Written by: Sarah McNicol, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If I die tomorrow, I’ll be ok.
Well, not ok obvs. I’ll be dead. What I mean to say is, if my life turns out to be this long (I’m 55 years old) I won’t go kicking and screaming, full of regret, with unrealized life goals. I’ll go with a sense of satisfaction and pride.
To be clear, I very much hope I live to see my (as yet figment of imagination) grandchildren to adulthood, enjoy oodles of happy times with my nearest and dearest, climb mountains, swim in lochs, love, appreciate, and contribute. I have so much and so many to live for.
But I don’t take waking up each new day for granted.
This hasn’t always been the case.
LIFE IS HERE, NOW
In my early 40’s, over a 2-year period, three dear friends died of cancer aged 49, 59, and 64.
In their own way, each had important dreams unrealized. One looked forward to travelling adventures with his dear wife. Another was a brilliant bright spark just finding her career mojo, and the third hadn’t yet made space for the loving relationship she craved.
Eventually, once I’d regrouped after grieving, I took from this experience the gift that LIFE IS HERE NOW. I made a life-altering decision, to live the life of my dreams daily.
From then on, I did what was necessary to action that intention.
Here are my top tips for living your life fully, today.
1. Connect with a sense of urgency
The gift my dear departed friends gave me was a sense of urgency. A timely wake-up call to the preciousness of life and the typically ignored truth that none of us knows how long we’ve got.
When we are head down, forging toward business success, career triumph, external approval, and material attainment (as I was) it’s easy to close our eyes to this inconvenient fact. It’s easy to mistake anticipation of future satisfaction for the real deal and without this sense of urgency, people often put off the important and put up with the intolerable.
One man I talked to was so used to going through the motions his shocking words were,
“I’ve hated my job ever since I started working as a GP twenty years ago.” Although deeply unhappy, without that sense of urgency, he stayed put.
Are you living your dream life?
If you had that sense of urgency from knowing this is your life, here, now and the future isn’t guaranteed, would you be living your life as you are? Are you living your life fully?
If not, how might you cultivate a sense of urgency for yourself without bereavement, heart attack, divorce, redundancy, burnout, or another momentous and painful life event bringing you to it involuntarily?
How might you inspire/remind/prompt yourself to live your best life today, here, now?
2. Prioritise enjoyment
Narratives accompanying modern work-life mainly focus on achievement, productivity, competition, and status as valid and motivating goals. Whereas amongst the wisest of philosophers and spiritual teachers, the Dalai Lama says that the purpose of life is to be happy.
This is so counter-cultural as to be laughable. For many if not most, prioritizing enjoyment appears a huge risk, irresponsible even. What if I don’t get the money, accolades, and power? What if I only get happy.
Think about it for a moment…when we strive, drive, push and effort our way through life to get the “stuff”, what we are really after is a feeling of happiness, aka enjoyment. My second tip is to cut out the middleman and when making career and life decisions put enjoyment straight at the top of your priorities.
It is proven we are more effective, motivated, creative, and resilient when we enjoy our work which means the “stuff” will come anyway.
3. Find a purpose bigger than furthering yourself
A client who re-jigged his work-life balance after multiple heart attacks described how earlier in his career, competing for awards in the hairdressing industry was draining. The thrill of winning was short-lived, even empty. Today, actively contributing to two UK-based hearing loss/deaf organisations, NADP and Hear Together, he uses his lived experience to help others. Prestigious awards are turning up on his doorstep unbidden. AKA the “stuff”. This he says is a surprising nice-to-have, but the real value for him is in his daily life. “What I’m doing is so worthwhile to me that I feel filled up rather than depleted by my efforts. I’ve never had such a sense of satisfaction and motivation.”
There is plenty of evidence that when we pursue a purpose beyond our own ends, we become happier, more content, enjoy richer relationships and cope better with the ups and downs of life.
German physician Albert Schweitzer said, "I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve."
If not now. Then when?
My acceptance that death could come soon, and I’ll be ok has been a slightly shocking measure of how different my life philosophy is today, and how much has changed materially, thanks to the precious gift from my three dear friends and teachers and my response.
Of course, I speak from a philosophical and selfish perspective to make an important point. I don’t mean to make light of the impact my death would have on those who love me.
The point is that living fully here, now, means I am focused on the important stuff. Since setting off in that direction, momentum has built. I’m a better mum, partner, friend, fun creator, and difference-maker living for today, than I ever was striving for future returns.
That simple (not easy) shift in priorities led to radically different choices, quality of life, and contribution.
Are you living your life fully?
And if not, what needs to change to set you off in that direction?
As poet Jeffrey Conyers put it,
“If not now?
Then when.”
Make today (and the next 10, 20, 30 years) count.
For bite-sized weekly servings of encouragement and guidance to support you, plus a free self-evaluation to get you started, sign up here.
Sarah McNicol, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Sarah McNicol helps high achievers create more fulfilling aligned lives, businesses and careers fueled by values, joy, inspiration, purpose, meaning and self-compassion.
Sarah is a facilitator, coach and innovative businesswoman. Her highly sensitive and versatile approach is under-pinned by 30 years of personal and professional development practise, working with thousands of individuals and teams in a wide variety of contexts.
Sarah provides guidance and challenge to help successful high-achievers unhook from the rat race. Re calibrate and tune into a more holistic, metaphysical paradigm to create more fulfilling aligned lives, businesses and careers fuelled by values, joy, inspiration, purpose, belief, meaning and self-compassion.
Commentaires