I recently had a client ask me, "Do you have anything for when I get so busy that I don’t really have time to do my morning Purpose Practice? Is there anything I can quickly listen to that will keep me on purpose?"

Wow, what a great question, I thought, as immediately two different approaches came to mind as to how to answer it. On the one hand, I heard one of my satisfied clients asking for a new product. Some tape or CD that could help her stay the course when her life starts to spin out of control.

On the other hand, I heard the refrain of the old song, "Slow Down, You Move Too Fast," by one of my favorite singing duos of the 60’s, Simon and Garfunkel. It reminds me of an interview I had a few years ago with the founder of The Human Kindness Foundation, Bo Lozoff. He related the story that someone in one of his meditation classes once commented:

"I really want to start meditating an hour each day, but I can never find the time. What do you suggest I do?" To which Bo replied, "Meditate two hours each day." Here’s the main point to all this. If you want to know two of the key steps most people in our Western culture need to take to begin to live their life on purpose, they are these:

1) Slow Down, and 2) Simplify Your Life and Lifestyle

Now, some of you probably just quit reading this article. We often just don’t want to hear the truth in such plain English. Of course, a lot of Purposeful Pondering Ezine subscribers are so caught up in their overwhelming lifestyles that even though they’ve taken the time to subscribe (after all, it only takes a few seconds to do that), many of them are still too caught up to find the time to read any of the issues. What a dilemma, right? But for those of you who are still reading, please consider what I’m saying. Slow Down and Simplify Your Life.

Right Now.

For just 30 seconds, stop reading these wonderful words of prose and look around. Take a couple of deep breaths, feel your body, enjoy your surroundings, relax your shoulders.

Do it now. Indulge yourself for just half a minute and allow yourself to BE without doing anything other than being present.

Did you do it? Or perhaps I should say, did you BE it? How was it? Was it as good for you as it was for…? Well, never mind.

The point is many people in our Western culture are running on hyper drive, doing, doing, doing so much and so fast that we’ve lost the point to life. Is it time for you to slow down and simplify your life? It could be the first and most vitally important steps you could take towards living a life on purpose. So, like the Nike commercials used to say, "Just Do It." Except in this case, it’s "Just Don’t Do It," least not so much and so fast.

Ok, care to take some of these ideas and put them into action?

Ponder upon these questions?

Where in your life are you operating in hyper drive? Don’t say everywhere. That’s too easy and too vague an action. List the areas as specifically as possible, then take 1, 2, or 3 of them and answer this question.

What could you do in that area this next week to slow down and simplify that area of your life?

As you take the ‘actions’ from above, which will probably be more ‘inaction’, see if you can get a sense of what’s been driving you in these areas to such a frenetic pace. Getting to the source of what’s driving you can go along way in creating a long-term solution.