Month: December 2016

Ok  – so the new year is upon us. For many readers, this will also signal a new version of you – you’ve imagined a new style of life for a while, set your intentions or resolutions and you’ve decided to bring in the new year with a new you in mind. But now it’s D-Day. It’s time to start. Some will be full of motivation and try to get everything done TODAY, pushing themselves so hard that they may find that they fatigue early (after a few days). Others may feel anxiety, fear and a general desire to procrastinate and postpone their new resolutions because of these feelings. The best way to combat that? Imagine 3 months from now if you do small steps every day. Is it starting to save for something important? Imagine your goal. Prepare for success by setting up a direct debit into savings from your payday and allocating this before you have a chance to spend. Is it exercise? Start slowly, do one session. Book in the rest of the sessions for the week. You don’t have to run a marathon on your first day (in fact, it isn’t advised!). Building your own business? Plan out the tasks that need to be completed in a sequential order (if you don’t know a step, make that next step to research and find out!) and plot them into your diary or planner. The best way to guarantee results is to prepare the mindset of doing something purposeful each day. It doesn’t have to be an enormous task, but a small step of progress each day. Some days, you will feel like continuing on after taking a small step – time will disappear and you will get much more done than you planned. Others, you will simply battle through your one small step. But you will have taken it, nevertheless. The collection of small steps, taking one step at a time trains you into purposeful habits that blossom into the lifestyle that you envisioned when you set your intentions. So, don’t feel that the deadline to achieve your goal is January 2^nd. You are changing your life to something better – take the time and care to do it properly.

Many of us are gearing up for a New Year, and whether you have ‘New Years Resolutions’ or not, it is always nice to feel as though you have a fresh start to work from. We have ideas about financial growth, increased health and spending time with those significant people in our lives without distractions of phones, work, absent-mindedness. However, it is not about lifting a veil tomorrow morning and BOOM you are a new person. It must be a whole-life commitment to gradual improvement and mindful encouragement of yourself. Instead of viewing your new habits as deprivations, see them as building the habits and characteristics that you admire and envision for yourself. Prepare yourself for the motivational slumps and busy times by sitting and imagining/visualising yourself facing up to that habit despite tiredness, boredom, temptation. These imaginings should be visceral – What do you see? What time of day is it? What are the physical and internal feelings that you are experiencing? How do you overcome the voices in your head telling you that ‘one day/week won’t hurt’? Plan for the hard times in your mind before you begin, as it forges mental pathways for the future, so that your mind will recognise the situation and remember the way of persistence, rather than simply giving in. We at LLUMI wish you a VERY Happy New Year, with powerful new beginnings and continuations of great habits and prosperity for the coming 2017.

As you begin or continue to plan and work towards your goals, it is a good idea to make them well known to supportive friends and family. I emphasise the word supportive, as the loving people that we know who are optimistic will encourage you to pursue your dreams and won’t attempt to reason you out of it with their own limiting beliefs. They will give you encouragement, ask about your progress to keep you accountable and also align their time with you so as not to contradict your goals (i.e. they might agree to start going for walks with you instead of indulgent breakfasts if you are aiming at improving your health). If you do come across people who tell you that you are aiming too high, these people are fabulous for helping you to identify potential road blocks and mentally prepare for them – ask for their advice as to how they think you might be able to overcome the problems that they see in your way. Our pragmatic friends may then also see that your goals are possible and may not be so critical about them. It’ also a great idea to keep your goals in plain view where you will continue to see them and build them into your reality subconsciously. Envision yourself ticking off or crossing out these goals one by one throughout the next year and the amazing sense of accomplishment that you will feel for achieving them – and sharing this great news with your friends and loved ones! Don’t tuck away your goals or be ashamed of them – be proud and make them well-known so that you can get as much help and support as possible!

Do you work in a job that you don’t love in order to fund an extravagant lifestyle that you barely have time to enjoy? Perhaps it’s time to reassess your priorities in life. While it is lovely to have a beautiful new car every few years and gorgeous new clothes, your time is your most valuable asset. If you are plugging away the hours in a job that brings you little satisfaction and a deep sense of purpose, you are trading your only non-refundable value for things that you soon tire of. With the flexibility of the marketplace these days, and the ease in the availability of information and acquisition of skills – there is ample opportunity for you to find or build a way of earning a great income doing something that you truly enjoy. You are unique in the way your genetics and experiences have shaped you, and only you have the gifts designed through those experiences to offer the world. In turn, by doing something that doesn’t effectively utilise those gifts, you are denying the world of an essential component of how it could be better! You owe it to yourself and those around you to play to your strengths and trust yourself to succeed in your own passion.

When people talk about ‘doing what you love’, it is usually exclusively directed towards the world of work. This implies that there is already a pre-existing ‘box’ that will fit everything that you love into it. For some, this is true. However, in an increasingly malleable world, new ‘jobs’ are being created daily and most of the really successful ones are made by people doing their own version of something in a completely new way. It should also extend to your everyday activities that aren’t just work. If you are a tea or coffee lover – invest in a beautiful cup and good quality tea or coffee and separate time for yourself to sit and REALLY enjoy it in the morning or afternoon. If you LOVE to read – carve out that time for yourself to revel in the pages of a new award-winning book in the genre of your choice. Fishing? Plan a small part of your weekend to go and indulge in it. Reflect back upon your earlier days – what would you love to do in the free time that seems to have evaporated now? Try dabbling in it again and see if that passion is still there. If it’s not, that’s fine, but it is certainly worth investigating. You don’t have to make a career out of the habits that you love. But don’t sacrifice them from your existence – they are part of what makes you, you. Perhaps one day your indulgence in the things that you love will evolve and grow into ideas for your own style of work, but perhaps not. What matters is the immense joy and satisfaction these things bring to your life – it is worth the investment of time.

