The Living Fully Challenge

12 Months to a Fully-Lived Life

Month #12

You did it! You managed to make it to month #12. You are present, right here, right now, in the final month of the Living Fully Challenge.

Now that you’ve added charity, or doing the “right thing” both in terms of giving and taking care of the Earth, into your life, and you’ve learned how to be in the now, so you can receive the gift of experiencing the present moment, you should be feeling pretty awesome. In fact, you and your life should feel pretty full.

What more can you add at this point? One essential element remains missing. That’s what we will focus upon in this final assignment. This month you get to have the most fun of all. In fact, this month revolves around fun and celebration, as well it should. You’ve come a long way, and you deserve to celebrate. In fact, celebration should be part of your daily life.

The Two Basic Monthly Assignments

Just as in past months, continue by, first, completing daily the two basic assignments. They continue to form the foundation of your living-fully practice.

Basic Assignment #1:

Take some deep breaths several times every day. The breath is the source of life. God breathed life into us. As we breathe in, we continue breathing in God’s exhale, and as we exhale God inhales. It’s a continuous circular breath from Creator to the created. Plus, without the breath, we die. Each breath gives our body what it needs to continue living. And the fact that we breathe without even thinking about it represents a miracle. So, breathe deeply and consciously as often as possibly, because the breath enlivens you! If you have a watch that beeps on the hour, I suggest you set it to do so, and each hour take a minimum of 10 deep, slow, conscious breaths.

Basic Assignment #2:

Each night before you fall asleep try to acknowledge at least one thing about your life and the way you lived it that day that you really appreciated or enjoyed. If you can't find at least one thing you appreciated or enjoyed, than commit to doing something different the next day - to doing one thing you can acknowledge the next night - something that puts a smile on your face - before you fall asleep. The reason for this exercise seems self-explanatory: If you aren’t doing anything that you can acknowledge as being enjoyable or that you sincerely appreciate, you aren’t living fully.

Assignment for Month #12

As you know, each month’s assignment is comprised of two exercises you will use for 30 days to help you live more fully. The first one will involve one area of your life. The second one will be applied to 12 general areas of your daily life – finance, romantic relationship, free time/fun, health/exercise, work/career, spiritual practice/relationship with God, friendship, relationship with self, relationship with family, continuing education, charity and care of the Earth, and commitments/responsibilities.

Exercise A

This month’s Exercise A involves looking at your commitments and responsibilities in a different light. Most of look at these aspects of our life as drudgery, as things we have to do. We don’t always see them as choices, although on some level we have probably chosen them.

So, this month, approach your commitments and responsibilities, no matter what they are, with a new attitude. See them as opportunities to help others, to do good, to fulfill your purpose, or to simply give to others. In other words, reframe these commitments and responsibilities in your mind in some way so they don’t feel like drudgery or like a “have tos” or “musts.” Walking the dog can be seen as a chance for exercise or a walking meditation. A long drive to a child’s activity when you’d rather be doing something else can be reframed as quality time with your child (if you turn off the music and talk). Taking care of the budget can be looked at as a chance to find ways to save money. Going to work can be seen as providing for your family, and taking care of your elderly parents a way to give back to those who brought you into the world. View housecleaning as creating sacred space in your home.

You get the idea. Now come up with your own ways to reframe your commitments and responsibilities. I recommend doing this by making a list of all the activities you consider commitments or responsibilities and then writing beside them a new way of viewing the activity. Here are my examples:

commitment/responsibility
walking the dog
long drive to a child’s activity
working

reframe
exercise
quality time
providing for family

By looking at your commitments and responsibilities in this light, these activities should feel lighter and more pleasant to you. And this should make them easier to complete. In response, you should feel more enlivened by doing them.

Exercise B

Just like last month, apply this part of the month’s assignment to the following 12 general areas of your daily life — finance, romantic relationship, free time/fun, health/exercise, work/career, spiritual practice/relationship with God, friendship, relationship with self, relationship with family, continuing education, charity and care of the Earth, and commitments/responsibilities.

This month, you truly do get a simple exercise: Celebrate your successes – big and small! Simply go through each area of your life and give yourself credit for your achievements, the goals you’ve accomplished, the things you’ve manifested, the dreams you’ve created, and the changes you’ve made. Look at the many ways in which you are living your life more fully now, 12 months after beginning this challenge, and celebrate each and every one of them.

How do you celebrate? That’s up to you. Crack open a bottle of champagne. Go on vacation. Take a nap. Jump up and down and shout for joy. Go out dancing. Take a drive. Buy your self something new. Go on a silent meditation. Do whatever “floats your boat”! Just make sure it feels like you are actually celebrating.

Why do you celebrate? Because too often we forget to celebrate our accomplishments. We need to acknowledge even the tiny baby steps forward that we make, because that helps us keep moving forward. We do this for children, encouraging them on even when they do the slightest thing right or make the smallest change in their behavior. For ourselves, we simply ignore the same sort of behavior. This month, treat yourself like that young child who needs encouragement every step of the way. Celebrate each little change you make, each accomplishment as if it were your very first step.

After 12 months of working hard at learning to live your life more fully, you deserve to celebrate. So also take at least a moment, but possibly a day or a week, to really celebrate the accomplishment of a whole year of working towards achieving your full human potential and a life fully lived in all ways. That’s truly something worth acknowledging and celebrating

Conclusion

I certainly commend you for following through. And I hope you feel that you now are fully living your life. If you still have doubts, ask yourself these questions:

Does the life you are now living look anything like what you imagined a fully-lived life might look like 12 months ago?

What does a fully-lived life mean to you now, 12 month after beginning the program, as compared to what it meant to you when before you began?

And what would it cost you to stop living the way you are living now and to go back to the way you were living 12 months ago?

Could you do it? Would you be willing to live that way again?

The Living Fully Challenge asks you to do so many things in a relatively short amount of time. Thus, I suggest that at the conclusion of the twelfth month you take a break. Simply relax and enjoy your new, fully-lived life to the fullest extent. Then, at some point, begin the challenge again. In this way, you will continue to bring reach higher and higher levels of human potential and live your life more and more fully all the time.

Life constantly hands us more things to handle. We find ourselves with more choices to make. New desires arise within us. More spaces need to be cleaned in our “houses.” Old stuff has to be removed to make space for new. We always have the need to manifest new dreams and goals. That’s why we never want to stop working on becoming better versions of ourselves and living our lives at a higher and fuller level. The Living Fully Challenge allows us to accomplish just that.

So, use it just this once or use it many times. In either case, may it help you discover a fully-lived life.

Relax and enjoy your new, fully-filled life!

Don’t forget to send me your experiences using these exercises for the last year. And look for a teleseminar series coming soon!