We have all heard the old adage, “Life is short, go live it.”

The problem is that it takes so many people an entire life before they start living it or not living it. It’s so easy to get stuck living the everyday mundane tasks instead of doing those that really make your heart sing.

We spend our lives working our jobs waiting around to live, and when that time arrives we often end up on the porch lamenting about all those things we didn’t do, while we wait around to die.

Caz and Craig at Victoria Falls

Christmas at Victoria Falls: It's all about the Memories

The moments when life offers us the opportunity to experience something new we usually allow our conditioned thoughts of fear, failure and doubt to get in the way and keep us doing only what we know. This is known as the safe route, which at times is a beneficial route, but not often if you want to live an enriched life.

I believe that life is all about the memories so I want to share with you a way of thinking, or a philosophy, that I have employed throughout my life. It is a philosophy that has helped me to overcome fear and doubt in order to experience and create many new memories.

It’s simply,

‘Live your life so it’s a story to tell’.

When you think like this, fear tends to take a back seat. The driver becomes life.

‘Live your life so it’s a story to tell,’ has given me many experiences and as a result lots of insightful wisdom I can share with others.

As someone who in their teenage years was very shy and felt I had nothing to contribute or talk about, this was an essential philosophy for me to adopt in order to change the beliefs I had about myself. I felt that the more stories I created in my life then the more interesting experiences I would be able to share with others.

‘Live your life so it’s a story to tell’ has been a huge builder of courage for me. It helps to make me step up to the plate and just do whatever it is I am fearful to do, or complacent about.

“Just go and do it, it will make a great story to tell.”

As a result of this, I’ve created stories of global adventures, dare-devil experiences, profitable investments, disastrous investments, entrepreneurial activities, friendships spanning many countries, and the experience of new foods, cultures, music, sports and activities.

My husband, who is terrified of flights, recently hung backwards off a 192 m building in Auckland, New Zealand and then sky dived. When I asked him why he did it, he replied,

“Well, it gave me a great story to tell.”

When I asked if he thought doing the sky dive had changed him in any way, he replied “It’s certainly made me braver to try other new things and I have a lot more control over my fears now.”

I’ve also found one of the most empowering things about this philosophy, is it helps you to get over those challenging times in your life. When things go wrong for me, I often think,

“Well I guess I’ve now got a story to tell.”

This is so empowering as it allows you to get over it and drop the baggage that we would otherwise carry around with us for years.

It helps you to understand the real version of the story is now over and you can move on to better things. It allows you to learn from the mistakes and take something positive from the negative.

Enrich your life and make it rewarding. The next time your faced with a decision or an opportunity to do something a little different, out of the box, or outside your comfort zone, take control of your fears and doubts by saying,

“Why not? At least it will be a story to tell!”

How have you made your life a story to tell?