What If You Could Have Everything?

There is no reason why you cannot have everything.

How did that land?

Did something in you immediately push back?

That is ridiculous. Nobody can have everything.

Perhaps it sounded unrealistic. Indulgent. Even a little selfish.

Or perhaps, just for a moment, it felt exciting.

The more interesting question might not be whether you can have everything at all.

It might be this:

What does everything actually mean to you?

Whose version of everything are you chasing?

We are surrounded by ideas about what a successful life should look like.

A good career. Financial security. A happy relationship. A lovely home. Holidays. Achievement. A busy social life. Looking good. Feeling good. Being productive. Being available to the people we care about.

Preferably while looking as though we are managing all of it effortlessly.

That is quite a list.

Yet your version of everything might look completely different.

Maybe you want meaningful work and time for yourself.

Perhaps you want financial security without sacrificing your freedom.

Maybe you want to look after the people you love without disappearing from your own life.

You might want to feel physically well, emotionally strong and mentally stimulated.

Perhaps you want ambition and peace.

Suddenly, having everything starts to mean something rather different.

What if having everything does not mean having more? What if it means having enough of the things that actually matter to you?

How long can you keep going?

There is another side to this.

Sometimes we become so busy creating, protecting and maintaining our lives that we forget to leave any space for ourselves within them.

We keep going.

I will get through this week.

I will slow down when this is finished.

Things will settle down next month.

I cannot afford to stop at the moment.

There just is not time.

We are remarkably good at finding a little bit more to give.

A little more time.

A little more energy.

A little more patience.

Until eventually the question changes.

When does “Can I afford to stop?” become “Can I afford not to?”

I am about to go away on holiday, and perhaps that is why this has been on my mind.

Why do we sometimes need a holiday, an empty diary, the end of a project or simply reaching the point where we have very little left to give before we allow ourselves to stop?

What would happen if we noticed ourselves sooner?

I am not suggesting abandoning responsibilities or disappearing from everyday life.

I am suggesting something much smaller.

Remembering that you belong somewhere on the list of people you are responsible for looking after.

You do not have to earn rest by exhausting yourself first.

What would happen if you made some space?

Perhaps you already know what you want your life to look like.

If you do, what is one small thing you could change that would move you closer to it?

Perhaps you have absolutely no idea.

That is okay too.

Instead of asking What do I need to change?, you could start with:

What could I explore?

What interests you?

What gives you energy?

What have you quietly wondered about but never pursued?

What have you accepted as inevitable that perhaps does not have to be?

What would you like more of?

What would you like less of?

What would you keep exactly as it is?

These are big questions, but they do not necessarily require huge amounts of time to begin answering them.

What might happen if you deliberately protected just one hour a week to think about your own life?

Not to answer emails.

Not to catch up with jobs.

Not to do something for somebody else.

An hour to reflect, explore, learn, notice and ask yourself better questions.

Four hours across an entire month.

It does not sound like very much.

Yet imagine what those hours might add up to over eight months.

Your everything

This thinking sits at the heart of Seasons of Change, the eight-month programme I will be opening for booking soon.

One commitment to yourself.

Two live Zooms each month.

Around four hours a month deliberately set aside for reflection.

Eight months in which to explore, learn, grow and see what begins to change.

I am not interested in telling anybody what their life should look like.

I am far more interested in helping people create enough space to discover that for themselves.

There is something rather powerful about asking:

If I stopped living according to what I think I am supposed to want, what would I actually choose?

Perhaps you really can have everything.

Not everything in the world.

Not somebody else's everything.

Your everything.

And perhaps the first step is simply giving yourself enough time and space to work out what that is.

If you enjoy exploring questions like these with me, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel, where I share regular short videos about change, mindset, wellbeing and creating a life that feels more like your own.