On today’s walk I listened to the podcast, Stop Living on Autopilot and take Responsibility for your Life , from the Art of Manliness. Okay okay…let’s stop right here and deal with that last statement. Yes I know the majority of my followers are women and yes I’m challenging you to check out an Art of Manliness podcast. I know you will be pleasantly surprised to see some of the topics and having listened to many of them myself they are definitely on spot for men and women and are no way over the top. For each woman that actually listens please comment…I’m curious.

Now that we’ve taken care of that let’s dig in. The host was interviewing Antonio Neves who also has a book by the same name of the podcast. He talks about how we sometimes start living on autopilot and reminiscing about the good old days, and now are just being stagnant and not moving forward. Here’s some of the takeaways I got out of it.

Start looking at your life from the last 30 days. We know all the things we want to do to improve ourselves, but when it really comes down to it many times it just becomes thoughts, words, and excuses without actions. Back in the good old days we were on fire every day!

Relationships. Ask yourself in the last 30 days based on your actions and behaviors would your spouse or significant other still be jazzed with you if you were still dating or would they maybe be like I don’t know. This one hit home with me. I’m now divorced…maybe that’s why😄, but after marriage and/or kids it’s almost like you stop striving to connect and it becomes more about surviving. It’s like once that ring is placed on the finger we stop trying so hard. This is one of the key concepts of this podcast. We stop doing what needs to be continuously done.

Work. Ask yourself if you were a new hire on probation would your current employer keep you on based on your last 30 days of performance? Again often we stop giving it our all. When we start off being hired we are pumped and go above and beyond. We’re like a sponge taking it all in and learning new things each day. We take it upon ourselves to learn as much as possible to contribute. Some where along the way though we become stagnant. We start making excuses on why we can’t get things done and none of it is our fault.

Health. With the wealth of information available to us we have a pretty good idea what we need to do to live a heathy lifestyle. Many of us have even had periodic success in this area, so what gives? We stopped. We reached our goal. We took off the weight or completed that upcoming 10kand stopped. It doesn’t work that way folks. Becoming healthy is a new LIFEstyle! Again, we can’t stop. Looking back at the last 30 days what specific actions have you done to live healthier. Is the food you’re putting in your mouth nutritious? Each day have you gotten your body moving?

Finances. In the last 30 days what progress have you made toward your financial goals. If you’re in debt, have you spelled out what that actual debt $number is? Have you written it on paper and come up with an action plan? What about those of you who aren’t in debt, but don’t really know how much and what you are investing in because work or a spouse just handles all that. I’ll say if you’re one of those that let your spouse handle it you need to stop that and participate. For one, that’s a lot of stress to put on a person, and two unfortunately they may not always be around and then what?

So you’re getting the concept. He also goes into using it to look at our growth in learning and peace of mind. This looking at the last 30 days of areas we want to improve on really made sense to me and is a kick in the pants for sure. The whole idea is to make NOW and moving FORWARD the GOOD days! And don’t stop😊

Peace,

Dwight

https://omny.fm/shows/the-art-of-manliness/stop-living-on-autopilot-and-take-responsibility-f