If you have ever arranged a wedding – yours or someone else’s – you know just how much attention to detail goes into creating that event. The same could be said for any major event – a big birthday celebration, an anniversary or even a New Year’s Eve party.
We can spend months planning and working towards creating an event that we’d love.
We set goals and timelines of every little thing that needs to be done, by when, and we work towards those timelines. Sometimes things ‘just happen’ – that’s OK. We simply adjust our plans, but we keep working towards creating that event that we’d love.
But how much planning do we do in creating a life that we’d love? What about even defining a life that we would truly love?
Why is it that people can imagine, design and create a one-off event with focus, drive and discipline, yet be unable to apply the same focus, drive and discipline to create a life that they would truly love?
I believe it is because people most people aren’t aware that they can. So many people go through life believing that life happens to them, and they are simply the recipients of what life dishes out.
But that is simply not true.
Each of us has created the life we are living right now. Where we are right now is the culmination of every choice and decision we’ve made up until this point.
If you and I continue living and breathing for another 365 days, one year from now we will have created another year of life.
If we don’t define what we’d like that life to look like, we’ll still create it – but it will be by default. If we continue to make the same sorts of choices and decisions, a year from now our life will look pretty much the same as it does today.
Now, that might be OK for some. But for others, the idea of having these same results a year from now is far from OK.
But how does one create a life? Doesn’t life just happen?
Yes – if you choose to live passively and be a victim to external circumstances and conditions. That’s how we end up living by default.
However, just like imagining, designing and creating a one-off event such as a wedding or a birthday party, we can also imagine, design and create a life.
We can envision how we’d love to be living a year from now. We can set goals. We can take action.
So, think about how you’d like to be living a year from now. What would you love to be doing? How would you love to be feeling – physically, emotionally? Who would you love to have in your life? What events would you be attending? What places will you be going to? What kind of person would you love to become?
You can design and create a life that you would love. So why not choose that life and make decisions that will support you in creating that life?
The year will pass anyway. Where do you want to be at the end of it?
