When Life happens TO You

You know when life happens to you…. When you wake up one morning and you can’t believe you are in a certain situation…

How did this happen?… How is it that I am still stuck in this dead end job. Or what happen to my dream of roughing it abroad…

Life happens when you let go of the wheel …. When you stop being intentional and just go with the flow..

Going with the flow can be fine if that’s truly who you are . but if you wake up one day and you don’t know how you got to that point, then it means you flowed to much off track…

I keep hearing this term thrown around and with out any follow up research I can say I’m probably very type A.*

Yet sometimes even I (type A person) still have moments when I ask myself… What am I doing with this one life.

Its a big deal to me because I don’t believe in an after life… This is it! There is no gold pot at the end of the rainbow.

Not a dress rehearsal as they say.

So I and maybe you need to ask ourselves. What do we want out of life? In the core of our being what do we value? Are we living that life?

What can we do to get there? I’m nearing my 30s and I don’t want to wake up 10 yrs from now wondering how I got to that point.

Be intentional. . that doesn’t mean just making decisions. You can make decisions based on laziness or routine. Make decisions that are pulled back to your core values. Then you’ll be steering in the direction you want to go.

A midlife crisis I now understand can happen at any moment. That moment, is when you realize somehow you let go of the wheel.

We all probably try to exert some control over our lives and  the problem could be we are focusing on inconsequential things like matching shoes and shirts for an outfit. These small things make us feel like we are in control but then we let the important stuff just pass us by.

Those small little instances of control hide the fact that we aren’t taking control of the big picture. This is a constant struggle for me.

That is why I make life plans, even though they change as time goes on I want to keep it in my mind that this is something important. That I need to take time and think about it.

Exercise

So take some time today and visualize the future. Imagine yourself 10 years older. What do you want to have accomplished. Where do you want to be standing. Are those congruent with your inner most values? Then take it a step further into the future maybe on your deathbed. What would you want your life to have been?

Maybe even do this exercise.

Think deeply with no distractions and write your top 5 values.

Think deeply again. what preoccupies your time, thoughts and actions most of the days? Write the top 5.

Then compare both lists. Are the thing you think about, and act on tied to what you value?

Here’s one of mine. I value building stronger relationships with my family. Yet most of my thoughts and days revolve around work products.  If you aren’t specific enough you might say family and then say work. Yes, work helps me support my family so it makes sense. Yes, work does help me support my family, but in the vein of building stronger relationships with them, work actually conflicts with what I value most. Its takes time away from them.

So you have to be careful and you have to be specific. Or you might convince yourself that something makes sense, when in actuality it is contradicting your values not supporting them.

– The Roamer 

Do you ever feel like you are really adamant about making small decisions but feel overwhelmed when faced with a life changing one? Did you do the exercise. Did your lists match or where there conflicts?

* ok I had to do some research before posting. Type A. High stress, push themselves with deadlines. take on too much. Sound to me like people who like to be in control.