Today I want to ask you a really important question: Are you waiting for the life you want?

More specifically, are you waiting to be happy?

Are you the type of person who puts things off or plans to do them in the future? Do you wait for others to help you along or inspire you before you take action? Do you make excuse after excuse?

You’re not alone.

Last week, I had a call with a new client (let’s call her Claire). She’s an incredible woman – one of those people you feel grateful to know straight away – and thankfully, she’s given me permission to share her story with you today.

Claire is trying to figure out what she wants to do career-wise and is also working on improving her life satisfaction overall.

During our 60-minute call, Claire and I worked on an exercise together and the idea of being creative kept popping up for her. She admitted that growing up, creativity (painting in particular) was her “thing”. In fact, she was quite the artist.

Somewhere along the way, Claire had let that passion go and had traded it in for things she deemed more important, like her career.

Although Claire has no plans to be an artist per say, during our call, she realized just how much she missed painting and having a creative outlet.

But she confessed that she would feel guilty taking time out of her week to do something that would be an additional expense when she’s supposed to be sorting out her job situation and making more money.

At the end of our chat, I expressed to Claire that I actually felt that an art class would be incredibly beneficial to her and that it would increase her happiness – one of her other goals with coaching. I also reminded her that my most important Aha! moments have come when I haven’t been working – mostly in yoga classes when I’m not supposed to be thinking!

She whole-heartedly agreed, and we decided that researching classes in her area would be her task for that week.

As I was about to move on, she said, “You know what? I’m going to take this one step further. I just realized that I’ve been waiting for friends to be available to do things that I want to do and if I keep waiting, it’s never going to happen. So I’m going to do these things on my own.” 

I was blown away and let her know that that was the best thing I’d heard all day!

And a few days later, Claire checked in with me and sent me a link to an incredible (and affordable) painting class she is going to be taking this Wednesday.

Claire hasn’t painted in nine years, so how amazing is that?! 

I tell you this because I know that there are so many of us out there who are waiting to be happy, but I hope Claire’s story inspires you to act now instead.

Please, don’t wait to take that writing course, trip to Italy or run in the marathon. This is your life and not to be morbid, but you don’t know how much time you have on this planet, so you need to make the most of it!

So this week, I’d love to hear how you’re going to seize the day and take control of your own happiness. Pretty please, comment below to share your plans with me…