3 Principles For Living A Life Less Ordinary—Starting Now!

Forbes

5 hours ago

Award-winning Master Certified Coach, IOTPA. Author of Discover The Matrix, Integrity: The True Mark of Leadership. CEO at Igniting Success.
We're often taught to wait—to hold off until the timing feels perfect, until we're ready, until the path is clear. But clarity rarely comes in advance. "Clarity comes from engagement [action], not thought," a phrase often attributed to Marie Forleo. Most of the time, what we're longing for isn't reinvention but reunion. A return to our own agency, our imagination and the inner integrity that quietly guides our most meaningful choices.
The ideas that follow aren't theoretical. They emerged from my lived experience, shaped in the space between outer achievement and inner depletion. For anyone standing at the edge of change, wondering if it's time to live differently, these three principles offer both a compass and a spark.
For years, I lived by a productivity playbook. As a successful executive, community leader, mother, daughter and sister, I had a packed calendar and the praise to prove it. But behind closed doors—literally in the dark of my closet—I was unraveling. Despite appearances, I was burned out, emotionally flat and disconnected from myself.
I had become addicted to 'zooming in'—hyper-focused on what needed doing, driven by the false sense that busyness equaled worth. Only when I began to 'zoom out,' to see my life from a broader, more human perspective, did I reconnect with the part of me that dreams, creates and feels deeply.
This kind of perceptual shift lies at the heart of Otto Scharmer's Theory U, which highlights the power of 'presencing'—the practice of stepping back, tuning in and sensing what is emerging. As Otto describes it, descending the left side of the U invites us to let go of habitual thinking and reconnect with the world beyond our organizational walls. At the bottom of the U, we suspend judgment and access deeper knowing—our highest future possibility. As we ascend the right side, we begin to embody and enact this new reality. By zooming out, we reconnect with meaning. By zooming in, we move with clarity and purpose.
Leadership expert Herminia Ibarra reminds us that identity play evolves through experimentation, not merely reflection. When we zoom out, we access possibilities; when we zoom in, we bring them to life.
Ask yourself:
• What dreams have I put on hold?
• What kind of life do I want at 40, 60 or 80?
• What's calling for my attention now?
• What intentions must I act on?
Then zoom in and make it real. Write the vision. Share it. Let others reflect it to you when your confidence wavers.
We often hear, 'Manage your expectations.' I believed I was doing just that until I realized I wasn't managing them at all; rather, they were working me. They had me like a 'tiger by the tail.'
Abruptly, I fell ill due to a long, stressful period of burnout. It was during moments of extreme fatigue that I came to terms with the fact that I couldn't meet all the expectations—those I had chosen and those that had been imposed upon me. Desiring control over my life, I decided to eliminate expectations entirely. 'No expectations, no disappointment,' I reasoned. But life doesn't work that way. Expectations are sneaky. They form from patterns and assumptions we don't even realize we're making.
Chris Argyris' ladder of inference offers a compelling explanation. We absorb data, jump to conclusions and act, often without testing our assumptions. In one moment, I was confident in a new relationship; in the next, I was spiraling into distrust, all because a familiar pattern had created a false expectation.
To transform your relationships and your leadership, you must see your expectations for what they are and question their origins. Brené Brown wisely notes, 'Clear is kind.' Unspoken expectations are the root of resentment.
Before reacting, ask:
• Did I create this expectation based on a hidden pattern or a spoken promise?
• Was I explicit in what I needed?
• Am I projecting my own disappointment onto others without understanding their true intentions?
Self-awareness disarms assumptions. When you make the invisible visible, you gain power over your emotional patterns and avoid sabotaging trust.
My grandmother used to place me in time-out with calm firmness: 'Sit here. Think about what you did.' As a child, I hated it. As an adult, I craved it without realizing it.
I lost the practice of pausing during my years in corporate life. But after hitting a wall, I rediscovered the necessity of stillness not as punishment, but as presence.
Now, I build time-outs into my day. Between meetings, I reflect on what just happened—what I heard, what I said and how I showed up. In the mornings, I journal, run and connect to my breath. These small pauses recalibrate my inner compass.
Nancy Kline, in her work Time to Think, emphasizes that the quality of our thinking depends on the quality of attention we give ourselves and others. Spaciousness fuels clarity. Similarly, Parker Palmer teaches that true leadership is rooted in the inner life. When we lose connection to our inner teacher, we lose access to our deepest wisdom, as he discusses in chapter 5 of his book Let Your Life Speak.
Time-outs foster patience, imagination and, most importantly, self-compassion. They open space for new ideas to emerge and for your true self to return.
You don't need a retreat or a sabbatical. You need five minutes. A walk. A deep breath. A return to yourself.
These three principles: ZO-ZI and Repeat, Question Expectations and Take Time-Outs—are deceptively simple. But practiced consistently, they become transformative.
Living a life less ordinary isn't about escaping the life you have. It's about inhabiting it more fully. It's about choosing presence over performance, clarity over assumption and stillness over spinning.
When you do this, you not only change your own life; you become the magician of your own transformation. That's where high-integrity leadership begins.
Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?