow myself to experience fun! For some reason I’m not giving myself permission, though.  I have all these tasks to get done before I can even consider relaxing for a while. And having fun? Sadly, I’ve forgotten how. Have you?

Here are a few tips to help you LEARN to have fun again:

1. Make a list of everything you can think of that you thought was fun at some point in your life.

Now, try not to censor this list AT ALL. Write everything down, especially if it seems silly. The circle 2 things that seem the most fun to you and set aside time this week to do them. Here are some things on my list:

• Play hopscotch
• Swing on a swing set
• Take off my shoes and walk across the grass barefoot
• Sing and play my guitar
• Dance
• Take photographs of nature
• Read an escape novel
• Hike in the woods

What’s on your list?  Share below in the comments section!

2. Give yourself permission

No matter what you have to do this day or this week, give yourself permission to intersperse it with some fun. If you need a justification, just rationalize this fun time as rejuvenation time. And if you are still unwilling to give yourself permission, then you may have to get bossy about it. Talk to a friend or relative who knows you well and ask them to keep you accountable.

3. Make a plan

Make a plan to include at least 2 times this week to a fun activity. You get to choose, but you don’t get to skip it!

4.  Journal about your experiences

Write about how it felt to give yourself some time to have fun. Is there anything you would do differently? Did you notice a change in your attitude either during or after your experience? Did you have trouble sticking to your plan?  What did that feel like?

If you were balking at taking the time to have fun, imagine yourself calling up that friend or relative who is keeping your accountable and then imagine what they would say to you.

Fun is whatever you want it to be: recreation, relaxation, adventure. Simply put, fun is doing something for no other reason except it brings you joy.   – Hilary Barnett       https://nosidebar.com/author/hilary-barnett/

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A couple of days ago I wrote a blog about depression, which seems to be a prevailing mood right now for many people. The other emotion that causes stress for many people right now is overwhelm.

“Stop the World I Want to Get Off!” is the title of a musical from the 1960’s and the hit song associated with it. I love the message, which to me says, “I’m overwhelmed. Please stop the world so I can get reoriented and catch up!”  Of course, stopping the world is not an option. In fact, it seems that the world is spinning faster and faster every day.

“Overwhelm” is increasingly common as demands on human attention increase exponentially. The human brain just wasn’t designed to handle the environment we inhabit. For the vast majority of world history, human life—both culture and biology—was shaped by scarcity. Food, clothing, shelter, tools and pretty much everything else had to be farmed or fabricated, at a very high cost in time and energy. Knowledge was power, and it was hard to come by; for centuries, books had to be copied by hand and were rare and precious. Even people were scarce: Friends and relatives died young (as late as 1900, life expectancy in the United States was approximately 49 years). This kind of scarcity still rules the world’s poorest regions. But in the developed world, hundreds of millions of us now face the bizarre problem of surfeit. Yet our brains, instincts and socialized behavior are still geared to an environment of lack. The result? Overwhelm—on an unprecedented scale. –Martha Beck

Understanding the cause of your overwhelm, can help you overcome it, but sometimes the cause eludes you. Often that’s because the feeling is a result of multiple factors — not just one or two. So, what can we do to help ourselves?

Martha Beck, author of The Four-Day Win, advises that we take the following steps:

“STEP ONE: Unclog your overwhelmed brain.
To begin, free your attention bottleneck by closing your eyes and taking deep, slow breaths. Concentrate only on the feeling, sound, taste, and smell of the air going into and out of your lungs.

STEP TWO: Choose a search image.
Pick an arbitrary category of items as your search image—for example, “things that are blue.” Repeat the word blue as you open your eyes. Notice that blue things appear, and that other items become blurred. This is normal.

STEP THREE: Switch images.
Close your eyes again, breathing in and out until you feel relaxed, and choose a new category, such as “round things” (or tall women, or green cars, or whatever).

