Live Your Opus is a transformative perspective, process and approach that you can bring to your life, work or business. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter and upgrade to access invitations to live online sessions with Janine, conversations with special guests, private community discussion threads, and more. Thanks and see you inside!
I always find it incredibly sad that my biggest wake-up call in life happened when my mother died in a car crash. But itโs the truth.
I was forty-eight, living my best life in London, always on, always โbusy.โ Because Iโd come from nothing and worked for everything, much of my self-worth was wrapped up in my job and everything that came along with that. Newly relocated from the US to the UK, I was in my most senior role yet and determined to gift myself life experiences that my younger self would never have imagined possible.ย
Because I had achieved so many โfirstsโ as a woman (at least in my family), I thought that I was living a life that others never expected of me. I realized later that the joke was on me; I was living exactly the life that others not only expected of me but which, through parenting and educational and societal socialization, Iโd been programmed to live since childhood.
In the weeks and months following my motherโs death, I thought of her life cut short a little over four years after her retirement, and I thought of myself, just twenty-two years younger and newly diagnosed with burnout.ย
I remember a day when I couldnโt get out of bed. I was sitting there in my pyjamas, propped up on several pillows and nested in my down duvet, with my dog by my feet and a cup of hot tea on the bedside table, holding my lavender Moleskin and pen for dear life. I spent nearly the whole day journalling and examining every existential question that popped into my mind - and there were many.ย When Julia Cameron taught us morning pages, Iโm not sure she meant pages upon pages of existential questions at once, or perhaps she did.
It took a year of therapy and a great coach to help me make the space in my lifeโtime, energy, attentionโto fully connect with myself in a way I never had and consider those questions slowly.ย
Perhaps the most painful part of my experience (and there were many) was realizing that I had regrets and exploring them long enough to figure out they might be telling me about who I might become in the future and how I might live. Some days, it was easier to crawl back under the covers, but these questions haunt us, so answers we must find.
โI went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.โ - Henry David Thoreau.
(Fun fact: I also included this quote in my high school yearbook; my American readers will understand what I mean.)
A Life With No Regrets
In her now well-known research on the regrets of the dying, Bronnie Ware, nurse and bestselling author of the book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, cites five specific regrets people have as they face death:
I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
The first time I read about these questions, I felt like I was meeting familiar friends; Iโd met all of these regrets during my recovery from burnout, childhood trauma, and bereavement.
I consider myself among the privileged to have faced these regrets before I was fifty before my own death stared me in the face. You might find this topic morbid or think that โprivilegedโ is a strange word to use. But the privilege is that Iโve had the opportunity since to start over: to design a life with (mostly) no regrets, a deliberate life. And thatโs the treasure that my motherโs death unearthed, as hard as that is for me to write. It is a critical experience; Iโm using mine to help others.
When I look across my experiences as a coachโsupporting entrepreneurs, executives, and others who want to transform their lives somehowโmy gift is seeing them at their fullest potential, not in whatever messy challenges life has put in their path.ย
And, as we peel back the layers together, getting curious about and exploring fears, shame, confusion, other peopleโs opinions, issues of self-worth, habits and more - what we end up discovering - no matter what transformation theyโre after - are issues quite related to those shared by people on their deathbed, but which usually show up in the form of questions or statements:
โHow can I live and/or build my business/career on my terms? Or, I canโt seem to live how I want to. Or, Iโm finally earning more than ever, yet I still feel like Iโm treading water in life.โ
โHow can I work less? So I have more time for my children, my partner, my family, my hobbies, travelโฆinsert whatever word you like here. Or, I have no time for what I want in my life; work is demanding, and life is busy.โ
โIโm not sure how I even feel anymore. Or, I know I donโt want to feel like this [insert emotion] anymoreโฆOr, in many cases, people canโt identify any feelings at all; theyโre too tired or disconnected from themselves.โ
โI lost track of so many friends when I took this job, moved from here to here, or when I went through a divorceโฆinsert whatever scenario you like here. Or, I feel so lonely sometimes, I donโt understand how I got here.โ
โIโm happy enough; I donโt understand why I donโt feel that way most of the time. Or, I just want to be happy. Or, I donโt understand why Iโm not happy.โ
The good news is that the door to personal transformation opens as soon as these realisations surfaceโif we pause to consider them.ย
For some, coming to the realization is a big enough a-ha moment, and they begin to formulate a way to live differently quickly. But most of us require support, which was my experience, to face and question our own ways of being and find new ways forward.
I donโt know about you, but the questions and statements above are daunting (and haunting). And their phrasing sometimes suggests that they might be solved in an exact way - with a concrete list of things one can doโฆjust not to feel lonely, for example.ย ย
But, as we know from the science of habits, to shift our own behavior, we need to align ourselves and our values with the challenge weโve identified. So, if you decide that you want to address some of the challenges above, try reframing them:
How do you change from being a person who lives a life that others, including yourself, expect of you? Become a person who lives a life that is true to themselves.
