Who is driving your life? What does your life look like now? What are you spending your time doing each day? Where are you working or are you working for yourself? What does your body look like and more importantly your health? Are you excited to wake up every day? Where are you living? Most importantly are you happy with your life as it is right now?
If you are happy with the answers to these questions, then look toward what is next in your journey and work towards that.
If you are not where you want to be, you might not be in the driver’s seat.
Who is driving your life?
I hear this excuse so much, and yes, it is an excuse.. I can’t do X because my spouse/partner X.. I can’t do X because my kids X … I can’t do X because my boss X… If you are saying these things then you are living your life at the mercy of what someone else wants. If you aren’t driving your life, you are the passenger in someone else’s.
Think about it. If your company is rolling out a new product. You, in one way or another, are supporting this roll out. You might directly be involved in design or implementation, testing, support, etc. You also be involved indirectly by making sure other systems or processes run smoothly to engineers have more time to work on this project. Either way you shake it, your duties at work are dictated by the goals of the company. You have some autonomy sure, but in the end, you will be rated on what the company requires from your role in order to roll out this new product successfully.
There is no difference when it comes to your personal goals. Are you driving your life and supporting someone else’s or just supporting someone else’s?
If you hate the way your clothes fit or feel sluggish in your day to day life you need to take action every day to change that. You can feel good when you look in the mirror and you can be strong and healthy. You have to add habits to get you there. You have to do these habits consistently. How? You have to be the one in the driver’s seat, the one driving your life.
These habits can be hitting the gym 3 times a week to strength train, getting in 30 minutes of daily movement, eating lean protein in each meal, etc. Only you know what you want out of life, add in habits that will get you there. Your body is your company, your goals are your projects.
But wait.. what about my spouse / partner or kids. Now I’ll have to start making different meals because they won’t eat healthy. What about the kids’ practices or games, I won’t have time. I always have to cover for my coworkers at work or stay late for meetings, I don’t have time.
I hear this all the time from people that are not in the driver’s seat of their own lives. You are working on your boss’s goals at work and your partner/spouse’s and kids’ goals at home. Who is working on yours?
You have 100% choice in what you do with your time.
Kids won’t eat what you cook. Spouse won’t eat what you cook? Boss needs you to stay late or cover for someone else.
You can have a conversation with your boss about your individual needs, boundaries, etc. If they don’t care or work with you, then you need to find another boss.
You can have a conversation with your spouse about your needs, and I bet if they need to eat different than you they would figure it out. Same with the kids. If they are old enough to argue with you, and win, about what is for dinner, you can point to the fridge. If they are too young, then I imagine they shouldn’t be in charge of what they eat anyway and you should be.
I know this is tough love, but remember what I said earlier. Whose rollout are you working on in your personal life? Until yours is the focus you will continue to prioritize others’ goals succeed while no one works on yours, not even you.
Latching on to Excuses or Solutions
Where is your energy right now? If you aren’t driving your life, you might be doing one of two things. Are you having a light bulb moment, energized to make a change to support this new life you want? Or are you arguing with me, in your head or in the comments?
Which are you most passionate about? Making changes to support your goals or being angry because I’m telling you there is a way? If you want to spend more energy being angry about me making it sound simple vs energy spending time solving the problem, you might want to explore why that is. Do you really want to change, or do you want to live a life of excuses.
A person in the driver’s seat of their life has no excuses. They have problems that comes up like everyone else, but they spend time solving those problems, or working around them.
When those problems hit, shift your thoughts from “I had a plan BUT this happened.” (period) to “I had a plan AND this happened SO I did this instead.”
If you think it’s impossible, book a call with me. I can help. I promise there is an answer.
If you think it’s possible and you want to accelerate your progress, book a call with me, I can help that too.
The appointment is just 7 to 10 minutes on the phone. Everyone has 7 to 10 minutes, even you.
For additional resources, here is an article on 10 ways you might be giving someone too much power over your life.