Unlock your innate power
RECOGNISING GROWTH
I had an experience the other week that made me recognise how far I’ve come on my personal development journey.
Thursdays are our cleaning day. The cleaning lady had just finished wiping the floors and I was in the kitchen making her coffee.
I was dressed up ready to go for dinner and as I pressed down the lid of the French press the coffee sprayed like a volcano.
FEELING LONELY?
FEELING LONELY
The other day I caught myself feeling low. Work had slowed down and I was given more time than what I had in a long time.
I noticed an uncomfortable feeling of loneliness sneaking up on me.
Many of my clients and friends had notified me about being away and even though I love my own company, I felt like it was not chosen this day to just be with me.
It had me reflect on the past 3 months which have been non stop on the road. Travelling every weekend for 12 weeks. Extreme highs with the honeymoon, by best friends bachelorette and her wedding to mention a few.
While at home, in between travels, I squeezed in as many clients as possible, so had little time to slow things down.
It felt like I went from 100-0 real quick.
FREE YOURSELF FROM YOUR PAST
FREE YOURSELF FROM YOUR PAST
Don’t hold it against yourself or use it to try to predict your future. When you do, you will just create more of the same. Repeat what you already have created so far. Your past has nothing to do with your future, useless you use it as a template for how to live your life.
If you have not yet created the results in your life that you want to create, stop using your past to justify and explain why you have not achieved them. Instead focus on what it is that you want to create.
Go to that appealing future that is available to you, no matter where you currently are on your journey. Create from your future rather than from your past, that’s when you can create something new.
This opens up endless possibilities.
Did you know that your brain is wired to wanting to be right more so than to be happy?
It’s also wired to be biassed toward negativity and worst case scenarios.
This is where self sabotage comes in. We look to our past to find proof or evidence as to why something will not work instead of looking towards the future and the infinite possibilities as to why it could work.
We then give up as soon as we have gathered enough proof that it did not work, so that we can be right. Instead of keep on trying different ways of approaching the challenge until we find a successful way through it.
Primitive part of the brain:
Negativity bias
Past focus
Loves to be right
Prefrontal cortex:
Solution oriented
Future focused
Loves to create
Which part of the brain are you activating the majority of your awake time?
#brainfunctions #primitivebrain #prefrontalcortex #mindoverbody
HOW TO GET WHAT YOU WANT
HOW TO GET TO WHAT YOU WANT
As you go through life you experience contrast. Contrast is of tremendous value as it helps you define your personal preferences.
When you know what you don’t want, you also more clearly know what it is that you want.
You expanded mentally, now you have a mental concept of how an improved version would look like.
In order to create satisfaction, you will need to start closing the gap between where you stand and that improved version.
You do so by keeping your eyes on that improved version, your preferred version, and take actions to move in that direction. Trying different things to see what works for you. Allowing yourself to fail forward. Learning by doing.
But most people continue to look at the contrast, at that which is not pleasing to them. Thinking it’s the contrast that needs to change.
What you focus on will grow and if you are focusing on the contrast, you will create more of it.
What is, is the enemy of more.
Learn to ignore what is and focus your full attention to what it is that you want to create.
#lifecoaching #personaldevelopment #expansion #change #experience #overcomingobstacles #overcomingchallenges
INVITE JOY
INVITE JOY
Invite joy and satisfaction to where you are now, rather than waiting to be happy when…
When I have a better body.
When I have a more loving relationship.
When I have a bigger paycheck.
The issue when you attach your happiness to a future moment is that “when” is constantly moving further into the future, because you continue to increase your capacity to ask for more and more.
Learning to be satisfied with what is AND eager to create more, that is the key to living happy ever after.
I used to be scared of accepting what is, thinking it would stay like it was forever. But what I realised was that once you accept it and find beauty in what is, the change to what you want will happen more rapidly than when you were pushing against it.
Joy is the key.
EXPANSION
EXPANSION
Contrast helps us know more clearly what it is that we want. It helps us define our personal preferences. First when you go after your preferred version of living life can you be satisfied.
It is all about closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be. And you do so by stopping looking at what is and instead investing your energy in creating the life you want to live by giving your attention to what you want.
Many times we feel stuck because we have a contrasting moment that helps us know what we don’t want, so we also know more clearly what we do want.
CONTRAST IS THE LAUNCHING PAD FOR MORE
CONTRAST IS THE LAUNCHING PAD FOR MORE
You are ever growing, ever evolving and ever becoming. You did not come here to follow someone else’s wishes for you. You came here to create.
Your choices are what makes YOU UNIQUE.
Contrast helps you define your personal preferences. When you know what you don’t want, you also more clearly know what you do want.
Celebrate the VALUE that contrast gives you.
ONLY YOU KNOW WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU
ONLY YOU KNOW WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU
This also means that you do not know what’s best for others. Only they know themselves.
This is something that I constantly have to remind myself about when it comes to my partner. Especially when it comes to diet and exercise. Since I have a lot of evidence that I have nailed this area down in my own life, I have a tendency to believe that he should follow the same recipe.
But what works for me might not work for him and even if it works he might not feel good doing it.
FREEDOM OF CHOICE
FREEDOM OF CHOICE
The first reason we are here, in my opinion, is our FREEDOM of choice.
Did you ever think: What’s the point? It has already been done by someone else.
