Like a Boss

You hear all the time things like, "You have only one life, this is not a dress rehearsal, you are not practicing, this is all you get".  Or you hear. "Be thankful for what you have and stop stressing over what you don't have".  Good advice and both very true but we tend to tune out advice like that.  One of my favorites is, "Be glad for having to get up in the morning and going to work because it means you have a job", that is more true now than ever.  Most people are not happy with their life and that is a tragedy because we do truly have only one go at it.

It would be nice if we had a remote control for our lives so we could change the channel if we didn't like what was on.  Or fast forward through the rough times but rewind and replay the good stuff.  But we don't have a life remote control, so like with the old style TVs we have to get up and change what we don't like.  Hum, get up and do something if you want to change 'you', what a novel concept.  Bet you have heard that one before as well.

Take a good look at that person that looks back at you from the mirror.  Do you really know them?  Do you know their strengths, weaknesses, their limitations and their talents?  We, every last one of us have a weakness, we put off making the changes that would make us happy.  Most of the time it's because we don't really know what that is, that magic place called happiness.  Well here is a news flash, happy is not a place you can go to, it's how you perceive the life you have and how in control of it you are.

Being in control, that is where a lot of people fall off the happy wagon, they just don't feel in control. They feel like life is just pushing them along and they are hanging on.  Life is indeed a journey and you can be pushed along or you can choose the path.  You do that by having dreams and goals that you want to accomplish and then make good solid plans to achieve them.  Be the boss of your life, you decide where you are headed and then, like the boss, you make it happen.  If health and fitness is your goal then go to the store and buy some good shoes, fitted for you, and let your feet start taking you where you want to be.  The secret to being healthy and fit is to start scheduling the time to let your feet take care of business.

Losing weight is a biggie for a lot of us.  That becomes easier when you decide to take control as well.  Again be the boss of that person in the mirror.  You have absolute direct supervision over what and how much you eat.  You do the shopping, the preparing and if your eating out the ordering.  So you do have absolute control.  If it's not in the house then you can't eat it, a good boss plans things like that.  If you take responsibility for what, when and how much you eat then you are in control and you can achieve your weight goals.

Being unhappy with work is often an issue as well.  Most of us spend about a quarter to a third of our life each day at work, so we need to address that as well.  This is of course an area where we don't have as much control as we do over our health and fitness, but there are still ways to make changes.  The first step is to think about exactly what it is you don't like, about what you do.  This is a topic that has no one real answer so I'm just going to use an example from my own life.  When I retired from the Air Force I took a job at an automotive group, I was the systems coordinator, trainer, Internet sales consultant and even direct sales consultant.  It wasn't a bad job, but it was 8am to 8pm 5 days a week.  I was to tired to exercise and took my comfort in food, usually fast food.  When I got a day off I had endless chores to catch up on.  I felt trapped and not in control of my life.  Since I was retired from the military and had a college degree I was eligible to teach high school classes, in my degree field, if I passed all the teacher exams.  So I spent a year, every free moment studying, History, Economics, Geography, Psychology and Social Studies.  I took my exams and passed them, but as fate often does, when I was getting ready to start looking for a teacher position I was offered the job I have now and it filled all my requirements for what I wanted out of work.  Mainly job satisfaction and more "Me", time. 

When you make a decision to take control, changes happen, sometimes not in the way you plan but they happen.  Because when you do start taking control, you begin to change right then and both you and the rest of the world see you differently.

Thanks for reading.

Dave