What do you love about the life you've made?
The people,pleasures,achievements and ordinary things you'd want to keep. What makes you smile when you think about it?
Living,by Martin Rothery
How is your life going,really?
You've got a life to live,people to deal with,bills to pay and a hundred things that need doing. Somewhere among all that,how much time do you spend thinking about what you actually want from your life?
No account,payment or email address needed.
An interesting question
If you could rearrange a few things in your life,where would you start?
Perhaps you'd work less. Perhaps you'd work more,doing something you really enjoy. You might want to see more of the people you love,travel,learn something new,or finally do the thing you've been talking about for the last ten years.
You might also want to sort out something that's been bothering you for ages. A difficult relationship,a worry about money,an old habit,or the feeling that you're running out of time for yourself.
There's quite a lot that goes into making a life. How often do we look at the whole thing?
What would you happily change tomorrow?
Something you've had enough of,a worry you've been carrying or an arrangement that no longer works for you.
What would you do if you gave yourself the chance?
There's often something we've talked ourselves out of doing. It might be worth looking at why.
There is more to life than sorting out problems
What would make the next few years worth looking forward to?
You might be in a good place already. You might have a few things to sort out first. Either way,there's room to think about what you'd enjoy doing,learning,experiencing or building.
A Sunday you genuinely look forward to. A conversation you've wanted to have. Somewhere you've always fancied visiting. An ambition you haven't quite given up on.
What can Living help with?Start with a good look at your life
Let's do a Stock Take.
You've probably got a fairly clear picture of some parts of your life. Others you haven't really thought about in years. The Stock Take gives you a chance to look at them together.
There are seventeen areas,covering work,relationships,health,money,confidence,enjoyment and much more. You choose where to look,answer in your own words,and get a couple of practical possibilities to consider.
It may confirm something you've been thinking for a while. It may bring up an idea you'd forgotten about or point you towards a question you hadn't considered.
You'll leave with your own record and a next step if there's something you'd like to try. You can print it,keep it or simply enjoy having thought things through.
Try the free Stock TakeNo registration,payment or email. No score or judgement.
If you find something worth exploring
What can you do with what you've discovered?
You might finish the Stock Take with a plan that seems perfectly sensible. Or you might end up with a question you need more time to answer.
Perhaps you want to change something,understand something or give an idea a fair chance before dismissing it.
Living gives you somewhere to keep working on it,look at your options and return to what happened when you've tried something.
You can begin without paying. A free account lets you keep your own work,while membership adds more detailed ways of working through decisions,concerns and plans.
Find out how Living worksKeep your discoveries
Create a free account to save your work and return when you like. The free self-guided Life Audit lets you examine four areas of your choice from the seventeen available.
Have a proper think
Paid Living tools help you weigh decisions,question assumptions,prepare conversations and work through obstacles. You can put your thoughts down privately before acting.
Try something and see
Set out what you want to do,why you want to try it and what you hope to find out. Come back later to record what happened and what you'd do next.
Where the practical work helps
Wanting something to change is often the easy part.
Imagine you're fed up with your job. Monday mornings are miserable,you're exhausted by Friday and you're starting to take it out on the people you love.
You'd like to leave,but there are bills to pay and people relying on you. Walking out tomorrow isn't a sensible option. So you need to work out what is.
An example of private Life Work
"I can't stand this job,but I can't afford to leave."
What's bothering me
I'm coming home exhausted and taking it out on my family. I don't like the way I'm behaving.
What I have to consider
We need the income. I can't risk leaving without knowing how we'd manage.
What I'll do first
Work out what we actually need each month,find out what other jobs are available and ask about changing my hours.
What I'll come back to
Have I found any realistic alternatives? Has anything improved at work? Do I still want to leave?
This is an invented example. In your own Life Work,you can return to earlier entries and see what you've tried,what happened and whether your thinking has changed. Your circumstances and decisions remain your own.
When another view might be useful
Sometimes you want to hear what someone else makes of it.
You can work privately through Living. But there are situations where another perspective could give you something new to consider.
The Life Council
Bring a question to nine different AI-supported perspectives. They examine it from different angles and give you things to consider that you might have missed.
Your free registered account includes one lifetime introductory individual consultation.
Meet the Life CouncilA Reckoning
If you want my personal assessment,you can ask me to examine one part of your life or undertake a complete seventeen-area review. I'll read what you choose to share and prepare the assessment myself.
A separate purchase. Your private Living work isn't shared automatically.
Read about A ReckoningMake Living part of your life
Come back to the things you've been meaning to do.
It's easy to get enthusiastic about changing something on a Sunday afternoon and forget all about it when Monday arrives.
Paid Living membership gives you more ways to keep those things in view,work through decisions and return to the commitments you've made to yourself.
There are original Living Editions,exercises,practical workbenches and different Life Council allowances. Silver,Gold and Platinum offer progressively more substantial ways of working.
Membership starts at £19.99 a month, and you can choose an annual plan if you prefer. All three levels are separate from A Reckoning. You can compare the full benefits before deciding whether membership would be useful to you.
See what membership includesQuestions about joining,privacy or cancellation?Read the FAQs.
Free Living
£0 Free to keep using
Begin exploring your life and keep your own work. Includes the free Stock Take,a four-area self-guided Life Audit and one lifetime introductory individual Council consultation.
Silver
£19.99 a month or £199 a year
Get to grips with everyday concerns,prepare conversations,question assumptions and try manageable changes.
Includes three individual Council consultations per allowance period.
Gold
£29.99 a month or £299 a year
Work through more complicated choices,examine alternatives,anticipate difficulties and consider consequences.
Includes ten individual and one Full Council consultation per allowance period.
Platinum
£39.99 a month or £399 a year
Develop longer-term direction,undertake structured reviews and use the fullest set of Living working tools.
Includes twenty individual and three Full Council consultations per allowance period.
Personal work with Martin
A Reckoning
When you'd like me to examine your circumstances personally and give you my considered assessment.
After nearly four decades working with people,I know how much can sit behind what looks like a straightforward problem. You may want me to focus on one concern or look at how different parts of your life affect one another.
I'll study what you choose to share and prepare a private written report. The Personal option also includes time with me to discuss my findings.
Explore A Reckoning
A separate personal commission. No paid Living membership required,and no automatic sharing of your private work. Each service is commissioned independently,without upgrades.
A word from Martin
I've spent most of my working life helping people make sense of theirs.
I've heard an extraordinary range of stories over the years. People who were desperate to change something. People who were frightened of losing what they had. People who wanted something more from life but couldn't quite put their finger on it.
People are complicated. Their circumstances are complicated too. And there's a big difference between telling somebody what they ought to do and helping them work out what they actually want.
That's why I created Living. I wanted to put some of what I've learned into a place people could use for themselves. Somewhere to ask better questions,examine their thinking and work out what they'd like to do.
After all these years,I'm still interested in the same thing:helping people get more out of being alive.
More about me and my workBooks and writing
Fiction and nonfiction exploring people,ideas,society and the world we've made.
Explore my booksNine Realms Institute
My work in Sanomentology,human change and professional practitioner education.
About Nine RealmsThe Continuance
An open,evolving philosophy concerned with how we live,what we value and what we leave behind.
About The ContinuanceYou've had a look around
So,what would you like to do with the years ahead?
You may have something you've wanted to change for a long time. You may have ideas you're excited about,or things you used to enjoy that have gradually disappeared from your life.
Why not spend a little time looking at where you are now? You might find there's more you'd like to do than you've been giving yourself credit for.
Let's do your Stock TakeNot sure where to begin?See what Living can help withorread the FAQs.