Originally posted on Facebook HERE
What would you say to yourself if you met yourself today and asked yourself for an opinion on where you’re at in life? This was the thought in my head when I woke up today. Basically, step outside yourself and look at everything from as purely an objective stance as you can. It seems like everyone has an opinion on everyone else’s business these days, right? You can look at someone else and have an opinion on how badly they’re screwing everything up and right away have ideas about how they could change their lives for the better. Well, do that. To yourself. And as objectively as possible. I had a few things jump out right away. Like — “you say health and fitness are important to you, but you don’t really live that way”. Ouch. Followed by “you need to have a more consistent routine for the days you don’t meet with trainers, and pay more attention to eating properly and getting enough sleep”. I can’t really argue with that since I’m the one telling me this. Health and fitness often take a back seat in our lives, right? It’s hard to get up and get at it every day. That’s why a set routine can be extremely helpful in that regard. And, I let myself slide a lot because I do have 4+ hours/week of workouts set with weight training and yoga instructors. To me, that should just be the baseline though. In my business I often tell people when it comes to investing, you can’t get your 20’s back. If you can save up even a small amount in your 20s it can be huge by the time you get to retirement. But very few people ever do it. Well — whatever age you are now — I’m 65 — you can’t get this time back, either. 15 years from now, do you want to look back and say “I told myself to get a routine back then and I wish I would have listened” — or “I’m so glad I got a routine going when I was (insert age here), it’s made all the difference in my health and happiness ever since”. Your meeting will be your meeting. My meeting is my meeting. We will have different things come up. The next thing that came up for me was “Why do you have all that musical gear? If you spent time actually playing instead of buying and selling you’d have more money and be a better player” — ouch again. I’m pretty tough on myself, I guess. I also pointed out my own obsessive/compulsive behavior and how buying and selling gear isn’t maybe the best obsession to have. Perhaps I should turn the obsession back to fitness instead? Kill two birds with one stone? Maybe just keep the absolute best stuff, sell everything else and work on my craft instead? Such as producing better YouTube videos, writing songs for The Fusion Project, solo arrangements for bass, and actually practicing? I’ve known this for a while now. I just never really had the hard conversation with myself. These were just two of many things that came up for me. What I do with the information will depend on me. Is there enough in there to make me commit to making changes I think would be better for myself in the long run? TBD. But I’ll say this — you can’t make any changes unless you know what needs changing. You’ll never make any changes without periodically looking at yourself and taking a personal inventory of where you’re at. Then — what will you do with that information? Usually it’s only the things we have really let go that will give us the impetus for change. We need a burning desire to change before we actually move on anything. I have a feeling I’ll be getting a better fitness plan going again soon here. As for the gear thing?… TBD. I do plan on listing a bunch of gear today, so at least that’ll be a start. So, today — set up a meeting. With yourself. Ask yourself, “if you were me right now, what do you think I should do going forward?”… then listen to the voice that gives you the answers you already know, but overlook. I wish you well on this endeavor should you choose to try it. It can be very eye opening.
