Life is a complex, ever-changing, and dynamic thing – and we are all prone to getting caught up in the particular dramas and rituals of our everyday routines, and losing track of the bigger picture from time to time.
It’s one thing to successfully make it through your everyday obligations and chores and go to bed without any crisis unfolding, however, and it’s another thing altogether to actually live in a way that feels like it’s really on the right track.
Here are just a few questions to ask yourself that can help you to keep your life on the right track, both professionally and personally.
What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind for your loved ones and the rest of the world? Are your current actions and habits contributing to this positively?
As a rule, we don’t like contemplating our own mortality. What is a Will? Even an apparently straightforward question like that will often be dodged, due to the desire to avoid contemplating the end of life.
While it’s certainly not likely to be good for your sense of well-being to dwell on your mortality constantly, it can be very good idea to ask yourself what kind of legacy you want to leave behind for your loved ones and the rest of the world – and to see how your current approach to life relates to that legacy.
Are your current actions and habits helping to lead to the kind legacy that you can be proud of? Or are you compromising your values, and avoiding the more meaningful directions you could take in life, for one reason or another?
Are you allowing a potentially inaccurate mental map to hold you back from experiencing the world?
All too often, we end up constructing flawed mental maps of the world, at an early age, often due to certain unpleasant experiences.
These mental maps can then shape the kind of action we take – or don’t take – in the world, and can in many cases actually hold us back from experiencing the world, due to limiting beliefs that we have unquestioningly internalized.
It’s a very good idea to ask yourself, on a regular basis, whether your mental maps of the world could be flawed and could be keeping you from trying and achieving things that could otherwise help you to thrive.
Has “going with the flow” caused you to become stagnant?
The idea of “going with the flow” sounds nice. It implies relaxation, harmony, and being in the present moment, among other things – and there’s certainly something to be said for this.
At the same time, though, “going with the flow” can also mean just habitually grinding through your daily routine, even if it’s detrimental to you as a whole, because it’s what’s familiar, and you are simply following the path of least resistance.
Going with the flow can cause you to become stagnant. It’s important to keep this in mind, and question whether you are just proceeding on autopilot while heading in the wrong direction.