Whose Life Are You Living?

A Question To Ask Yourself

A mountain is like our goals in life and the valleys between those goals represent the time spent working on that goal. In life, we set goals for ourselves for every aspect of our life, but we never actually stop, and ask ourselves are we chasing our own goals or someone else's?

Want To Hear Something Interesting?

Recently, my family started watching a show on Gaia called " Transcendence"  which talks about different parts of your life and how you can change them in your life. It is a really interesting show and I think you guys would enjoy it. Anyways, during one of the episodes, they talked about chasing your own goals instead of someone else's goals and I found it quite interesting. 

  In the episode they talked about how when we are kids up until the age of seven our conscious mind is not fully developed, so we mainly live in a fantasy world, or in other words we live from our subconscious mind. During the years leading up to when a child turns seven is when their parent's shape them into what they will be like as adults. They do this through habits, beliefs, and actions that their children watch you do every day. Which is then transferred to them to deal with once their conscious mind is fully developed.

Whose Life Are You Living?

Whose life are we living? This is a question we should be asking ourselves on a regular basis. Throughout life, we set goals for different parts of our life; for example, we have goals for what we want to get done each day, our career, finances, family, and personal, but are the goals we set for ourselves truly what we want or are we trying to accomplish a certain goal because someone else wants you to accomplish it. Most of the time when people get asked why they are trying to reach a goal, they say something along the lines of "I want my dad to be proud of me" or "I want my mom to be proud of me." Very rarely does someone accomplish a goal and say" I did it for nobody but myself." 

There are two ways to accomplish a goal. The first way is doing it because others want you to and the second one is accomplishing a goal because you what it for yourself. 

I want you to imagine that you are the person that accomplishes goals because you want someone to be proud of you or because they want you to accomplish that goal. Imagine that you are hiking up a mountain, you have a backpack on and you are working your hardest to make it to the very top of that mountain. A few hours later you finally reach the top of the mountain, but you don't feel any different than you felt at the bottom of the mountain. You stand there wondering why you don't feel different. In the distance, you see another mountain that is even taller than the one you are on. You say " oh, I climbed the wrong mountain," you grab your things and climb down the mountain you are on and climb up the other mountain, but you still don't feel any different. What am I missing? you ask yourself. 

Now, I want you to imagine that you are a person that accomplishes goals for themself. I want you to imagine that you are hiking up the mountain again, you have your backpack on and you are trying your hardest to reach the top of that mountain. A few hours later, you reach the top of the mountain. This time you feel accomplished and so full of excitement.

What do you think the difference was between the two scenarios? Nothing really changed between them. In life, the key to feeling that accomplishment when you complete a goal is to do it for you, not anyone else.

Story Time

I want to tell you a little story.  A few years back I was climbing my mountain, only it was an actual mountain instead of a metaphor. It was a warm spring day and my family and I decided it would be fun to hike the Manitou Incline. We got around and after my therapy appointment that morning we drove up and started hiking up the incline. For those of you who haven't heard of the manitou incline; it is a steep hike that has 2,744 steps from the bottom to the top and gains over 2,000 ft in less than a mile. Before I even started the hike, I set my goal that I would make it to the top of the incline and that I wanted to accomplish this goal for myself. As we hiked up the incline I worked hard and told myself multiple times that I could do it. At the halfway mark, about 1,372 steps up we stopped for a break. At that point, the sun was starting to go down and we made the decision to head back to the car using a bar trail that went in a zigzag pattern alongside the incline. About two or three hours later we made it down back to the car. Even though we didn't make it to the top, I still felt extremely excited and accomplished that I made it that far. I am getting back in shape and my goal is still to reach the top of the incline. I know with my dedication and with practice that I will accomplish this goal.

Bottom of the Incline

Mom on the Incline

Action Item

I want you to plan out your day from start to finish with goals or items you want to complete for you. Once you have what goals you want to complete for yourself, you then can add-in other things. Do what you love and want to accomplish. What other people think you should do or be doesn't matter. Just follow your passion.