How are you going to live your dash?

I was at a good friend's funeral a while ago and a poem read out really resonated with me, deeper than anything I have heard in a long time. The poem was called ‘The Dash’ by Linda Ellis.

As a lifestyle and business coach for ladies who are juggling lives, relationships, family, children, finances, work and their own businesses, it compelled me to think about my own ‘dash’ and how we all live day to day with often no real purpose or meaningful desires to live the lives we deserve or want.

So let's talk about the ‘dash’….

When we pass, others describe our life story from the date we were born into the world to the date we pass. The time in between, our journey, our lives in between are often written as a ‘dash’.

When you pass, what do you want to be remembered by? Many of you will be remembered for being busy, a workaholic, someone who went day to day worrying about money, your weight and fitness, what car you drove, how big your house and bank balance was, how you could have more holidays than your neighbours or how you didn’t have enough holidays. Marriage or relationship issues, bickering about the small stuff like who is going to put out the rubbish bags on bin day, who didn’t empty the dishwasher. Stress, how you often didn’t take a much needed break because you were ‘too busy’ or didn’t have enough time to play with your children because ‘work came first’, (my husband said to me recently he did not want our children to remember daddy as always being at work and not being a fun to be around dad). Housework and a clean tidy home took precedence, you had to make sure you looked smart and spent too much time worrying what others thought of you, kept your opinions to yourself for fear of rejection, spent night after night lying there awake with mind monkeys playing in your head and the to do lists getting longer and longer, the sticky notes of ‘must do’ are taking over your life!

Maybe you didn’t reach your goals or even try to reach them because there was always an obstacle in the way? Maybe your dash was full of doubt, full of fear, being too busy, procrastination and ‘it's ok because one day it will all work out’. What if ‘one day’ never came? What if your dash wasn’t how you imagined it to be or how you wanted it to be?

You have to live in the moment, no regrets about the past mistakes, the things you should have done but you didn’t, you need to get out there now, today and take charge, you need to own your own existence and be true to you, get out there and make a difference. Reach for your goals; achieve a fulfilled and happier life. If there is one thing I am taking from the ‘dash’ it's that I want my ‘dash’ to be awesome, full of love, life, laughter and when the time comes for someone close to me to read out my ‘dash’ when I pass that there isn’t enough time to read it all, for someone to say ‘wow what a life, what a way to live’ and to inspire others as my friend inspired me.

So ask yourself the following:

What are you going to accomplish?

What goals do you want to achieve?

What stands in your way from achieving?

When you feel like you are struggling in the midst of the obstacles and realities in life to achieve how will you overcome these?

When do you wish to complete these goals/key tasks?

What will you do today to make these goals happen?

When you have achieved your goals and tasks how will you feel? What will it mean to you and your business?

Once you have set the intentions then its time to work on your goals.

The aim of working with a coach is to help you stay in tune, stay focused and accountable to fill that ‘dash’!

Over to you. Make your ‘dash’ memorable!