A Manifesto for Your One of A Kind Life

I’ve spent the better part of my adult life getting caught up in the efficiency-obsessed, productivity-driven, personal development seeking culture that has come to dominate our lives. I’ve read the books, taken the courses, hired the coaches, tried all the planners, set the goals, micromanaged the goals, all in the pursuit of “a better life”.

I didn’t end up with the better life, or the life of my dreams, or the well-ordered life I sought. I did end up disheartened, exhausted, and still longing after deferred dreams.

Recently, I began to come to the realization that this externally imposed lifestyle wasn’t how I wanted to live my life. I began to realize that I’d bought into something that marginalized so much of what I valued about life. I began to question the default setting I had unconsciously been using for too, too long.

And when I did, something extraordinary happened. I discovered there was an alternative. Of course, you say. There are always alternatives. But when your life is set to the default setting, it takes a while to become conscious of alternatives.

Those alternatives are part of the foundation for Your One of a Kind Life. In order to discover, or rediscover, your originality, creativity, heartfelt desires, and dreams, it is going to take some downshifting and unhooking from the assumption that efficiency and productivity are the end all and be all of your life.

I want to invite you to consider another possibility.

I want to invite you to consider that how you craft your days is probably worth more than the quantity of lined through to do list items you manage to cram into them.

I want to invite you to consider:

Less productivity – and – More exploration

Less self-help – and – More self-exploration

Less prescribing – and – More accepting

Less imitation – and – More originality

Less skepticism – and – More trust

Less doubt – and – More faith

Less fear – and – More courage

Less analyzing Life – and – More living Life

Less managing Life – and – More experiencing Life

I truly believe that when we stop focusing our energies on how we are supposed to do Life, it makes space for actually living Life. Our life becomes something we inhabit, like a house; a beautiful house filled with spaciousness, beauty, and creative expression.

Are you with me?