Month: October 2016

There are times when you have SO many things on that it seems impossible to get it all done. On top of this, the stress or lack of sleep may leave you feeling absolutely empty and without any motivation whatsoever. At times like this, you most likely need to take small breaks to regather yourself. Make sure you are specific about what you will do in these breaks and how long they will last. If you do not specify this to yourself, you are flirting with the all-famous phenomenon of procrastination and avoidance. It is important to have a balance, but it is also important to make sure that you are still progressing so that this time of ‘busy’ can pass and the strain on your mind and body has an end point. Equally, it is important to plan and break down the tasks that are weighing on you and plan when and how you will get them done. Once this plan is in place, there is less need to worry and fret and it will keep you motivated. The most important thing in this time is to know that it will pass, just as everything else does, and you will be stronger and better for this experience. Remember, everyone goes through these times – you can shift your attitude to be one expecting growth or disaster, and that is up to you.

Everyone has different social tendencies – as an introvert, the temptation to spend most of my time on my own is strong! But, recognising that we are fundamentally social creatures and the beauty and benefits of having others around us to support us and whom we can support is an invaluable step in achieving and maintaining happiness. Of course, this will come in a variety of formats for the individual – you may LOVE having a lot of people around you and you really feel invigorated and enriched in those situations. Others prefer more intimate and exclusive catch-ups where they can focus their energies on one person at a time. Whatever it is, it is a dangerous position to look at your life and come to the conclusion that you are ‘too busy’ to have a rich social life. Without that ingredient, a lot of other areas lose their flavour. We need others to challenge us, love us, inspire us and we also need to be those things to other people. So, if you are a busy person, make sure that the time you spend connecting with others is not time spent thinking about the million other things you ‘should’ be doing. Be wholly present with that person and invest in a positive interaction with them so that you both leave it in a more positive state than when you began (this doesn’t have to mean ‘feeling’ better, but being a better person in general). Try calling or meeting up with someone today and really focusing on them.

When brainstorming your priorities and visualising your goals, it can often be most telling to look at the everyday choices that you make and habits that you have to determine whether your values are really aligned with the outcomes you desire. For example, if you write down or tell someone that your first priority is your health, but you examine your habits and notice that your snooze button gets more of a workout than your exercise shoes, you can see that you are not prioritising, valuing or focusing on this goal in your real life (where it counts!). This may come with a number of excuses – you may work nights, you may study and have a lot of commitments. Fair enough  – but if something is truly a priority for you, you will organise yourself and plan ahead to make sure you are getting enough rest by going to bed earlier, preparing yourself for the struggle in the morning by putting your exercise clothes out ready, placing positive motivation near your bed – a quote or an inspirational image to remind yourself of what it is you want. This is the same for prioritising relationships in your life. If you say that friends/family/loved ones are the most important, but you spend most of your time with them watching TV or on your phone (or you don’t spend much time with them!), it’s time to re-evaluate. Put a post-it note on the TV to remind yourself that quality time is important, book a dinner/coffee/walk with the person or people and have a reminder as your screensaver on your computer or phone to connect with the people you care about. We form habits around our values – and it is always beneficial to re-evaluate them over time.

It may be easy to be idealistic about the certain ‘type’ of person you are. When everything is going relatively calmly, you can be patient, polite, organised, etc. However, when life throws unexpected things at you, you find yourself in a frustrating situation, pressure arrives from a new area – here is where you find your true self: your real strengths and weaknesses. These are the most crucial points in which you can evaluate your character (and the character of those around you). For example, if you are tired and find yourself being rude and obnoxious to your significant other/family member/child, you are seeing an important part of your character that may need severe and concentrated adjustment. It is not enough to say “I’m sorry, I was tired”. It is important to learn to be who you want to be – your fair and ideal self, especially in these situations as these are the windows into who you really are. Conversely, if you are weighing up who you want to keep close to you – observe them in times where pressure arrives. If the person cannot be strong with you or for you at a time that matters, this may be an indicator of a lack of commitment or care deep down. It’s time to evaluate whether this is ‘enough’ for your time and energy in that relationship. This doesn’t mean someone should be your slave, or not have any moments of weakness, but if the same patterns emerge in yourself or another repeatedly, it is important to really ask yourself if it is enough, if it is solvable, and what actions you must take from there.

Things happen in life where you are required to start again, or make a drastic change. Many interpret these moments as moments of failure and weakness. They can be intimidating and disheartening. But think carefully – what is more exciting than a ‘starting line’? Everything is ahead of you, the unknown awaits, stories and adventures lay unexplored. The anxiety and adrenaline give you the power to surge forward and start to discover new capabilities within yourself. Starting is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of renewed dedication; a signal of your realisation that you need to constantly evolve. You will often have the most energy, focus and vision at the beginning of something new – you will learn and fail and achieve and grow beyond what you could ever have imagined. And, often, those disastrous and terrible things that you may be imagining before you begin a new task – they never happen. Or, if they do, they are not as bad as you imagined and end up teaching you incredible new things, skills, ideas and giving you renewed direction. So, if you have been contemplating starting something new, but fear and hesitation (often called ‘catastrophising’ in psychology) are holding you back – take the first step today and appreciate the intensity of the emotions and the ‘surge’ that you experience in those moments. Write them down as you experience them and refer to them when you feel you are in a slump along the way, as these are inevitable!

