Live Like You Are Dying

With thanks to Tim McGraw for his song with this name!

One of my mentors is Brooke Castillo, founder of The Life Coach School.  She recently had a podcast musing about how you would live differently if you knew your time was limited.  To help create a framework for thinking about this, she offered 5 questions to ask yourself.  This exercise was so powerful for me, I am sharing them below.

1.       What would I stop doing?   My instant answer was stop worrying about things I can’t do anything about!  Since I don’t generally categorize myself as a worrier, this was an interesting response to me.  Guess I need coaching on this subject!

My second thought was that I definitely would NOT stop working as I love what I do and I truly believe I can help others enjoy their lives more!

2.     What would I start doing?

Ramp up my self-care as I know it improves mood, increases productivity, makes it easier to be truly present.

3.     What would I no longer care about?

Embracing failure was my theme (see previous post) for 2022, but it is definitely a work in progress to willingly show up when I don’t feel totally prepared, can’t guarantee perfectionism, etc.

4.     What would I care more about?

The environment.  I just hate having to figure out what to do with all the plastic food containers!  During Covid, we ate a lot more take-out (contactless delivery was a blessing!) so I now have one shelf devoted to all of those containers – which I try to reuse – when I can manage to get the right top and container paired up!

I also want to really slow down (my Slow Year theme) and BE PRESENT.  This involves becoming much more conscious of my surroundings, using my senses – such as actually tasting food, deeply listening, and giving myself permission to take 10 minutes to do nothing!

5.     Why do my thoughts, feelings, and actions change if I have less time to live?

My priorities come into clear focus, and my thoughts and actions are congruent with them.  My analogy is that most of the time I live an analog life – sometimes not quite in tune and with some static in the background.  Having concrete priorities is like a digital system – everything is clear.