STEP FOUR: Relax to focus.
You may find that you can’t visualize your selected search images, that you’re distracted by noises, colors, activity. This happens because you’re not used to setting your own attention focus. Instead of concentrating harder, think softer. Relax your senses; mentally repeat your search phrase (“blue,” “round things,” “tall women,” “green car”). Gradually, you’ll find that your eyes locate the image on their own.

STEP FIVE: Bring focus to a familiar activity.
Once you can target your attention while holding still, practice the same exercise during an ordinary activity like driving or jogging. As you cruise along, repeat the search-image phrase, “anything that moves.” This will make you more alert to things that will keep you safe.

STEP SIX: Tackle the hard stuff.

Finally, take your attention-directing skills into a situation that usually overwhelms you. For Paula, it’s her cluttered house; for Sonya, her schedule. Instead of diving in, they need to set their attention focus prior to entering the danger zone. Think of this as a mission statement—a carefully defined surgical strike, rather than a vague plan to do better. For Paula, a useful goal might be “I’ll go into the home office, locate three books I haven’t touched for years, and donate them to the library.” Sonya might attack her planner with the mission “I’ll cancel one commitment that isn’t totally necessary.”

Give this a try if you are suffering from emotional overwhelm, and let us know in the comments below how this “prescription” worked for you.

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FEELING DEPRESSED?

What can you do about it?

Does it feel like a black cloud is always overhead, even when it’s sunny outside? Are you feeling unmotivated even when a good opportunity comes along? Do you feel hopeless — like nothing is going to get better?

Imagine now that you discover how to change that for yourself. Well, you don’t have to just imagine. Take some advice from someone who has suffered with life-long depression. I think I know how you feel.

Circumstances in your life can certainly get you down, but that’s not what I’m talking about. This kind of depression is chronic. Short-term fixes can give you some short-term relief, but it always comes back, often triggered by something that isn’t going the way you want it to. While it’s easy for some people to bounce back from disappointment, for some of us the journey is not that easy. That black cloud just dampens our spirit continuously.

There are many explanations for WHY people get depressed. Those explanations can be helpful from a rational perspective, but depression isn’t rational, is it?

Here are some steps you can take that may help to ease the depression and allow you to see some light filtering through the clouds:

1. Write it out 

Journaling about your feelings can sometimes help put them in perspective. Begin by just getting the feelings down on paper. Don’t edit and don’t censor!

2. Find the feelings in your body

All feelings find a place to hang out in your body. Think about a current situation that is depressing you. Now close your eyes and notice where that feeling is strongest in your body. It might be in your throat. It might be in your chest or your stomach. Maybe it is in your shoulders or your neck. It could be anywhere.

3.  Accept the feelings with love

Putting your focus on the feeling wherever it is located in your body, send it love. Resisting our feelings and blaming ourselves for them only make them worse, so send love to that area. Perhaps visualize surrounding that area in a warm, golden light.

4. Stay with the feelings

It can be tempting to try to escape from the feelings. That’s how we normally try to handle unpleasant feelings. We try to ignore them and when that doesn’t work, we suppress them. If your mind tries to wander away from the location in your body or the location of the feelings changes, gently bring your focus to the location of the feelings again and continue to send them light and love.

5. Let them run their course

Stay with the feelings as long as you can, letting them live and breathe and even grow. Let them move around if they need to. Just keep your attention on the most intense area and continue to send it more light and love.

6.  Let them go 

Keep your focus on the feelings in your body. When the feelings become less intense, just notice that and stay with them. Give them some additional time to dissipate. Eventually, you will be left with a neutral feeling. That means you have been able to acknowledge, accept and now release them.

7. Read what you wrote in your journal

Notice the intensity of your feelings around what you have written in your journal. You will likely notice that the feelings are less intense. Ask yourself if what you have written is actually TRUE for you at this time. If it’s not, try writing the TRUTH in the margin next to the statements or at the bottom of the page and notice how that makes you feel.

Sometimes you need to repeat this process a few times over days or even weeks. If you still find yourself depressed after a reasonable amount of time, you may want to contact a professional who can look at other causes for the depression (i.e. chemical imbalance, hormonal imbalance, fatigue, allergies, etc.).