When we reach goals and sub-goals on the way to our ‘dream life’, we often get so used to incorporating these new rituals and habits into our regime that we forget to recognise our efforts and congratulate ourselves. This step is really vital in training your brain to recognise your own progress and continue to strive towards the next step. If you do not acknowledge the passing of milestones and new ground broken, you may have feelings of frustration and stagnation, even though you are making progress. If you have an accountability partner, it is a great opportunity to share your achievements with them and celebrate them in a beneficial and helpful way. We always recommend keeping a journal for our clients so that we can be conscious about our milestones and how much things have changed in our lives since we began implementing the programs that we provide. We have found the success rate much higher with those that consciously document progress in comparison to those who don’t. This can also be linked in to the practice of ‘gratitude’, where we look at our lives daily (at least) and list the things that we are grateful for, write them down or verbalise them. Through this practice, we are again reprogramming our brain to look around us for the positive things in life, rather than dwelling on the negative. These small steps do wonders for our own personal progress and that of our clients. Why not try it?

Setting goals is incredibly important, and a lot of our work at LLUMI is centred on this principle and the act of structuring plans to get there. Our first point of contact, however, always focuses on ‘Where are you now?’. We don’t really mind where you have been in the past (unless it has developed useful skills or contacts), but you current situation. This serves two purposes: 1. You have to have a detailed, realistic understanding of your current habits and behaviour and the results that they are producing in your life. 2. We need to know where we are starting, so that we can build the first step upon which to get you beyond that state. A lot of people try to put their heads in the sand and ignore their problems in the hope that they will eventually go away – procrastination, borrowing money, putting things off…but without a clear understanding of where you are, you have no reference point as to how you can move towards where you want to be. Also, this documentation is often the reality check that people need to improve their lives instantly and tangibly. No rose-tinted glasses, just a confronting image of who they are, what they are doing and reasons why they may be doing it. More importantly, it shows you how things can be different. It shows you a contrast to when you DO reach your goal – you look back and say, “I did that!”. It is not shameful to be honest with yourself. It is often one of the bravest things to do – if it is the beginning of starting something new.

There are times when we all get ‘stuck in a rut’. We feel like we aren’t progressing and we look around to see everyone else living their supposed dream lives on social media. We wonder what is wrong with us and sometimes despair that we haven’t come as far as we would have liked. We start envying people, or sometimes less obviously, idolising them and wanting to ‘be like them’. We use their stories as inspiration. This can be beneficial, as long as it is temporary. Something that is much more mentally powerful and long-lasting is if you sit down and pen your own success story, starting from the moment that you are currently in. Write in as much detail as you possibly can about how you turned your life into something that you are incredibly proud of. Avoid miraculous events like winning the lottery or convincing other people to be around you, focus on the things that you control and how you utilise them in order to recreate your life into a success. Write it in the past tense in order to communicate to your brain that these things are already accomplished, already your past, and they are a reality. This will make your definite action, when you are inspired by your own story, all the more easy and effortless. Often, writing this story will give you the courage to take a chance or the determination to push past the hesitation or avoidance – you feel like you already know the ending. It drives you and removes the sense of the unknown. Give it a go – write your ending from where you are now.

Habits are the key to success, that is very true. However, life can become very dull if you don’t make room and time for new ways of doing things and enjoying life. We often recommend ‘scheduling spontaneous time’ – like trying a new gym or workout style each month or so, just to mix it up. We also encourage our clients to do unusual things with friends, family and partners to keep those relationships exciting, valuable and interesting – instead of meeting for coffee at the same place every time, go somewhere that has just opened, go for a stand up paddle board ride or a walk at different location each time. We also have this approach to daily habits – try and think of more efficient/effective ways and orders of getting your habits done. Could you listen to your motivation seminar whilst exercising and save that extra 20 minutes so that you can use it for rest or something else that is productive? We are designed to keep evolving, and it is a great habit to continue to push yourself into the uncomfortable and the unexperienced over and over. It makes for great memories, more personal satisfaction and wonderful conversation! What can you do today that is a bit unusual?

In our general rhetoric, we often see the world and the choices we make as black and white, win and loss, me versus something else, good and bad selections. It is much less common for us to consider that a lot of situations can offer win-wins with a shift in perspective. Many modern and grass-roots charities have adopted this approach, not by embracing lives of hardship and poverty to sacrifice all for others, but creating successful businesses that incorporate upskilling those who are struggling and including them in the successes. If you are seemingly ‘forced’ into a situation where you have been asked to leave a job, a house, or any particular circumstance because (to be honest) it wasn’t really working – you can look at the search for your new situation in a way that focuses on what you are ‘giving up’, or you can see the interview/inspection/research processes as a way of furthering your network, making new friends, redefining your experience and impact on the world and opening yourself to new possibilities. These are the unknown and exciting things in life, after all. Deep spiritual and emotional change does not happen when everything continues on in the same manner as it has for years. Disruption is essential and the manner in which you approach and deal with this disruption dictates the outcomes that eventuate for yourself and the world that can be affected by your impact. So, today, when you feel like you have to make a ‘tough’ choice, look for the win-win. How can your decisions make you better as well as making everyone else around you benefit?