Month: September 2016

image courtesy of: joiseyshowaa

When looking at, and evaluating your life, there can be a lot of frustration and a need for things to happen immediately. This burning desire, which is a positive thing, can easily transform into a doubt about yourself and the reasons why you haven’t accomplished X, Y and Z by now. However, at times we fail to recognise certain seasons within our lives – and the opportunities that are best capitalised during those seasons.

This can be a case of illness preventing you from being at your physical optimum, however, with the right mindset, it can be a season of holistic renewal and healing with a focus on diet and nutrition instead. So, rather than basking in the frustration of the apparent boundaries that accompany life’s many unexpected turns, try to step back and recognise the opportunities for improvement that naturally accompany your ‘season’ that can still lead you to your goal and enable you to build depth and understanding in other ways.

Perhaps you have been single for longer than you would have liked – instead of placing pressure on yourself (and often subconsciously others), learn to develop yourself to become your definition of incredible – new hobbies, new skills – use the extra time that so many don’t have to take incredible steps towards other life goals. This will often distract you so much that you won’t even find yourself thinking about what’s “missing” and you may even find it inconvenient when you DO meet someone!

Perhaps you are in the middle of a study season – at high school or university – and all you feel like doing is travelling and developing yourself physically. Recognise the opportunities to incorporate physical freedom, but also the benefits of applying yourself to the season that you are in within the moment, too. It will soon pass and you will be grateful that you had the mental discipline and stamina to give it your all while the opportunity presents itself.

With this mindset, you will not find yourself ‘wishing away’ your hours, days and weeks, but you will find yourself capitalising on your time and the benefits will pleasantly surprise you!

We all encounter situations (some brief, some longer or even permanent) where we feel out of control or frustrated by ourselves or the situation. Often, anxiety and stress begin to loom and change our thinking patterns. We start seeing the world from a ‘scarcity’ viewpoint, especially if this stress is to do with time or finances. We start restricting ourselves and constantly feeding the thoughts of “I don’t have enough time/money to do this”. Crazily enough, it is this attitude that begins a very damaging cycle of thought patterns. With this constant feedback of negativity, your psyche begins to believe that this is a permanent state. Creativity shuts down and you begin focusing solely on living pay-check to pay-check, hour-to-hour, etc. However, if you notice anxiety and stress creeping into your thought patterns, you have the power to act quickly and refute them. Instead of going into survival/scarcity mode – reframe your language and your thoughts to instead say, “I have this amount of time/money…how can I use that best?” or “What ways can I come up with to meet this need?”. By placing the emphasis on the possibility of the future, rather than the a negative state of the present, your creativity and optimism stay high. You feel more powerful and equipped to change your circumstances, get excited about your next move and make productive decisions. Then, hopefully, these circumstances will be opportunities for growth, new connections and a building of faith in your ability to handle what life throws at you. What’s stressing you out now? Try shifting that mindset first, rather than waiting for it to pass before you allow yourself to feel better.

You know those things on your to-do list that seem to be permanent residents because for some reason they just feel too big to fit into the time you have? Or your mental energy just doesn’t seem to be enough to conquer it? 

Today’s challenge is for those little beauties. Often, it isn’t actually because the task is too big or complicated in itself, often it is because we have tied a certain emotion to it and then grown accustomed to it being on our list without moving. Today we are going to shake this up by ‘chunking’. This means sitting down for 3 minutes and writing down 3 EASY things that you could do to get started on one of your to-do list’s  permanent resident projects. It could be calling to make a booking for an appointment/consultation, making a list for the store if you need supplies, drawing a plan, doing a 5 minute workout video. The trick in this is to signal to your brain that this task is underway, it isn’t incredibly hard and progress on this task is attainable. Once you have written down and then completed the three easy things, write down 2-3 next steps to complete tomorrow or later in the day, keep the momentum going. Before you know it, you will be well on your way to crossing that bad boy off!! 

Let’s get rid of those pesky to-dos! 

Hopefully, you have an idea of what your dream life would look like. It’s almost impossible to reach a state of fulfilment and satisfaction without goal setting and having a clear understanding of what your definition of success is. I have spoken about this in previous articles and I will leave you to look up the process of visualising and writing down your dream life.

Now, however, I would love to explore the importance of revisiting this vision daily – in fact, many times a day, to maintain your gas tank and keep you on track. By constantly reminding yourself and your subconscious of where you are going and where you want to go, it will enable you to take more decisive action in order to get you there and avoid distractions. You are far less likely to take on extra commitments that lead you away from the person you want to be, the life you want to lead, if you have a clear understanding of it. If it is hazy and scratched somewhere in the back of a forgotten journal, many choices and decisions can seem unimportant, but be delaying and leading you away from this purpose.
Also, the myth that you have to wait until you’ve “got it ALL together – and then you will enjoy your dream life” is a delusion. Yes, your dreams will take sacrifices – but this does not equate to living a terrible life, devoid of pleasure. Parts of your dream life are absolutely obtainable already and can be incorporated to enrich your journey towards greater things. For example, if part of your dream life is to have time to have a walk or workout each day – this is absolutely free (there’s plenty of workouts available online!) and, if you set it as a priority, very attainable. Once you start implementing it you will notice the positive effect upon you physically and mentally. Then you will then focus on the next element of your dream life to bring in, your subconscious will recognise progress and success and your drive will follow this lead and increase – pushing you to ever-greater heights.

However, you must be conscious that you are also taking out the elements of your life that are crippling your ability to bring in these ‘dream elements’. If you dream of living in a beautiful, clean and minimalist space but you are a hoarder with way too many things and cleaning is not on your priority list, this is a clear indication of an overhaul that needs to happen. I go through my entire household every month or two (it’s scheduled in bite-size pieces) with a major overhaul each six months. This is because I like a certain ‘flow’ in my house and I feel my mind is chaotic if there is clutter and useless/broken things in my home. This is a really important element in my productivity, confidence and pleasure that I make sure to set the time aside to do this. It may not be pleasurable (especially the first overhaul, which took a LONG time with many emotionally-charged decisions to throw out things I liked but were no longer helpful), but the satisfaction of living day-to-day afterwards was absolutely indescribable. Often, it can be the simplest things – like waking up 10 minutes early and having a favourite cup of tea in silence before beginning your day. These things seem insignificant, but can cause a tidal effect.

 

So – remember to keep your dream life at the front of your mind as guidance for the daily habits that you put in place. Make small changes that form pleasurable (during or after) habits to ensure that you are constantly progressing. Recognise your wins and how they contribute to your sense of happiness and wellbeing to fuel you to further progress.