This has been one hell of a year. Looking back, there have been amazing times and huge challenges and Iâm incredibly grateful for every moment.
I can fully attest to the truth behind the following sayings:
If youâre not growing, youâre dying. Thereâs no middle ground.
To grow, do something every day to get out of your comfort zone.
To get past your fears, face them head on. [Note: To accomplish this, see the previous statement.]
When we think of doing something scary, our monkey mind tends to stop us in our tracks. Â Its job is to protect us and anything outside of our comfort zone is grounds for causing major alarm.
This causes us to get mired in the muck of anxiety where we dwell in fear of taking action. Our monkey mind is holding us back, preventing us from thinking past the âOMG itâs scary!â thought to what could actually happen next.
Whatâs The Worst That Could Happen?
Thereâs an exercise that can help us get out of the quicksand. Itâs the simple act of asking ourselves, âWhatâs the worst that could possibly happen?â and playing out the answers in our minds to the fullest extent possible.
My experience with this exercise is:Â If it doesnât end imminent death, itâs not that bad.
Whenever I ask myself this question with decisions Iâm making or experiences Iâm having, I usually come to the conclusion that Iâve already lived the worst-case scenario and it wasnât that bad.
The worst case for most people is losing all their money, their home and their family or partner and having to live âin a van down by the river.â [Reference to the Chris Farley skit on Saturday Night Live]
Been there, done that.
Living the Worst Case Scenario
What happened? It was the most amazing couple years of my life. I put my stuff in storage and lived out of my Jeep Grand Cherokee after spending all of my savings paying off my debts and venturing cross-country with no plans (I was escaping major burn-out from corporate life).
I found jobs that offered unique experiences that allowed me to discover my passions and purpose through some trial and error.  They usually paid enough to cover my gas and some food. At one point I remember paying for a burger at Burger King by dumping out my jar of change on the counter. Embarrassing? Maybe. I thought it was pretty funny at the time.
At the end of the two years, I had learned an immense amount about myself and where I wanted to go with the rest of my life. Did I feel like I had it all figured out? Heavens no! But I had a direction.
During this time I found my husband, realized a whole new level of self-sufficiency (living in the woods for a couple months will do that for you) and had a direction in which my heart wanted to go.
A New Beginning
With this new direction, I made some new decisions. Within a few months, I got a corporate job that I loved that allowed me to make a real contribution. I bought my first home â the ranch where weâve lived for the past thirteen years. The following year we bought our own horses and created the life of our dreams.
And none of this would have happened if I hadnât left a great job with great benefits and an OK marriage (that ended during those two years) to set out on a cross-country adventure where I effectively lived my own version of living in a van down by the river.
Without making the conscious decision to do so, I lived out my worst fear.
Having done this, I know I can handle anything that comes my way. Nothing is really all that bad.
Would I want to give up my home, my awesome husband, my amazing kids and my great job today? Hell no! That would royally suck (and it almost happened a few years ago)!
But I know that my life wouldnât end. Â I would simply put together a plan to turn things around by controlling whatever I could control and accepting the rest.
I know how to start over. We all have the ability to start over.
Is your life going the way you would like?
If your answer is yes, stay on your path and set the intention to make each day totally amazing.
If your answer is no, decide on the path you want to follow and set the intention to make each day totally amazing.
Itâs All In How You Look At It
During those two years of living in my Jeep, I never felt like some destitute loser or anything like that. I chose to see each day as an opportunity to learn more about myself and the world around me.
Each experience (jobs or otherwise) was a learning experience that brought me closer to discovering my purpose. Some were more helpful than others but I learned something from them all.
As you reflect on the past year and consider what you want in your future, focus on what you learned from all of your experiences â good or bad. I believe that everything happens for a reason and all of those reasons come from the Universeâs love for us.
Welcoming the New Year
This weekend my husband and I are sitting down together to create the vision we want to live over the coming year.
Instead of setting goals, weâll set intentions for how we want to live each day in the areas of health, spirituality, self-expression, finances and relationships.
By living each day in accordance with our highest values and our visions, the path we choose will take us to success and the lifestyle we want.
