What Do You Wake Up For?

Imagine waking up everyday with an excitement for what lies ahead. Imagine waking up before the alarm because you’re so energized to get at your work, your family and the gifts you’re bringing to the world. Imagine waking up with a sense that even though you don’t know all the events the day will bring, it’s going to be a great adventure.

I bet you’ve had days like this. Maybe you were about to take a trip, go on a date, get married, win an award, start a new job or buy a house. There was excitement and anticipation and thrill and wonder and energy. There was something big in front of you and you couldn’t wait to get at it. And as you’ve gotten older, those days may seem to happen less now, with large periods of, “Do I HAVE to get out of bed???” in between. Maybe you’ve lost your enthusiasm in the daily grind and wonder where the next random energy boost might come from. Motivation has become elusive.  You feelin’ any of this?

I lived many years that life was happening to me, rather than that I was actively building and creating my life. It left me in a state of resignation to “This is just how life is gonna be for me,” or “Someday life’s gonna turn out better.” I was waiting on life to hand me something I could get excited about day to day, year to year. The truth is, life had already turned out. AND it didn’t have to keep being the way it had been up to that point. But it wasn’t going to magically turn out some other way without my active participation. I decided that instead of waiting on life to excite me, I could intentionally create an exciting life.   I didn’t have to wait for it when I was willing to take on creating it…how amazing is that?!  And I’d like to share what I discovered with you today.

It starts with creating an inspired future to live into, a future that you’re actually willing to do the work for.  Sometimes the vision hits you like a bolt of lightening, sometimes it unfolds over time. But it’s important to get clear on what an inspired future looks like for you; be intentional with getting clear. What do you really want? What kind of life would be incredible to wake up to every morning?

And here’s a secret…you can base it on nothing. I once had a client get out a blank piece of paper and write down qualities of the life she wanted for herself. No constraints from the past. No rules. No limits. She told me it scared her. She began to notice how all the decisions she had made for her future up until that moment had been completely constrained and defined by her past. Her tomorrow was always a dressed up version of yesterday. She had never really made a free creative choice. She was so busy making life better, she never considered she could make it new, from scratch. The idea of freely choosing whatever she wanted seemed scandalous!

I remember when I first started working with my coach and he asked me how much money I wanted to make in my business. Here was my thought process: Well, I made “X” dollars last year, so if I double that, that would be a good start. When I told him the amount, he said, “You’re telling me that if you could make any amount of money next year, that’s what you would want to make?” Well no, not if I could make any amount. What I really wanted was exponentially greater but I couldn’t even let myself consider it as long as I was basing my future goal on my past. Sure, my imagined future was better than the past, but it was still constrained and limited by it.

So I dared to create from nothing–just to try it out–and in an instant, the future I began living into got very exciting. It wasn’t even about the money; it was about generating a service greater than I ever imagined. It looked impossible, I didn’t know how it would happen and it literally called me into a whole new way of being in order to make it so.

Many people just don’t know what they really want; they have no dreams to access, no inspired future to live into. Some people learn to stop dreaming because it hurts too much when the dream doesn’t come true. Some people are taught early that dreams are foolish and distract them from real life. For some, they just never learned to dream big. And for others, they’re overwhelmed with options, flitting from one grand idea to the next without ever really committing to seeing any of them through.

What if you take some time this week to get clear on what you really want? You can create it from nothing; no constraints, no reasons. Laurence Platt has said, “Taking responsibility for who I really am and not settling for anything less causes this breakthrough: Being is enough. Simply being. That’s sufficient. On that foundation, invent a life worth living. Invent ways to play worth playing in a life worth living.”

Who you are is amazing, and when you take responsibility for that, you can create an inspired future to live into today. It will pull you out of bed, thrill you at the possibilities and call you into being who you need to be to make it so. Imagine starting each day like that. More on this next week!

Be Great!

Becky