Do You Have a Life Mantra?
"None of us is able to jam it all in, or make all the “right” choices. But it is clear that those who fail to risk being who they are, who shun diving into the journey, are the most fear-ridden, regretful and recriminating.” ~ James Hollis
I found myself really questioning my life recently. Questioning the decisions that I've made along the way that have brought me here. Questioning why I do what I do. Questioning whether I'm any good at it or even if it's what I want to do.
Underneath it all, I'm noticing a belief that I should be amounting to something. And my life is not matching that something in my own assessment.
It's an old story about what it means to be successful.
This is the kind of success I want to move away from.
Success equals achievement. Success equals money. Success equals reputation and popularity. Success is how I get people to like me.
Yet all the decisions I've made have taken me further and further from that old paradigm of success.
It's scary to realise that I'm off the beaten path of my own mental models. It's hard to judge what's "right"; the world can feel topsy-turvy.
What if I'm making a huge, f**king mess of my life? What if it's too late for me to be a mother? What if I'm never a "successful" coach? What if I don't save for a pension?
Later in What Matters Most, James Hollis writes of "a more insidious death, the death that comes through absenting ourselves from life, avoiding these mysteries. Death is only one way of dying; living partially, living fearfully, is our more common, daily collusion with death."
The prospect of that more insidious death terrifies me more than the questions.
I know that's not the life I want to live. I don't want to live in service of someone else's agenda. I want to keep finding ways to follow my soul's natural tendency for expansion.
One of the ways I’ve done that is through a life mantra.
I've had a life mantra since I left the RAF. This was way before I was a coach or into personal development - it just kind of happened. I had very little idea about what I wanted to do when I first left, but I did know the kind of life I wanted. So my first mantra was to collect experiences, not stuff.
After I burnt out and quit my job a few years later, I added a second mantra: to have a life I didn't need a holiday from.
These days, I might even add a third. It's very much a work-in-progress but the words that come to mind today are "heart first".
A life mantra can act as a North Star for our decision-making.
These two mantras have helped me make all sorts of decisions over the years. They've become my North Star. Simple, guiding principles that help me navigate life and to guide me forward. I have no idea where they're taking me, other than so far it seems to be further and further away from what I thought life should look like. Maybe that's so I can focus more and more on being me, rather than doing all the stuff I've told myself I should be doing.
If you have a mantra or some words you live by, I'd love to hear them. And if not yet, maybe take some time to tune in and find yours.
Here are some of the mantras people have shared with me - maybe you’ll find some inspiration:
sustainably outwards and regeneratively inwards
choose heaven on earth
worse things in life can happen than X going wrong
living from the inside out
living from the inside out
slowing down is a power move
choose softness
to leave the house everyday feeling like I have something to give the world
where’s the balance?