Taking Control of Your Life
Are you looking in a specific place? Expecting something to happen? What energises you.....makes you feel alive? Life is yours. It isn't what happens to someone else, it's what happens and how it happens to you. And, no matter good, bad or indifferent, it's how you process the experience and use it to enrich your life. Life isn't about somewhere else, some other time or place or the what ifs. It's about now and how you make the most of this moment in time or, waste it. It's absorbing all there is around you, learning, growing, feeling all emotions. Not just the good ones. It's acknowledging your choices might not have been the best ones and knowing nothing or no one is stopping you from making new ones. No one other than yourself, that is. So often I hear the words "Life is flying by. Where did the time go?"
You can't recapture it. And you know, when you're doing exactly what it is you want you don't want to recapture the time, because the innermost feeling that runs through you is "It was perfect just the way it was and I wouldn't change a thing". That's when you know you lived it....didn't let time escape.
I had a brief conversation this afternoon with someone who is about to retire. We had never spoken before. I asked him if he had anything planned for his retirement and his answer was that he had been on a schedule for 31 years while he worked. Now was time for no plans...just play. It was interesting. My question was what he had planned, not scheduled. I was asking myself, did he have things he wanted to do yet never got around to doing? Was he going to wake up each day, at whatever time he chose, with a sense of exploring the unknown...trying something he had never tried before? A sense of anticipation and wonder? Or, would he ask himself a few days later "Is this all there is?"
So many wait for the 'perfect time' .......wait for retirement, vacation. And years later, they turn around realising they never did anything about it. Why wait? Why not be with the one you want to be with, learn something new, travel, experience? Is there ever a perfect time unless you make it so?
And by the time what you think the 'perfect time' is comes along, do you look back at all those wasted moments with regret, or take the bull by the horns and congratulate yourself that you made the most of each moment in time? It's your life. You choose. Inaction and existence or action and blissful energetic joy?
I know what I'd go for.
Donna Karlin is founder and principal of A Better Perspective with clients in Canada, the US and abroad.
She is a Coach/Trainer for clients in the business sector, the medical community and government agencies. Her experience includes coaching and training, work in time management, stress management, inter-personal skills, communication skills and professional and personal development.
Ms. Karlin specializes in Shadow (Observational) Coaching in the public and private sectors, has been involved with in-house Coaching/Training, evaluation of inter-staff issues, gives specialty workshops and coaches long term care patients, their families and their health care providers.
Ms. Karlin is a member of the International Coach Federation, Canadian Society for Training and Development , CoachVille, a founding member of the IAC (International Association of Coaches), and ProTrain (International Professional Trainers). As well, Donna is part of the Adjunct Faculty for the School of Coaching, the Graduate School of Coaching and is founder of Mindsful ®, a collaborative of International Coaches. She has a proven track record in leading and developing people and managing change.
Post new comment (To Earn User Points for your post, please Login to your account)