How often do you stop to take in your wonderful life? How often do you make a conscious effort to stop what you are doing and take stock of your life? Do you feel too busy and too tired? Can you see the beauty or only the barriers?

In life, there is only one guarantee … it will eventually end! As morbid as that sounds, as much as I believe in past-lives and our souls journeying through many lifetimes, this particular lifetime will come to an end at some point. Hopefully, it’s a long way off, however, what are doing to cherish the moments in this lifetime? Are you on the treadmill of life? Just letting the days pass you by?

Here are 5 signs you are zooming through life …

1. You don’t have time for family or friends you make excuses not to see people because you feel as if your schedule is already hectic.

2. You feel as if your free-time doesn’t exist – you don’t feel as if you have a minute to yourself and when you do, you’re far too tired to do anything. 

3. You don’t seem to have the motivation to do things – if you’re overtired or overwhelmed by your to-do list it can be hard to motivate yourself to do other things. 

4. Every day is a blur and you can’t wait for Friday – if you’re going through the motions of a 9-5 job, hanging onto your weekends, this is a sure sign that you’re simply existing rather than living.

5. You have nothing to look forward too – this doesn’t have to be a holiday or time away, it could be an evening with friends, a night at the cinema … if you have nothing to look forward to, get something booked in your diary.

What can you do to slow things down

All the above link in together, you are wading through each day, waiting for it to end. But you’re too busy to stop doing what needs to be done, you’re lacking the energy to make the changes. Now, if you’re on, what I call, ‘the treadmill of life’, it’s time to make some changes.

You may need some drastic changes; such as a change of lifestyle. This could be a change of job or a healthy change to your routine. Joining a gym or a club. If you feel you need a complete change, think about the things that would make you happy.

I love this question: What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

If you want big changes in your life sometimes we have to put small steps in place to make this happen. We often don’t make those changes because we can’t see the woods for the trees. Start writing a plan and brainstorm some ideas.

Ask yourself: What can I do today to start making changes?

However, you may not need the changes to be so drastic. You may just feel the mundane routine of life is passing you by. You may feel the excitement is just not there. You can put small things into place such as meeting with friends. Organise a night at the cinema or at the local quiz night. Do something with people who make you laugh. This will soon give you something to look forward to. Start filling your diary up with events. Not so much that you stress yourself out, but even if it’s once a month, even better if you can commit to once a week, but even arranging the first event is a step forward. Once you surround yourself with people whose company you enjoy, you will want to make more time to be with them.

Life is too short to be getting up every morning, getting on life’s treadmill and not getting off until it’s time for bed.

Make the changes, make something happen … push yourself to slow down and enjoy the ride.

If you’d like to read about zooming in on life’s possibilities and take part in a therapeutic writing exercise,

to see how you can zoom in on the positives of life,

you can read the previous blog post here