Do not let what someone else wants be the driver of your life

Dec. 26, 2017
In order to make life happen because of you, you cannot wait for someone to open a door for you. You must choose to open the door for yourself, and in some situations, you may need to create the door.

Many of us go through our day aimlessly managing the demands of personal and professional relationships by putting out fires, keeping things in order and generally not rocking the boat. We are typically reacting to things occurring in our lives, pretending as if everything is fine as we make it through the rat race each day.

Quite often our focus is on surviving the challenges at work and at home as we manage expectations others have of us. The definition of surviving is "to endure or live through an affliction, adversity or misery." Now that does not sound like fun to me.

In order to make life happen because of you, you cannot wait for someone to open a door for you. You must choose to open the door for yourself, and in some situations, you may need to create the door.

If you are not deliberately making life happen because of you, then it is likely happening to you. If you are waiting for life to happen to you and you are not getting what you want professionally and personally, you probably feel like a victim and are blaming someone or something else for your life experiences. If the choices that are being made regarding your life at work and at home are not focused on what you want, then what someone else wants for you is the driver. If what they want for you will not get you to the destination you want to arrive at, it is not shame on them, it is shame on you.

The power to make life happen because of you is in your hands. No one else has the power to make choices regarding the direction of your life unless you give them permission to do so.

One of my favorite words is deliberate. Deliberate is defined as "done with full awareness of what one is doing; conscious, intentional, purposeful, willful." Wow, feel the energy of the powerful steps towards making life happen because of you when you make deliberate choices.

In order to take more deliberate, purposeful, intentional steps, you will need to know where you are going.

I presume you do not want to just deliberately survive your circumstances at work and home. My suggestion is you deliberately focus on thriving in your professional and in your personal life.

What does it mean to thrive? Thriving is defined as "to grow or develop vigorously; to flourish."

OK, stop for a moment. Create a picture of you thriving in your professional life. Describe it in great detail. Feel the emotions associated with visualizing that success. How do the people in your life benefit from you deliberately making that picture a reality?

Now create a picture of you thriving in your personal relationships. What risks are you taking to get what you want? Let this play out as if you are watching a movie, telling a story of something that has already occurred.

Until you know what you want professionally and personally, you will not be able to take deliberate steps.

So what do you want? What commitments will you make to get it?

I am going to offer you 10 things you can do deliberately to best your best professionally and personally. Many of you will read this list and immediately create a negative conversation with yourself about it. Let me be clear about something: if you want something you’ve never had, you need to make a commitment to do a few things you’ve never done, or in this case, may not have done successfully.

I have a daily affirmation that you can use shamelessly: “I will not be defined by my yesterday; today I begin again.”

Here are 10 things to deliberately do TODAY to make life happen because of you:

  1. Deliberately start your day reading something positive
  2. Deliberately make your bed in the morning
  3. Deliberately eat a healthy meal to start your day
  4. Deliberately do physical exercise
  5. Deliberately tell one person something you love about them (significant other, parent, child or a good friend)
  6. Deliberately learn something new today
  7. Deliberately best your best in some area at work today
  8. Deliberately catch someone doing something RIGHT today
  9. Deliberately smile several times today
  10. Deliberately repeat 1-10 again tomorrow.

Life is a different game when you consciously take deliberate steps towards the things you want in life. Take the time to actually think about what you want, visualize your success and go outside your normal routine to make it happen because of you.

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