Entry No. 3 – Finding your WHY
The debriefing starts now…
What inspires you…to get out of bed in the morning? Is it screaming kids? The dog whining to be let out? Freshly brewed coffee? A paycheck?
While those answers are valid, I want you to dive a bit deeper. What REALLY keeps you motivated and positive in life? If you’ve been coasting on auto-pilot, this post is definitely aimed at you.
Life is a beautiful hot mess. It has a way of teasing you with what could be and what’s planned…you reach out to touch it, and whoops! It pulls a Neo (from the Matrix) on your ass. Swerve left, swerve right. Sunglasses still in tact.
Today, I want to talk about reigniting that flame. The one that burns from within, every time you feed your passions.
If you take anything away from this post, know this: a fulfilled life comes from finding your WHY.
Do me a favor. Grab a piece of paper and a pen (yes, a REAL pen, put that phone down) and write out List #1 – five things that matter the most to you. Now, beneath that, write out List #2 – five things that make you happy and WHY they make you happy. It doesn’t have to read like a prologue, just note the basics. Now, for List #3, jot down a list of things you do every day. You know, the rat race stuff…
All done? Ok…
You’ll probably notice your third list of “daily to-do’s” is a lot longer than the first two lists combined. And you’ll also notice that the third list is full of things you don’t really love. The entire purpose of this exercise is to discover your true loves/passions that have gotten suppressed over time…not what you feel you should be doing because ‘society says so’.
It’s easy to fill our schedules with mindless tasks. Every time you turn on the TV, drive down the freeway or engage in “water cooler” talk, there is an external influence to try this, join that, watch this, download that. And if you allow society to dictate your life, you’ll be running on the hamster-wheel-to-no-where, forever, while your true passions fade into the abyss. The ultimate goal is to figure out, how can you down-size list #3 and spend more time doing things that actually matter.
Start thinking about some realistic, practical steps to incorporate more free time into your schedule. See what you can get rid of. Feel free to share your list with a trusted friend, family member, your partner or…simply keep it to yourself.
Don’t just tuck it into an old notebook or leave it absentmindedly on the dining table, waiting to absorb spilled juice or pasta sauce. REALLY look at it and plot a course of action. We live and die in the blink of an eye. It’s time to start making the most of what you’ve got left. And enjoying –rather than just coasting through– the process.
That’s my five minutes for today.
With love, and GAINS.
P.S. Today’s Random Nugget: Currently, the U.S. military uses the same phonetic alphabet adopted by NATO. More accurately, the alphabet is known as the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (IRSA). The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) developed the IRSA to account for discrepancies in similar alphabets between different countries and organizations. Currently, the only difference in the IRSA among countries that adopt it, is the spelling of certain words, such as Alfa for many European countries to avoid mispronunciations. The military uses the IRSA to communicate for various purposes including communicating code, shorthand, slang, and certain acronyms. For example, the phrase Tango Uniform correlates with the phrase “tits up”, which refers to either a deceased individual or a broken piece of equipment.
>>insert NBC’s “the more you know”<<
>>cue corny sound effect<<
I bet you wanna go share your newly learned phrase, don’t ya?!
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