May 12, 2019

“One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the thing you’ve always wanted to do.  Do it now.” – Paulo Coelho

Life can be hard.  Sometimes it’s easier to think about what we want to do, than to actually do it.

Sometimes we get thinking and doing confused.

Our ability to think and reason is what sets us humans apart.  It makes life an ongoing, complex, fascinating adventure.

It also gets in our way.

Thinking and ruminating about what we want to do can fool us into believing that we’re doing something.  Of course we are.  We’re thinking, not doing.

We need to think.  We can’t stop thinking even if we want to.   The challenge is to discern when our thinking is taking us down an inescapable rabbit hole rather than moving us forward.

When thinking becomes a replacement for acting it usually means we’re avoiding something because that something is making us feel uncomfortable.  Maybe we’re scared of failing, scared of the unknown, scared of looking foolish, scared of feeling more uncomfortable than we already feel.

Two questions to kick-start the rest of your life.

How do you live your life?  Do you live from the head down or the feet up?

I’ve thought a lot about that second question and what it means to me.  I hope you’ll ask yourself the same questions and find your own answers.

Living from the feet up means moving forward, step by step, even when we don’t feel like it.

Living from the feet up means we have finally figured out that life is a time-limited, precious gift that, if we’re not careful, will have slipped through our fingers un-lived.

Living from the feet up means we’ve made a commitment to ourselves that we are not going to waste another moment thinking or talking about living richly and deeply, while sitting in a chair, or over coffee with a friend, not moving one iota closer to living the life we want.

Living from the feet up means we’ve created a plan to accomplish what we’ve been talking about wanting to accomplish, one small step at a time.

When we’re living from the head down, we say things like, “I know I should get up in the morning in time to have breakfast.”  We say it over and over, to ourselves, and to anyone else who is still listening.

When we’re living from the feet up, we say things like, “I will set the alarm for 20 minutes earlier to make sure I have time for a relaxed, healthy breakfast.”  We don’t worry if anyone else knows that’s what we’re doing.

Living from the head down means thinking about living a rich life instead of actually living one.  It means playing it safe, with as little discomfort as possible.

I want for you what I want for myself.  I want you to use up every drop of the best of yourself in living as fully, richly, and deeply as possible.

Pick one change you want to invite into your life.  A change you’ve been talking and thinking and ‘shoulding’ about for longer than you are comfortable admitting.

Ask yourself the questions:  How am I living my life?  Am I living from the head down or the feet up?

Then ask yourself, what is one small baby step I can take to move in the direction of having what I really want?

Do that one thing.  Start there.  Do it today.

Much love,