Life is a Slippery Slope. Are You Where You Want to Be?

Life is a slippery slope – and it’s happening whether you’re ready or not.

Regardless of your awareness or engagement, life moves on.
It doesn’t wait for you.

Have you ever thought:

• “Where has all the time gone?”

• “How have I stayed here for so long?”

• “I can’t believe I’m ___ years old already!”

Whether you manage your life or it manages you—the journey continues.

If you’re not being deliberate in managing that journey, you could find yourself slipping into decline (instead of growth) in any of the key aspects of your life.

The Risk of the Slippery Slope

Leading a life of deliberate decisions may sound easy.
It’s not.

The fundamentals can drift down a slippery slope faster than you think.

At first, things get routine, boring, and flat. Left unchallenged, the end of the road is bitterness, regret, and cynicism.

I don’t want that for you.

The Five Key Areas of Life

You have various components that make up your life. The classics include:

• Professional – your day job, identity, contribution

• Personal – family, friends, and life outside work

• Intimate – your spouse or significant other

• Recreational – hobbies, extracurricular, fun

• Intellectual – learning, growth, enrichment

In each, you engage in activities that provide varying degrees of satisfaction, stimulation, reinforcement, and joy.

The challenge? Keeping your experience positive and rewarding—not static or stale.

The Cycle of Decline

Your experiences don’t automatically stay “great” or “exciting.” Left unmanaged, they evolve.

The cycle looks like this:

• Alive – Fresh and exciting. Think of starting a new job, getting a promotion, beginning a hobby, getting married, or having a baby. Things feel engaged and invigorating.

• Content – Stimulation softens, but you feel well-being. Nice, but less noticeable every waking minute.

• Groggy – That middle ground between “okay” and “not okay.” Your job is good enough to keep, but mundane. Your marriage is fine, but the spark shows up once a year on vacation.

• Numb – The “making donuts” phase. Life’s on autopilot. Months and years pass without much memory-making or fanfare.

• Bitter – Regret sets in. You see the consequences of ignoring the numbness—poor performance, broken relationships, missed opportunities.

Take the Test

Stop reading for a minute and consider where you are in the five life elements listed above.

Put a check mark for each key life element on the cycle of evolution:

The First Step: Investigate

The first phase of The Deliberate Journey is Investigate.

That means waking up and being aware of what is happening—or not happening—in your life.

As simple as this table looks, it’s an engagement tool. It shows if any primary element of your life is slipping down the slope.

Breaking the Pattern

If any element is in the ‘groggy’ or lower category, I challenge you to engage.

Build a plan—no matter how simple—to take action.

Do something different, something deliberate, at least once a week for any element in a lower category.

Doing so breaks the pattern. It pushes you up the slope and brings back the sparkle.

Will it change overnight? No.
Will it change over time? Absolutely.

Life continues—with or without you.

The choice is yours.