Are You Tiptoeing Your Way Through Life?

Recently I caught up with a dear friend. During our conversation, she mentioned a quote that I had never heard before. And when she said it, it was like she dropped a bomb. It really profoundly affected me. It's been on my mind for the last few weeks. It comes from Earl Nightingale: “Most people tiptoe their way through life, hoping they make it safely to death.”

This quote really resonated with me because I have been that person, tiptoeing through life. I think the reason this quote is so powerful and profound is that it touches on Memento Mori, the ancient practice of reflecting on your mortality that goes back to Socrates. Memento Mori translates from Latin as ”remember you must die.”

You might think it's morbid to think about your death. But it doesn't have to be. It can actually be really empowering to remember that you will die, that you don't have forever, and that if something is important in your life you need to make it a priority and take action on it accordingly.

One of my mentors calls this the Regret Minimization Framework. It's a thought exercise where you imagine yourself on your deathbed looking back at the present moment to see what decision you should make now that you won't regret when you're on your deathbed. Studies have found that people on their deathbeds usually regret the things they didn't do rather than the things they did.

When we don't make progress towards our goals and dreams, often it's not because we don't know what to do; it's that we know what to do but we don't do it.

We don't do those things we know that we're supposed to do because we feel some amount of fear or discomfort or resistance. We're afraid of making mistakes. We don't want to be criticised for making them. Instead of stepping forward into growth, we retreat and step back into safety and comfort.

We argue for our limitations. We fight for our smallness. We think we're too young, too old, too fat, too thin, not talented enough, not attractive enough, not experienced enough, not educated enough, don't have enough money, don't have enough time, or we're not ready yet.

If you're experiencing resistance in doing the things that you know you need to do to move forward, to make progress toward your goals and dreams, you can imagine yourself on your deathbed, looking back at this moment, and thinking about which decision you regret more: doing the thing, or not doing the thing. This puts the decision in such stark terms that you're motivated to push through the fear or resistance and take action.

A variation of this, that I've started doing recently, is you can ask yourself: “Would doing this make me a more or less extraordinary version of myself?” Of course, you're going to feel more compelled to take action and do the thing to become a more extraordinary version of yourself. So this week try using that question as a filter for your decisions when you're feeling some fear or resistance about taking that next step to move you closer to your goal.