11:11 How Will You Be Remembered? Advice For a Good Life
Live your life the way you want to be remembered.
Begin With the End in Mind
The vortex of seemingly urgent day-to-day matters can pull you away from the essential work of your soul by sapping your energy and deadening your imagination. Trudging through a never-ending to-do list can leave you too listless to even hope for anything better, keeping you stuck in the status quo. Begin to dream again, but begin with the end in mind: Picture how you will be remembered at the end of your life, and then live your life the way you want to be remembered.
Wisdom doesn't automatically come with old age. Nothing does - except wrinkles. It's true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good. ~Abigail Van Buren
By visualizing an ideal outcome, you are using your faculty of imagination as designed. By expecting benevolent results and designing delight for yourself, you activate the practical means of achieving the things you deeply desire. By picturing a chosen end result and allowing yourself to feel as if it’s already occurred, you prime your consciousness to notice the soul-designed opportunities that come your way; when you take the necessary steps and make your dream a reality, you teach yourself what’s possible by mastering the step-by-step process of manifestation. Whenever you focus on what you want to see happen, you “reverse engineer” your dream. If what you picture is in alignment with your soul, you also activate its powerful energy, which will notify you of relevant opportunities by pinging your intuition.
Knowledge is a process of piling up facts. Wisdom lies in their simplification. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Regular spiritual practice helps you fine tune your intuition and prioritize the activities that advance your soul’s purpose. Carving out the space for consciously discerning, creating and energizing your intentions puts you in the driver’s seat instead of riding along in the passenger’s seat of someone else’s dream vehicle by default. In a chaotic world that clambers for your attention all day long, creating an island of peace for your nervous system to recharge is essential if you wish to navigate life with grace and ease. No one else can give you “me” time. You have to give yourself permission to retreat at times to nourish your own soul and use your imagination to draw to you the raw materials you need to build your dream according to your soul’s blueprint.
Write Your Own Obituary
If you wish to clarify your soul’s purpose, begin with the end in mind: Write your own obituary. This journal writing exercise is very straightforward. It’s about reconnecting with what really matters to you. Usually, when people get closer to their death, they begin to be more concerned about what they didn’t achieve and how they can maximize the time that’s left. The purpose of the obituary exercise isn’t to dwell on death, but to uncover what’s really important to you––hopefully, long before your last breath—and to live by it as a guiding principle for your life.
How will people remember you? Why?
Who will miss you the most? To whom were you “somebody special?”
To make space for your YES, what did you say NO to?
What was the most real version of you? Write adjectives that describe your true essence, not your titles, roles or responsibilities.
What was your greatest contribution to life?
Bring Your Epitaph to Life
Write down in one or two paragraphs that you would love someone to say about you once you departed. What would be the headline? The takeaway message? What would people walk away feeling?
Don’t let others choose the words of your obituary. Write it yourself, and live the way you want to be remembered.
Savor 45 little nuggets of wisdom to live by
My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, and to celebrate growing older here’s some advice to live by:
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Change the way you think.
4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will. Stay in touch.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
8. Release your children when they become adults, it's their life now.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye.
16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.
19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Just because you believe you are right, doesn't mean you are. Keep an open mind.
23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
26.. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. Your job is to love your children, not choose who they should love.
35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
36. Growing old beats the alternative.
37. Your children get only one childhood.
38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.
41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
42. The best is yet to come.
43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
44. Yield.
45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.
~ Regina Brett
So, I’ve been doing the journaling everyday. At 11:11am and at 11:11 pm. I’d write manifestations, abundances, and gratitudes. It’s been a blessing to do so. Because of being more conscious about how I spend my time, I’ve been on Substack a lot less. But also looking back about the things I would ask for everyday, I didn’t have to ask for longer than a week.
Back when I was in theatre school, we had an exercise where we had to write our own eulogy. I must have been the only one in the class that really loved the practice as I have kept it up through the years. It’s gotten shorter as I’ve aged. As if the things worth being remembered for have been really honed in.
I think I’ll keep up with the 11:11 practice for now. I’d like to see what will come in a year’s time. Thank you, Katie.
"45 nuggests of wisdom to live by". Oh brother! Now, you tell us?! Just kidding. You're coming on strong here toward the end of this series, Katie. This post is loaded with gems. You should put this series in a little pocket-size book that people can buy and keep... in their pocket. LOL. Just a thought. You could name it "Dre-e-e-e-eam, Dream, Dream, Dream." Thanks for everything you have taught us. I have a pretty good idea of how you'll be remembered!! Just sayin'.