Month: January 2018

Success, to many people, seems really elusive – for the chosen few whose lives have aligned and pushed them into a living experience that we see as far away and unobtainable.

However, success is much more common than many of us think, especially those of us who have grown up in circumstances where reinforcing the ‘norm’ and finding an adequate job for survival is seen as the most likely outcome.

But, if you look around – every shop that you visit to buy your food, newspaper, petrol – it was opened by someone who took a big leap of faith and, mostly, they are successfully working for themselves now. Every brand that you have ever heard of has the dreams and hard work on an individual or small group of people willing to take a risk to build something new and uniquely them. And you’ve heard of them.

We hear stories of people who have overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers to fly their colours in this world – but we think that we can’t. Many of us have SO much opportunity that we feel almost paralysed by it. Or we are channeling that opportunity into being mediocre.

We challenge you today, to just imagine your own real potential. To dream a bit more and then to place this into your future reality mind. Make a plan and start making subtle shifts today to get there.

Because you can, just like others have.

Have you ever heard the expression, “Keep your expectations low, and then you will never be disappointed”? To me, this is the single most depressing sentence I have heard. What kind of energy are you sending out into the world? Sure, it may not be wise to place your entire load of hopes and dreams on a lottery ticket, but wandering around with a default of negative thinking won’t be doing you any favours. When you start looking for the good in others and situations, the way you view the world transforms. And whilst it may not have changed in essence, your experience grows steadily more positive. Of course, this doesn’t mean you are to foolishly invest time in people and situations that don’t serve you, blindly hoping for the best, as this would be counterproductive. But with careful plans, you have much more to gain by expecting them to grow and flourish.

Mondays are havens for self-pity and doubt about the coming week. However, they can also be a fresh start and an opportunity to shift our perspectives. Maybe you are dreading your work today – chin up and look for something positive that you could incorporate, whether that be encouraging someone in what they are doing, making a new friend on the commute, reorganise your desk so that it has a calmer ‘flow’, having a delicious lunch break or creating a really great piece of work. Whatever can bring you satisfaction and reduce your dread towards the task, incorporate it into your day. The more moments of delight that we can incorporate into our lives, the more we feel a real sense of accomplishment and achievement. So, what will you do to bring a spark or two into your day, today?

What stops us from staying committed to our goals? Why do we ‘fall off the wagon’? Usually, it is a fear that we won’t be able to handle this task or habit in the future. We listen to an inner doubt, telling us that we aren’t really that sort of person, or it is going to be too hard.

We ignore the fact that we have successfully (and if we admit it, it wasn’t that hard) completed a few steps already.

But we don’t trust ourselves, and we don’t trust the world to see it through to the end.

We fear that circumstances will come up that we can’t control and that we will fail when they come. So we don’t continue.

We fear that our future self isn’t capable. So we don’t start.

It is easy to quit – that’s why so many do. But, it is easy to switch that voice inside your mind and instead listen to the one saying “I’ll deal with it when it happens, and I will succeed”.

If we stop demanding perfection every step of the way, and we are optimistic in trusting our present and future selves, we will be taking steps everyday to realising our goals. They don’t have to be huge, but they will be consistent and optimistic. So don’t worry about tomorrow’s problems today, just do what needs to be done to take you one step further and TRUST that tomorrow, you will have the strength to do it again.

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​Image credit: wix.com