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“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!! What a ride!”

At this week’s Toastmasters meeting, I was asked to say a joke. Not one joke came to my mind. In that moment, I realized how seriously I take life.

Take Toastmasters, for example. I joined in January. On schedule. I was all intent on finishing the CTM program by October this year. I would do a speech a month, sometimes two. I was serious and on point. I got stopped in my tracks when I checked out the schedule only to find that there were no open slots until April. What!?! I almost had a coronary.

Why is that?

Life for me has been one milestone after another. I couldn’t tell you what happened in between. Not because the milestone was so poignant, but because all the while I would concentrate on the end result. Living in the moment, enjoying the journey, and having fun are foreign concepts to me…until this year.

Zest and fun are mandatory ingredients this year. So once I caught my heart and realized what was happening, I decided that I would go to every meeting to make friends, actively participate, have raucous fun, and learn to engage an audience one table topic, one time keeping explanation, and one evaluation at a time. I know I will inevitably complete the CTM program. What’s more important to me is that I totally eat up the full experience.

So this weekend, I’m out to find some jokes, and I’m taking it seriously Know any good ones?

In Spirit,
Nneka

When I started the Life Transformation Program, I came up with 3 easy things I can do everyday that would eventually transform my life: exercise, meditation, and writing. It was working great…until January.

January found me adding a host of activity to meet my goals for the year and losing sight of the core program. I finished the month with 31 days of meditation, 26 days of exercise, and 27 out of 27 days of writing (31 minus 4 rest days). While the numbers look great on the surface, I feel like I unravelled at the end of the month.

So for February, it’ll be back to basics. The objectives everyday won’t be to check my stats, comment, get to work on time, connect with board members, or talk on the phone with friends. The objectives everyday will be to write, meditate, and exercise. You see, when I do those 3 things, everything else falls into place. The benefits are endless. For starters, it keeps me sane, and clear, so that I can be present in every other activity. Don’t get me wrong, all of those other things are important, but they follow naturally when I write, meditate, and exercise everyday.

The moral of the story: Do the 20% that gives 80% of the results…FIRST. Make sure they take priority, not in a “have-to” way, but in a way that creates a space for them, like eating or breathing. No one says I don’t have time to breathe, and while you might be able to defer a few meals, you can’t go too long before feeling compelled to eat something. The 20% is like air. It should be part of your rhythm.

Do you have any anchors in your day that help the rest of your life run smoothly?

In Spirit,
Nneka