Life is a Game

“Life’s a Game; all you have to do is know how to play it.”

I am sure you have heard this old adage, or something like it before. But any game I have ever played has come with instructions. Let’s consider the actual board game “LIFE.” It clearly states the object: “Collect money and life tiles, and have the highest dollar amount at the end of the game.” It also comes with setup instructions and tips about how to play and even how to win.

So, where are our instructions for winning at our own game of real Life? Some find it in religious practices and beliefs, some find it in achieving economic goals, and many others are still trying to figure out the meaning of the game.

My whole life up until the age of 48 was spent trying to play the game right. I was a good kid who got good grades. I was athletic and talented. I graduated from high school and college, and even went on to earn a Master’s degree. I got married, had 3 children and got a good job.

I was following the rules of the game of Life as they were taught to me. You work hard, get a job, have a family, raise your kids, hope to retire, and then you die.

I was a rule follower, and, from the outside at least, I looked like I was winning at the game of Life.
But inside, I didn’t feel like I was winning. Inside, I knew I was meant for more. Inside, there was a yearning for the Life I had dreamed of as a child…the one that I still visited when I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to imagine.

In this dream life, I was the heroine of my story. In this ideal world, I teamed with my best friend to fight the evil in the world.

When I closed my eyes, I would go back to that time when my best friend and I would pretend all day long. Our imaginations were very vibrant and strong, like most children’s at that age. We had not yet subscribed to the belief that there was anything we COULD NOT do. So, we felt we ruled the world.
And we did rule our own little world for sure.

Our favorite game was Witches Trail. In this game, we set out on our adventure on Witches Trail!
The Trail was in our backyard, in the beautifully landscaped garden amongst the bold Carolina azaleas. The object of the game was to make it to the end of the trail without being captured by the witches. Not only did we have to avoid the witches, but we also had to recognize them and lock them up so they couldn’t hurt anyone else.

We were the adventurers, the good guys, and the heroines of this game. We relied on our instincts to lead us in the right direction and to sniff out where the evil witches were hiding. And we always won! The witches were conquered, and the struggle was completely worth every minute of the fight.
In this childhood game, we saved ourselves and the rest of the world from the witches.  But somewhere along the way, I lost this dream. I lost the vibrancy of my youthful creative power. I lost the wonder of that empowered girl.

After a job loss and a painful divorce, I felt I must have the rules of the Game of Life all wrong. I began to wonder what it would take for me to win. The more curious I became and the more I searched, the more confused I became.

During my formative years, I read every book, followed several 12 step programs, committed and recommitted myself to my husband and my children, and tried throwing myself into my work. I prayed, I hired counselors, fired counselors, and then hired new ones. I followed every lead that I thought would guide me to a fulfilled life, only to end up exhausted and overwhelmed.

The divorce turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it reignited in me the determination to find what really worked!  Determined not to fail again, I went in search of the perfect mate! If I could just find the “right man,” I would certainly win!

But I failed to see the obvious right before my eyes.

I failed to see it was in fact the fanciful made up children’s Witch’s Trail game that actually held the secret to my life. I failed to see that playing by society’s rules was NOT the manual for a winning streak.

I failed to see the truth!

You see the truth is that we are all born perfect.

Then, as women, we are told by society that we need to get married and have children, in order to live happily ever after. We are taught to mind our manners, sit up straight, to look pretty, and to be kind. We are taught that kind is accommodating others even if it goes against our values.

We are taught that we are not capable in our own right. We are taught that in order to be whole, we need a man. By the end of our teenage years, we are looking for a man. And by the end of our
college years, we are sure the men in our lives know more than the women – that our man knows more about life than even we do.

We deny our magic…we forget our power. And we lose touch with who we really are.
We deny our right to win ON OUR OWN terms, and instead seek a man to provide for us what we believe we cannot provide for ourselves.We look to rich men, poor men, skinny and fat men. We look to them for financial security, emotional security, and sometimes even for our spiritual security.

It took me going all the way down this rabbit hole of “looking for love in all the wrong places” to find that to look for someone else to make you feel whole is not a winning game plan at all.
If this is you and, like me, you know that you have a role in this world, but don’t know how or where to find it-you need to do what I FINALLY did. You need to ditch the boyfriend and get a Life Coach.

Why?

