Do something, it's your life after all!

I can still see her sitting there, that last afternoon of the Being on Mission Leadership Experience. She has just read out her personal compass; a powerful statement about who she wants to be. An escaped tear slides down the blush on her cheek. A smile breaks through as she raises her chin, looks at me with sparkling eyes and blurts out: 

Amazing, in just three days I have re-found myself and I feel as if I just had three weeks of vacation. 

A week later we call. She tells me that she has started working in a very different way, full of energy and ideas and talking to all sorts of people. A colleague thought she had really been on vacation because she looked so well. I repeat what she said last week with a smile and a tear and add thinking out loud 'And now so full of energy. This is why I do what I do! What a great quote for a blog this would be'. Without hesitation she responds 'Oh that's okay'. 

I myself know as no other how it is to lose yourself. For years I gave myself away to my work. I was so keen to do a great job, that I regularly gave priority to what was important for the other. That was never finished and in our young family a lot had to be done as well, so there was hardly any time or energy for myself and what I found important. And once you're in that situation you don't feel it, you just keep going because there's so much to do.

If you put yourself in last place, there is no time, space and energy to discover what is most important to you. Then it is impossible to make your own choices and to determine and guard your boundaries. You remain busy with what is important for others ... and you do not get around to yourself. You sleepwalk through the hours, days, weeks, months and years and have no idea where you will end up.

Fortunately, partly through Mark McGregor's Being on Mission Experience, I have learned to break that vicious cycle. I have a clear picture of what is most important to me. That is my personal compass that strengthens my inner beliefs and guides me to make the right choices and say no when needed so powerfully that the other accepts and often even appreciates it. For example, I only do things that give me more energy than they cost me. 

After three weeks I speak to her again. She is still full of energy and also a bit confused. That's part of it' I reassure her. She sees so clearly what she does, and also what she no longer wants, that she has no choice but to be honest about it to herself and her colleagues. With fresh eyes she looks at what she herself and the organization do, what can be done differently or what is no longer necessary. She has been set in motion and will certainly get where she wants!

She does! I meet so many others who are sleepwalking through their own lives, busy realizing the dreams of others. Who do desire change but don't have the courage to do so (yet). I would like to rattle them and shout 'Wake up, do something, it's your life!' But I know that is pointless. The other person has to be ready to want to change something, only then can I be the guide like I am for her now.  

So now I whisper in your ear: 'How awake are you? Do you have a sharp focus on what is most important to you and are you living your own dreams? I hope for your sake that you are. But take yourself seriously if not or if you have doubts about this and at least make a 30 minutes introductory appointment for yourself with me right now.