My family and I will be celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend.
I’m a third generation Iraqi-Jewish-Canadian. First generation Thanksgiving observer.
To celebrate, we eat all the typical American foods; turkey, stuffing, potatoes…
My favorite is my sister’s homemade pumpkin pie.
I remember one year, the day after Thanksgiving dinner, I was over at my parent’s house.
Feeling snackish, I opened up the fridge.
On the top shelf was pumpkin pie. “Yay”, my heart whispered.
It was carefully wrapped between a crystal platter and saran-wrap.
“Oh that looks heavy, and the saran-wrap will be annoying to replace” my brain piped in. “You’re not that hungry anyways, let’s go”.
It was around that time that I realized that I had been making all my decisions with my head.
I dated good guys, who checked the boxes, but that weren’t quite right for me.
I had the job I wanted, but I was often stressed and overwhelmed.
So I made a promise to myself that my decisions would be less driven by my head, and I would do a better job listening to my heart.
I’m not sure when my heart became a whisper under the loud voice of my head, but recalibrating that was one of the best things I ever did.
It affected all areas of my life.
I chose to date my now-husband after 6 years of being “just friends”.
I left my 6-figure job to join my husband in business.
I bought a cottage out on a lake.
I started making choices that felt scary, but that my heart was excited about.
I took down the heavy platter and enjoyed the slice of cake.
And I’m way better off for doing all of these things.
Often we’re the only ones standing in the way of having the lives we want.
We’re too scared to do the bold thing.
We’re too smart to do the fun thing.
Or worst of all, we spend so long doing what we should do, that we don’t even know what we want to do anymore.
We get to our goal, and we’re like “this is it?”.
But it’s never too late to redirect the ship. And it doesn’t take massive or bold action.
It takes having the time, space, and desire to listen to your heart.
It takes observing when your head talks you out of listening to your heart.
Eat that slice of cake. Buy that bright red sweater. Take that vacation.
Be intentional about the choices you make. Be honest with yourself about what you want.
Limit the amount of time you spend on calls each week.
Get rid of the client who drives you crazy.
Go for a walk at lunch.
Take long weekends off as you please.
Design your business in a way that lets you do whatever your heart desires.
If you’d like some help, I’m here for you.
Joey