How to Start Living Your Best Life in 2017

How Well Do You Know What You Really Want in Life?

You must know what you want in life. Period. Fullstop. The end.

You must figure out what you really, really want out of the one life you are given, the one true gift that you possess right here and right now.

When you have a sense of clarity and a true life vision for yourself, you are at peace with who you are, with what you do and with how you live.

You are aligned to your core values.

You are in sync with your true self.

You are grounded and yet you feel you can fly.

You are present and yet you see a clear future.

And when you live from the place of this clarity and truth, you are oh so well-poised for achieving any goal you have your heart set on.

So do you see why you must know what you want in life?

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You must also know what you don’t want in life.

Even if at some point in your life, you did want something, it is possible that today you no longer want the same thing.

Maybe you wanted to speak a new language and you spent years learning it. Maybe you wanted to dance Argentine tango – as I did, for many years – and you spent a lot of time and money on it. Maybe you wanted a certain career and you went to school for it and dedicated a lot of years to it.

Now you find yourself not really wanting it anymore. That is okay and you are allowed to feel differently because we evolve and change as human beings.

You grow more mature and more certain of who you are over time. You change for the better. Your eyes open to more experiences in life and you may desire to expand your way of living and existing.

You are allowed to want to explore a new goal, a new skill, a new path, a new career, a new lifestyle, and a new YOU.

Stop Feeling Obligated to a Goal You Set 10 Years Ago!

Nothing you did in your past toward something locks you into it for the rest of your life.

If walking away from a miserable career, an unhealthy relationship, a dull hobby, an interesting goal, or an old desire makes perfect sense now, if your whole being is rejecting it and your mind is still insisting on it, then at the very least, you owe yourself a pause and a self-inquiry.

But it takes trust to know this and to allow this process to unfold. It takes faith in yourself. It takes belief. It takes a lot of courage and a whole lot of love.

How much trust, faith and belief do you have in yourself?

How much courage and love do you have for yourself?

You were never supposed to be forever married to the things you wanted at some point in life. You put that expectation on yourself, and you alone can remove it. You chose to live with that pressure and now you can stop it.

You can begin anew. You can choose to listen to your inner voice rather than ignore it.

You can choose to be kind rather than harsh to yourself.

You can choose to forgive that you didn’t know any better and not waste any more of your precious time acting as if you don’t know better now. Because now you do know better.

You are a smart, talented, and amazing individual. You have the gift of being alive in this time and age. You can write your destiny today.

What would possess you to give yourself any less than all of that?

I speak with a lot of fabulous people in my line of coaching work and as I listen to these successful, smart and amazing individuals, as I hear their heartfelt stories of career struggles or business challenges or personal endeavors gone awry, a common thread emerges over and over: they feel conflicted between where they are and where they desire to be.

What holds them back is either (1) not knowing what they want in life or … more often than not, (2) knowing what they want, and wanting it rather badly too, but not feeling empowered or confident or worthy enough to go for it.

Do you ever feel that way?

Because you can be successful, smart and talented and still feel this way. I relate to every single one of these struggles because I’ve been there.

How I Changed My Own Life with a Decision

As I write this, we are wrapping up the year 2016 and starting a brand new year. Andy, my husband and business partner and I have done our 2016 Reflection & 2017 Planning – right above at the Mandrin Hotel over high tea and sandwiches, and we celebrated yet another breakthrough year because we decided on what we are going to accomplish and accomplish it, we did.

I am staggered by the life I am living today and the freedom I am exercising every single day and yet it makes perfect sense.

If I look back to 5 years ago, I felt beholden to a career that made me miserable, simply because I had put in the time and energy to build it, I felt chained to a path in life simply because I had started on it, I felt obligated to living a certain way because the expectation was infused into my cell from an early age, and because I did not have a clue how else to be, to live, to work, and to thrive.

What dawned on me in that unhappy period is that there had to be a better way to live a glorious life on my own terms, and what I first needed was a decision to go for it.

A decision marks the end of wondering, thinking, discussing and hoping. It is a switch you flip on in the brain that says “Okay, we’re done talking about it and we’re now going to do it. How in the world? That remains to be seen but we’re doing it, come hell or high water. We Are Doing It.”

When I work with my clients, and when we arrive at the decision point, a quiet transformation takes place. It is a moment when they behold their own incredible power before their eyes – sometimes for the first time – and they are often amazed by how much momentum follows that decision point in time.

That decision I made in 2011 was the start of a complete transformation of my life. It was a permission to step away from a known, comfortable and familiar path that was misaligned to my very core and to start down a new unknown road simply because it felt right and because I had no choice but to find out what else is possible.

As I reflect on that journey and look at the life that I designed for myself and my husband by the sheer power of that decision, I can’t help but beseech you to the same for yourself.

Case in point on being very clear on what you want and don’t want is the picture above. I want to be a caddy for my husband but have no desire to play golf myself. At least not yet. That may change and I am allowed to change my mind, as are you!

You Are Choosing so Choose Well!

If you are unhappy right now as you read this, if you’re even a little unfulfilled in your life – be it personal or professional – and if you feel called to recommit to yourself for a fresh new start, what in this world is stopping you?

What is your reason for settling?
What is your excuse for not pushing further?
What is your limiting belief that says “I’m good here even if I’m unhappy.”?

And if that reason, that excuse, that limiting belief is good enough to give up the possibility of a glorious life of joy and happiness, then stay where you are but own up to it.

And if no reason, no excuse, no limiting belief is good enough to hold you back from exploring the very edge of possibility, then make your decision today to take action.

Set a breakthrough goal for yourself in the coming year and make it happen.

Design your dream life one day at a time and don’t stop until you have it precisely down.

Start to see yourself as the embodiment of all that is possible, and begin a year of transformation as you say goodbye to your old life and your old self.