For six days I visited the other side of the sky. It was blue. It was warm. It was family. It was about time.

In the past decade since I’ve lived in Germany, I have not seen my family around the holidays. But this year I decided it was time to do so. In a whirlwind visit that encompassed a public speaking gig, a party and three different beds in three different houses, I reconnected with my tribe. And it has brought me more joy than I thought imaginable.

So often we say “One day I will do this or that,” and then, one day never comes. We promise ourselves when the “time is right,” we will take on the challenges we know lay ahead of us. But then we make excuses because the kids are sick, or the dog is dying or the business is too busy to get away.

We compromise ourselves to the point of spending no time at all doing what we truly want to do…and with the ones we truly love doing it with.

If 2012 has taught me anything (and it has taught me a lot!), it has shown me that the time is now for everything you have been putting off. I am not just talking about losing that extra weight or exercising more. I am talking about the direction of your very existence.

Are you happy with your life as it is? It may seem like a loaded question. And for many, it is. If you can honestly say you are living your best life, count yourself lucky. I don’t know many who can say that in all truth.

It has been a year of asking ourselves hard questions such as “What am I really here for?” “Am I in the right place for myself?” “What am I avoiding?” We all have our own pace and timing. For me it seemed to come all at once, although a lot of the hard choices I have made come from a years-long inquiry of which I was barely aware.

It is the still, soft voice within whose whispers turn to wind tunnels when we ignore them for too long.

We all reach a tipping point or what I call in The Power of Slow as the “pain point”. It is the moment in which you simply can’t take it anymore. It is the point in time when inaction is more painful than action.

We often use pain to drive us forward. But I am wondering now if we could also use joy as our motivator. That we could make a decision that brings us joy, that then leads to another decision that brings us even more joy, and so on. So instead of moving forward due to pain avoidance, we actually move toward the light, dancing to the other side of the sky.

I think it’s possible. I really do. Do you?