3 simple steps to live your best life now

Last week the weather was beautiful in the Northeast and I decided to take full advantage of it by going to the beach.

Fortunately it is only a 5 minute drive.

There’s nothing like sitting on the beach in early spring in CT.

I sat at the edge of the beach just before the great beach houses start.

To my left was an outcropping of rocks ranging from a foot high to about four feet high. I didn’t count them, but there were probably 30-40.

Two small children, probably between six and seven years old, were playing on it and having the time of their lives.

Their mother walked up to them and asked what they were up to, and this was the answer.

‘We are two white tigers and this is our home. This is the kitchen, that’s the bathroom, here’s our kitchen table, and that’s the refrigerator. That’s where the bedrooms are.”

Keep in mind that they were pointing at rocks.

“And you’re the white mama tiger, and you hunt for food for us to cook.”

As children, our lives are rooted in creativity.

Everything is possible and we do not judge our creation.

It never occurs to us that a stone cannot be a refrigerator.

In fact, if an adult or older child were to come along and say, “It’s not a refrigerator; it’s a rock,” the little child looked at them as if they were the crazy person in this equation.

Our world is one of creation, authenticity and joy.

As we grow older, our creativity becomes silly, impractical, unrealistic, and “fails to understand how things work.”

We are told to cling on.

It becomes unsafe to create, which is a big part of our authenticity.

When our creativity is slowly squeezed out of us, so too is our willingness to be authentic.

We develop the belief that it is not safe to be who we are and that we must become who we think we need to be so that we can be safe.

We drop our role as creators and take on the role of the hunter.

We seek approval and acceptance from others based on what we think will gain us approval and acceptance.

We hunt and hunt and hunt, and perhaps we earn approval and acceptance from others – and it feels great.

Until it isn’t.

“One day your life will flash before your eyes, make it worth watching.” -Gerard Way

Around the middle of our lives, we start to feel like something is wrong and missing.

We may have professional and materialistic success, but we also have a success-sized hole in the middle of our lives, and no matter how hard we chase, we will never fill it.

Because we are running for the approval and acceptance of others, while at the same time we are running for the approval and acceptance of the one person we really desire:

Ourselves.

We’ve created lives based on someone’s blueprint and wonder why we don’t feel comfortable in our own skin.

The turning point between our first and second half of life is one of the most important opportunities presented to us.

Do we keep moving forward as is, hoping that life will magically change?

Or,

Do we accept that what we do does not create the life we ​​want to live, and that in order to create change, we must change?

Are we creating a new blueprint that will carry us into our second half with a sense of mission, meaning and fulfillment?

Are we reinventing our identity, from the hunter back to the creator?

If our desire is to fill that success-sized hole in our lives, then we must evolve and we must change.

However, that change can feel overwhelming and scary. It can feel like we’re giving up everything we’ve worked so hard to build, and we don’t know who we’ll be when we make this change.

We threaten our fabricated identity and the ground collapses beneath our feet.

The evolution from hunter to creator doesn’t have to be so challenging.

Here are 3 simple steps you can take today to create your extraordinary second half.

1. Unfulfilled dreams

We need to identify what calls us from our early childhood, teens and twenties.

Is it breathing life into that Civil War epic, working with our hands, teaching, or learning to play an instrument?

What do we regret not doing?

Achieving clarity about our unfulfilled dreams is critical to our evolution from hunter to creator.

Our core values ​​are the fundamental beliefs and principles that guide our decisions and actions. They form the basis of who we are and what we stand for.

When we clearly understand our core values, we are better equipped to make decisions that align with our true selves. We are more likely to pursue goals and activities that give us a sense of satisfaction and satisfaction.

How do your core values ​​align with your unfulfilled dreams?

3. Awe and wonder

We need to remind ourselves what creating feels like in our bodies and minds.

But how?

We cultivate creativity through the experiences we want to have.

When those experiences are new, when they inspire awe and wonder, when they are moments of truth and beauty, we cultivate creativity and create meaning.

Immersing ourselves in nature, museums or concerts and doing what we say we would never do is an easy start.

When we experience novelty, awe, wonder, truth and beauty, we cultivate creativity and experience meaning.

We rekindle the creativity of our childhood.

Individually, these 3 steps have the power to change our lives and deliver massive ROI.

All three combined, and we will create the extraordinary second half we have been dreaming of.