Building a life you love, one brick at a time
We do all this work to build a better life, a life we love. We get up early and go to bed late. We read personal development books. We listen to podcasts. We watch motivational videos. We do all sorts of tests on strengths and personality types. We spend time reflecting and journaling. We practice mindfulness. We burn the candle at both ends because that is the only spare time we have. The rest of the time we are working the normal 9 to 5 job, raising a family and trying to enjoy the life we have.
Is all this self-work and side hustling worth it?
Clarity
With all this self-work we do, some things get clearer and some things still remain a little hazy. Some things we like, some things we are not sure of and others we just plain old don’t like. We allow ourselves to experiment. We allow ourselves to try, then see what happens.
If we have some clarity about what we are after. What life we want to build, then the action is easier to take. If we know we want to be a writer, then we need to write and publish our writing. If we want to be a speaker, then we need to speak and speak in front of an audience. If we want to be a sportsman then we need to train in our sport, and to compete.
We can allow ourselves to dream of our perfect day, our perfect month, perfect year, perfect life. We can let ourselves get carried away with the daydreaming. For me, I dream of waking up in a house on the beach. Drinking good coffee on the veranda. Strolling along the beach in bare feet, closing my eyes and enjoying the warmth of the sun. Spending the morning walking and writing on my mobile device. Having a light lunch before going off to train in martial arts. Reading on the veranda as my children come home from school. Talking with my family around the dinner table with good home cooked food. Strolling out for a glass of wine and nibbles with my wife on a beach taverna. Chatting and socialising with friends.
Small steps
Dream big, but start small
To start building that better life, a life we love, find that one brick today that you can add to your life. You might not be able to see what the final life will look like but you are sure this brick is important to get you there. The bricks can be all sorts of things. The brick could be a writing or reading habit. The brick could be a better diet or an exercise plan. The brick could be a group, a club or society where we share a common interest.
The brick could be even smaller, we might want to build a reading habit but struggle to sit down and read a book. We might find it easier to listen to audiobooks though. We could join the local library and access their free audiobooks or we could sign up to audible.
We might want to build a writing habit. We don’t have to sit at a desk for eight hours a day to be a writer. Jacqueline Wilson is an English children’s novelist. She typically writes for 30mins to 1 hour, roughly 500-1,000 words, every morning (even Christmas day) and that’s it. She manages to publish one to two books a year with this habit. The rest of us mere mortals might not be able to produce the same number of words but the principle is still the same.
All great things are made up of smaller pieces. Great bridges are made up of cables, girders, nuts and bolts. Great buildings are made of tiles, bricks and mortar. And great lives include positive emotions, flow, relationships, meaning and achievement.
We need to build a great life, one brick at a time.
Regret
To finally answer the question I asked at the beginning.
Is all this self-work and side hustling worth it?
There have been studies done and data collected that the biggest regret of the dying is this:
I wished I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
Sit with that for a few moments
I wished I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
One more time
I wished I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
While we all hope the end is very far away. We will all eventually reach it. Sorry to break the news to you. Of this, we have no choice.
The choice we do have is how we spend our time on this earth. How we live our life.
We can sit and wonder how we ended up where we are. How we followed the modern day convention. How we ended up with our 9-5 desk job. A life where we eat bad food and struggle to find time to work out. Where we have no spare time for hobbies and we can’t even remember what we are interested in.
We can kick ourselves. We can beat ourselves up. We can wallow in self-pity at how we came to be here.
Or we can do something about it.
We can take responsibility and control of our lives and we can live a life of our own choosing.
If you start with the end in mind. Would you be happy to have not at least tried to figure out what you were meant to do in life? To fulfil your potential. To know what your dreams are and to go chase them.
Would you want to get to the end, and regret, not at least trying?
Takeaways
Life is hard, and we need to know what our dreams are. Our dreams give us direction. Our dreams give us drive and motivation. They keep us moving forward. They may be big and grand, but we need to chase them all the same.
Life is hard, and we need to build a great life one brick at a time. Anything big is made up of much smaller parts. To build anything where the parts are too big takes too much effort. It is not sustainable. We need to find parts small enough and build with them regularly. We can then build a great life.
Life is hard, and if you don’t put in the effort, you will end up with a life of regret. You will get to the end and regret that you didn’t try. That you didn’t make your own choices. That you didn’t take action. That you let others dictate our life.
We only have one shot at this life. Chase your dreams. Fulfil your potential. Do what you love.
Take responsibility and control of your life. Live a life of your own choosing. It’s in your hands. No one else can do it for you.
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