‘X’ Marks the Spot
You are here.
You know that dot, or ‘X’, on the map that helps you get your bearings? Well, consider this a nudge to find your place – to clearly identify where you are.
You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.
Maya Angelou
A lot of us have found success in the lives we live. So why would we change anything?
Because there’s a ceiling in the current model. Because once you’ve checked off the things that are supposed to automatically make you happy, you find that you’re not.
I’ve been there. I’ve be grateful for what I have, but something inside me was still hungry. I wanted more. I wanted ease, joy, fulfillment, peace, financial abundance. I wanted all the things I’d brought into my life to bring me joy not just to-dos.
A lot of us get caught up in this space. It’s what I call Distractive Living.
At the opposite end of Constructive Living is Distractive Living. We all lie somewhere on the continuum and slide back and forth. The goal is to spend more and more time living constructively.
In the podcast episode (link below) I did with the Holistic Health Collaborative, I called it Hero Living. Hero, because you get to save yourself and feel really amazing about it. The answer isn’t in another person, another job, another stage. The answer is within you.
At the far end of Distractive Living is destructive behavior, but closer to the middle we get a false sense of how to achieve sustainable happiness. We get so distracted with the elements of this lifestyle (judgement, guilt, shame, comparison) that we get stuck.
We expend enormous amounts of energy only to feel like we’re maintaining status quo. It’s living in a mental hamster wheel.
This is the first part of series I’ll be doing to formally introduce you to Constructive Living - what it is and a way to get there.
This week, gather information through awareness. Close your eyes and take a deep breath and really hear your thoughts.
Remember, you’ll need to know where you are to get to where you want to be.
