Certified High-Performance coach, speaker, author, husband, adventurer, former commando-paratrooper, and tsunami survivor.
Do you ever feel like life is passing you by, and you’re just going through the motions without really experiencing it? You’re not alone. In today’s world, it’s easy to get caught up in the busyness of our daily lives and lose touch with the vibrancy of existence. We keep moving forward, checking off tasks on our to-do lists, but we’re not really present in the moment. It’s a brutal truth to face, but admitting that we’re not feeling truly alive is the first step in finding a way out of this cycle. It took me months to figure it out, and I’m happy to share what I learned with you so you can take a shortcut! In this article, you’ll learn how to avoid getting trapped in this state of disconnection and reclaim the aliveness within you.
We live, but we don’t always feel alive. It’s a bit paradoxical, and we all know how it feels. So, how do we get there?
The reality is that being alive requires constant effort. But our mind doesn’t like that and constantly seeks to conserve energy and stay comfortable. So, it’s understandable that many of us avoid taking on more than what’s necessary to survive. Even if we try to train ourselves to embrace it, our mind resists it.
We settle for our minimum standards and find ourselves comfortable in survival mode. But by doing so, we’re missing out on the potential for a richer, more fulfilling life. Take a moment to reflect on your life right now. Every aspect of it – your relationships, career, health, and hobbies – reflects what you’re willing to tolerate.
But is it really enough to just survive?
Feeling alive requires more than just surviving. It’s time to bring aliveness back into your life.
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When I thought I was about to die, a few seconds before being hit by a tsunami, I thought about my life. Nope, it’s not a myth that you see your life flashing in front of your eyes in your last moment!
And during that timeless moment, you will ask yourself questions to evaluate your life.
After thinking about the people I love, remembering the joy and the smiles, I thought about my experiences. It felt good, but then I asked myself: “Was that it? Was that everything I could be or do? Had I truly lived my life to the fullest? Had I pushed myself to be the best version of myself?
Ouch.
Luckily I got a second chance. And I will be forever grateful for it, so much that I dedicated my life to two things: to live every single day to the fullest and inspire others to do the same.
The burning question on my mind became: how to make the most of my time? That was the start of going down the rabbit hole of personal growth, and I went deep! I made it a way of life and the focus of my work.
Only when you figure out how you will measure your life at the end will you know how to live. The good news is that you don’t need to wait for a face-to-face with death to ask yourself those questions.
Actually, I challenge you to do it right now!
I realized I wasn’t living up to my full potential and settling for a life that was just “good enough.” Even though my good enough was already extraordinary.
I made a commitment to myself to be great, do good and live epic, so when the moment comes again (and it will..), I want to look at death in the eyes and say, “ I nailed it!”
In my quest, I spent hours with my journal, attended webinars, took masterclasses, and online courses, read books, and listened to podcasts. I spent countless hours journaling and rethinking my life to create a clear vision of what I wanted it to be.
Since then, I’ve been relentless in pursuing that vision and have invested my money, energy, and time to make it a reality. And I’ve gone far; I transformed my health, relationships, lifestyle, business, and marriage.
But still, I keep pushing myself to new levels of joy, success, and fulfillment.
I hold myself to high standards and push myself to succeed, even when it’s not easy. I know that success takes time and effort and that true commitment and resilience are essential to achieving my goals. When I feel overwhelmed, I take a deep breath and refocus my energy.
I draw on my past experiences to remind myself that I am capable of pushing through complex challenges. For example, when I completed my commando paratrooper training, I learned that I could do hard things if I just kept pushing.
With that pep talk in mind, I keep going and stay committed to achieving my goals. I know that the road to success can be challenging, but I also know that the journey is worth it; I crave the sensation of feeling alive.
I hit my targets in most categories of my life, but I was still not where I expected in my business growth. And that started consuming me.
Being hard on myself is the dark side of this mindset. I barely let myself take a break because I feel like I only deserve rewards or celebrations once I achieve the results I want. However, success takes time, and my obsession with making the most out of my time and building a great future sometimes prevents me from enjoying the present.
It’s as if I was underwater and not allowing myself to breathe because I believed I haven’t gone far enough. As a result, I kept pushing and making one more move, then another. But what if I waited too long before taking another breath?
Doubt was creeping in, and I felt exhausted. The negative self-talk was getting louder, and I didn’t know how long I could sustain this situation. My wife was incredibly supportive, but for some reason, I found it challenging to accept her support. Deep down, I felt like I didn’t deserve it. The voice in my head yelled, “Get your shit together and show up!”
Except, this time, I didn’t have the energy. I had been pushing away the fear of failure. I spent countless hours thinking about what else I should do and experimented with different things, but nothing seemed to propel me forward.
It felt like I was looking in the same box, trying to find something even though I knew it wasn’t there. I was stuck in that box and couldn’t see beyond its boundaries. I felt heavy, and my mind was foggy from exhaustion. And I was definitely not feeling alive.
