I found out today friends of mine just bought a yacht! So excited for them! I immediately asked a million questions, barely pausing to hear the answers! [As I said, excited for them].  After the laughter stopped my friend answered as many of my questions as they could remember. As I listened, I realised I was assessing and measuring the yachts current seaworthiness and the cost of this dream buy.

Taking stock of the yacht, reminded me, that to start this blog, I had to take stock of myself. I had to assess the cost in real-time and the future costs too. I have been a blogger before, and I use the term loosely, however the long and short of it was I got busy and failed the cardinal rule of blogging – posting consistently. My excuses reasons were many: being too busy, being uninspired, writers block, ya-da-ya-da-ya-da.  Bottom line I just stopped writing. Looking back at my history, I sat down with my excuses and tried to figure out what & why they were just that – excuses.

Taking inventory, is tedious, not gonna lie, and necessary. Checking every single item, and not only that- is it serviceable, is it in date, is it complete, is it …etc etc. Is also frustrating when you don’t know what you don’t know! Before I completed my Day Skipper certification, I had no idea what a sheave was! Searching for it was pointless because I wouldn’t know it if it jumped out and bit me. And I became aware of the fact that as useful as a checklist of inventory is, there needs to be understanding and assistance (if needed) to successfully take inventory.

One of my trainers highlighted the other benefits of taking inventory; all onboard become familiar with the items, their stowage, it provides a growth opportunity, deficiencies are identified, and confidence growth occurs too. All of these things are useful and helpful. When I started my personal growth journey I took inventory by scoring key areas of my life on a scale of zero to ten.  

The categories were:

• Career;
• Finances;
• Spirituality;
• Love; and
• Wellbeing.

At least 1 was a solid 9 and another a big fat zero. I think you are intuitive enough to know without me telling you, which was which, however I set a new waypoint to Love. For a long time, I decided that I was ok with a zero, zero was exactly where I wanted to be, and I had a great career to prove it. This simple exercise when plotted on a circle, showed me where my focus was and was not, it helped me identify where I wanted to be in each category, and it helped me understand the cost of adding and/or detracting from each are of my life, be it in a time, fiscal or emotional capacity, to get where I wanted to be as I set a course for my desired destination in each area.

I encourage you to take inventory of your life in the same categories, however, here is some key advice: score each one with you initial instinctive, gut, reaction. Write a couple of sentences relating to why this is the score you decided on. Then pat yourself on the back, seriously do it! It is a huge achievement to recognise where you are, and trust me, one day you will be thankful you took action and checked your inventory. it will take less than 10 minutes. Spoiler alert: my love waypoint took me thousands of miles to a far and distant land, rich in colour, culture, and cuisine. I am excited to share that with you soon, so stay tuned.

I sincerely hope you will join me later this week for your ‘3 Point Fix‘, to take this forward. For now, fair winds.

KAxx