Let’s take this Life is a game analogy to a whole new level. Let’s suppose for a minute that Life truly is just a game. You may have had some wins and losses throughout the years. Right now, however, you are not experiencing a winning streak, despite wanting to win really badly.  If you are determined to win…and that is not your current reality…do you fire the players or the coach?

What they do in professional teams is a combination of the two. They fire some of the athletes, and, often, they fire the coach too.  But with professional athletes of an individual sport, you can’t fire the athlete. The athlete IS the team and he or she is the key ingredient. What these individual athletes do when they are not winning is hire a new coach! They do not keep putting their faith into the coach that isn’t working for them.

In your game of life, you are the individual athlete in this sport. So, naturally, what you need is a new coach! It’s that simple.

What I see all too often is that we fire ourselves. In doing that, we give up our dreams. We accept where we are, find as much happiness as we can muster in that perceived inevitable situation, and we push through claiming unhappiness and complacency as our destiny. We resign ourselves to the idea that those big dreams are for other people.

I want you to really understand how ridiculous this is. It would be akin to Serena Williams having walked off the court after losing the first set in the 2009 Wimbledon semi-finals, saying to herself “I lost one set, it’s too hard and will take too long to win two now, so why bother?” Serena, with her indomitable fighting spirit, would never have done that.

We need to toughen up on ourselves, as well. We need to stop beating ourselves up for past errors and press on in the face of adversity.  But we don’t. We accept less from ourselves and, eventually, we quit dreaming altogether.  It’s a sad case indeed when this happens. I know because it happened to me. I had accepted my failing marriage as the best option for myself, lived my life for my kids, and went to a job every day feeling unfulfilled, just to make ends meet.

I did finally wake up but not the easy way. I finally figured out that the predominant player in my life was ME. And, I finally did what I needed to do to start winning.

How?

You guessed it…I GOT A NEW COACH!

So, ask yourself these questions: Have you fired yourself? Have you accepted less from yourself in your daily life? Are you living and working for others, but are ultimately forgetting yourself? Have you given up on your dreams? Or have you quit dreaming altogether?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it is time to re-evaluate your life! It is time to wake up and find the Power to Win!

Maybe you don’t think you are meant to win at this game of life. Maybe your belief is that you are just supposed to be reasonably happy and content. Whatever you believe is true for you today.
But if you are like me, then you really wonder if those dreams were given to you for a reason. And you have a feeling somewhere inside that you DO have a purpose in this world. And if you keep hearing this tiny voice telling you there is more to life, then I would say it is about time you found out!

You are not going to find out the IFs …if you don’t do something differently.

Your ‘coach’ up until this point may have been unconscious habits, or behaviors that limit your potential. Your coach may be your family which dictates what you should or should not do. Your coach may be your doctor who tells you to take this pill or that drug, your therapist who tries to help you by rehashing your past or present situations, or your friend who listens to you complain but never expects more of you. Whatever or whoever your coach is right now, I have a secret for you…it’s the WRONG coach. If you had the right coach, you most definitely would be winning! Or, you would at least feel like you are winning.

So ask yourself these questions right now. What if you found a different approach to life that allowed you to Win? What if you found an approach to life that permitted your dreams to become reality? What if you found something that not only enabled you find your true purpose, but also entitled you to get more out of life? What if it authorized you to reach your true potential and live a life better than you ever imagined?

What if you were MEANT to win at this game? If you really believed your destiny was to win at the game of life, then you would NOT fire yourself.

You would fire your coach and replace him or her with the right coach.

Claiming your destiny, you would search for this coach until you found the right fit. And when you found this coach, you would know. Then you would begin to build the life you knew you were always meant to have.

You know I’m right!

Finding the right COACH to lead you in the direction of your dreams is really a key to living a fulfilled life. Ultimately, the right coach will show you the practical steps to take to realize the power that already exists within yourself and give license and consent to its tangible emergence.

Here are some questions to ask yourself if you are considering hiring a coach.

1. Do I believe I have a Destiny in life?
2. Do I have a feeling that I was meant to do something different in my career than I am currently doing?
3. Do I have a vision or a dream that has come to me from time to time…but that I have brushed aside because I don’t think I could do it?
4. Am I just living going through the motions, but really want to do something that will fuel me with passion and purpose?

If you answer YES to any of these questions, stay tuned for more information on finding what a coach can do for you and how to hire the right coach.