Do you have a “someday but not today” version of yourself that you imagine?
The “today” version of yourself is doing all you can just to meet the demands of your daily life. And there are a lot of them. It takes all you’ve got to be all of the places you have to be and do all of the things you have to do and you don’t have much to spare after it’s all said and done.
The “someday” version of yourself, however, is living more fully into daily life.
“Someday” you is not completely and utterly taxed by the demands of daily life. In fact, you are able to do what needs to be done AND THEN SOME. Your life has things that enrich you in it. Things that fill you up, that you enjoy and that allow you to put your unique gifts more fully out into to the world. You’re not merely surviving, you’re truly thriving and you, along with everything around you, are better because of it.
Here’s the problem with having these two versions of yourself: Someday may never come.
First of all, it certainly won’t come on it’s own. It doesn’t arrive at your doorstep ready for you to step into and live at ease in. You actively and intentionally create this version of your life – amidst the craziness of today.
Secondly, this moment – this day – really is all that we have. We don’t know if we will have another moment or another day or another year. We all know of people that this has been true for.
And a life only partially lived to its potential is a tragic thing to witness. An even more tragic thing to live out in your own life.
The key to living the “someday” life today lies in having a healthy lifestyle with healthy habits that support your mental, spiritual and physical well being.
Some call it self care and it looks different for everyone based on their unique selves and their unique life.
My girlfriend (she and I care for her mother who has Alzheimer’s) sent this in her email to a friend whose spouse was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s:
“Self-care is often hard for me to practice because when someone else’s well being is your responsibility, it feels like you’re doing wrong by them to prioritize yourself – at least that’s what I’ve found. However, that’s not the case -if I’m not taking care of myself (in the way I eat, exercising, meditating, having time off from caring for Mom, connecting with others etc) then the care I give her plummets. So, I remind myself that my well being AND her well being depend on my ability to set boundaries for myself which enable me to practice good self-care.”
Can you relate to this?
Perhaps you’re not caring for someone else.
Have you ever stopped to think about how much better your OWN life could be if you had a healthy lifestyle with the right self care practices in place for the unique you? How would it boost your presence, engagement, and performance in life?
I’ve seen it time and time again in my private coaching clients – when, despite all of the demands that are in place, a person is able to build in the practices that support and nourish their well being, the way they show up for their own life is elevated, taken to the next level and then the one after that.
Not only have I seen it in my coaching clients, this has been my own experience and part of my own story.
A few months ago we shared an article that explored the idea of Self Care vs Soft Care and it said:
“We often think of self care as something we do only when we’re stressed, in grief, or otherwise hurting, but it’s really something we have to be doing every single day in order to honor the one relationship we’ll have until the day we die: our relationship with ourselves. Self care is the foundation of self love.”
“The danger with self care is that it’s easy to conflate with self-indulgence, selfishness, or what’s sometimes called “soft care.” Soft care is those actions we take that make us feel better in the moment but don’t actually serve our best good.”
“True self-care doesn’t cost much aside from the basic necessities of having a warm, safe place to be in and healthy food to nourish our bodies with. Prioritizing time to rest, nourish ourselves, and process our emotions helps us stay honest with ourselves so we know whether or not we’re in self care or soft care (and there’s nothing wrong with a little soft care when you need it!). Truly nonviolent self-care is a radical commitment to our own self love and thus the possibility for growth.”
Your “someday” life doesn’t just happen to you. You have to create it.
How do you go about creating it amidst all of the many very real demands of life that exist right now?
I’ll teach you.
There’s something that, if you get clear on, can go a long way in bringing someday into today.
That something is the way you organize your time and tasks – aligning them with your values and goals.
Very often, people think that they don’t have time for the things they need or want to do when in reality, it’s not a time problem it’s a prioritization problem.
Having a strategy and a system to help you prioritize and plan can truly transform your day to day life. Our lives are nothing more than a series of days – so how you structure and prioritize your time during these days will determine the quality of your life.
One strategy that I have found to be particularly powerful is The Eisenhower Decision Matrix – sometimes called the Urgent Important Matrix.
The Eisenhower Decision Matrix helps you decide on and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should either delegate, limit or not do at all.
The matrix consists of a square divided into four boxes, or quadrants, labeled:
- Urgent and important (tasks you will do immediately).
- Important, but not urgent (tasks you will schedule to do later).
- Urgent, but not important (tasks you will delegate to someone else).
- Neither urgent nor important (tasks you will eliminate).
Urgent tasks are things that require immediate attention. Time is the factor that pushes things into and out of the urgent category. If a task must be done soon, that makes it an urgent task. Urgent tasks put us in a reactive mode and stress often accompanies living in a state of reactivity.
Important tasks are things that contribute to our long-term mission, values, and goals. As former guest of the show, James Clear , says:
“…It can be hard to [determine whether or not a task is important] if you aren’t sure what you are working toward. In my experience, there are two questions that can help clarify the entire process behind the Eisenhower Box.
Those two questions are:
- What am I working toward?
- What are the core values that drive my life?”
What quadrant are you currently spending most of your time in?
Ideally, it’s box or quadrant 2.
The Eisenhower Decision Matrix isn’t a perfect tool and it’s not the only tool but it is one that can really help you think about your time and tasks differently.
Many people need help in jumpstarting a reorganization or re-creation of their day to day lives.
That’s where I come in.
Through The One You Feed Transformation Program, I help people get clear on their core values, goals and things that they want and need more or less of in their life. Very often, they need help learning how to say no to some things so they can say yes to others.
We work together to build in sustainable self-care practices, for example, to support a healthy lifestyle so that they have the resources to show up fully in their life, not depleted but instead from a place of abundance.
Then, we work together to put those things into action and as a result, real and lasting transformation happens.
See, we can’t get to where we want to go in life alone. That truth doesn’t make you deficient in some way – it makes you human and fighting it only sets you back in life.
You can live your someday life today.
I work with people 1-on-1 in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program to make the changes they want to make in order to live their lives in line with their highest self and fullest potential.
You can live your someday life today. And I can help you make that happen.
Wishing you all the best,
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