Do you ever feel like life is passing you by and you're just going through the motions without really experiencing it?
You're not alone.
In today's world,
It's easy to get caught up in the busyness of our daily lives and lose touch with the vibrancy of existence.
We keep moving forward,
Checking off tasks on our to-do list,
But we're not really present in the moment.
It's a brutal truth to face,
But admitting that we're not feeling truly alive is the first step in finding a way out of this cycle.
It took me months to figure it out,
And I'm happy to share what I learned with you so you can take a shortcut.
My name is Rianne Hilkema,
And in this track,
You'll learn how to avoid getting trapped in this state of disconnection and reclaim the aliveness within you.
We live,
But we don't always feel alive.
It's a bit paradoxical because we all know how it feels.
So how do we get there?
The reality is that being alive requires constant effort.
But our mind doesn't like that and constantly seeks to conserve energy and stay comfortable.
So it's understandable that many of us avoid taking on more than what's necessary to survive,
Even if we try to train ourselves to embrace it,
Our mind resisted.
We settle for our minimum standards and find ourselves comfortable in survival mode.
But by doing so,
We're missing out on the potential for a richer,
More fulfilling life.
Take a moment to reflect on your life right now.
Every aspect of it,
Your relationships,
Career,
Health,
Hobbies,
Reflects what you're willing to tolerate.
But is it really enough to just survive?
Feeling alive requires more than just surviving.
It's time to bring aliveness back into your life.
So let's take a look,
How will you measure your life?
When my husband thought he was about to die a few seconds before being hit by a tsunami,
He thought about his life.
No,
It's not a myth that you see your life flashing in front of your eyes in your last moment.
And during that timeless moment,
You will ask yourself questions to evaluate your life.
After thinking about the people he loved,
Remembering the joy and the smiles,
He thought about his experiences.
It felt good,
But then he asked himself,
Was that it?
Was that everything I could be or do?
Had I truly lived my life to the fullest?
Had I pushed myself to be the best version of myself?
That's hard.
Luckily,
He got a second chance,
And he will be,
And me too,
Forever grateful for it.
So,
So much that he dedicated his life to two things,
To live every single day to the fullest and inspire others to do the same.
This burning question on my mind became how to make the most of our time.
And that was the start of going down the rabbit hole of personal growth.
And we went deep,
And we made it a way of life and a focus of our work.
Only when you figure out how you will measure your life at the end,
You will know how to live.
The good news is that you don't need to wait for a face to face with death to ask yourself those questions.
Actually,
I challenge you to do it right now.
Take your journal and write down a few questions.
The answers to these questions represent your own definition of feeling alive.
We realized we weren't living to our full potential and settling for a life that was just good enough.
Even though our good enough was already extraordinary,
We made a commitment to ourselves to be great,
Do good,
And live epic.
So when the moment comes again,
And it will,
I wanna look at that in the eyes and say,
I nailed it.
In my quest,
I spent hours with my journal,
Attended webinars,
Took master classes and online courses,
Read books and listened to podcasts.
I spent countless hours journaling and rethinking my life to create a clear vision of what I wanted it to be.
And what we wanted it to be.
Since then,
I've been relentless in pursuing that vision and have invested my money,
Energy,
And time to make it a reality.
And I've gone far.
I transformed my health,
Relationships,
Lifestyle,
Business,
And our marriage.
But still,
I keep pushing myself to new levels of joy,
Success,
And fulfillment.
I hold myself to high standards and push myself to succeed,
Even when it's not easy.
I know that success takes time and effort,
And that true commitment and resilience are essential to achieving my goals.
So when I feel overwhelmed,
I take a deep breath and I refocus my energy.
I draw on my past experiences to remind myself that I am capable of pushing through complex challenges,
And with that pep talk in mind,
I keep going.
And I stay committed to achieving my goals.
Because I know that the road to success can be challenging,
But I also know that the journey is worth it.
I crave this sensation of feeling alive.
So let's talk about the struggle of self-imposed expectations.
This is part of a piece that my husband wrote,
And I think it's really representing what we're talking about here today.
And he wrote the following.
I hit my targets in most categories of my life,
But I was still not where I expected in my business growth,
And it started consuming me.
Being hard on myself is the dark side of this mindset.
I barely let myself take a break because I feel like I only deserve rewards or celebrations once I achieve the results I want.
However,
Success takes time,
And my obsession with making the most out of my time and building a great future sometimes prevents me from enjoying the present.
It's as if I was underwater and not allowing myself to breathe because I believed I haven't gone far enough.
And as a result,
I kept pushing and making one more move and then another,
But what if I waited too long before taking another breath?
Doubt was creeping in and I felt exhausted.
The negative self-talk was getting louder and I didn't know how long I could sustain the situation.
My wife was incredibly supportive,
But for some reason I find it challenging to accept her support.
Deep down,
I feel like I don't deserve it.
And a voice in my head yelled,
Get your stuff together and show up.
Except this time,
I don't have the energy.
I have been pushing away the fear of failure.
And I spent countless hours thinking about what else I should do and experiment with different things,
But nothing seems to propel me forward.
It feels like I'm looking in the same box,
Trying to find something even though I know it isn't there.
I'm stuck in that box and I can't see beyond its boundaries.
I feel heavy and my mind is foggy from exhaustion.
And I'm definitely not feeling alive.
Perhaps I'm trying too hard.
I had a conversation with my wife this morning and things got heated and she started crying.
She told me she didn't know what to do anymore.
She had been trying to support me,
But I keep pushing her away.
And it wasn't just her.
Whenever anyone tried to offer me a new idea or suggestion,
I find myself resisting it.
