A Life By Design
Some of you may know that I am a Realtor with Keller Williams, and in the real estate world, Keller Williams is well known for its training and agent development programs. One of the things that are central to our culture is the acronym BOLD, which stands for Business Objective a Life By Design. We talk a lot about whether we are living life by default or by design, and we have what we refer to as BOLD Laws. BOLD laws are basically rules that we are trained to internalize as they strengthen our mindset and the way that we go about our business, but they don’t just apply to real estate. These BOLD laws can be applied actually to everyone in every aspect of life. Throughout my posts, you will likely see me reference different BOLD laws on a variety of topics, but today I want to talk about one that is so important to me, and that is
Building Life By Design, Not By Default.
I think it is so easy to fall into a life by default and not one we are designing. Things happen. We go down a path and before you know it, we just go with it even though something inside us knows that maybe this isn’t the right path, but “I’m here now so let’s just see what happens,” or “it’s too late. I can’t change things now.” This could apply to a career or job choice, a college major, a relationship, a move, anything. We end up feeling “stuck,” in a rut and less than satisfied with where we are in our lives. Sometimes we feel powerless to change our circumstances or we remain too afraid to make that change. We live by fear and by default instead of by design.
Changing your circumstances requires changing your mindset, which coincidentally leads us to another BOLD Law: Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change. Change always starts within us. We one day experience a shift in our thinking and decide we are ready to make the changes we need to make in order to live the life we truly want to live, or something paramount happens in our lives forcing us to make a change. I believe the first step in making that change is learning to not be afraid of that change. So many of us fear change and it’s understandable. At the outset, change can look scary. We aren’t comfortable with what we don’t know and there is security in where we are right now even though we know that comfort zones aren’t necessarily a good thing. But once again, if we have faith that this change will take us in the right direction, then we have nothing to fear. It always comes back to faith over fear.
So when you think about your life and whether you are living a life by design or life by default, know this: that it is never too late to make a change and design a life you love! I have so many blessings in my life and so many aspects of my life that I love, but for a while, I have been feeling like something is missing. I was guilty of living a life by default and not fully by design. I couldn’t get out of my own way. Even though I could clearly see the life I have been imagining for myself, I continued to hold myself back for far too long. So I made the change. I missed writing and the fact that I kept thinking about it and reliving my dream of being a published author was a sign that I needed to make a change and do something that fulfills this one box I still need to check. And this is how my blog was born. I have adopted a new routine that allows me to make time to write and research ideas for my blog and I can tell you it has energized me so much!!!! When you are doing something you truly love, you don’t find yourself making excuses not to do it. You lose track of time as you immerse your energy into what you are doing, and you ignore the phone that is ringing even as I type this (yes, it’s my mother who has now called me twice within 15 minutes but I am not allowing the distraction into my space right now!)
So as you look at your life, maybe think about whether or not you’re living a life by design and not by default. If you need to make a change, go ahead and make it. Don’t let the fear of change hold you back. Fearlessly and Faithfully go about designing your life!
