Are you living your best life right now? If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s to make the most of every day. Camille Plews is a Business Mentor who specialises in helping female coaches and consultants to have leads come in on autopilot so they can have more free time to spend with their families and make the most of their lives (www. camilleplews.com). She has successfully grown a six-figure business during lockdown while homeschooling two young children. Here are her thoughts about why you should live your best life and seven top tips on how you can begin to live your best life too:
Camille Plews
“It’s not the end of the world, no-one died”; a phrase I commonly use when talking with clients about some of the challenges they face in the day to day running of their business.
Tech issues or a power outage during a livestream may feel like a big deal to those affected but are tiny when put into perspective.
I grew up in a small village in the Northeast of England. I am the youngest child of 4 (2 brothers and 1 sister). My parents (now retired) worked hard to provide us with a happy home life. My Dad worked his entire career as a shift worker in Teesside’s chemical industry, and my Mum was a dinner lady at our primary school. She wanted to be with us as much as possible, to have us close by, and with good reason; three years before I was born, my brother Daniel died at 15 weeks old of sudden infant death syndrome.
I never knew Daniel, he passed away before I was born, but I know his little face from photos dotted around the house.
In my younger years growing up, I remember my warm, sunny, June birthday parties in our back garden with a few kids off the estate; triangle sandwiches, sausage rolls and jelly & ice-cream. The kids would play, while the Mums chatted. We were happy, incredibly happy.
Then my brother Carl became extremely ill. Over the space of a few months, my sister and I regularly stayed with friends, aunties, uncles, grandparents. They also stayed at ours too while my parents stayed at the hospital with my brother. Carl, who was almost 9 years old, had a brain tumor and we were told after multiple operations and chemo that it was incurable, and he wouldn’t make it.
He passed away a lot sooner than the doctors expected. Just 5 weeks before what would have been his last Christmas. My parents went “all out” with presents that year with it being the last Christmas we would all have together, but he didn’t survive long enough to open them.
The presents remained in the loft for over a year until eventually, the 4 of us (my parents, my sister and I) went up there, opened them and played with them in Carl’s memory. I remember the huge Scalextric car set and spending hours racing cars and playing with spaceships and lots of other toys.
I had nightmares a lot as a child. I always thought “who’s next? Is it me or my sister?” I had a recurring dream of our house burning down and us being trapped with no way out. I would wake up and instantly run into Carl’s room to play, but then I’d remember he was no longer here, and then it would hit me. It took a few months to fully sink in, and life would never be the same again.
The pain hits hard for me as a sibling, I can’t imagine the pain my parents went through losing not one, but two sons.
Then I became ill a few weeks before my 9th birthday. I’d contracted whooping cough. My lungs and airways were full of mucus. I clearly remember frequent coughing seizures throughout the day, choking on thick mucus, not being able to breathe and the sheer panic in my Mum's face, hitting my back, begging me to breathe. The whooping cough went on for what seemed like an eternity. I was absent from school and was on antibiotics for over four months.
When I started to get better, I remember my parents booking us a last-minute all-inclusive holiday to Majorca. In the years previous, we’d been on lots of UK holidays to places like Butlins and Pontins, but they’d wanted to take us abroad for years, so they made it happen. Time is too precious to not live life to the fullest. This is their motto and lives through me too.
Life is far too short to waste being unhappy, living an unfulfilled life. We don’t know what’s around the corner. We need to live every year like it’s our last; to spend as much time as we can, having fun, making memories with loved ones.
Stop worrying about the little things; don’t stress about things today that won’t matter next week.
Don’t settle for second best. Your happiness is a decision. Our family could have “chosen” to live a life of sadness in mourning. But instead, we choose to live life to its fullest and be happy every day, so can you!
Here are my seven top tips for living your best life wholeheartedly:
1) Appreciate what you have around you. Nature is a great grounding for everything. Make sure you see the world with fresh eyes on a walk (daily if you can).
2) Be grateful for what you do have instead of focusing on what you don't. It's amazing how this small shift can help bring more opportunities your way
3) Tell someone close to you that you love them and often. It's important to tell those who matter to us, what they really mean to us
4) Plan fun activities and adventures. We're still in lockdown, but as things open, make sure you have something fun planned such as dinner parties in a garden dome
5) Take care of yourself and make yourself a priority. Often, we think about ourselves after everyone else, but if you're not happy then how is everyone else going to be?
6) Take time in every day to just be. Breathe deeply and allow your mind to empty from the never-ending to do list or demands on your time
7) Surround yourself with people who truly only want the best for you and will support and build you up with no hidden agenda. Your successes should be celebrated and often.