 In the last week I’ve managed to have another birthday and with birthdays always come the inevitable questions:
• Am I where I thought I’d be at this age?
• Should I have children by now? (Or is that just me?)
• What have I really achieved in the last year?
• How can I really be this old??? Doesn’t matter how old you are, you always ask that same ‘old’ question!
• So how did I get to where I am?
• What made me, me?
 In thinking about the big events in my life I started to think about the different ways things could have unfolded. There have been major crossroads and I’ve made choices, where would I be if I’d made the opposite choice? What would my life look life? I could be a scuba diving instructor in Thailand, I could be a high flying Marketing executive for a big firm in the city, or I could be single, sad and lonely with four kids to look after. So many different lives I could have lived?
I was speaking to a good friend the other day and she’s been going through a really challenging time. She asked me had I ever been really depressed and how did I get out of it. There was a time in my life where every day after work I’d bawl my eyes out on the way home. By the time I’d arrived home I’d be exhausted, sad and overwhelmed about having to do it all again the next day, and I just didn’t feel like I could do it anymore. I’d slump into bed knowing that this is no way to live, beat myself up, then get up and do it all again the next day.
I think everyone experiences lows in their life and of all the people I’ve spoken to, the vast majority got to a low point, drew a line in the sand, and said to themselves; “Enough’s enough”! It’s a decision that’s the only way to change our emotions and our focus. Unfortunately, some of us never get to the decision, we never reach that point of being completely congruent with a change.
Sean and I watched a documentary the other night on drug addicts in Canada, and it was a story that followed a particular family that had been users for a long time. The mother was a prostitute and user from the age of 13, and then her daughter fell into the same cycle. The daughter then found a partner, who was also a user, and they had two children who were immediately taken into care at their birth. The young couple had a reason to change, they loved each other, and more than anything they wanted to be good parents and break the cycle that they had both become victim to. They did.
.jpg) They drew a line in the sand, moved out of the ‘family’ home and went into rehab. They choose not to stay with any of their friends who were users, so they could avoid temptation and, as a result, they spent numerous nights in parks and shelters. (This is in winter in Canada were talking about!) They were committed to the change. They had two massive reasons they needed to change, and they drew a line in the sand and said; Enough’s enough! The documentary ended with an update; the young family had been together for a year, hadn’t touched drugs in that time and the husband had a full time job. Unfortunately, the grandmother was still using, and in the same terrible cycle.
So, let’s get back to you. What are you tolerating in your life right now? What are you accepting as ‘good enough’? What’s it going to take to push you to that point of realising it’s just not good enough and you do deserve more in your life? I hope that opening up your eyes and your mind to take in what’s around you will help you realise what needs to change, perhaps everything, and perhaps nothing. I’ll leave that part up to you!
Good luck with it, and if you’d like to chat at any stage or need some support sorting out what needs to change and how specifically to go about it, please contact me at jodie@advancedcoachingsolutions.com.au
Last month we had another fantastic workshop, this one was on discovering happiness, and it was a great success, everyone got involved and we had some brilliant conversations and each person was able to take something away to work on. If you weren’t able to attend the workshop, I have recorded the content on to an audio CD, so please send me an email if you’d like to purchase a copy. What a great Christmas Gift, The Gift of Happiness!
This audio CD is available on ‘Discovering Happiness’ and is for sale for $22.
Contents include:
- What is Happiness?
- The Facts on Happiness
- Effects on our Happiness
- Practising Happiness, and
- The Happiness Revolution
Please email me to order your copy; jodie@advancedcoachingsolutions.com.au
If you’re really ready to step up and start living life and need a little assistance to get started, please give me a call on 4296 9331 or email me and we can work on it together. If you like what I’m writing or would like to give me some feedback, I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email at jodie@advancedcoachingsolutions.com.au | 
