Six Things I Need You to Know (Part One)
This was such a long blog that I’ve decided to break it up until six separate blogs. Here is part one…Use the ‘six things’ tag to find the other blogs in this series as they’re added.
You could die tomorrow so start building your dream life today
In the introduction to his video blog The DailyVee show, Gary Vee asks: “What if I told you this was the last Monday morning of your life?”. It’s a chilling thought isn’t? One day this will be true and I use it as my fuel for taking bold decisions, following my passion and daring to live an incredible life.
18 months ago I wasn’t living like this. Not at all. I was living a lie: miles away from my goals, miles away from who I wanted to be and I wasn’t even on the right path. If I’d have died back then, I’d have been really disappointed because I just hadn’t accomplished my goals and more than that, I wasn’t being true to who I was…am. As a result, I ended up with depression. Well, I’d lived with depression for years and, looking back, I think it was caused from the anxiety of not living my truth, compounded over time. I compared myself to others, I sought approval, I wanted to fit in everywhere. It wasn’t until I started asking myself what I wanted and acting on those impulses that my depression eased.
I no longer have depression and whilst I don’t want to comment on the condition in general I know that, for me, I won’t get it again. I won’t allow it. I don’t think it happened all of a sudden. I think it crept up day by day, week by week, year by year as I got further and further away from who I was, as I let silly things take my attention, as I focused on lack and not abundance.
Go back 18 months then, gripped by depression, trapped in the very life I’d built and held back by my ego I decided enough was enough. The final clincher was being on a run and hearing Les Brown (motivational speaker in America) ask “What would you do if you found out you only had three months left to live?” I made my mental list before Les Brown followed up with “How do you know you haven’t got three months left to live?”.
That question shocked me back to reality. It put me back in control of my life. I ran home, defined my new life and started making drastic changes.
So what happened? Why the sudden change?
I hit rock bottom that’s what happened. I decided enough was enough. That I couldn’t tolerate what I was living any longer. I took responsibility and I stared making changes. I didn’t want to die like that and as Les Brown highlighted, that was entirely possible.
That’s why when clients come to me telling them they’re in despair, at rock bottom I say “Fantastic, now the work can really begin”. Sounds unusual but rock bottom is a very special place. It’s place of change and you should never avoid it. As Gabby Bernstein says “You should never deprive somebody of their rock bottom”. This is sometimes what we need to turn our lives around.
Tony Robbins says that depression is a state of mind, it’s a choice. That shocked me when I read it. ‘He can’t be right, can he?’ I thought. But as I read his words and heard his talks over and over again I could start to feel my belief system around depression changing. What if it were a state of mind? What if I had chosen it? Could I chose an alternative? YES, YES and YES. I started running to release natural feel good chemicals, I started practicing gratitude to focus on abundance and not lack and I started positive affirmations to build up my belief in myself. And it worked, it all worked.
What if your life, right now – the one you’re living, is just a result of your state of mind? What if you dared to be true to who you are? What if you dared to live a life of passion. What if you dared to grow?
I mean think about it…nothing is as scary as dying unhappy and unfilled is it? Really. And when that days comes, which it will for all of us, we’ll have wished we were brave enough to follow our dreams. Unless we start today!!
So where do you begin? Right here:
Start by outlining your vision for your life: how do you want to feel, what do you want to have and who do you want to become? Then, pick a timeframe, break the vision down into monthly goals and start taking action. Have that conversation. Start that project. Take care of the issue. Make it happen: start today.
Now, if I die I die happy – I’ve achieved everything I want to achieve at this stage in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I want to live a long and happy life (and that’s what I visualise) but there is something about living your truth and achieving your goals that makes you think: fair enough, good life.
Do you feel the same?
One step further…
Find a quiet or inspiring place, take out a blank journal or piece of paper and answer these questions in full and in detail:
- What would I do if I found out I only had three months left to live?
- What do I want to be celebrating 12 months from today?
- What would be my biggest regret if time ran out?
- What vision would I dare to hold if I truly believed in myself?
- What is holding me back?
- What legacy do I want to leave behind?
- How do I want to feel in life?
Write your list and make a start!
Part two (“Your age is irrelevant”) is coming soon…
Lisa
Need a little more guidance?
I’m about to launch a free online course to guide you through this process. It’s a 6 day course and I’ll be sending you one 5 minute video every day for 6 days to share the key ideas and give you a process to follow to get moving.
If you’re interested, sign up below and I’ll tell you when it’s ready!
