How Will You Know You’ve Lived Well?

A Life in Progress: Rebranding Middle Age

Palliative nurse Bronnie Ware recorded her patient’s end of life regrets. The top regret of the dying was “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself.”

A clear and compelling life vision, and clarity around my core values, kept me anchored after my parents died, through chronic pain, after a traumatic car accident, through and beyond the death of my son, PTSD, and deep grief. It lights my path in every season - it helps me live ON PURPOSE.

I don’t want to miss my life being distracted by shiny things, comparison, or waiting for a “perfect some day.” I choose to show up fully to every day I get.

SOME KEY IDEAS

• At the end of your life how will you know you’ve lived well?
• Focus ↠ aim ↠ vision
• A clear vision and knowing our core values keeps us anchored in every season, helps us keep our eyes on our own path, and helps us not lose hope when life feels hard.
• Hope is not fairy dust - it’s a realistic sense of optimism based on an expectation of positive outcomes. It involves agency (power of choice) and a belief that there are alternate pathways to our desired goal/outcome.

LINKS/REFERENCES

• My values: https://www.alifeinprogress.ca/meet-krista/
• 3/2/1 Exercise: 3 Purposeful Questions I Ask Myself Each Night as Part of a Simple Evening Routine | (alifeinprogress.ca)
• Befriend Your Inner Critic Workshop, Sep 6: https://www.alifeinprogress.ca/befriend-your-inner-critic-workshop/
• Free life visioning tools: https://www.alifeinprogress.ca/life-visioning-tools/
• Top 5 Regrets of The Dying book (my referral link): https://amzn.to/47scnMo
• What is Hope in Action: https://www.alifeinprogress.ca/what-is-hope-and-why-i-practice-hope-in-action/
• Core Values PDFs: https://www.alifeinprogress.ca/values-aligned-goals/