I have recently written about a couple of techniques I learned from Dr Fred Grosse. During the time I worked with him the one that impacted me most was one I will share today. It is his concept of “an ideal fortnight”.
We were asked to design our ideal fortnight. This ideal fortnight had to have as many “10s” (I wrote about this concept last week – basically things we love to do daily) as we could fit in each day. We also were asked to include some 25’s in the two week period (again see my previous blog for 25’s).
Doing this activity in 2004 was the catalyst for big changes in my life. I had 2 items in there for each morning that I really wanted to include in my life. They were:
• having a swim in the ocean early morning
• and having breakfast with my husband.
My reality at the time was: I was living in Sydney about 45 minutes drive from the closest beach. I did not swim in the mornings except for Sundays! Instead I drove to my office for about 50 minutes each morning – and had breakfast when I arrived there (while I worked). Or I was on tour with various speakers away from home.
There were several other “wishes” in my ideal week that were nothing like my current reality. It jolted me into the realization that I was fitting my life around work and not doing the things that really made my heart sing.
The other revealing facts were I had very few 25’s happening in my life at the time at all. I realized that for pretty much all my life I had let my work be my priority. I decided to change and work out how I wanted my life to be, to design my lifestyle and then figure out how to make the money to support it.
It did not happen overnight but I now live in Noosa in Queensland Australia, which is a beach side resort town. I live 2 minutes drive from the beach and swim most mornings. I have breakfast with my husband. I work from home with my husband – so our compute to work in upstairs.
It is a very worthwhile exercise to do and I encourage you to take the time to design your ideal fortnight. As Dr Fred says “if you spend all your life working -when do you get time for your life?”
Please leave me your feedback.
Adam Robinson says
I really admire people who are able to do things that they love to do everyday. Unfortunately, not all of us have the luxury to do this. There are people who really need to earn for their family. Thus, sacrificing the things that they love doing. These are the people, I guess, who got the “short straws” in life. But come to think of it, we all have choices and that includes doing what we love to do everyday. It’s up to us if we’re going to fight for it or not. It’s a question of how much we really want that life.
Sue says
Your words are so true Adam. How much do we really want that life? I think too many people put their life on hold while they work thinking at the end of their working life they will get to do all the things they love. I say go for both. If we were born very poor in a third world country we would not have choices but in many countries that we live in we do have choice and we can design our lives.
Sue