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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

 In this episode Joel and Antonia talk about "the deferred life program" that people often find themselves living. #podcast

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35 comments

  • T
    • T
    • August 28, 2018 at 6:19 pm

    Ahead By A Century – The Tragically Hip
    No dress rehearsal reference in the lyrics
    Influenced Canada’s Gen X :)

  • Michael J.
    • Michael J.
    • August 28, 2018 at 1:39 pm

    Three cheers for Slowing Everything Down!

    Also, keep in mind: “What is most personal is most universal.” ― Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy

  • Karen
    • Karen
    • August 28, 2018 at 1:20 pm

    Amen.

    Thanks for saying how it is not considered noble to do what one needs to do in order to fully live. And maybe “noble” isn’t the right word, but perhaps that is because we tend to equate noble with sacrifice, even when that sacrifice is unhealthy.

    Congratulations for figuring this out at 40. I didn’t start understanding what was happening until I was 48, and then it manifested sort of like an explosion and resulted in hurting someone I really didn’t want to hurt. But the alternative was slow lingering death (metaphoric), and I couldn’t bear that.

    I found PH when I was on my upswing (this whole process took nearly 5 years, I would say) and you have helped me understand why things happened the way they did. MBTI is a great frame for explaining things. Thanks for sharing yourselves with us. I am a huge fan of your podcast, and was so sad when I had to be out of town the weekend you were in Chicago.

  • Dina
    • Dina
    • August 28, 2018 at 12:33 am

    I wanted to say thank you to Antonia for sharing so openly about the things that you are struggling with right now. When you mentioned something along the lines of you don’t usually share personal details because you aren’t sure who is interested, I immediately thought to myself “I am!!” It is so helpful to hear real life examples of the things you guys discuss on a theoretical level. I really appreciate the openness and honesty you brought to the discussion today. Best of luck reconciling your family struggles.

  • Lauren
    • Lauren
    • August 27, 2018 at 5:23 pm

    Great podcast as usual!

    (I’m an ENTJ). Often, I think I end up with mixed messaging on this subject, as you guys mentioned. As an Effectiveness driver, I’m a total control freak when it comes to wanting to curate my life. On the other hand, there is so much of life that that is not within our control (others people’s choices for example) that we’re also given this messaging that happiness/peace is found in accepting life as it is (after all, that’s the main crux of so much messaging from present work).

    So at the extreme, I find myself caught between either trying to force things at the expense of others, or feeling as if I should just accept circumstances as they are, even if I’m not ‘happy.’

    Also, thank you so much for your willingness to be vulnerable and authentic on these podcasts! It takes a lot of courage to be open and honest about your experiences, and as a listener it helps to know you guys are humans dealing with your own struggles. <3

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