How Will You Know You’ve Lived Well?

Inside: Do you know your core values and do you walk them out with intention? Do you have a clear vision that lights your path? At the end of your days, how will you know you’ve lived well?

Palliative nurse Bronnie Ware recorded her patient’s end of life regrets.

The top regret of the dying was “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself.”

a clear life vision keeps us anchored and on purpose

A clear and compelling life vision, and clarity around my core values, helps me live well. They have kept me anchored after my parents died, through chronic pain, after a traumatic car accident, through and beyond the death of my son, PTSD, and deep grief. It lights my path in every season – it helps me live ON PURPOSE.

I will know I’ve lived well simply because day to day I do my best to walk out my values.

I don’t want to miss my life being distracted by shiny things, comparison, or waiting for a “perfect some day.” I choose to show up fully to every day I get.

KEY IDEAS

At the end of your life how will you know you’ve lived well?
Focus ↠ aim ↠ vision
A clear vision and knowing our core values keeps us anchored in every season, helps us keep our eyes on our own path, and helps us not lose hope when life feels hard.
Hope is not fairy dust – it’s a realistic sense of optimism based on an expectation of positive outcomes. It involves agency (power of choice) and a belief that there are alternate pathways to our desired goal/outcome.