There is enormous value in the freedom of choice. It's what makes us all unique. My preferences are different from yours. We have different experiences and will therefore create things differently.
Trust that you have a voice. Your message has never been said in your words. Your contribution to the world is valuable.
INTENTION TRIAD
INTENTION TRIAD
The motive to life, I believe, can be split into 3 segments:
Freedom
Expansion
Joy
FREEDOM
You are so free that you can choose bondage. Freedom of choice of how to live your life. Just like you love this freedom, so do the people around you including your partner (reminder to myself).
EXPANSION
Growth just happens. You can not stop learning and growing. With each experience you launch new rockets of desires based on the new found preference.
JOY
We are in for the fun of it - right? (For the fun of it... not just the money, the love, the fame...but for the fun of creating). It’s good to feel good, to have fun, to invite play. To be satisfied with what is and EAGER to create more.
ARE YOU FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS OR YOUR FEARS?
ARE YOU FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS OR YOUR FEARS?
We can end up being driven by fear as a result of a traumatic experience, unrealistic expectations or if we grow up in a highly controlled environment.
Fear makes us miss out on great opportunities because we are afraid to venture out. We play it safe, avoid risks and do our best to maintain the status quo.
Fear is a self-imposed prison that makes you play small which keeps you from being the full version of you. Fear is a push away from the unwanted instead of a pull towards the wanted.
For survival, fear has been a crucial feeling. However the things we are afraid of today are rarely life threatening.
PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE
PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE
DRIVE = Guide, control, direct
What drives you?
Are you driven by:
Love
Joy
Expansion
or by
Problems
Pressure
Deadlines
Your choice of fuel affects how you feel, the actions you take and the result you produce.
FEELING UNWORTHY? - HERE IS WHY
The core of your unworthiness feeling comes from the flawed premise that it’s your responsibility to make someone else happy.
I used to think it was my responsibility to make my partner happy. Leading me on a path of twisting and tweaking MY own behaviour so that HE could be HAPPY.
Taking me further and further away from living life the way that made ME happy.
Result: WE both ended up UNHAPPY.
We get it all wrong.
We worry more about how OTHER people feel than about how WE feel.
IT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENS THAT DETERMINE YOUR LIFE
It’s not what happens that determines your life, it’s what you do with it. What happens, happens to all of us. What you do with it is up to you. The meaning you give it is up to you.
This morning as I was on my way to enter the security gate to catch my 07:00 flight. A red light flashed as I scanned my boarding pass. The screen read “flight cancelled”.
What?! Nooooo! Really?! Come on!!
A million thoughts were racing through my head as I made my way over to the ticket counter. Why my flight, why didn’t I check before I left home, how could they…
I pulled up my phone to check what alternatives I had. All last minute flights were 3x the price, with a stop and leaving first in the afternoon. Meaning I will loose both the hole day and waste money.
I checked my email and saw that I was rebooked on a pm flight with a stop in Venice, which made no sense as I was travelling North.
As I stood in the queue waiting for the customer before me to finish, I closed my eyes. I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself that all the energy I spent on getting irritated over the situation was a waste of time as I could not change it and it did not help me move forward. Then I heard a voice behind me asking if she could assist me.
SUCCESS STARTS WITH MANAGING YOUR MIND
Your THOUGHTS generate your FEELINGS which drive your ACTIONS which create your RESULT.
So if you don’t like the RESULT you produce, you first need to understand what THOUGHTS that creates it.
It’s called the Model of life:
Circumstance - always neutral
Thought - gives our circumstances a positive or negative meaning
Feeling - generated by our thoughts about our circumstance
Actions - driven by our emotions
Results - created from our actions or non actions
SURROUNDED BY MAGIC
Society is predominantly oriented towards what’s wrong. We criticise, focus on what we don’t like.
We predominantly worry instead of predominantly knowing that all is well.
What if you just for one day give more of your attention to what makes you feel good?
What if you made a conscious decision to look for what you want to see. Intentionally look for the magic in your everyday life:
Fresh air
Birds
Flowers
Someone returning a smile
LIFE MIRROR HOW YOU FEEL
How you feel will create a lens which you view the world through:
When you are in love, life presents loving things to you.
When you are irritated, all you see are annoying things.
When you are anxious, there are alarming things everywhere.
Your feelings send signals to your brain to hone in on things that match with how you feel. Now you have proof that justifies how you feel, which intensifies the feeling.
Your brain is more interested in being right, than being happy and will go on a hunt for whatever YOU ASK it to find.
MOTIVATIONAL TRIAD - OUT OF DATE
Our brains top 3 priorities:
Avoid pain
Seek pleasure
Conserve energy
Used to help us survive but are today preventing us from thriving.
It's no longer enough to live a life by default if you would like to have an above average life.
TRUE SATISFACTION
TRUE SATISFACTION
There are two kinds of pleasures:
Short term - False pleasure
Long term - True satisfaction
The instant gratifications, short term, is when you CONSUME while delayed gratification, long term, is when you CREATE.
Consumption only lights up your dopamine centre temporally and makes you want more and more. Your dopamine receptors get less and less sensitive to the external stimuli → leading you to need bigger and bigger does to get the same dopamine hit.
Once the dopamine spike wears off you don't feel so good. This is why we call it false pleasure.