Are You Living like a Lion or a House Cat

Do you wake up every morning looking forward to the day ahead? Are you one of the one percent of the world’s population that, love what they do? If you are congratulations! But what about the other ninety-nine percent of us, how can we live, like the one percenters?

The title of this article is “are you living like a lion or a house cat”. I bet you are wondering what do I mean by that. Well when you think of a house cat, what comes to mind? A mild mannered animal who spends their day sleeping, chasing anything that moves and eating when they feel like it. You can almost picture the image of a fluffy grey tabby cat curled up on a pillow sitting next to you purring contently without a care in the world. Of course unless you hate cats, and in that case I give you my deepest apologies, but cats do make better examples than dogs in this case. I will try for dogs next time. Sounds good doesn’t it?

To flip the coin what does the life of a lion look like. They hunt days on end looking for their next meal, they sneak around in the bush looking for their prey, listening and watching, waiting to pounce. They know they will go hungry unless they are successful at the hunt. But once the hunt is over they laze in the afternoon sun, washing themselves, playing with the cubs and enjoying a full tummy until its time to hunt again.

What would you say you were? A lion or a house cat. What would a lion or a house cat look like in the office? A house cat would be satisfied with the way things are, not willing to rock the boat and make changes. They have a routine with minimal variations. House cats, work their days away thinking of what’s waiting for them at home; a good book, TV, a fire, a nice dinner or maybe they wish the day away making plans for the weekend. Before you know it weeks have gone by and you don’t remember what happened. You can’t create a memory in your mind on any specific event during this time it’s all a blur. You end up living for the weekends, taking your day to day life for granted.

What does a lion’s day look like? They would work endless hours striving for the next rung on their ladder of success. The lion knows what he wants, and knows what it looks like when he gets there so he works his tail off until he reaches his goal and then enjoys his success, temporary until the drive to go higher hits him again. This lion celebrates his successes and failures and learns from both. Does this sound good or bad to you? I am placing no judgment on either case but stating each so you can make your own decisions.

You may be thinking the life of a house cat sounds pretty good. That might be fine if everything stays status quo, but as we all know life is ever changing and whether we like it or not we have to change with it. Life can change in an instant. So living the complacent life is not always the safe thing, you need to improve your skills consistently through training and expanding your goals. Get yourself ready for the next hunt.

So how do you find your inner lion you ask? The first thing is to find out what makes you roar. Where do you find passion and the drive to succeed in your life? Where does it come from? And more specifically what does it look like? Is your passion found in making money, helping people, solving mysteries, making peoples interiors or exteriors beautiful, art or creating art… the list is endless. Find a way to do something you are passionate about everyday. Okay, okay I hear the excuses from here. I already have a full schedule, I don’t have time to do X,Y and Z, how do you expect me to add anything to my day. I couldn’t possibility.

I expect you to add passion to your day because you are worth it. Close your eyes for a second and think, what would it be like to enjoy starting your day, looking forward to your next day at work instead of only thinking about what you are going to do with your time four days from now. Imaging this can be difficult, especially since for some of us, we have never had a job we enjoyed. To us a job was right up there with death and taxes, just a fact of life. I am asking you to give yourself permission to dream and dream big. Go get a piece of paper and on the top if it, write the thing that makes you roar. Then start brainstorming ideas of things you could do today that would add passion to your life. Keep breaking this down until you have a list that doesn’t make you scream and go running into the jungle but a list that speaks “I can do this”.

What I am asking may seem insurmountable but life is too short for you, to stay sitting around waiting for your next meal to arrive. I have heard the excuse “I am waiting for the right time”, but there is never a right time to have kids, change jobs, move to a different city or county, build your dream home or find the perfect partner. Time does not stand still but keeps moving, why aren’t you, moving with it. Anytime you hear the words “I wish…” come out of your mouth get a piece of paper and write down what you are about to say and then brainstorm ideas of things you can do to get there. Keep breaking these items down into manageable steps. And last but not least put a deadline on each step. Make a commitment to you. Tell yourself you are worth having every dream come true. Make the commitment to yourself to change your house cat habits into the habits of a lion. Open your eyes to your jungle and take your inner lion for a walk on the wild side.