Are You Living Your Best Life?

Do you wake up each day saying “I’m truly living my best life”? If not, why?

It’s easy to get so ingrained in day-to-day life and responsibilities that you don’t stop to think about “What does my ideal life look like?” For many people, the COVID pandemic may have shifted this and opened up new possibilities and new ways of working that created the flexibility to live and work from anywhere. Many people took advantage of this by moving out of large cities to suburban and rural areas, or closer to family and friends. But what if it’s not a physical move, what if it’s something else that you long for, and you may not even be sure what it is. Do you know what truly makes you happy? How can you design your ideal life?

You first need to build your inner compass, which can guide you on your own unique path to success and happiness and help you live your best life!

There are three dimensions for building your inner compass and bringing your ideal life to fruition.

1. Discover – You must first gain greater self-awareness and discover what’s most important to you.
   1. Your values are what is most important to you. They are the core of your inner compass. They motivate your actions and guide your decision making. Getting clarity around your values can help you live a life aligned with what is most important to you. Think about all areas of your personal and professional life. What brings you the most joy? What are your top priorities? If you’re stuck, try an online values assessment. You can take one for free at https://personalvalu.es/
   2. Your strengths are what you naturally do well. What skills and talents do you have that help you make a positive impact? You may find that you have strengths that are being underutilized and tapping into those can help you reach your full potential and make an even greater impact in all that you do. If you want to get more in-depth, StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Don Clifton is an excellent book that helps you uncover your strengths and provides access to the online Clifton Strengths assessment.
   3. Your best self is the version of yourself when you are “on”, when you’re in your groove and feel like you can do anything. When are you at your best? What are you doing? Who are you with? If you get stuck, ask your friends, family and colleagues when they have observed you at your best. You’ll be glad you did!
2. Define – Now that you’ve discovered what’s important to you, it’s time to define where you want to go. Think about your personal vision, mission and purpose.
   1. Your vision is where you want to go. Where do you see yourself long term? For now, just dream big. Think outside of the box. If you could be anything, do anything, what would you do?
   2. Your purpose is your Why! Why do you do what you do? What is your passion?
   3. Your mission is how you will act on your passion? This is when you start thinking about what you want to DO. What personal and professional goals do you want to accomplish?
3. Decide – It’s up to you to decide where you want to go in life.
   1. Dream big! Create a few different visions of your best life, “If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough” – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
   2. Test before you decide! Once you have a few different visions for your ideal life, it’s time to test them out. Try on different life designs by visiting a location you may want to live, shadow or interview a colleague or friend in a different career field, interview someone doing something you admire and ask them about the realities of their job and what it took to get there.
   3. Decide and commit! Once you’ve made your decision on what you want to do and where you want to go in life, commit, go all in and don’t let what others think or say hold you back. It’s your dream and only you can make it happen!