“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else.”
– Anonymous

If you don’t have a clear picture of what you are working towards, chances are you won’t get there. Here is a way to start, consider the following categories (in no particular order): Fun and recreation, career, health, money, physical environment, family, friends, significant other, growth and development. Do you feel great about all of them, are there ones that need some attention, have you forgotten what some of them are? As a coach I ask that my clients get very clear about ALL of these categories because it allows you to have a clear and detailed picture of your life right now, and where you want it to go; the first steps of your map. Although you may have certain categories that you’d like to focus on or that seem more urgent – they are all important when it comes to your over-all quality of life and ability to be fulfilled.

“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”
Robert Schuller – Pastor

This is a chance to dream big AND to live big! As you contemplate and really think about these categories you should be thinking not about what you would settle for but what you’d like life to look like if money and time were of no concern. Doing this gets you out of the limits we normally set on ourselves.

Get detailed, very detailed, the more detail the better. Not just that you’d like to go back to school and become a teacher but that you’d like to teach Contemporary History at Santa Fe high to seniors. Not that you’d like to lose 15 – 150 pounds, but that you’d like to feel better walking up the stairs, fit into your favorite red dress and eat without thinking about it ending up on your thighs.

The details give you direction and motivation and clues to building a plan to reach your goals, to be fulfilled. This is just one tool; but it’s a fun one! Think big, take your time, and let yourself sit with each category for a few hours, days – a week. Then write it down.

While you are thinking about all of this – be aware of the voice that tells you to not be ridiculous, that you don’t deserve that or that you are crazy for ever thinking that. This voice is something we all hear and have to deal with. Don’t worry about it. Just keep dreaming big and aiming high, we’ll get to that voice later.

In the meantime I’d like to share one of my favorite poems; I hope you find it as inspiring as I do.

The Journey – by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt and old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations –
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

QUESTION FOR THE WEEK:
Are you ready to have the life you want? Are you starting to see a clear picture of it?