How do you stop being a person who is always working?ย Become a person who isnโt always working.
How might you not be someone who doesnโt express their emotions and perhaps isnโt in touch with them?ย Become a person who is emotionally attuned and comfortable being emotionally expressive.
How can you stop being a person who doesnโt stay in touch well with their friends? Become a person who stays in touch well with their friends.
How do you transform yourself if youโre a person who doesnโt allow yourself to be happy?ย Become someone who regularly allows themselves to be happy.
These are no doubt still daunting challenges, but reframing creates a powerful opening that allows us to step into being/becoming the person that we might want/need to become in order to achieve the future state we desire.
We can begin to feel some agency. We realize we can frame our own reality. The window of possibility opens, as do our hearts and minds, and we can get curious.
What are the mindsets, habits, strategies, skillsets, energy and more of a person who isnโt always working or doesnโt work so hard, for example?ย
How does a person who doesnโt work so hard structure their lives?ย
What habits or practices might they have adopted to help them achieve that state?
Perhaps they habitually end their work day at a particular time.ย
Or maybe they turn work email/WhatsApp notifications off over the weekend to fully recharge.
Or, perhaps, they have a decision-making filter to help them decide whether they will accept a particular assignment.
Maybe they have something exciting to do in the evenings and on the weekends that they wouldnโt dream of missing.
And you can start thinking about what this all means for you: Why are you always working or working hard? What would it mean not to be that person anymore?
What does โnot always workingโ mean in the context of your life?
What habits do you have that enable you to work hard all the time? Are you ready to break them?
What habits do you already have that you might lean on so that you can not work all the time?
Do you always say yes when work comes your way?ย
Do you want to be seen as the hardest-working person on the team?
Of course, in coaching, we work on mindset shifts and bust through beliefs that hold us back. For example, if you want to be seen as the hardest-working person on the team - why? When did you learn to exhibit that behavior or embrace that perception? Is that really still a paradigm thatโs necessary for your life today? What might happen if you changed that paradigm?
Letโs also remember that understanding your motivation and your โwhyโ is critical. What future state do you desire, and WHY do you want to achieve that?
Why do you want to become someone who isn't always working? For me, it was because I wanted to figure out how to achieve and not burn out. I realized what I sacrificed to get where I was professionally, and I wanted time to correct my ways. My โWhyโ for wanting to become someone who wasnโt always working so hard was incredibly strong at that moment and still is.
Whatโs really motivating you to become a person who is not always working?
Perhaps you want to get to the gym each day? Or, see your friends more. Spend time with your children. Get some headspace to think about or pursue a side gig. Feel better and not so tired or attached to work all the time. Maybe you want to improve your mental health. Cook hot dinners. Take more vacations. These are all motivating โWhysโ for not wanting always to be working.
Motivation is key here - without it, youโre not likely to make any change. Once you uncover whatโs really motivating you, it becomes easier to consider what a person who isnโt always working (or doesnโt work so hard), for example, might be like so that you can move towards becoming a person who can/does/is achieving the end you want to achieve.ย ย
Deciding that you want to be/become a person who doesnโt work so hard all of the time and why are HUGE first steps. Then, and this is super important, find a realistic starting point rather than trying to change yourself overnight.
What single small change might you make today towards becoming that person?ย
A single habit, for example, blocking your calendar after 6 pm and no longer accepting meetings.ย
Or, perhaps setting an alarm at 5:30 and implementing a 30-minute shutdown routine.ย ย ย
What single change might you try out? Experiment with it for a few weeks to see if it sticks.
How might you connect regularly with your โWhyโ so you can overcome the moments when youโd rather ignore your calendar blocking and keep working?
For many, learning to live a deliberate life, a life with few or no regrets comes from tragedy: the death of a loved one, burnout, an illness, or an accident, for example. That was my experience. But it doesnโt have to be that way.
We can all create a deliberate life, a life with few regrets. Although doing so isnโt easy, you can start by making the choiceโby choosing yourselfโand the best thing is that itโs never too late.
Imagine celebrating your efforts at living a life you love every day way before you confront death:
I am proud to be a person who went against the grain and lived my life unapologetically the way that I truly wanted to live it. It was hard for me to do that, and I am proud to have lived more bravely than I thought I could.
I worked hard throughout my life and career, but I am grateful for the boundaries I set on work that enabled me to truly enjoy my childrenโs childhood, develop my talents, and travel the world with my friends (or whatever motivates you).
I didnโt grow up learning how to express my emotions, so I am grateful I learned to do so. I have told the people I love how much I love them, and I have released anger and disappointments so they didnโt fester inside of me. Instead, I grew from those experiences.
From experience, I can assure you that itโs an incredible feeling to have done the hard work to get here and come out the other side, living a life that continues to inspire me: a life with few regrets.
Iโm curious: Whatโs your experience with regrets? Or, with living deliberately? How have you adopted new habits or ways of being to support you in living the life you want to live or in your professional achievements?ย Iโd love for you to share your experience in the comments below.