Month: November 2016

I’m not sure why, but from an early age we are pushed to find the ‘one thing that we love’ or our ‘calling’. It is true, some people have a very distinct mission and purpose for their lives and know what they want from a very young age. However, it isn’t that way for everyone and it can also change and evolve later in life through experiences and learning. We encourage direction, but we are not traditional in that we support a multi-faceted approach. Being endlessly curious about new things, building on prior understanding, challenging oneself trumps being a master in only one area for us. Your appetite is constantly kindled and your learning continues to help you to evolve and challenge any narrow-minded ideas you may hold. Yes, we want you to focus on your goals, but we also encourage goal-setting in many areas of life and including variety and surprise in this process. Life is a beautiful and rich experience that can so easily be missed out on if we bury our heads in the sand for a superficial obsession. The more we learn about the world and what it has to offer, the more insight we gain into ourselves and what we truly value and desire. This doesn’t mean you have to be an expert in all areas, rather it is more of a challenge to allow yourself to be a novice more often – try that new class, talk to that person that seems interesting, read a book that you normally wouldn’t consider. It can’t hurt you, it can only show you something new. You do not have to seek only one purpose in life, but aim to live spherically and richly in all areas.

Is it possible to ever be happy with where you are at if you are always chasing the ‘next big thing’? Do we preach a lifestyle of constant discontent as we keep moving the goalposts? No. We believe that you can be both completely content whilst striving for further progress. It comes in a number of forms:

1. Gratitude – look around and recognise all of the positive things that already exist in your life, whether that be in the form of relationships, circumstance, employment, living situation, finances, health, etc. Be actively grateful and mindful of how these things bring happiness to your life.
2. Acknowledgement – acknowledging our position in life by comparing ourselves to ourselves before we made any progress, and also looking at our aspirations and seeing the path to further improvement is a pivotal step in knowing yourself, your strengths, weaknesses and areas to build on. It helps us to be realistic with who we are and to react in relation to our tendencies.
3. Inspiration and Constant Evolution – We don’t see goal setting as a dreary pressure to collect a list of accomplishments that make you fit in to a certain stereotype of success. We encourage people to focus in on their passions and priorities and bring these to life, day by day. Thus, it isn’t about telling people that they aren’t good enough and they have a long way to go before happiness. It is about redirecting and ensuring that our lives are aligning to our values and beliefs, bringing us ever closer to our deepest desires. There is no ‘finish line’, as we always seek to be better people, better versions of ourselves. This just means that we get to know ourselves more and more through the process and continue to bring our life into alignment with this in mind.

We all have big dreams and things that we are working towards. However, sometimes these dreams are so big that they take permanent residence in the future and progress is either slow or non-existent. We are in the habit of advising our clients to have one thing a day (at least) on their to-do list that takes them tangibly closer to the ‘big’ dream that they have. Too often we spend the majority of our lives working on things that are ‘busy’ work – they seem pressing, but offer no lasting or significant rewards. It may be as small as sending an email to a key person to ask for support or a networking opportunity. It may be writing a paragraph of an essay that is part of your course. It may be completing the section of your workout that will help you to move towards a fitness goal. But EVERYDAY should have at least one element devoted to getting you towards your big dreams. It is these tiny movements that are repeated or built daily that reap enormous rewards, both in the achievement of your goals and also psychologically in that it trains you to continue to move forward and feel a sense of progress constantly in your life. So while your daily ‘to-do’ list may be a bit flat now, start adding in at least one element that you can do to bring you closer to your dreams and watch the momentum build!