Celebrate Your Beautiful Life
Today is my birthday! I am now 49 years of age. You will never hear me complain about turning another year older. Each year is a gift. My husband, Jeff, died of esophageal cancer at the age of 46. I have gotten the gift of three extra years (and counting!) more than Jeff did on this Earth.
I notice there is a perspective shift for me when I use the words, “I get to…” versus “I have to…”
“I get to take my eldest daughter to her lifeguard shift at the pool. I get to see my youngest daughter play goalie. I get to do laundry. I get to experience this beautiful world today,” versus, “I have to do this or that.” Completely different energy, right?
What are the things, people, and tasks that are weighing you down in your life? How can you use this shift to help lessen the load for you? You may not be able to take responsibilities off your plate, but when you examine how you relate to these tasks, it can change everything.
Try it out, and see!
I also wanted to pick up with you on where we left off in my last newsletter, where I asked you to reflect on your values, and I had a list of questions for you to answer. If you missed that edition, click on my main Leading and Living newsletter icon, and it will list all of my newsletters so you can go back and do the reflection work.
What did you notice when you answered these questions? Was there a theme that came up? Any surprises? What did this exercise confirm is important to you? Did anything you wrote come back to you again throughout the week?
Keep being curious with these values. We will definitely be doing more work with them.
Here’s the thing: many of us don’t make time to do any of this self-reflection or self-work at all. We just get caught in this grind of doing, often until we run into a snag somewhere that calls our attention to the need to shift. We may not even know fully how or what to shift, but something is getting our attention and telling us that the way we are working is no longer working.
My weekly Leading and Living with Purpose LinkedIn newsletter is a doorway for you to walk through into doing a few minutes of intentional self-work each week. I am not going to give you a lot of homework, but more soulwork. And if you don’t know how this could be connected to your work as a leader, just go with this process and be prepared to be amazed. You will grow further in leading and living with purpose.
Where you put your intention grows. Through this newsletter series and the work I do as an Executive Coach, I invite you to put some attention on yourself. It will pay major dividends in your work and in your life.
Today may be my birthday, but I invite you to think of ways to celebrate yourself today. You get to be here. You get to live this life, and that, my friend, is something to be celebrated.
