What lights you up? What do you get most excited about doing? What do you wake up wanting to do each day? What are the things that you can’t get enough of? What are the things that really put a spark in your life – and make you motivated to actively do things and push yourself forward?
Find Your Spark
- I built myself the habit of meditating every morning[KJ1] , and I actually really look forward to having that quiet, peaceful moment to set the tone each day.
- I really look forward to going to the gym – not because I love being there, but because I love the way I feel when I leave.
- I love planning meetings for our company – and always get super pumped when we do things like vision planning for the year.
“What lights you up?” is a question that I always ask clients to really allow me to get a deeper insight into our consultations. From a client’s perspective, many people think that they’re coming to me for help with their money – but the reality is that it’s so much more than that.
If the money they want to have in the future and the life they have in mind don’t match, then I can’t help them at all. When we can actually combine wealth and money with what they’re passionate about in life and pull them all together, that’s really what we’re really aiming to do – and what will really lead to financial success.
If you want to fulfill your monetary goals, you need to find your spark. Find what sparks your interest – what makes you light up – and what motivates you to move forward on your goal.
Here are some quick scenarios that I’ve seen in the past that can serve as examples for things that might light you up:
1. Freedom to do what you want to do: Clients of mine wanted to retire, and they were already in their early 50’s. All the numbers say that they shouldn’t have been able to do it, and that it was going to be a huge sacrifice on their end if they wanted to do it.
They wanted to get in an RV, travel the country, and see the world the way they wanted to see it – so we worked out a plan, cut certain things, and worked through the details.
It was clear that what lights them up is freedom – freedom of the road, freedom to travel, to meet new people, and to be able to sit around a bonfire on a random night and enjoy a glass of wine with new friends. That was exciting to them. So, my job became to help them pair what lights them up with their current financial situation. Understanding what lights them up, helps us build their plan.
2. Spending more time with things that matter to you: Another example we see all the time, is when someone wants to retire – but has no clue or plan for what they’re going to do after, whatsoever.
In this situation, I always ask what it is they normally enjoy doing with their spare time. If it’s golf, how often do they golf? Would they like to do more of that? Chances are, we get to see their faces light up.
Maybe they don’t get to spend enough time with their grandkids as much as they’d want to, because work and life gets in the way. When we talk about them being at more soccer games or dance recitals, you can really see their faces light up. What sparks their interest, and lights them up, is what makes them able to create a plan to follow by pairing those things together.
3. Giving to the community: For some people, what lights them up is their community work, which is an incredible thing. They love giving to the community. This is something I found to be a great passion of mine as well – working through the wine festival, working with Coats for Kids, the Boys and Girls Club, and all the other groups we’re able to work with really lights me up, and is a driving force in my life.
I can’t wait to figure out how we can solve so many of these challenges, and help so many people. When people start talking about these things, you’ll see their energy level change – and that’s what we’re searching for when trying to find what that next chapter of your life looks like for you.
Surround Yourself with the Things That Light You Up
If you own a business, have a career, or are on a path in life (which includes everyone!), make a list of the parts of the business you love, the parts of your career you love, and the parts of your life you love most – and a list of the things you don’t. Doing this will help you see how you might be able to migrate more to the parts you love more, and less to the things you don’t.
- Start building your life around the moments that light you up, more than the moments that don’t.
- Surround yourself with the people that light you up more than the people that don’t.
- Surround yourself with people that lift you up, and believe in you and what you’re doing.
- Distance yourself from the people that are constantly challenging your goals in a negative way, and the people in your life that are always bringing you down.
If the phone rings, and you don’t feel good about answering it for that person, then they’re not the kind of person that lights you up and makes you excited. They might not be super happy for you and your success.
In life, you want to surround yourself with people that have the energy to constantly drive those moments. The more moments that light us up, the better we feel at the end of the day and the more complete we feel. If your day is driven by how life, wealth, work, and passion all come together as one, then you’ll tend to have a pretty successful day.
Create an Evaluation Plan
You’ll need to create an evaluation process every day and each year. Figure out what lit you up and what was special for you, and what didn’t. Go through that inventory at the end of each day. Maybe parts of work weren’t so fun, but maybe the other parts of the of the day were super great.
I had a pretty tough work week a few weeks ago, and a particularly bad day, but one of my sons had a scrimmage game that night. All the moms and dads were out on the field watching the game, it was dark and foggy, and I had a really great time.
Being at that game after a horrible day really separated me from everything that I was doing in the workweek, and was something that lit me up. I get really pumped and excited watching my kids succeed, work hard, and see some level of success – or even fail, and learn from it.
- What lights you up – is it work, life, family..?
- What is it that drives you?
- What could you do that will light you up more?
- What should you be doing?
- How can we transition into the next day or the next year to make it super beneficial for us?
Find the moments in your day that light you up.
Find the people in your life that light you up.
Surround yourself with those people – and create more moments in your life that light you up and give you the spark that you need to keep moving forward. You should be choosing, because you are in control of what you put into your own life.
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