Aliveness Pays Off Now, Not Eventually
4-Minute Read
Waiting on aliveness is the most expensive line item you never put in the budget.
You know the script. When the revenue gets there, then you'll slow down. When the team is built, then you'll invest. When the funding lands, then you'll start living the way you've been envisioning.
It sounds like discipline. It works like a postponement. When you carry a mission, it can even pass for devotion. The life you desire stays one milestone ahead of you, perpetually in the future.
Meanwhile, today is a grind to get through, and the morning you wake up with passion and joy never arrives.
This week in The Grip, we take apart the when/then trap of deferring aliveness to a future that keeps moving, and show you what’s actually stopping you from living in full aliveness now.
aliveness discipline for founders: why full aliveness now beats waiting for for success
When/Then Fallacy: How Postponing Aliveness Until Success Keeps the Life You Want Out of Reach
When/then thinking assumes the resources come first and the life follows. When I have the money, then I’ll invest in myself. When I have the time, then I’ll start. When the business is further along, then I’ll live like it.
Full aliveness happens up front. It is presence with what you’re building, connection with the people you’re leading, and vigor for what matters most to you. It generates its own momentum. When/then thinking turns it into a reward for hitting a number. If aliveness is a reward, you don’t have access to it as a resource. That leaves you trapped: the very thing you need to get moving is reserved for after you are moving.
I’ve coached many founders who grind through each day, convinced they’ll reach a destination where they can finally start living. But the thoughts and actions that produce a life you have to “just get through” have no power to produce the life you want.
What works for producing the life you want runs against conventional thinking. It’s not more resources that produce aliveness; it’s aliveness that produces more resources. That means thinking and choosing the way you would if you already had what you want.
Full aliveness is not a place to get to; it’s a place to come from. Come from it now, and the future you want becomes your action today.
Not yet part of The Plenteous Life community? Subscribe to The Grip! Every week you’ll receive additional video, audio, and pdf tools directly in your email inbox to help you create like never before.
Holding Back Meaning: Why Playing It Safe Signals You Don't See Yourself as Capable of Creating More
When/then thinking has a behavior attached: holding back until the milestone is reached.
In farming, seed has to be planted to produce a harvest. No farmer waits for the harvest before planting the seed. The farmer plants it up front, trusting more will return than went in.
But founders hold back their own seed all the time: their time, their money, their boldest moves. Notice the story underneath holding back: you doubt your capacity to create what you’ll need later. So you cling to what you have rather than multiply it through investment. If you trusted your capacity to generate more, guarding what you have would stop making sense.
When your commitment is to generate more, making a material investment now is the way forward. That investment can be a hire, a new service provider, team training, a health upgrade, time with the people you’re building this for. Get clear on what full aliveness looks like for you and invest what you have right now into it.
Playing it safe by holding back isn’t safe, because only what gets invested multiplies. The full aliveness you desire is on the other side of the investment you’re delaying.
Four-Day Work Week for Founders: What Choosing My Ideal Work Pace Produced
Several weeks ago, I asked myself: “If I had all the time, money, and support I could ever want, what do I want my work pace to look like?” In Becky’s perfect world, I work four focused days a week, with a fifth day left completely unstructured. Day five stays open to pursue creative threads; nothing from the other four days spills into it.
What I've noticed since choosing to act on this:
Ideas flow.
I'm energized.
I sleep soundly.
I'm clear and decisive.
I get more done in less time.
I have room to fuel my curiosities and interests.
I show up fully for clients, my team, friends, and family.
My schedule didn’t magically slow down for me to scale back a day of work. In fact, The Plenteous Life just began its most ambitious production schedule yet. I’m committed to producing more with less time. That’s what architecting your life for aliveness looks like: your choices are driven by commitment, not circumstance.
And you don't need the how sorted to commit. It's by committing that the how gets sorted.
“The full aliveness you desire is on the other side of the investment you’re delaying.”
If You Already Had What You Want: Seven Questions Founders Can Use to Start Full Aliveness Now
Getting ready to live “one day” or “someday” isn’t really living. As long as you are getting ready to live one day, you are not living right now.
Pick one area at work or home where your aliveness has flatlined. Where are you grinding just to make it through?
Identify how you want it to be instead. Then answer these as the person who already has what you want:
Who would you be?
What would you think and talk about?
What would you not worry about?
How would you invest your money?
How would you structure your day?
Who would you spend your time with?
What would you start and what would you stop?
Generate the same thoughts and actions now that you would if you already had what you want. That is how what you want gets created.
You’ve never done anything tomorrow. You’ve only ever done anything right now.
Take one action from your answers and put your time, money, or attention behind it today.
Keep creating.
key takeaways
Waiting is a trap. When aliveness is saved for after the milestone, the milestone keeps moving and today stays a grind.
Aliveness comes first. It produces more resources, and holding back what you have signals doubt in your capacity to create more.
Start with one move. Answer seven questions as the person who already has what you want, then put time, money, or attention behind one answer today.
WORK 1:1 WITH BECKY
As a self-mastery coach, I help mission-driven founders accelerate desired results without sacrificing what matters. If that sounds like good news, REACH OUT to experience how 1:1 coaching can empower you to be the masterful leader your mission requires.
May you prosper in every way!
Becky & TPL Team
52 Maxims of Conscious Choosing To Create the Deeply Satisfying Life You Desire.