How Making Bold Decisions Has Been Reshaping My Life

As many of you may know if you follow me personally or on my business pages, I just returned from a retreat in Florence Italy. The experience was absolutely phenomenal and I will share more about it in the coming weeks and months. But I really want to talk about how I got there in the first place. 

Leading up to this trip, I had a lot of friends and colleagues say, that sounds amazing, I wish I could go. And I remember several times thinking the same thing as I watched others around me do these amazing things and I couldn't be of money or time or responsibilities. I always thought, someday or after this happens or when I retire. 

Well, life got real several years ago and I had a huge loss in my family that led me into a mini-breakdown. That breakdown caused me to evaluate my life. I started looking at what was and what I wanted. I realized that life was too short to be living for everyone else's happiness and hoping one day I would get my turn. I started to be very intentional as I reimagined my life. I started to say rebuilt but that is not at all accurate. I didn't want to reconstruct something that was not really serving me in the first place. 

In this reimagined life, finding joy, peace, and purpose became very important. My values shifted and I fought to align my daily actions with those values. A part of that transformation was saying yes to the things that opened up my world of possibilities. It also required me to question the stories I was telling myself about what I could and could not do. 

So back to this awesome trip to Florence (and Paris). I didn't necessarily have the time. I have been traveling for my other business all summer and the "responsible" thing was probably to stay put. I didn't have the money saved, I had been to Jamaica for my birthday and again business travel, plus other business-related investments, and my vacation fund had been tapped. But I decided to go anyway and make it work! 

Here's the thing, I know that I have made so many things work over my lifetime and most times it was not something that I really wanted. We make our lives work daily. We find time to do all the things that others require of us. We find the money to make sure bills are paid and everyone has what they need. I have decided that if I can make a life that I am pretty blah about work, I can also make a life I am madly in love with work. Same effort but totally different result. 

So what bold decisions are you ready to take to live the life that you love?