Are you even listening? Three questions to help you tune into what your life is telling you.
Growth mindset. Cringe right. It’s an overused term but an incredibly powerful principle. This concept that our whole world will open up to us if we view life as one big classroom with lessons and homework. Painful ex-boyfriends as relationship teachers? F** off.
Humbly attending class at the school of life, I recently started to make more of an effort to take note of what each situation in my life has been showing me. It’s a whole new level of mindfulness, very zen if I do say so myself.
The older I get the more I come to peace with the fact that life doesn’t really roll out how you expect it to. It’s full of unanswered questions, awkward silences and everything in between. But if you do see it all as a learning experience, and start to really listen, you realise that your life has a lot to say.
Here are my three top questions that help me tune out the noise and see what’s happening beneath the surface.
What are you jealous of?
So it’s time to crack Pandora's box wide open. Where to begin. Women with flawless and invisible makeup, super happy couples on New Year’s Eve, someone buying a house mortgage free. Some are more serious than others, but you get the point.
What you’re jealous of shows what matters to you. It’s showing you what you want for yourself. Being a painfully indecisive person I find this really helpful.
And sometimes it’s not all pretty. Maybe you’re jealous of someone and you can’t immediately work out why, but then you realise it’s because they are always calm and easy-breezy, and you’re unable to control your own emotions. Whatever it shows you, the good, the bad the ugly, take note, and then put steps in place to get there.
Where does your mind wander?
In a hyper-productive world we rarely give ourselves the opportunity to be bored or daydream, but the next time you do you, take note of where your mind takes you.
Is it to a ‘simpler time’ a few years ago when you had a different, less hectic job? The message here is that your current situation is not working for you, not healthy for you. Whether it’s a bad week or something more long-term, you need to consider a change to an environment where you can thrive.
Perhaps it’s a fantasy, like waking up in your dream house with a bedroom view that overlooks a sparkling sea. If so, you might need more time closer to nature. Obvy a move to a beachfront double-bedder might be out of the question, but a trip to the coast or a more peaceful morning routine could help.
What could you not, not do?
So many times I’ve asked myself the question, ‘what should I be doing with my life?’ I have found it the most terrifying question I’ve ever asked myself, as there is never a clear answer. What has helped me is flipping the question around. What could I not live without doing? What would make me go crazy if I couldn’t get a chance to do it? For me, one of my answers is to be able to push myself physically with training, so I will always make sure I schedule this time in and never let it get taken over by anything else. Will this mean I’ll be a boxing coach in the future? Maybe (puts on gloves).
Ask this question and write down everything that comes to mind. Nurture that hobby, change your career path to help you tick more of the boxes, swap your morning routine to support your goals, whatever it is, bring awareness so you can get more aligned.
I hope these three simple questions help you. Whether we want to admit it or not, whether we try to drown it out, life is always going to be telling us what direction we need to go. We just need to listen.