Ever since I’ve had the courage to truly pursue my long dream of becoming a Love Coach, I’ve found myself meeting the most incredible, interesting people who have the potential to be truly great and live a life that is amazing, but who find themselves stuck in one way or another, incapable of truly living or enjoying the life they find themselves in.

I have met men who fear commitment so much that even though they yearn longingly for that incredible love, marriage, and family, when it finally comes along smiling and beckoning towards them, they find every possible excuse not to claim that potential love that is right there in front of them. I have met them years later too, when that love is now someone else’s prize and they are filled with bitterness at that moment when they failed to act and claim that ideal life for themselves.

I have met women who were so hurt by some man who never valued or appreciated them that they wasted precious extra time (sometimes years, occasionally even decades) moping and crying over him rather than stepping out and using the opportunity to meet someone wonderful who could truly be “the one”. Years later, these same women, who wasted their 20s and early 30s in tears and wallowing find their biological clocks ticking against them and their desperation growing and spend that same precious time lamenting how they wasted too much time lamenting!

I know that it’s hard to put the pain away and to stop running after the lost moments. Believe me, I have been there myself. I still occasionally catch myself saying things like, “if I’d only known this when I was younger…”

Time isn’t going to wait for you to find that perfect moment which doesn’t exist and in which everything comes together beautifully.

It isn’t real and there is no point in wasting yet more of this precious time in fear, in hiding, in lamenting, in regretting, in holding back so much that you don’t even allow yourself to feel. You see, life stands still for no one! Time doesn’t have mercy; it doesn’t feel your pain; it doesn’t understand your grievances or your perfect reasons for not being ready just yet. Time is just there ticking away, taking all of your precious excuses and all of your precious hours just the same, whether you live them or not.

I know this now and I know many people who have learned it too late and who still grieve the many moments that they’ve wasted. Most of the people that I know who are filled with regrets live to regret the things that they didn’t do and not the things they did do. The majority of time we suffer for our lack of action; and not for the bold acts that we took bravely. In my own life I’ve come to realise that it is the words that I didn’t say, the emotions I didn’t express, and the things I was too scared to do at the time that still haunt me.

Failures that come from the brave acts I committed I still look upon fondly as one looks upon battle scars that were not too grave and that left only the slight impression of some daring act in the past. But I remember still the waterfall where I was too frightened to jump off the hill that other more courageous (crazy I thought at the time) people jumped off of proudly. I remember the time I didn’t fly in that single engine plane when I had the chance and I missed the opportunity to see the beauty of nature from above; rather choosing to stand watching safely on the ground too afraid to fly while others soared in the clouds and marvelled afterwards about the beauty that I could only imagine for my fear.

And, of course, what I still regret most are the love affairs never attempted because of so many excuses that seemed rational at the time: because I wasn’t ready then, or it was too complicated, or I was too lost in some secret insecurity within myself to even bother saying “hello”.

Whatever excuse I gave myself then, life passed me by as it inevitably does with all of us.

Then there was my lost career path for a while as well; I still regret how many years I’d forgotten who I was and what I was meant for.

I consider myself lucky though. Somehow somewhere before my last birthday, something suddenly woke me up. It was the best wakeup call I’d ever received – one that many people never manage to receive in their lifetime – even if there were the moments of agony when the veil was finally lifted from my eyes and I realised just how much time I’d wasted up to then.

The one regret I still have: that I didn’t see it sooner. I spent so many hours, days, weeks, months, and years in inaction that a small part of my life disappeared with it. Now that I’m awake though I can’t bear to see those who still live in a walking daydream and pass their hours by complaining about the life they’ve never lived, when there is a life just within their reach that they are too scared to take advantage of.

I know many people personally who lamented wasting their youth and not getting married and spend so many waking days speaking of how they’re longing to find that ideal someone to share their life with. But whenever someone who seems like a great catch comes along, they find reasons and excuses of why that person too is not the right person for them. Time goes by and no one is ever right. Before they know it their thirties blend into their forties, and their forties become their fifties, then their fifties become their sixties, and they are still alone and still searching for that elusive match that doesn’t really exist.

The only one responsible for your perpetual unhappiness and lack of fulfilment in life is ultimately – you.

The time to act is now. The time to discover the life you’ve always wanted to live is in this moment. The time to live is now! It’s so important that I will say it again over and over again and it’s what I teach my clients, because it’s this lack of living I almost faded into that still haunts me to this day!

And if you don’t know how to get started on your own, ask someone who knows a bit more for help. For all the women who are reading this and who are ready to live but just don’t know how, and are frustrated with what seems like a constant array of shutting doors, let me be your guide. I have stood where you are standing before and I have known that same frustration and that same feeling of wanting to move but not being sure of how or where. Now that I’ve come out the other side, I know how amazing that light at the end of the tunnel really is, even if there’s another tunnel waiting later on down the road. There is nothing that feels as wonderful as truly feeling alive and truly being in control of your own life and your destiny.

The time to live is now! Why waste another moment in inaction and in a feeling of helplessness. Nothing good ever came out of persistent ruminating without eventual action. Live now! Breathe now! Love now! Feel now!

Now is the moment to take that plunge, to find that love, to breathe in that moment, to take that risk.

Now is the moment to approach that attractive stranger you’ve been eyeing, or to go further with that friend you’ve been fancying for years (just learn to do it in the right way of course). Life isn’t going to wait out your fears. Time won’t stop or go backwards to accommodate you because you’re not ready yet. Giving into a fear of motion, or commitment, or action of any kind will just leave you alone longer. Yes you can always claim later that you’ve learned to depend on yourself better. But, let’s be honest: there’s no happiness in life as great as that amazing happiness that comes from having a truly fulfilling, loving relationship. Just ask any of those rare people who’ve had the courage to reach for what they’ve wanted and the ability to appreciate it. Don’t wait any longer to pursue it. The time to life is now!

Julia

Julia Keller is a Transformational Love Coach for Women and a DrivenWoman member. She empowers women to Find the love they want, Improve the love they have, & Love the life they live. Join her DrivenWoman Workshop – Finding Your Femininity, Become Irresistible on 28. September 2015 6:30 pm in Soho, London. Find out more here.