Perhaps I’ve tried too hard?
I had a conversation with my wife, things got heated, and she started crying. She told me she didn’t know what to do anymore; she had been trying to support me, but I kept pushing her away. And it wasn’t just her—whenever anyone tried to offer me a new idea or suggestion, I found myself resisting it.
My ego was getting in the way, and I couldn’t bring myself to admit that there might be something I hadn’t tried yet. I would dismiss suggestions with phrases like “You don’t understand,” “That won’t work for me,” or “It’s not that simple.”
But as I looked at her, tears rolling down her cheeks; I felt miserable. It broke my heart to see someone who deeply loved me feeling hurt because of my stubbornness. Then, I realized I had developed a sense of helplessness over time.
I’m usually optimistic and positive, but when I couldn’t find solutions, I would focus on the obstacles instead of the possibilities. I had built a cage around myself and trapped myself inside.
As I struggled to find solutions, my frustration grew and turned into complaining. I was not complaining out loud (don’t ask her, though), but my lack of progress led to a loss of motivation. And not knowing what to do became not doing anything… I had hit a wall and lost the willingness.
That was a powerful insight!
It was a difficult truth to face, but I eventually realized that I had fallen into a fixed mindset fueled by learned helplessness. And slowly, aliveness disappeared from my days, and Ironically, what brought me there was being focused on feeling more alive.
Damn, that’s hard to admit as a coach.
I developed a growth mindset in every aspect of my life, except for scaling up my business.
But once I acknowledged the situation, I knew I had to take action to get out of the negative spiral. I needed to build new beliefs, not just recite affirmations that felt false. I needed a process that would help me climb out of the hole and take a deep breath of fresh air.
Ok, now what? Time to feeling alive again!
Sometimes we get lost in the noise of everything we feel like we should be doing. Everything I did was purposeful, but it was not all important. And out of all the important things I did, not everything was essential. I realized that trying to live my best life, I stopped being fully alive.
What is essential is to feel alive during the process of creating your best life. Otherwise, you get lost in the illusion that tomorrow will be better (quite ironically, I published a book called “The Illusion of Time” in which I explain how to stop postponing your best life for later). So it is not about doing everything; it’s about doing the right things.
You’ll only see the way by making the way.
If you haven’t done what I suggested it a few paragraphs ago, I recommend you do it now. Please don’t be the person who keeps saying, “Yes, I will,” but doesn’t do anything.
So once again, how will you measure your life?
I was at a 4-day live event with Brendon Burchard, and one day he asked us what the three things are that we can do every day to create joy in our life. I was surprised to look around and see that many attendees were struggling to come up with answers.
It made me realize that we often get caught up in thinking about big events or milestones that will bring us happiness, but we forget about the little things that can brighten our day-to-day lives. Is it spending time with loved ones, your favorite hobby, or simply enjoying a cup of tea in the morning?
“The present is the future of your past.”
Feeling alive and being in joy is about what you do in the present, not what you plan to do in the far future; it is about simple daily practices.
The problem is to start feeling trapped and not doing anything about it. You must change your perspective to break free from this self-constructed cage you’ve created. You build this cage by interpreting events and situations in a specific way, which over time, becomes your reality. But the truth is that the cage you created is merely an interpretation, and you have the power to change it. The first step is recognizing this fact and shifting your mindset towards a more positive outlook.
Positive affirmations are such a big thing in personal growth. But most of the time, people get it wrong: just repeating positive phrases to yourself is not enough to create lasting change! The inner game is super important, but you have to take action.
Furthermore, it is not about saying things to yourself that are not true. If you are broke and keep repeating “I’m rich,” you are wasting your time!
Turn those affirmations into declarations: “I declare that I am healthy,” “I declare that I am a caring husband,” etc. Then use positive affirmations as a tool to prepare you for the effort: visualize yourself doing the work and succeeding.
If you answered the questions from the three previous points, you are already changing your actions. Congrats! As Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” You are on your way; keep up the good work!
For those who have read through the three previous points, and didn’t do anything (I see you!), the chances are that you will finish this article and go back to your life and your complaints.
That would just have been a waste of your time, and you will stay stuck.
Sorry, what are you saying?
Those steps are stupid?
For you, it’s different?
I don’t understand?
You’ve already tried everything?
I know it’s not easy. But you must try something different and shift your energy from complaint to willingness. What if doing these simple exercises will change everything? I mean, at least give it a shot.
When you’ve done that, learn the four steps to reach excellence.
I hope this article helped you to reconnect with the spark of life. It is so easy to get lost and not feel the day anymore. Feeling truly alive requires constant effort. We often settle for our minimum standards, which leads to a life of surviving instead of thriving. But “just fine” is not a way to live. To avoid falling into this cycle, you must take a moment to reflect on your life and ask yourself the tough questions about how you want to measure it.
Keep holding yourself to the highest standards, and make sure to adopt simple daily practices so you can reach new levels of joy, success, and fulfillment, not later, but right now.
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