With thanks to Tim McGraw for his song with this name!
One of my mentors is Brooke Castillo, founder of The Life Coach School. She recently had a podcast musing about how you would live differently if you knew your time was limited. To help create a framework for thinking about this, she offered 5 questions to ask yourself. This exercise was so powerful for me, I am sharing them below.
1. What would I stop doing? My instant answer was stop worrying about things I can’t do anything about! Since I don’t generally categorize myself as a worrier, this was an interesting response to me. Guess I need coaching on this subject!
My second thought was that I definitely would NOT stop working as I love what I do and I truly believe I can help others enjoy their lives more!
2. What would I start doing?
Ramp up my self-care as I know it improves mood, increases productivity, makes it easier to be truly present.
3. What would I no longer care about?
Embracing failure was my theme (see previous post) for 2022, but it is definitely a work in progress to willingly show up when I don’t feel totally prepared, can’t guarantee perfectionism, etc.
4. What would I care more about?
The environment. I just hate having to figure out what to do with all the plastic food containers! During Covid, we ate a lot more take-out (contactless delivery was a blessing!) so I now have one shelf devoted to all of those containers – which I try to reuse – when I can manage to get the right top and container paired up!
I also want to really slow down (my Slow Year theme) and BE PRESENT. This involves becoming much more conscious of my surroundings, using my senses – such as actually tasting food, deeply listening, and giving myself permission to take 10 minutes to do nothing!
5. Why do my thoughts, feelings, and actions change if I have less time to live?
My priorities come into clear focus, and my thoughts and actions are congruent with them. My analogy is that most of the time I live an analog life – sometimes not quite in tune and with some static in the background. Having concrete priorities is like a digital system – everything is clear.