By living intentionally, making conscious choices about what to include and exclude from our lives, we can be happy each day as we walk along our path. We donât have to wait for âsomedayâ when we achieve our goals to be happy.
Create the life you want: Combine the law of attraction with mindfulness
The law of attraction suggests that our positive or negative thoughts bring about positive or negative experiences. My latest book, The Mindful Guide to Law of Attraction, pairs that belief with the powerful practices of mindfulness. Through intentional breathing, writing, and engaging, youâll hone a method for manifesting health, wealth, and loveâthe elements of happiness.
Let the law of attraction work for you by adopting its basic steps of identifying and visualizing the things you desire. Then use 45 practical meditation techniques included in the book to achieve awareness. By concentrating your positive energy on obtaining your wants, youâll give yourself permission to receive them.
To your happiness! ~Paige
You can find this book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Indigo.
The Mindful Living Guide
I was reading one of your other blogs when I came across your reference to “Monkey MInd” I love it and the article. Now I am going to go back to the other article. Thanks so muc for sharing.
Some people are gonna talk about you because their lives are boring. Donât respond. Keep living your life.
I once lost everything I owned except the clothes on my back. I lost things that didn’t have that much monetary value but had tremendous sentimental value. After that, I thought, well, things aren’t that important. So I have things I love, but I know I can live without them.
I lived out of a van, too, for awhile, and traveled around. We should share stories! But your point, of course, is well taken–we can survive much more than we give ourselves credit for. (Not that I’m asking for a test of that premise!)
Yes, Galen, we should definitely share stories! Whether we choose these experiences or the Universe delivers them to us, we can choose to learn from them and we can choose how we interpret them. It sounds like you learned some very valuable lessons from yours.
It’s difficult not to get attached to some things but, ultimately, they are just things. To me, relationships and experiences carry the most value. Whenever I keep that in mind, other things bother me much less.
That is so true Paige. Most of the fears I thought would happen either didn’t happen or weren’t as bad as I thought. I had an experience that put my in hospital which was bad at the time and took a while to recover from. But in the end it got me out of the dangerous job I was in and into working on my own business.
So now I see it as something positive because without that I could have still been where I was a year ago!
-Ben
Sounds like you know exactly what I’m talking about Ben. The Universe has ways of sending us messages when we don’t listen to the whispers. Landing in the hospital from a dangerous job sounds like one of those messages. I’m so glad you found the lessons in those experiences and have made some positive changes in your life as a result. Best wishes for continued happiness!!
There are those who cannot walk away for various reasons. Weathering through a crisis can lead to similar outcome. A creative Illness; a serious emotional crisis leading to amazing creativity.
I have described mine on my website. It may help others.
Joe
Very true Joe. Weathering a crisis and focusing on what we’re learning and how to make things better can be an absolutely transformative experience (I’ve been there too). Thanks for sharing your site!
I’ve heaped my plate pretty full with intentions and goals for 2013. My biggest challenge? Not getting distracted! Another challenge is recognizing when my monkey brain is fooling me into thinking I’m taking action when it really has me running on a treadmill.
I can totally relate Lori. I’ve learned (especially from Leo at Zen Habits) that the best way to make those intentions and goals happen is to take on one small thing at a time. Make one small, incremental habit change each month. By taking it slowly, the changes are much more likely to stick and, at the end of the year, you’ll have 12 new habits/practices. Your life will never be the same.
I can also get consumed with busy-ness and think (or rationalize) that’s it’s moving me toward my visions. I’ve started to be more mindful with these things and, when I notice my monkey pushing me to “get busy,” I ask myself if it serves my values and purpose. Sometimes it does but usually it doesn’t. For example, yesterday my energy was low so I decided to relax a little and read a book (a luxury my monkey has a hard time with). At least five times throughout the day, my monkey had me look at my closed laptop and suggest that I check my email. It’s rationale: “It will only take a minute. You may have something important in there. If you check now, there will be less to check later.” I thanked him for his suggestion and went back to reading. It felt wonderful to sit and relax most of the day (as much as possible with my three little ones running around and asking for things or me snuggling with them). I felt like I had given myself a real gift and all those emails were still there for me to check today.
