Is this what you wanted? Is this what you planned? Is this how you thought stuff was going to turn out?
Could you have predicted this? Did you placed a bet on how your life was going to turn out?
Just give yourself a few moments to sum up where you are. Thumb back through the pages and your life and look for the chapter where you designed exactly what you were going to do, who you were going to meet, where you were going to go, who you were going to be? Clear a space on the table and like all good bank heist movies, roll out the architect’s schematics blueprint of your life. Then find a few heavy objects to stop it rolling in on itself. Things like your… Self-Doubt? Your Limiting Beliefs? Perceived Opinions? And maybe your Imposter Syndrome? Of course, I am just using a few of my own to help put here, but I am sure you have plenty of those paper weights hanging around. Ooh! Yes, always a good standby, parental expectations – you might need a hand with getting that one off the floor!
Is this the place you thought you’d be?
Are you in the relationship? How about relationships? Have they worked out as you thought?
How about Family? Are you in the career? Where you live? When you became an adult, did you design precisely how you thought your life would/should be, did you sit at your Drawing Board and plan every detail? Probably not, almost certainly not.
This week, my 8 year old grandson wants to be an Avenger and play for Liverpool, his 6 year old
sister wants to dance ballet, bake cakes and marry Arthur. Their 6 year old cousin wants to be a
unicorn, and the 6 month old is still considering her options. Well, that’s this week.
We don’t plan this stuff so far ahead, because we simply don’t know what is going to happen, we are just busking it. As we get older, we realise there are numerous unforeseen events and people that affect how we respond, which of course is completely understandable. We experience events, people, places. Our senses are in continuous use and our thinking is not always linear, we do go off down the odd rabbit hole from time to time. We’re not sensible all the time – and thank goodness for that.
But for most, we do have intelligence and clarity.
So why, oh why, do we spend so much time beating ourselves up. We do serious damage to ourselves. We really ought to be reported for such abuse.
We worry about where we’re going, how much money we think we should have, the house we think we should have, the job we have, the career we would love, but hey, ‘can’t do that, gotta pay the rent!’ Where did our dreams go?
Here is the good stuff
Where you are now is quite likely not where you planned to be. Not because your plans went awry, but quite simply, you did not plan this far ahead – none of us do.
So now to good stuff. STOP – Let go and relax. Step out form under the rock of pressure you have crept under, stop comparing yourself to others. Stop punishing yourself for not having this, achieving that, doing this, going there.
When making your plans, do not be so specific. Plot a General Direction of Travel. Like the great explorers of the world, they didn’t set sail to discover a specific land or sea, they just had a general direction of travel. And that’s all we need – a general direction of travel. We do not need to set accurate co-ordinates. We just need to have an approxiamate idea of what we want/or where we want go to, then explore. Keep our eyes and minds open think and observe.
Then all we need to do is to start taking action. Prepare our boat for travel and set sail and embrace what the magical mystery tour provides.
Look after yourself. Take time to relax, take time to be calm let go of the pressure