I hope this has been helpful. The most important thing is that everyone’s experience is different, so try not to judge yourself!

By the way, this method can work for all negative feelings, not just depression.

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Does this resemble the twists and turns of your life? It looks chaotic, doesn’t it?

My life definitely looked like that up until about 10 years ago (2007), when my awareness expanded and I realized something was seriously wrong. Whose life was I living, anyway” Truthfully, I hadn’t thought anything about life planning yet.  I just knew that I hadn’t planned my life very much up to that point. The sad thing is that I was 58 years old in 2007. Yikes!  Not much time left! Why didn’t I notice sooner?

Janice Holly Booth explains it this way:

“When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Chances are you thought there was one right choice, one perfect answer. That mindset may explain why many of us are stuck in lives we don’t like, or jobs we downright hate. Truth is, there is no single right path. In fact, we all have multiple lives in us. Being a smart life planner means figuring out what they are.”

Dave Evans says that mid-life is a perfect time  (!) to redesign our lives, because we have lived long enough to know better who we really are and how the world really is. It’s NOT too late. It’s never too late. Just don’t waste any more time wallowing in a life that doesn’t include the authentic YOU — who you really are.

Imagine yourself as an interior designer! You look around at the furniture and wall decor that you’ve been looking at for years and realize that you need to seriously update it. Marshall Goldsmith says that we should “see our lives as a problem to be solved” from a designer’s perspective. You need to first identify those aspects of your life that no longer serve you.

But don’t get confused between something that is a problem and something that is a circumstance. If you can’t change it, then it’s a circumstance. Take a look at these four domains in your life:

1. Health & Wellness
2. Relationships
3. Your work in the world
4. Your time and money freedom

For each area, ask yourself how you are doing. You might form an image of each one being a separate room in your house. Together they make up the house, but they also have their own separate identities.

Now, create a vision for your life. What is your purpose? Is your current life in alignment with the vision and with your core values? For example, if you are concerned about the environment and have a strong wish to leave the planet a better place for the next generations, a job working for a company that pollutes would not align with your vision and your values.

Dave Evans and his partner, Bill Burnett, authored a book titled, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. In it they encourage people to develop five mindsets to redesign their lives. They are:

• Be curious
• Try stuff
• Reframe problems
• Remember that life design is a process
• Ask for help

Once you’ve designed your life, you’re not done. In fact, you are never done! Life design is a never-ending process. Ayse Birself, author of Design the Life You Love, says this:

“Today things are changing so fast. The traditional road maps to a good life can’t keep up with the change. This is an incredible challenge. But a challenge is also an opportunity. Why not design our own roadmap, design our own life? A life that is original to us, built on our own values and that look and feels like us. That is our opportunity.”

Please leave your comment below!

Author’s Note: Some of the information in this article is from Life Reimagined LLC

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“Your destiny may be waiting for you, but whether or not you meet your destiny is up to you.”     – Madisyn Taylor

Some religions preach that our lives are pre-ordained. Followers accept that their lives are given over to a force greater than themselves — one that has determined their path and their destination. If that is true, we are just actors on a stage, with no control over what happens.

Although the words destiny and fate are often used interchangeably, they aren’t really the same. Fate indicates that a person is passive. They have settled for whatever comes along. Destiny is more active. We can pursue our destiny. It is in our hands, if we dare to take risks. If not, we meet our fate.

Naturally, Charlie, a book written by S.L. Scott, is about two people who go from living the life they were given to creating the life they were dreaming of. They felt that “it had to be better than what they were currently living”.

“They both knew deep down that they deserved a better life and took action to create that life”.

Are you living your “fate” or creating your “destiny”? It’s that first step that seems to be the hardest. We’re afraid. Some people need to hit the lowest rung on the ladder before they wake up and begin creating their own destiny.

If we can dream it, we can make it our reality, but we have to set that plan in motion by taking the first step.   ~S.L. Scott

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