Warning: what will you do with the next 20 years of your life?

WARNING: What Will You Do With The Next 20 Years Of Your Life?

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Same as they have ever done

I would suspect for most people in their ’50s, it will be the same as they have ever done with the past 20 years. The never-ending cycle of wash, spin, dry and repeat? Are you a fully paid-up member of WSDR club? I was.

I want you to peddle back in time to when you were about 30 and recall where you were in your life. And, If you could take yourself back to those times right now and whisper in the ear of the younger you, what would you like to say? What would you be saying to encourage yourself to feel the fear and do it anyway?

To be bold and trust your instincts, to go where no young version of yourself has gone before? I know you can’t re-live the past, but you could take your bicycle clips off for just one minute to learn some valuable lessons from the past that could help transform and reinvent your future. What would they be?

Write down 3 valuable lessons from the past:

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Fast forward 20 years

Now accelerate your mind forward 20 years from today. What age will you be? (I know that will be scary, and I promise not to tell anybody, but there was a time when you thought your current age was old!).

Your wiser ear?

What words of wisdom, what golden nuggets would you be whispering in your more ageing, wiser self-ear?

What changes in your life and career would you make? Would you start to trust intuition listen to what your heart is calling you to do? What might they advise you to stop doing, and what would they urge you to start? And, where would they encourage you to feel the fear and do it anyway?

Maybe seek help from someone to support you with making those changes—food for thought.

Now, hold that thought. Imagine the reinvented life you have created for yourself 20 years from now. What would your life purpose be? What would you be? What would you be doing? and what do you want to have?

Imagine your reinvented life

Now I want you to start writing and do not stop until you run out of ideas. Don’t stop to think about them for too long. It’s important to remember not to censor your words. That’s why I suggest you do it fast. Be in free flow and write whatever comes to you, from the boring to the outrageous.

Hi, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed doing that exercise; how was it for you? did you feel the fear, and writing it anyway helped make the flow easier to come up with the – be, do and have?

Were you amazed at some of the things you wrote down?

As humans, When we first start to write down something, we tend to write the obvious first. Learning to free flow overcomes this bias towards the obvious and gets the creative juices flowing.

Now that you have written your list, allow your mind to work on it over the next day or so. You would have opened the floodgates of your subconscious mind which will continue to add to the list- so keep it to hand at all times. When you think of another idea, add it to the list. Include every detail you may have discussed with others.

After a couple of days, you will have a fairly comprehensive list of things you want to be, do and have.

How will you spend the rest of your life?

Right now, you have the opportunity to make a conscious decision about how you’ll spend the next 20 years of your life. Don’t underestimate the power of that decision to create and reinvent it.

Your life purpose is to boldly go where you have never gone before, to follow your heart and intuition, to grow and evolve and move forward in your life.

New possibilities and opportunities will emerge outside of your worldview that may seem alien to you at present. But over time, they will become clear and be a force for change in your life.

But take note, you have to be focused on moving in a direction that calls to you. Otherwise, you’ll risk missing those opportunities.

"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary "

Steve Jobs

Founder of Apple

Do you want to continue the same cycle or take a risk?

Everything you ever achieved and want to in the future carries an element of risk. From your first attempt at walking when you were a baby, learning to ride a bicycle on two wheels and let us not forget the risk it took to ask that pretty girl from accounts out on a date.

Lean into risk. This was one of the core lessons New York Times columnist David Brooks extracted from hundreds of essays he received after inviting readers aged 70 to submit their ‘life reports’. He noted that the happiest respondents were those who had taken risks in life rather than avoiding them. So, lean into risk: it’s a lesson you don’t have to wait until you’re 70-something to learn. And, the rewards can be life-changing.

What is your life essay? write it and send it to me. I would love to read them.

"That risk you are afraid to take could be the one that changes your entire life".

Kylie Frances

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