My ego is getting in the way and I can't bring myself to admit that there might be something I haven't tried yet.
I would dismiss suggestions with phrases like,
But you don't understand,
And that won't work for me,
Or it's not that simple.
But as I looked this morning at her,
Tears rolling down her eyes,
I felt miserable.
It broke my heart to see someone who deeply loved me feeling hurt because of my stubbornness.
And then I realized I had developed a sense of helplessness over time.
I'm usually optimistic and positive,
But when I cannot find solutions,
I'm focusing on the obstacles instead of the possibilities.
And I had built a cage around myself and trapped myself inside.
And as long as I'm struggling to find solutions,
My frustration is growing and turned into this complaining.
I was not complaining out loud.
Well,
Don't ask her though.
But my lack of progress leads to a loss of motivation.
And not knowing what to do became not doing anything.
I had hit a wall and I lost the willingness.
Now,
Wow,
That was a super powerful insight he got there.
And it's difficult truth to face,
Right?
But eventually,
He realized that he had fallen into a fixed mindset fueled by learned helplessness.
And slowly,
Aliveness disappeared from his days.
And ironically,
What brought him there was being focused on feeling more alive.
Gosh,
That is hard to admit,
Right?
He developed a growth mindset in every aspect of his life,
Except for scaling his business.
But once he acknowledged the situation,
He knew he had to take action to get out of the negative spiral.
And he needed to build new beliefs,
Not just recite affirmations that felt false.
He needed a process that would help him climb out of the hole and take a deep breath of fresh air.
Okay,
And now what?
Time to feel alive again.
Sometimes we get lost in the noise of everything we feel like we should be doing.
And everything we do is purposeful,
But it's not all important.
And out of all the important things you do,
Not everything is essential.
We realize that trying to live our best life,
A lot of times we stop being fully alive.
You know,
What is essential is to feel alive during the process of creating your best life.
Otherwise,
You get lost in the illusion that tomorrow will be better.
Quite ironically,
He published a book called The Illusion of Time,
In which he explains how to stop postponing your best life for later.
So you know,
It's not about doing everything.
It's about doing the right things.
You'll only see the way by making the way.
So number one is ask yourself the right questions.
If you haven't done what I suggested in a few paragraphs ago,
I recommend you do it now.
Please don't be the person who keeps saying,
Yeah,
I will,
But doesn't do anything.
So once again,
Write it down.
Think of it mentally.
How will you measure your life?
And once you know that,
We're gonna go to step two,
Is bring aliveness to your days.
I was at a four-day live event with Brandon Bouchard,
And one day he asked us what the three things are that we can do every day to create joy in our life.
I was surprised to look around and see that so many participants were struggling to come up with answers.
It made me realize that we often get caught up in thinking about big events or milestones that will bring us happiness,
But we forget about all the little things that can brighten our day-to-day lives.
Is it spending time with loved ones?
Is it your favorite hobby or simply enjoying a cup of tea in the morning?
The present is the future of your past.
Feeling alive and being in joy is about what you do in the present,
Not what you plan to do in the far future.
It is about simple daily practices.
So my question for you,
What are three things you can do every day to bring more joy into your life?
And step three is choose new beliefs.
The problem is to start feeling trapped and not doing anything about it.
You must change your perspective to break free from this self-constructed cage you've created.
You build this cage by interpreting events and situations in a specific way,
Which over time becomes your reality.
But the truth is that the cage you created is merely an interpretation,
And you have the power to change it.
The first step is recognizing this fact and shifting your mindset towards a more positive outlook.
Positive affirmations are such a big thing in personal growth,
But most of the time people get it wrong.
Just repeating positive phrases to yourself is not enough to create lasting change.
The inner game is super important,
But you have to take action.
Furthermore,
It's not about saying things to yourself that are not true.
If you are broke and keep repeating,
I'm rich,
You are wasting your time.
Turn those affirmations into declarations.
I declare that I'm healthy.
I declare that I'm a caring husband,
Etc.
And then use positive affirmations as a tool to prepare you for the effort.
Visualize yourself doing the work and succeeding.
So three questions for you.
What new beliefs do you need to adopt about yourself?
What are you declaring today?
And what affirmations will help you visualize yourself doing the work and succeeding?
And now we're going to move on to the last step.
Step 4.
Change your actions.
If you answered the questions from the three previous steps,
You're already changing your actions.
Congratulations!
As Einstein said,
We can solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
You're on your way,
Keep up the good work.
For those of you who have listened through this whole track and didn't do anything,
I see you.
The chances are that you will finish this track and go back to your life and your complaints.
That would have just been a waste of your time and you will stay stuck.
Sorry,
What are you saying?
These steps are stupid?
For you it's different?
You don't understand?
You've already tried everything?
I know,
It's not easy,
But you must try something different and shift your energy from complaint to willingness.
What if doing these simple exercises will change everything?
I mean,
At least give it a shot,
Right?
And when you've done this,
Then go back to one of my courses,
It's called the 4 steps to reach excellence,
And it's taking you to the next level.
So I hope this track has helped you to reconnect with the spark of life.
Because it's so easy to get lost and not feel the day anymore.
Feeling truly alive requires constant effort.
And we often settle for our minimum standard,
Which leads to a life of surviving instead of thriving.
But just fine is not a way to live.
And to avoid falling into this cycle,
You must take a moment to reflect on your life and ask yourself the tough questions about how you want to measure it.
Keep holding yourself to the highest standards,
And make sure to adopt simple daily practices so you can reach new levels of joy,
Success,
And fulfillment.
Not later,
But right now.
Thank you for listening,
My name is Rianne Hilkema,
And I'm wishing you an amazing day.
