Self-Care – Enjoy Life: Am I Who I Want to Be?

It’s an important question. Life happens. We respond. And suddenly years have passed. This is where we get ourselves into trouble and realize, “This isn’t what I wanted! How did my life turn out like this? I don’t enjoy life right now!” The problem lies in not having asked that little question; “Am I Who I Want to Be?” That question helps keep us grounded and on course. Let’s look at why the 7 little words are so powerful…

Makes you stop and think – You have to get off the treadmill in order to really give this question some thought. It allows you to take a look at who you are now versus who you want to be in order to enjoy life. You can’t do that if all you do is run from one kid’s activity to the next until your drop your exhausted head on the pillow, just to do it all over again tomorrow.

Allows you to evaluate your priorities – Are the actions you’re taking in alignment with what brings you joy? Are you living on purpose or just going through the motions? All of this becomes clear beyond just an intellectual discussion. We usually like to keep things at a surface level. But this question goes straight to the heart of the matter at a visceral level. There’s no justifying or excuses now.

Forces you to see the gaps – Now that you see clearly what you’re doing and who you want to be, the gaps between the two are obvious. If being a calm, peaceful and fun person is who you want to be, but running around non-stop from 6 am until 10 pm every day is your reality, it will be obvious that those two don’t match.

You now have knowledge to make an informed decision – Once you see the gaps, you can make a choice. It’s personal responsibility time! No more whining and fretting over how you don’t enjoy life. You clearly see how what you’re doing and what you want don’t align. It’s now time to do something different in order to move toward who you want to be or accept that it’s not as important to you as you thought.

There’s no judgment there. But it is a point of no return. We don’t like it when a bright light is shined on things that make us uncomfortable. That’s exactly what this little question does though. We are no longer in the dark about why we keep having the same results we don’t like. We now know. It’s time to take a hard look at our beliefs in order to enjoy life every day.

So, how about you? What’s the first step you can take?