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In this episode, Joel and Antonia talk about “the deferred life program” that people often find themselves living.
In this podcast you’ll find:
- Amazing things are happening around us every day, but all we can think of is the thing we need to be doing instead of being present.
- Are you deferring the moments in your child’s life assuming you will have another chance in the future?
- Everything is temporary. If you spend your life deferring everything, what will you regret when your life is ending?
- Some of us have deeply embedded programming that encourages us to defer life
- Society sees nobility in the deferred life program. There’s nothing noble about designing life the way you want it.
- People who create the lives they want are seen as lucky or selfish.
- We have more control over our day to day lives than we think.
- “Real life will begin sometime in the future. I need to suck it up now, but things will be much better in the future.”
- People will tell you to stay present with your children because they grow up so fast. That is considered a noble occupation.
- There is less messaging in society that you should quit a job that makes you feel miserable.
- People see nobility in the struggle of working a job that supports the family even if you are miserable.
- “Life begins at retirement.”
- Deferred life propaganda can rob you of your life and add needless stress
- It’s not whether you are allowing indulgences in your life, it is whether you are in your life right now.
- Are you living the life you want to be living?
- “Life is not a dress rehearsal.”
- This life is real. Stay present instead of waiting for life to begin.
- Some paradigms teach that this life isn’t the real life. That believers need to spend their time today preparing for a future paradise.
- It is a skill to take your circumstances and make the best of them, which is something we can learn from these paradigms.
- But some paradigms teach that nothing is good, so there’s no point in changing things for the better.
- We settle into unhappy situations because we don’t think we have the permission to change.
- We believe that making meaningful choices to suit ourselves is somehow bad, so we become more and more under-resourced until we can’t function.
- “I’m supposed to be living this.”
- “If I’m going to be a good person, this is what people do.”
- We can architect our life, but changing direction and architecting something different is difficult and time-consuming.
- “I don’t like my life! Who is responsible for me not liking my life today?” You are responsible
- Wanting something different means architecting something different which requires permitting yourself to want something different
- Stop kicking the can down the road
- The deferred life program involves a lot of waiting. Waiting for someone or something to come along and rescue you.
- We are actually waiting on ourselves.
- There’s no board of directors for our life that is planning the next phase for us.
- Maybe it is selfish to allow yourself to become so unhappy that you can’t be present with your children
- Suck the marrow out of life!
- We aren’t talking about delayed gratification: work hard now and get a better return in the future
- Deferred life is a different mentality: it is a lack of permission to live the life you want
- The first step is the awareness that you tend to think this way
- We wait for the movie moment that kicks off the life we want: wedding day, 21st birthday, the birth of our first child, etc.
- We keep waiting for the epic scene where we are the hero of our own story.
- “If it is to be it is up to me.”
- It is hard to design the lifestyle you want.
- Sometimes when we honestly look at our lives, we see that we live an enviable life, but we are still kicking the can down the road
- We get addicted to the future paced viewpoint
- Some types may struggle with the tendency to defer to the future more than others.
- What are the things you are deferring in your life?
- Slow everything down and take the time to get present in your life
- What would happen if you didn’t fulfill your promises? What is it you want to do? What is the ROI?
- There is a lot of work to make sure you are truly in your life.
- If you don’t want to live a deferred life you are going to have to go down to the wiring of your life and ask yourself the questions you don’t want to ask
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35 comments
What a brilliant podcast. It really got me thinking. I guess this is why the Buddhists meditate on death regularly to help address can-kicking.
Your comment, Antonia, about your 15-year old self loving this life and envying it. Oh my gosh, yes. I so agree. Time to start relishing it. My 15-year old self so would.
I’ve been contemplating my career and relationship but this made me realise the aspects I was missing. I so appreciated your vulnerability Antonia (and great clarifying question to get there Joel). When you started talking about family, I realised ‘Ohhhhh. THOSE kind of questions. THAT kind of level. I got you’. Thanks so much for that.
Hello – 40 y.o.INTJ here. I really enjoyed this podcast episode- it resonated with me! I was living a deferred life until a divorce at the age of 33 forced me into the present. I spent a year grieving my deferred life. I had created such a strong deferred life and gave up significant things for “the future” that it felt like an incredible loss. Now, I am so thankful for that divorce.
Thank you for your vulnerability. Your discussion around the deposits made by your parents earlier was a powerful framing for me. When I prune toxic people from my life, people around me have questions. My response previously was they were toxic. You have helped me process one level deeper. The toxic people are withdrawing more than is available.
Thanks for this powerful episode!
I resonated with this episode very strongly! For the past couple of years I’ve been wrestling with the same idea of life deferred, and interestingly, it started for me when I hit 40 also. I’ve hypothesized the trigger of this, and it’s the realization that time is not an endless resource (seeing that half my life is now past!), or perhaps it’s facing a new season in life with my kids now embarking their own independence. You articulated that perhaps it is easier not to think about it rather than to change course. For myself, I would tweak this to say that it’s easier not to think about it than it is to make decisions. The rub with my INTJ desire to have decisions in place is gaining friction monthly, and finally my greatest desire has shifted from deferring decisions to discovering a new trajectory.
Great point, Joel, in mentioning that often times we think “life will start” with each next milestone. I think that drove the first half of my life. I didn’t consciously think that life would really start after xxx, but the stereotypical order of events did dictate the decisions in my first half of life: do the education thing, the marriage thing, the bearing and raising of children thing….and now that the checklist is complete I’m left evaluating why I still have the notion that one day I will actually have a handle on life and be settled down into my “real life”.
Antonia, hearing your strategy in putting everything on the table is similar to what I’ve been working towards myself. I’ve been trying to revisit my life mission and all the various hats I find myself wearing, all my time pursuits in light of how/if they support this mission, and if all the drain holes in my time and energy are efficient in serving my mission. It’s hard work! My mental focus works against me. I would love to hear of any systems you have been utilizing to get a comprehensive picture of all the facets that deserve evaluation.
Great job, guys. I love what you do. I’ve had a long-time interest in personality evaluation and how it serves to help us live life better. You’ve helped me take this to a new level.
Hey, enfp here <:
Listening to this one I really think you guys should look into 'lifebook' aka life in 12 categories into self reflection to define and design your life. I initially was introduced to it in mindvalley podcast.
Tbh I also think some of your questions are useful to ask and answer for the lifebook itself.
Categories being: Your Health and Fitness, Intellectual Life, Emotional, Character, Spiritual, Love Relationship, Parenting, Social Life Financial Life, Career, Quality of Life.. Which all should combine into your Life Vision through evaluation.
Some foundational questions include :
What do I believe about category? – Vision
What do I want in this "category"? – Purpose
Why do I want that in this "category"? (keep asking why until you get to bottom reason) – reason, driving force
What do I need to do to get what I want in this "category”? – strategy
The course itself is a bit costly imo. But I believe the principles is self exploratory. (#enfp)
My story will be for another time.
Keep up the good work!
Great topic! One I’ve (INFJ) struggled with for a long time… I think I’m a little closer to on track for making MY life happen… in part from the thought exercises in this book:
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Two Stanford professors who apply practices and techniques typically taught for product design to your life.