Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.
Shannon L. Alder
Hello, Lovelies!
There is a powerful question I ask myself at least once a year.
It’s a confronting question, if you are truly honest with yourself.
The question is: Is my life working for me right now?
If you’re brave, I’d love for you to find some time to sit with this question, and maybe journal it out.
Feel into the question. Feel into your state of mind, your energy levels, your mood. Think about what needs to be done and who is there to do it. Think about where you live, the people in your life, the way you fill your time. And as you examine each area keep asking Is this working for me right now?
The right now part of the question is important. Don’t leave it out. Sometimes your life doesn’t look or feel great but it’s temporary – there’s a reason behind it that will make putting up with current circumstances worthwhile because of a bigger goal you are working towards. Let me give you an example: my home is filled with boxes right now. It feels crazy and chaotic and overwhelming. But I’m moving from two homes – a city home where I have lived for 28 years, and a farm where I have lived for twelve – to make a massive downsizing change where we will live in one treehouse by the beach. Chaos is to be expected. It will pass. So what I am experiencing right now is temporary. I can live with that.
When I ask myself that question again Is my life working for me right now? (it’s a question you need to ask over and over) I can shift my attention from my cluttered home to my daily routine. I can look at my happiness levels, my outcomes and results, my satisfaction. I can look at the dreams I’m chasing, and the dreams I haven’t started on yet. I can dig around to find out where I have become bogged down and why. I can seek out the areas where joy has been replaced by duty, where living has been replaced by survival. I can look for where I have ceded control and am running on automatic pilot.
Tip: We spend a LOT of our lives running on automatic pilot.
I don’t always like the answers, when I am brave enough to ask this question. Inevitably, I will uncover areas in my life that will require more thought, and then action. Change, even when it will be good for me, is usually harder than staying in an unhappy but safe rut.
This big question Is my life working for me right now? hard as it is, has allowed me to keep navigating my life so that it is meaningful to me. It helps me set the course, make the corrections, and move forward in a better direction.
I highly recommend it.
Let me know how you go.
Love, excellent Japanese 0.38mm pens that write like a dream, and a fresh new journal, Nicole xx
