Audit your life

I’ve spent most of my life fighting reality. Fighting what was actually occurring. Usually it came forward in some version of “this shouldn’t be happening” or “instead, this should be happening.”

What I found was that when I argue with reality, I lose…only 100% of the time.

My wife, who I was blessed to meet after many years of this practiced thought pattern, summed it up perfect: “if the cake tastes like shit, stop eating it.”

So what does someone do when they realize they’re fighting reality, fighting what is actually occurring? Well, here’s the best tool I was given: audit your life.

If you were to take 100% responsibility, complete and total responsibility for you life what would you do?

Personally, I look at what I am choosing that is preventing me from having the life I want. Usually I find a “few” things. Choices I am making that are not getting me closer to where I want to be, and who I want to be. Things that I probably want to have an honest conversation with myself on and stop doing. They usually look like:

Habits I’ve outgrown.

Conversations I’m avoiding.

Things I tolerate.

Ways I spend my time.

Stories I continue telling myself.

Places where I already know the truth but haven’t acted on it.

I also see things that I’m doing that are getting me closer to where I want to be, and I invest more time and attention in them. I experiment with them in my life.

Something else starts to happen. I begin to see new possibilities. New things I have the choice to start doing that will get me closer to where I want to be. And I do them. I experiment with them in my life.

I audit my life. I get honest, and truthful.

No one is forcing me to eat cake that tastes like shit. I hold the fork. It’s my choice.

Quarterly, I like to sit down and re-load the question to myself: “If I were to take 100% responsibility, complete and total responsibility for my life what would you do?”.

I sit down. I get quiet. I get honest. I get truthful.

I audit my life.

Sometimes the cake tastes like shit, and I choose to put down the fork. And other times, it tastes pretty damn good and I keep eating.