Firing Up Your Life Force

My past self was never a big fan of poetry. I suppose it’s because I was always felt too busy.

Too busy striving, proving, perfecting pleasing, climbing my way up the ladder.

Poetry felt somehow too inefficient.

Part of me believed there was just too much unnecessary effort involved in trying to learn new stuff in such a cryptic, roundabout sort of way.

However, as I’ve become more familiar with the parts of me that so often felt far too busy to be curious about the nuances and the depth of things, I’ve come to appreciate poetic writing.

I’ll never forget where I was standing, a few years ago, when I first read one particular line written by Brooke McNamara. The line was “You must be the one to do or undo whatever it takes to activate your own furiously prolific heart.”

I remember reading that line for the first time, and very naturally emphasising that first word “you”.

YOU must be the one to do or undo whatever it takes to activate your own furiously prolific heart.

Brooke’s words really spoke to me, and they continue to speak to me, on so many levels.

They speak to me about all the times I felt far too ‘busy and important’ to take care of myself.

Too busy to do the things I knew I needed to be doing to stay well.

Too tired, frantic and torn to prioritise the activities, people and things that activate my life force, that fire up my vitality – that support me to be the sort of friend, colleague, sister, daughter, wife, neighbour, community member and mother I really want to be.

Lately, I have been having a lot of conversations with leaders about the idea of understanding and honouring non-negotiables.

So, this week, I felt moved to write about this idea of taking responsibility to do or to do whatever we need to in order to fire up our life force and activate our vitality.

Taking full accountability to do or undo what’s required to build a foundation of well-being that underpins everything we do, everything we are, and everything we have the potential to be.

So, I want to invite you to think about what one small tweak, one different choice you can make this week to activate your vitality, to fire up your life force, because small changes add up.

Perhaps you might switch that glass of red wine for sparkling water, a kombuchas, a Heineken Zero or a peppermint tea.

Perhaps you might take a deep breath and have that difficult conversation that you’ve been dreading and putting off – addressing the elephant in the room that’s been eating away at you.

Perhaps you might choose to have some healthy snacks readily available in your workplace, so that next time the mid-afternoon sugar craving hits, you’ve got something nourishing on hand to enjoy.

Perhaps you might choose to not watch that next episode of your favorite show at 10 o’clock at night, and instead turn off the lights and snuggle into bed and get a little bit more sleep under your belt.

Perhaps you might surrender to some unhurried cuddling time with your kids at bedtime, instead of lying in your own bed alone, scrolling through social media feeling like crap.

Perhaps you might choose not to hit the snooze button one morning and instead do a quick invigorating walk to set yourself up for a great day.

There are hundreds of small of choices we make throughout our day. Small choices that add up to big differences.

Wishing you the courage to make the wise choices that activate your furiously prolific heart.

Because, now more than ever before, the world needs more leaders to feel alive and activated.