A lot of us have some time off around this time of year – it’s time to try something new! It doesn’t have to be anything expensive or particularly thrill-seeking, but it’s a great time to start or try something new. It could be as simple as cooking a new recipe you’ve been meaning to try, it could be arranging a new year party, visiting a new place, trying a new bar/restaurant, making a new friend and spending time with them. Mix up your routine to bring some more life and breath into your existence. Incorporating new experiences and adventures into your life on a regular basis helps you to resist the dangerous route of monotony that wears away the spirit, soul and enthusiasm. Push yourself to learn a new skill or expose yourself to something that you never thought you would do – the adrenaline and sense of accomplishment will give you a boost in your endorphins and general lust for life. We tried shark diving yesterday – what a rush! Why wait until the New Year to make things exciting?

Image credit: Socialfeed.com

Perhaps you have decided to declutter and streamline your life. Perhaps you have decided to get fit. Perhaps you have decided to get a new job. You were full of motivation until you turned to the practicality of starting and you saw the overwhelming mess, the amount of exercise you have to do, or the huge number of jobs and the upsetting state of your resume. Your motivation takes a hit and your habitual reaction starts to whisper to you, “Do it later”, “You don’t have time now”, “It probably won’t work anyway”. We are so accustomed to listening to these voices and they feel very comfortable. Deep down, however, you know they are lying to you. It is time to stop that running commentary in your mind. Today IS the right time to start, you will make time, and it certainly will work – as it has for many, many others. If you do begin feeling this way, write down one sentence to refute each of the negative thoughts that keep popping into your mind. Find a success story or couple of images that will remind you that you want to be on the same path as that person or you want a similar outcome to what is pictured. The world is full of success stories, and it really is time to write your own. Vividly picture the feeling you will feel once you reach that first goal. Break down the overwhelm to small step goals – getting your resume re-styled (or doing it yourself and having a friend review it for you), completing 7 exercise sessions, sorting through one room of your home. Then ride on the thrill and momentum of completing those tasks. A sense of accomplishment and acknowledging to yourself that you are definitely on the path to your story of success will convince your brain that this is already planned out – the outcome is already set and you are simply walking a well-trodden path that you know the (positive) ending of. Don’t feel overwhelmed – transform that emotion into imagining the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction when you get there.

Flexibility and mobility in our lives is a goal that most have at least subconscious aspirations towards. No one ever wants to feel ‘stuck’ in their situations. As an antidote, therefore, we recommend always seeking to be ‘overqualified’ for where you are. This applies to work in that training yourself and seeking new and innovative skills will give you upward mobility or transferability if you so desire. It also applies to our personal development, constantly learning and building our skillset in communication, self-love, fitness and health are invaluable investments. Financially, when you are seeking to buy a house/car/outfit/gadget, seek only what you truly value and need, rather than looking at your bank balance and then maxing it out. If you can get a loan for $880,000 for a home, you do not need to find a home that costs the maximum. Your needs and desires may be met at a different price. Always allow yourself room – we recommend ‘making more room’ by improving your abilities, streamlining your physical space, investing in quality personal and professional relationships and, above all, always acting with integrity. If you are an honest person of your word and you do everything with your best effort, you will always have more options and possibilities with others, yourself and your situations than those who people feel cannot be trusted, are unreliable, are lazy or simply not dedicated to doing their best. Make 2017 your best year yet, by ‘making room’ and ‘being overqualified’ in the key aspects of your life.

Photo Credit: Contiki

A lot of us tend to get bogged down in the practicalities of getting things done to the extent that we stunt the role that imagination and inspiration can play in helping us to find more effective and innovative ways to reach our desires. If thinking about your goal and the necessary steps to get you there brings emotional stress, anxiety and other negative emotions, it is likely that you won’t be engaging your imagination in the process and your result may even feel slightly tainted by these feelings. If you allow this thought process to build and you surround the steps with negativity, it is far more likely that you will start using avoidance strategies and completing tasks half-heartedly or with limited possibility for improvement. If you can consciously sit and begin thinking about your daily tasks and their significance for their completion, attaching positive emotions of anticipation, pride, excitement and optimism, it should encourage your mind to begin inventing novel ideas and room for growth. The tasks will become opportunities, rather than liabilities. This is such an important step to maintain your commitment to your goals. Is there something that you are procrastinating with at the moment that you have started to build a negative mental story around? Attack it with positivity today.

If you speak to some of the greatest athletes, thinkers, businesspeople and generally successful individuals, many of them will talk about motivation. However, they will also acknowledge that there are periods of time in which motivation escapes them. What happens then? Long term success is not necessarily about motivation. It is about effort. If you replace the common excuse, “I just don’t feel motivated” with “I’m not willing to put in the effort”, it is equally true but acknowledges the truth of the situation in which you are relying on something external to yourself that you expect to ‘appear’ to give you success. If you switch your thinking to acknowledge that your performance relies on effort – day in, day out – you give yourself agency again and it is not dependent on mood swings, circumstance or energy levels. True success is based on hours and hours of effort, not just acting when conditions are favourable. Grinding through tiredness, a lack of inspiration and generally feeling ‘blah’ are important habits for successful people. The effort that you put into your goals will spread throughout the rest of your life, assisting you in building your integrity, keeping your word in business and relationships and improving your health. You know that you can keep your promises to yourself. So, start thinking about your success in terms of ‘effort’, rather than ‘motivation’ and notice the changes in your behaviour.