What does crafting your desired life mean? And why is it essential to invest in the dreams you hold close to your heart? When you take responsibility for your decisions and your actions, you can take your life to new heights. It’s you in charge of the direction you choose to take. It’s designing a plan and ensuring a positive outcome. This begins with intention, diligently working toward that dream. Deliberate in your approach to see it through until it comes to fruition.
Intentional living is a powerful thing. It’s you taking control of your life so you can get from where you are now to where you could be. Imagine that! This is investing time in the things that matter most, on those projects you perhaps left on the back-burner, or on that well-intentioned to-do list. Perhaps it’s a list of resolutions that only continues to grow. You know the list well – the one you created eons ago that now only serves as a reminder of what you continue to delay.
Let’s get serious. What do you want your life to look like? Where do you see yourself? What do you dream of accomplishing? What wish do you want fulfilled? So much to do, so little time… and the challenge is real. Lack of time plus a lack of energy yields nothing but regret. When motivation, focus, direction, drive, and effort are absent, you not only lack intention but also neglect responsibility for crafting your desired life. Sadly, this is where most of us fall short.
COURAGE TO CHANGE SOME THINGS DOESN’T DIFFER FROM CRAFTING YOUR DESIRED LIFE
If you find you’re sifting through negative thoughts and failing to acknowledge where you are, you are clearly claiming defeat. Say what? This does not differ from giving approval to something that isn’t sitting well in your life. It’s also when you may tell yourself that you have neither time nor energy nor the means to change something. But if we were to get real, step back, and zero in, what we will find is that it goes beyond excuses. It’s here we have to ask, “What in my life now is preventing me from the life I want?” Take some time and answer that question.
Most people don’t know this, but it’s easier to go from failure to success than from excuses to success.
I get that it’s easy to put things off. Been there, done that, one too many times. Somehow we convince ourselves that we have all the time in the world, and someday we’ll accomplish everything on those so-called to-do lists. However, only after we find the extra time, or when we have more energy, or when we attain some semblance of courage to change something in our lives. But before we know it, static goals continue to remain elusive. At best, it’s something we just tweak now and then. An example of this is flipping through the months on a calendar, adding more things to an overextended agenda, never starting or finishing projects. Only to sidetrack, looking back disheartened at a year that wasn’t, and left scrutinizing the time lost. The time you will never get back.
REDIRECTING YOUR ATTENTION WILL REDIRECT YOUR STEPS
Before we achieve anything promising, we have to be intentional in committing time and effort, focused on seeing it through by taking decisive steps. Want to lose weight? Well then, you will intentionally have to change the diet and get that body moving. Want to meet new people? You will purposely have to get out and mingle. Do you want a new job? You will begin the process by preparing a resume and then submitting it. Nothing changes if you keep things the same. When you get the ball rolling, a transformation will take place.
If you stay where you are, doing the same things, that will only keep things fairly static. There’s nothing wrong with maintaining the status quo if that is your intent. However, in most situations, that isn’t the case at all. This I know. Most of us want more from life. We want to look our best, feel our best, and we also desire a happy life.
Just after the holidays, I had some time to catch up on the emails I received, and I spotted a common thread that led me to write this post. Those of you who are dealing with unsettling situations or stuck in unhealthy relationships. Now, you didn’t come out and admit you were stuck. I just know you are. You’re placing a heck of a lot of effort into maintaining connections or situations that bear nothing but negative results. Which brings about heaviness of heart, along with immense disappointment. Receiving nothing in return or no return on investment just means change is essential. In a financial sense, it’s called rebalancing the portfolio. Perhaps it’s time for you to rebalance something in your life. But what?
WHAT WORKS STAYS – WHAT DOESN’T GOES
Know this: though not everything that we face can be changed, nothing can be changed until we face it.
It’s imperative to note what’s working and what isn’t. This could pertain to just about anything in life. How much time are you sacrificing? Do you catch yourself overthinking and stewing over every circumstance? Rather than focusing on what’s necessary, you find yourself overwhelmed and losing track of time. Instead of wasting this valuable time on what’s not working, why not try redirecting your attention to what is working outside of the situation that leaves you discouraged?