I HIGHLY recommend to anyone to take at least one day each week to completely unplug. I didn’t realize how much all the gadgets and their constant flow of info keeps my system in a state of mild stress until I made it a point of turning them all off for a full day.
Lori – May I challenge you to have a talk with your monkey and tell it that you’ll be slowing down a bit and life will be just fine? All the best to you in this new year!!
Thanks, Paige! I think I’ll take my monkey for a walk out in nature while we have that talk. đ
I slowed down a bit today and some things took care of themselves. Funny how that happens sometimes.
Happy New Year!
Lori,
It sounds like you’re off to a great start with re-training your monkey. You’re going to have an amazing year!
Big Hugs!!
That’s pretty wild and adventurous that you lived in your car for a couple years! 2013 I need to put myself out there more. I haven’t really done much guest posting but I know I need to do more to grow my blog, which has been pathetically stable at less than 1,000 views a month.. which gets so frustrating and I feel like I should quit! But at the same time, I want to “go pro” next year and I hope I’m not just saying that this time because I need more *action*.
Adventures are awesome Janet! It sounds like we share the same goal for this year. I’ve started some guest posting and plan to go full force this year to grow our community here.
Just when I get frustrated about my seeming lack of progress, I read the stories behind so many other wildly successful bloggers and realize that most of them followed the same time frames when they started. It’s like getting a giant boulder rolling. It’s takes a ton of time and hard work in the beginning to get it rolling but, at some point, gravity begins to take over. That certainly doesn’t mean that it’s time to sit back but the growth process gets a little easier. Then it’s time to focus on enhancing other parts of our businesses. I’m loving the process!
Best wishes for an amazing 2013!!
What a great image — my monkey mind shivered in its boots.
I think this is a great year to do great things, and to go for the epic wins.
I completely agree with you J.D.! I’m already feeling some big shifts in my thinking and ways of being.
Let us know your plans for your epic plans and wins! There may be ways we can support you!
Wow, Paige. This year I lived my worst fear…and surprisingly, I not only “survived” but created right through it. I love your sense of adventure and your presence to gratitude–I find it inspiring! And, this message is perfect as today is the energy of Full Moon as I reflect upon the past year and vision for the new year đ
This is what I find interesting in my life…I know what the “pivotal moments” will be, so I sometimes hold off on the experience until I “feel ready”, but it is the moments when I surrender my “will” and jump into the experience that thrill me beyond what I could fathom. This is what I want to do: aerial silk yoga and I don’t because I know it will open a door to something new and different, yet thrilling and delight-ful. I’m not afraid to fall…I’m sometimes afraid to literally soar and here is Universe with a beautiful invitation.
Joy,
You know that there’s never a perfect moment when you’re completely ready for new experiences. As you said, surrendering your will and jumping in is usually the best course of action.
Your comment about aerial silk yoga reminds me of a quote on a plaque given to me years ago by a perceptive boss: Dare to soar – No one can predict to what heights you will soar until you spread your wings.
Any form of yoga is a welcoming way of discovering something new about yourself. Jump right in and SOAR!!!
I love your latest post and the video! Your morning practice/habit/ritual looks very similar to mine (except that I moved mine to the evenings since my kids make quiet mornings impossible).
The more we can shift from thinking that what we want is “out there” to creating it in our everyday lives by interpreting things differently, the happier we can be and the more “goals” we’ll actually achieve. And we won’t beat ourselves up for the “goals” we don’t achieve.
Focus on the journey instead of the destination.
Thanks so much Dan!
“During those two years of living in my Jeep, I never felt like some destitute loser or anything like that. I chose to see each day as an opportunity to learn more about myself and the world around me.”
It can be very difficult the have the courage to do this. I applaud you. Most people would continue to live mediocre lives clinging to (false) security.
You mention setting intentions instead of goals. My article this morning was about replacing resolutions with a system of practices. I think that it is a better system than goals and resolutions.
Dan @ ZenPresence