Are there rapids happening in your life that you aren’t paying attention to? Are you flowing along in the stream of your life, remaining unaware of the inevitable waterfall that is sure to be ahead unless you change course? If so, your life is happening to you by chance, but you have the option to build it by choice.
Heart disease and high blood pressure leading to a heart attack. Stress leading to anxiety or insomnia. Marital and relationship problems leading to divorce or difficult relationships with children. These are just a few of the many “rapids” and their corresponding waterfalls that I often see in business owners and Executives who are caught up in the current. If you are not paying attention and taking action to change course on these rapids you are only delaying the inevitable.
If you want to change course, the best time to do that is NOW. I often tell my clients who may be 5 – 10 years out from an exit, succession or transition that the best time to start planning their exit is yesterday. The same goes for planning how you want your life to look like. If you don’t course correct now, there is a great chance of you looking back on your life 10-20 years from now and wondering how it all happened.
The question here is, “What do you really want?”
Many people shut down immediately on hearing that question because they get too caught up in the “how.” Many of us have bought into the lie in our culture that we have to sacrifice what we REALLY want our life to look like for a variety of reasons. Perhaps that it’s not realistic or even possible.
In our business, we work through a four stage process that not only helps you identify in perfect clarity the “what” but also the “why.” The how only comes after those two questions are answered. I have many stories of clients who never imagined that the life they wanted was actually possible, yet here they are today living it.
So are you living for today with joy, happiness and peace and refusing to sacrifice the ultimate vision for your life? Or are you running on default?
Give yourself a few minutes today to write out where you feel you may be sacrificing. Where are you saying “I’ll get to that later.” Is it a pending transition or succession? It is signs of rapids that you’re numbing with a couple glasses of wine in the evening or putting on the back burner?
These questions can help you get started on the path to living your life by design, not by default.
I’d love to chat further with you about this. Feel free to reach out to me at chris@chrisyonker.com