Choose your own adventure

First published as an article for www.mywellbeingmagazine.com on 18/04/2017

When I was growing up there were these fabulous books that allowed you to choose what happened next in the story you were reading. You chose from one of three or four options and it took you on a different path in the story. At each junction in the story you could choose again until you reached the end of your journey.

A friend visiting my home pointed at some of these books on my bookshelf the other day and reminded me of how much they were loved by kids globally. Her comment has stuck in my mind over the past couple of days and it’s left me pondering about where the sense of adventure in our lives has gone.

It’s almost as if somewhere along the way life has taken over, and we’re now on a conveyor belt hurtling along in an automated process, just waiting for the next thing in life to happen to us. We’re completely unconscious, just sitting there – sometimes being knocked over and sent down another chute, into another process – but otherwise operating on autopilot and dealing with whatever is thrown our way.

Somewhere along the way we’ve lost confidence in our ability to make decisions for ourselves.

We find ourselves with our head spinning, asking everyone else for the answers to our questions. We place all our trust in the answers that everyone gives to us, and we start walking a path that leads us to living someone else’s life.

Suddenly, we find ourselves existing in a fast-paced, unconscious world where every day starts and ends with a grind. Our health – both mental and physical – has suffered, and we’re stressed and exhausted. We’re running on empty, and we’re perilously close to collapsing … so we push ourselves even harder just so we can survive.

When did we forget that our lives are precious? When did we lose sight of our innate ability to have fun? When did we stop listening to what our heart knows we should be doing?

What made us choose automation over our own adventure?

Like many things in life, there are times when automation can be a very good thing. But not when it means you don’t control the decisions that are made for your life.

The fact is, we’ve been swept away by the speed of life. Everyone – and everything around us – moves so quickly that it can feel like there isn’t enough time to sit still and consider the decisions that need to be made in our lives. Information comes at us from every direction and it seems like there is nowhere to go and nowhere to hide for a reprieve.

We’re addicted to an environment that is highly stimulated and we live in a world of instantaneous feedback and interaction. We’re totally immersed in an artificial life of “right here, right now” and constantly reminded – through funky-sounding acronyms – that YOLO (You Only Live Once) and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) really matter. We’re wired for stress stimuli … and our bodies respond automatically.

Here’s the thing: we’ve been conditioned by the world around us that our lives must be enmeshed for us to be successful. But in reality, we’ve reached a point in our lives where we now need to consciously stop and make some changes.

Although most of us don’t want to hear it, the truth is this: the more you slow down, the more clarity you get in your life … and it is clarity that gives us the ability to catapult ourselves forward in our lives.

The more time you take to connect with your intuition and to put your faith and your trust in that intuition, the more you will find yourself doing and being things that are really aligned with who you are. The less you rely on answers from others, the more you will find your own answers to those burning questions.

How? Start by turning your life into an adventure! Take control of choosing where your adventure takes you. Treat everything that is offered to you as pathways you can choose between and then explore where your decision takes you with a sense of fun and wonder.

Give yourself the gift of choosing your own adventure and watch where your footsteps take you.

It doesn’t take much to live your life in a very different way and there are loads of tips and tricks on how you can easily do this in my book ‘Keep It Super Simple’ – you can buy a copy from www.sheiqlife.com/shop.