It’s reasonable to assume that the contributing factor to someone’s lack of motivation is something that they face on a daily basis. The thing is, when a person shifts the focal point, they discover they can create a better storyline just by improving the way they view things. In other words, by refusing to hang out with negative people, things are apt to change. Remaining in a negative environment will keep someone stuck indefinitely because it’s an influential factor. Negativity begets nothing but more negativity.
WHAT ABOUT REWRITING THE STORY?
Why not change the angle and shift the lens? What about choosing to rewrite the internal dialogue or narrative? But this time, from a new perspective. Perhaps it’s time to release a situation, a relationship, a toxic workplace, and just let it go. Say what? Just let things go. By being intentional, you can get something new started. It’s time to take a step outside of whatever isn’t working, set your gaze on the prize, and work toward achieving it. I guarantee you will not get far if focused on the wrong things, situations, or people. Stuck in a toxic workplace? Surrounded by toxic people? Putting up with a relationship that is far from supportive? What are you doing? I repeat. What are you doing? And why are you selling yourself short?
Despite how you may interpret a situation, nothing great happens when it involves spending valuable time on negativity. This will only tie up energy and impede your potential. Are you tying up your life? He said, she said, he did, she did, he didn’t do, she… waste of time. Take a moment to reflect. Release the burdens that have a stronghold on your creativity, on your potential, on your life. It will be those things that incessantly occupy your thoughts in a negative way. How are you going to go about crafting your desired life if you’re all caught up with bad thoughts, in the wrong things, involved with not-so-great people?
CRAFTING YOUR DESIRED LIFE IS BUT AN INTENTION AWAY
Once you choose to close a door, clear your space, and replace negative thoughts with positive thinking, what happens? Things change. I repeat. Things will change, and you will find the time, energy, and the means to finish whatever it is you set out to achieve. This is you holding yourself accountable for your decisions, actions, including all of your affairs. I get it. When it comes to the affairs of the heart, it’s a tough call because it’s delving into emotion. This is when we often falter. Staying in an unhappy situation, surrounded by fake friends and false companions, will not only drain your energy, but it will compromise your time and hinder your progress.
It’s time for something to change, which may very well involve endings. And ending any situation or connection is never easy. That said, closing out anything bad may indeed be the way to go. This is you freeing up the time, space, and energy that you will need to fulfill your dreams. We have only this one life. One! So, why waste it on meaningless matters that do nothing but drag you down? Which, by the way, depletes energy, curtailing one’s success.
WHAT HAS MEANING AND WHAT DO YOU VALUE MOST?
Inspect that to-do list, review the list of resolutions, look at your bucket list, and then examine your intentions. Look at every unfinished project. And then ask yourself, “Is it actually on account of a lack of time and energy?” “Or, is it more in line with the fact that I’m stewing and mulling over every negative situation, which only sucks up valuable time and energy?” I can assure you, whenever you experience something unpleasant or sit in what doesn’t serve you, your mental, emotional, physical, and yes, even your spiritual energy is being undermined. This is a distraction, and it will prevent you from getting things done, from achieving your goals, from fulfilling your hopes, wishes, and dreams.
Do you want to move forward? Well then, it’s necessary for you to move on, outside of an uncomfortable space that keeps you stuck thinking it’s okay when it isn’t. Perhaps you refer to this space as the comfort zone. After all, it’s what you know. However, ask, “Am I forcing comfort in a place or a space, with a person I feel so darn uncomfortable with?”
During any transition in life, the first step is to move outside of a negative situation to a more positive state of being, which is a choice. This is you choosing not only what is meaningful, but what holds significant value. This is you being your own best friend, someone who deserves and desires better, and is willing to make it happen. Crafting your desired life one step at a time. Why not make 2026 your best year?
We can wait, and hope, and wish, but if we do, we miss the stories our lives could be.