Matthew Kelly
Jan 28, 20233 min
Last year, uh, during the Amazing Possibilities event, we spoke about dreams and we spoke about 12 different areas of the human being and the human life. And we explored our dreams in all of those 12 areas. It was a, a fantastic experience and the comments you submitted and the emails and the social posts that came out of exploring our dreams together was a fantastic experience. I'd like to take the next few minutes, just a few minutes to take another look at those 12 areas and this time to, to explore our satisfaction or dissatisfaction, our contentment or discontentment in each of those 12 areas. And to do that, I want you just to take out your journals and just to make a note, give yourself a score between one and 10 for the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction that you have in your life around that particular aspect of your life.
Don't overthink it, just jot down a number one, immensely dissatisfied, 10 immensely satisfied. Let's take a look at the 12 areas. The first four areas are the four we've talked about very often in the past, physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. So physically, how satisfied are you with your life? Physically? Give yourself a score between one and 10. One dissatisfied, 10, immensely satisfied. Emotional, give yourself a score between one and 10 for your emotional life. Intellectual, give yourself a score between one and 10 for your intellectual life. And then spiritual Again, give yourself a score between one and 10. Just write it down. Don't overthink it, don't judge it. Just take a gut check and write it down. The next area is psychological. How psychologically healthy, how psychologically satisfied or dissatisfied are you at this time in your life. Next area is material. You know, how satisfied are dissatisfied, are you with the material experience you're having in life?
The next area is professional or career. Give yourself a score between one and 10. How satisfied are you with your career, your professional life at this point? Next area is financial. How are things going financially? Do you have a plan? Don't have a plan. Are you saving? Are you not saving? You got a debt problem? What's going on in your financial life? Are you dissatisfied? Are you satisfied? Are you a five? Are you an eight? Give yourself a score. Next area is creative. We are all creative. One of the great myths, one of the disastrous myths of modern times is, is we've said, oh, some people are creative and some people aren't creative. That's not true. Where's the proof? Well, human beings can think first and foremost, and human thought is astoundingly creative. How creative, what we think becomes okay. If you think about creativity, if you think about creating, the reality is, if you think about something, it begins to manifest in your life. Whatever you think about most in your life will manifest in your life. What could be more creative than human thought? And so when it comes to creativity, it isn't that some people are creative and some people aren't. We're all creative. We're creative in different ways. So how satisfied are you with your creative life? If you've believed the idea that you are not a creative person, you're probably incredibly dissatisfied. You probably give yourself a 1, 2, 3. Give yourself a score between one and 10. Don't overthink it. The next area is adventure.
How adventurous is your life? Are you satisfied with the adventure of your life? Next area is legacy. What kind of legacy are you trying to create in your life? How do you want to be remembered? Give yourself a score between one and 10. And the last area, the 12th area is character. Character. How do we measure character? We measure character with virtue. You know, with patience, with kindness, with generosity, with compassion, with courage. How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your character? Give yourself a score between one and 10. Now, as you look down the page and you see these different scores, what are you thinking yourself? What are you feeling? Probably some areas you're happy with, you're satisfied with probably some areas. You're not. Just by doing this exercise three or four minutes, you will live your life differently just by doing this exercise.
It's the nature of the human person. Now that we are aware, okay, I have these areas of dissatisfaction, we will begin to address these areas of dissatisfaction. And so we recognize the one truth we began with. And that is that dissatisfaction is your friend. A little bit of dissatisfaction, spending a little bit of time thinking about the dissatisfaction of your life will lead you to live a better life and to become a better version of yourself.
Matthew Kelly
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