“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney

When you take a look at yourself in the mirror in the morning, have you ever stopped and wondered how have you become the person you are today?

Is this person the same one you planned on becoming or did life just sort of happened? Many of us go through life just bumbling from routine to routine without questioning the status quo, many of us fear the unknown and refuse to challenge ourselves to get the hell out of our comfortable little box.

Yet, you did not start out that way. When you were little you had big dreams, remember the essay you wrote about who you wanted to become when you grew up?

Right from that young age we were all programmed to hinge our identity on our profession or the role we play. I mean, I have not personally come across a child who wrote about being compassionate, purposeful, intelligent, well-learned, and elegant when he or she grew up. Instead, little boys wrote about being a fireman and saving the world and little girls wrote about being a princess and having everything in the world provided to them.

What if you wrote that same essay as a grown-up, would you still judge your success and happiness based on your job and the role you play?

What does success and happiness mean to you?

Success and happiness in your life does not come from just your job and responsibilities. Success and happiness comes from living a purposeful and meaningful life that fits your values, challenges your beliefs and lets you enjoy the freedom to choose.

Living a purposeful life does not come from a single source. It does not solely depend on your success at work or in business, it does not solely depend on how beautiful or handsome you look, it does not solely depend on how rich you are and it does not just depend on how disciplined you are in your life.

Living a purposeful life is doing things daily that enriches your life. Your life is made up of more than making money albeit a big part. In order to begin living a purposeful life you need to start taking charge of it and not live passively as dictated by others and/or circumstances.

Your life is made up different parts and these usually consist of the work you do, your relationships with people including your romantic partner, your family, friends and business associates, your physical health including how well you feel, how fit you are, how well you eat and how good you look, your finance and your lifestyle.

Look at your life right now. Go on, really scrutinise it.

The scrutiny process

To break it down, think about your life in its different categories and think about what it is now, what’s good and bad and how you want it to be different. You do not need to be precise at this point, there is also no right or wrong order, this is a warming-up exercise to get your brain juices going.

Work – How’s work? Are you happy with it or do you dream about doing something else? If so, what? There are many ways to earn an income so blaming your need for an income does not constitute a good reason for staying in a job you hate.

Finance – Are you in debt or do you just want to save more? Debt does not resolve itself, money does not hop into your bank account to be saved. You need to choose to do it. Many choose to stick their heads in the sand until the problem gets bigger than themselves. Do not be that person. Choose to be a different one.

Relationships – How’s your marriage or dating life going? Is it blissful or do you hate being in that relationship? Do you see yourself unable to carry on how you are going now? How about other relationships with people such as your friends, your family and the people you work with? Do you see any room for improvements?

Health – Are you feeling good physically? Do you look the way you want to look? If you are working out and eating well, it will naturally positively impact on how you feel on the inside and subsequently how you look on the outside.

Lifestyle – What do you do for fun, to recharge other than work? Do you truly enjoy your lifestyle? As in, does whatever you do with your time enrich you or does your lifestyle leave you unfulfilled and looking for other things to fill that void? For example, I know I have been out with people or attended events which left me feeling like I did not gain anything intellectually or even emotionally, in layman’s terms: A waste of time.

Think of it this way, for most of us the most important bit about living a purposeful life is discovering what we are really passionate about and then infusing this passion into our income generation by either building a business based on our passions or finding employment that speaks to our hearts and souls. Yet, you cannot fully invest yourself into the hard work of fulfilling your purpose if the rest of you i.e. health is not capable of supporting that journey.

Imagine your life as an ecosystem where you need one part to feed the other. In order to pursue your dream of starting a business for example, you will want to feel good physically so that you have the energy to go about 14 to 16 hour days, starting a business can be lonely and this is where you will need the support of your nearest and dearest and you can only get that if you have healthy relationships, to have a healthy relationship you will need to feel good about yourself, bad finance will strain relationships and sway your faith in yourself at work and in business and so on. They are all linked and you need to look after all aspects of your life and work on them based on your own personal values.

In conclusion:

This task of looking into your life is not easy. We don’t want to ask ourselves these questions because it is easier just not thinking about it and as human beings we simply prefer an easier life.

The only problem is that often anything worth achieving does require the hard graft.

We need to assess our life from time to time in order to grow because crisis does not always hit us when we are ready to grow and life is too short to wait around for crisis or certain events before taking action. If we do not check in from time to time, how do we know what is doing well and what should be changed?

Your task for the day is simple, get a piece of paper, you know, one of the sheets of paper lying around with something on one side and a blank space on the other side that you will eventually get around to chucking it out. Get a pen and write down each category of your life: work, health, relationships, finance and lifestyle. Now, write down what is going on currently in each of that space, how you feel about it and what you want to change about it and do also include your vision of the outcome you want to see as a result of your change.

You might want to set aside an hour or two undisturbed time to do this. It will take effort and time but you will not regret the time spent. Once you are done, put it aside and sleep on it for 24 hours. Keep that piece of paper with you and you can go back and revise it if it resonates better with you. This is not a test, there is no right or wrong, it just is. Next up, we will talk about how you can turn that piece of paper into actionable plans so you can start taking action.

Are you inspired by this article to think deep about taking charge of your life? This is the first part article in the two-parts series of articles in overhauling your life so make sure you don’t miss the second part of this series where we talk about a simple and straightforward way to set your goals. and let me know in the comments below what came out of your life assessment exercise!