Life. Let's do this! (By Ryan)

Doing life on a day to day basis takes a lot of energy, time and thought. It doesn’t matter if you live on your own, if it’s you and a spouse, or if you have 3 kids like us. Life is busy and it often feels like there is no time or space to pause and take a few steps back and ask some basic questions.

Why am I doing this? Why I am living the way I am? How did I get to this place? Is this really what I want? Was this what I was aiming for? Where do I want to be in 5, 10, 20 years?

Before you know it, you have ended up somewhere you didn’t intend to be and you haven’t had the courage or ability to actually pursue the things you always said you wanted.

Living in the “head-down let’s just get through the day” mode also makes it really difficult when a decision or opportunity comes along because there is no frame of reference to make the decision. Let’s say you have a new job opportunity and you need to decide whether you should take it. The pay is better, the commute is longer, the job is working towards something you believe in. Do the benefits outweigh the long commute? 

Let’s say you are deciding if you should move. You can afford something bigger which will give you more space. It means more yard work, more of your finances towards the mortgage and maintenance of the house, and moving into an area that has less “community”. Does the increased space make the extra work worth it? Are you okay with having a larger mortgage? Does this mean that you have to sacrifice other things like family holidays, going out to eat? Is it worth it for that? Do you like to know your neighbours and share life with them?

None of these decisions are good or bad but they do have an impact on your entire life. They are not simply a decision about a job or a house. They are decisions that should reflect the things that we value but from what we have experienced in our own lives and see around us, our decisions don’t always reflect those values.

So what I am emphatically and forcefully telling you, YOU MUST DO, is think through and write out your values.  

What are the guiding principles that you want to shape your actions and decisions? Forget about what you feel you should value based on outside voices. Don’t worry about the way you are living your life right now. What values do you aspire your life to reflect?

For us, this process of determining our true values took some time. But in that time of weeding things out and grouping things together some themes emerged. And out of those themes, we chose our values - see this blog post.

Once you have determined your values, look at each area of your life and assess whether or not it reflects your stated values. Look at your living situation, your work, your finances, your relationships, the things you eat, the things you say, the things you watch, the way you spend your free time, the people you spend your time with, the community you live in, the places you vacation, the things you buy. Do these things reflect your stated values? 

Like it was for us, you may realize that parts of your life don’t. But the great thing is that you now have a framework to make decisions and move forward.

And when the next decision comes your way, you can look at your options based on your values rather than being distracted by the finer details. 

Life is a gift. 

Life is happening right now. 

And a life not lived intentionally will lead you to a place you never intended to go.