Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live. —Emerson
In too many areas of our lives we prepare to live. We wait for the right moment… it never comes. We need more money… when we get it, we still don’t have enough.
If you want to build a lifestyle business or travel the world, it’s easy to get caught up in thinking that you need to prepare first. Maybe you do. But often you can start sooner than you think.
The Domino Project launched an interesting challenge today called Trust Yourself. It’s a 30 day dare to doing more of what you want, through the simple act of trusting yourself. I’m one of the authors honored to give a prompt for one of the 30 days.
Trusting yourself matters, a lot. When we don’t trust ourselves, we prepare to live. We put life on hold. We delay doing what we want because there are more “practical” things to consider. We trick ourselves into believing they’re simply a necessary transition.
Weeks, months, or years later somehow we’re still in transition. Still waiting.
Today I urge you to stop waiting. Take the first step… now.
Your question of the day is this:
What’s one thing you’ll do today that you’ve been wanting to do and have put off? Leave a comment down below and share with us.
I’m part of the 30 day writing project. I did the first one earlier. Look forward to all of them. My question is what’s the best way to get the most out of each prompt in your opinion? When I wrote today I just wrote for 15 minutes straight, no editing, and wrote what came out.
I cannot think of anything i want to do but have been putting off….
Hi Jonathan, I’m going to be doing this over on 750 words. I don’t think I’ll share the results publicly each day though because I’m conscious of overwhelming people and I won’t have time to edit my streams of consciousness.
As I’m about to go to bed, I’ll think about your question for tomorrow – and it’s about time I exercised again. So – 10 minutes of yoga first thing tomorrow should get me back in the game, as well as signing up for a 5k at the end of June!
I would like to take personal singing classes to learn how to sing in tune.
The battle against Resistance. Fear of failure, fear of success. Perfection the haunting demon. Even one small step advances us toward our dreams. Today: build the framework for the new audio program. Thanks for the wonderful reminder.
a suggestion–I learned to sing in tune by singing in a choir and–this is super important–just listening. You also want to sing higher in pitch than you think, and then it starts to sound right. Best of luck! @AymericG
Hmm that’s a great question… I feel like this year I’ve really been doing all of those things I had been putting on hold. For me I think it comes down to doing the daily stuff that feeds my soul: going to yoga, spending time with my boyfriend, walking my dog, drinking green juice… I’ve got so much amazing stuff happening I think the grounded-ness is what I’m really focusing on. :)
I wrote a guest post for another blog.
Write a poem.
One problem many of us have, especially those of us who work a lot with goal setting is that we are so focused on our goals that we forget to live in the now.If you can try to sit back and just be happy with where and who you are you will be a lot happier.
Finish and mail the required certified Master Naturalist documentation paperwork.
Preparing to live is accomplished by virtue of preparing to die. To embrace death is to embrace life.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
~ Mark Twain
“…only by facing death will we come to a deeper realization of who we are.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
When I saw this post, it really grabbed me. My challenge as of late has been half and full handstand. I’d been avoiding it, but after reading this “put on hold” perspective, it really motivated me. Thanks for the post. Here is a short blog and video about the challenge
https://www.craigmorton.org/1/post/2011/06/preparing-to-live-a-question-asked-and-answered-from-the-illuminatedmindnet.html
Going to do a videolog that I’ve been putting off for a few weeks.. However excited about it, reading this article made me realise that there’s no reason for me to not do it now(Well except if it’s raining since I want to shoot it in my local park) :-P
Love this
I don’t know anything that I had to put off….
I may or may not have let out a cry of happiness when I read the title of this blog post (and subsequently left my jaw open + drooling while reading it). Figuring out why people don’t live (or wait to live) is my life’s quest.
I’ve been making a lot of progress towards this one, but I was forced to in college when I lost 4 close family members in less than 3 years.
Shit like that forces you to realize how stupidly you are living your own life.
TODAY I am going to study my butt off for a psychology exam so that I will have good enough credentials to be accepted to the psychology PhD program that I am dying to participate in. Thanks for forcing me to stop procrastinating.
If you’re interested, I just wrote a guest post about how death forced me to stop waiting. Here’s the link:
https://www.enteradulthood.com/post/10513568380/risktaking101astoryoflossdeterminationandboldness
I have been working hard to get myself progressing, both online and off, but the one thing that I have been slacking on is taking care of my actual physical self. I would rather create than lift weight, but the time has come.
I will start the habit of being active today.
I’ve been contemplating putting together a product on how to conduct killer interviews. I think I’ll get started today. Thanks for sharing this.
I will make a short film in iMovie. It is something I should have done years ago. Today is the day.