5 Important Wake-up Calls That Will Change Your Life

What to Pay Attention to if You Want to Avoid Painful Consequences

5 min readOct 7, 2019

Receiving important wake-up calls often can impact and change our lives dramatically. The key is recognise them.

If we know what to pay attention to, we can use our wake-up calls as catalysts for new decisions.

What are Wake-up Calls?

Wake-up calls are often triggered by events or experiences. They cause us to pause and reflect on where we are, what we’re doing and whether we need to change something.

A wake-up call makes us use our perspective to see things from different points of view. It can be a realisation we’re not on the right track and ignite a desire to do something new.

Examples of Wake-up Calls

Common examples of wake-up calls include:

An unexpected health issue.
Losing a loved one.
Breakdown of a relationship.
Losing a job.
Experiencing financial loss.
Not achieving a goal.
Not feeling energised or excited about life.

We don’t have to experience something painful to get a wake-up call. There are other signs to pay attention to that can trigger us to change our lives.

My Biggest Wake-Up Call to Date

The biggest wake-up I’ve had to date has been changing careers. I invested over five years to attain a university degree and almost a decade doing work I didn’t enjoy. Throughout that period, I knew what I was doing wasn’t right, but I continued on because I didn’t know any better.

It took a serious health issue to cause me to stop and explore new options. That led me to reconnect to my true life’s work and guide others to find their life’s work.

I consider myself fortunate I didn’t spend more time doing work I was not passionate about or had any interest in. As we get one life, I’m on a mission to help people wake-up and discover their true calling.

5 Important Wake-Up Calls That Will Change Your Life

We’re always receiving insights and guidance to move in the right direction, if we know what to pay attention to.

Here are five important wake-up calls that will change your life because it will cause you to make new decisions.

Listen to the voice within you. We connect to our best or highest self during contemplation or reflection. If we’re constantly occupied doing things, we won’t hear the voice inside us. We have to practice being quiet to receive insights and inspirations to guide us in the right direction.
Fame or material wealth is not required to prove you are enough. We always have to know our intentions for the things we do in life. Chasing wealth and fame to prove our self-worth is not an intelligent strategy for life satisfaction. If that’s what we’ve been doing, it’s time to stop and evaluate what we really want to do.
When something does not feel right, it usually isn’t. Most times, we know if something is right. It may be being in a relationship or a career that doesn’t allow us to be our true selves. Learning to interpret our emotions are a key to personal mastery. Similar to the quiet voice within us, our emotions are also always guiding us.
You are exactly where you need to be in this moment. We often spend so much mental energy wishing things were different or better in our lives. While the desire for more is normal, it should not be at the expense of fully experiencing the present moment. Having a clear direction is important, but we also have to appreciate the journey we’re on.
Treat yourself the way you would treat your best friend. Self-criticism will not inspire or motivate us over the long-term. We’ll make mistakes, experience failures and setbacks throughout our lives. How we deal with those experiences will influence the decisions we make.

Final Thoughts

We often lose sight of what’s important in life because of our daily commitments. If we’re on the wrong track, we don’t need a negative incident to cause us to change something that’s not working.

If we can pay closer attention to signs daily, we’ll accept that wake-up calls are always around us.

Action Step: Pay closer attention to how you feel over the next week. Give yourself quiet time so you can tune into the voice within you and listen for new insights or guidance.

Question: What are other important wake-up calls that will change your life?