"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." Jim Rohn.
This above quote has influenced my life in many ways over the past few years. It's almost like I have always known I had the power to totally design my own life. But, instead of consciously using my power, my life floated in a state of reacting and responding to external events. I did 'what I thought was right' to do based on how I felt in that moment and not based on any vision I had for my entire life. I floated through life living out the dreams that other people had for me and never really deciding what my life really meant to me!
The idea of 'Life Design' crashed through my cloudy front window as a fresh prospective to examine just when I needed to see what road I was going to take next. I had technically just graduated from grad school, without my master's degree in hand because I had yet to finish my Thesis paper. None the less, I attended the commencement ceremony and with my mom, nana, aunts, uncles, and a barrage of other family members watching I strutted across the stage with a cute dress and a smile! I was done! But not really, the thesis paper! Well it wasn’t until 2 years later when I would decide what my life really meant above finishing that paper and in the interim I dealt with some deep depression, deep self development researching, and deep soul searching.
This was one of the toughest times in my life. I had technically graduated from grad school which was a great accomplishment but I didn't have a strong next course of action. I was a great student for all these years, achieving scholarly awards and academic accolades on various levels was a great boost to my ego at the time, but all of a sudden I couldn't find the motivation to actually finish what I started by completing that damn thesis paper. Days and weeks went past and next thing I knew it was 2 years later.
Letting myself down by not achieving my goals was something that tore me up and spiraled out of control. I didn’t see myself the same, I was someone else. Making the decision to Take Practical Steps to Walk Myself Out Of Depression Was HARD but WORTH IT.
I needed to start seeing myself as a winner again and written in my first book are some of the steps I have taken that have helped. When I dipped my entire mind, body, and being, into the world of self development literature, the new ideas I read quenched a thirst I no longer even recognized that I had. I had suppressed my own hungers for so long I did not even recognize how unfulfilled I really was. I wanted to take a big bite out of life, I wanted to create my own recipes and design my own meal plans. Lol, I'm using all of these food metaphors, but forreal, you know how painful it is trying to exert major energy on an empty stomach that has been growling for years?! I was famished and longed for a nourishing life that I knew I could have.
When I began writing my own life plans, the real me slowly was released! Writing down what you want in the future is extremely therapeutic! Well, for me it was! I began to focus on what I wanted in life instead of focusing on my past mistakes and downfalls. My list of things I wanted in life became very serious to me, and I would update it regularly with exciting new ideas of things I want to try, places I want to go, and people I want to meet. When I took further steps and began setting some of these wishes as goals with dates to be completed by, then everything became even more real. I began to find different ways to start to live out my dreams starting now! Things I never thought I would do, but I wrote them down and they came true!
I am still designing the life I deserve to live day by day. Everyday I make the decision to stay on track to become everything I know I can become in this life.
--Laneece aka Coach Lyfe
