“Oh I’m so tired of Ted, he still does nothing around the house, I get home and he’s playing FIFA on the couch, he still expects me to cook every night, I can’t remember the last time we went out, we haven’t been on an overseas holiday since our honeymoon.”
… the next week… “Oh I’m so tired of Ted, he still does nothing around the house, I get home and he’s playing FIFA on the couch, he still expects me to cook every night, I can’t remember the last time we went out, we haven’t been on an overseas holiday since our honeymoon.”
… the next month… “Oh I’m so tired of Ted, he still does nothing around the house, I get home and he’s playing FIFA on the couch, he still expects me to cook every night, I can’t remember the last time we went out, we haven’t been on an overseas holiday since our honeymoon.”
…the next year… “Oh I’m so tired of Ted, he still does nothing around the house, I get home and he’s playing FIFA on the couch, he still expects me to cook every night, I can’t remember the last time we went out, we haven’t been on an overseas holiday since our honeymoon.”
2.
“I really need to get fit again for footy, I know I need to stop going out 4 nights a week but I just can’t not. I don’t want to miss out on making a fool of myself and blacking out for 4 hours of the night. The stories will be so good….
I really need to lose some weight or I won’t get to play midfield anymore, maybe I’ll cut back to just 3 nights out and go to the gym (Ha! I’m not going to gym!)…
I really need to lose weight if I want to start back up at footy, I can’t even get up the stairs without being out of breath… Maybe I’ll just have 1 slab a week at home…
I really need to lose weight if I want to get my blood pressure and cholesterol down. Doc said I could have a heart attack at any point… Surely it’s not that bad…”
3.
“One day I will go to the Greek Islands… just once I get this job… just once I’m not too busy… just once we’ve gotten married… maybe we’ll go for our honeymoon… oh we invited 80 extra people that we don’t really know or see ever but felt guilty not inviting them so maybe not yet… we’ll go next year… we’ll go when we aren’t so busy… we’ll leave bub’s with nannie and go… oh I just can’t leave bubs for more than 6 hours even though I know some time apart will only help grow my love, take a step back to assess and reset my values for her, so we will go when she’s a bit older… I don’t want her to miss school but it’s too expensive during school holidays so we will wait… just wait ‘til she’s settled in at uni just in case she needs me then we will go… oh look we are just too busy again… I heard the Greek Islands are a bit hilly, I don’t know if I can handle that…”
If you so so desperately want something… a happy and loving relationship, to be fit healthy and able, an exciting adventure… you know, the things that can give you true happiness, pride and fulfilment… Then what the hell are you waiting for?
1.
If your relationship sucks and it is the same old story every day, every week, every year. Then why the hell have you done nothing about it?
In my eyes you have 2 options:
Talk to your partner more openly and honestly than ever before. Try your arses off to work things out and make the relationship worth having. If it still doesn’t work, move on to option 2.
Leave.
But I don’t think I can manage without him/her (financially, caring for the kids etc).
Do you think you are managing now? Do you think your shitty relationship is doing great things for your kids? (No, staying in a relationship “for the kids” is not a valid excuse, it is an easy cop out and teaches them terrible values. Grow some balls and make a call.) Do you think being financially secure is worth the emotional insecurity, resentment, lifeless relationship?
Sure it might be a big hustle in the beginning, but I bet the outcome will make it the greatest hustle you’ve ever experienced.
Don’t let the fear of a future without your incompatible partner (yep, maybe they were once, but maybe they aren’t now) stop you from making a change to the present. Especially when your present sucks.
2.
I swear sometimes we think we are invincible… “oh yeah nah she’ll be right, all of the data shows that these terrible decisions I’m making are incredibly detrimental to my health and will cause me to be completely dependent on doctors to keep me alive past 50, but I’ll be fine that won’t be me.”
It will.
You won’t ever be that fit sporty person you perceive yourself to be again… if you keep behaving this way.
Much of this is due to a tonne of poor habits and values that you have instilled over time that are now very difficult to change. They are what is normal to you:
Regular binge drinking multiple times a week.
Slothing on the couch after a bender with some greasy food.
Hitting snooze until it is too late to go to gym in the morning.
Being too tired after work to exercise/go too footy training because of the weekend benders and poor food choices, and then blaming work for the reason you are tired.
Being too tired to prepare healthy meals as a result of the big weekends leading to poor food choices during the week.
Set that to repeat for 6 months to a year and there you have it, successful habitual change for a lifestyle of no more sport and poor health, forever.
The longer you repeat the cycle and continue to say I’m ‘gonna’, the harder it is going to be to get it back, but it is never lost.
Start making 1 small positive change 1 baby step at a time.
Realign your values.
Remind yourself what is important to you, remove the rest.
3.
If you desperately want to go on the trip of a lifetime (btw – the Greek Islands was a metaphor for pretty much any dream you have… trip, adventure, career, whatever), don’t wait! Because it ‘aint waiting for you.
I believe that putting aside your dreams and using daily ‘life’ tasks as an excuse for putting them aside is completely idiotic.
If this dream is the number 1 thing you want to achieve/experience, then the decisions you make in life should be directing you towards getting there, with MASSIVE action.
If you aren’t taking action towards your dream… what are you taking action towards?
I’m going to use my sister Ashlee as the most perfect example of chasing a dream, taking massive action toward making it happen and not letting a single ‘life excuse’ stop her.
Two days ago was Ashlee’s Bali wedding. It was by far the most extravagant and all out weddings I have ever experienced.
Stunning cliffside villas, classy dining with exceptionally long tables and almost as many waiters as there were guests (Kanye West’s ‘Runaway’ film dinner scene came to mind) and a breathtaking fire twirlers and breathers show. To top it off their first dance was taken upon a deck in front of an infinity pool filled with floating lanterns, with the dance rehearsed to fine detail it was concluded with the glow of fanning fireworks surrounding them.
It was epic.
Why did Ash put on such a breathtaking wedding? Because it was her dream. Because that is what she visioned. Because she doesn’t let ‘life’ get in the way of her goals.
Now I know what you are all thinking… “oh they must be so well off.”
Nope.
Ash, Dean and their son Tate are your everyday young little family. Normal jobs, working class parents. They’re just driven.
In order to achieve this wedding Dean worked to pay bills and run the family while Ashlee went back to work after having their son Tate and worked her arse off purely to pay for the wedding. They made some important sacrifices to ensure the dream was achieved and didn’t use anything as an excuse to stop them.
When Ashlee has a vision she takes massive action and she does not sacrifice a single detail if it will be detrimental to that vision.
No ‘ohh just after we’s’, no ‘one day’s’, no excuses.
Do we all need extravagant weddings? Nope. But we all want something as badly as Ashlee wanted her dream wedding.
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.” – Michael Jordan
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