Inspiration Blog

Routine is important, none of us at LLUMI will ever deny that – but LIVING and EXPERIENCING and FEELING your life is equally vital. Sometimes we get so caught up in the ‘doing’ that we simply forget to ‘be’. We feel despondent and lost, grinding away at dreams that seem closer than yesterday, but still so far away. We are always trying to be mindful about how we can also appreciate and enjoy the process and the journey on the way to becoming more. Looking at the beauty of the stars when you wake up early to get work done – to enjoy the rush of adrenaline and the satisfaction of the sweat that you earned in your morning workout, the giggles of your children or companionship of your workmates that bring life to what you do. We avoid ‘trudging’ through life just to get from point A to point B, as that is the majority of what you are doing. Realisations of success come many times in life, but they are often momentary and fleeting. Enjoying the process, making sure that you are proud of who you are and what you are doing; aiming at perfection and contentment with every step that you take is what brings a true satisfaction. When you imagine your dream, always, ALWAYS include the work that will go into it as part of your goal visualisation. Bring vivid pictures of yourself getting out of bed in the morning without pressing snooze; picture yourself putting your phone down every night when you get in the door to spend quality time with your family, flatmates or significant other; visualise the internal battle each day to get up and move your body – pushing harder than the day before and the effort that will take. Day in, day out – every move should be something that you aim to be proud of. Go to bed reflecting on the incredible effort that you have made today, how you appreciated the beauty in every step and really lived.

Mondays are always a good time to re-start and re-evaluate your ambitions and goals. The week is new and full of possibility to be a week that you are proud of, that you can look back on and know that you have pressed closer to realising your dreams. Planning your days and ensuring that your to-do lists align with the outcomes that you desire and need is essential in any path to success. Mondays (or Sunday nights) have that freshness and potential to re-invigorate your passion and drive, they can give you a clarity to seek a greater you. Sitting down with your favourite music, journaling or mapping out your week in a diary  can ensure that you are consciously using your time to grow and investing your energy in activities that will be effective in developing you to a greater version of yourself. So, if you are lying in bed as you read this – get up and do what you ought to do. You will be so pleased that you started your week off on the right foot!

Many people find it hard to say ‘no’ or ‘enough’ to people and situations. Sometimes we find ourselves taking on many things that do not benefit us and also don’t align with our values simply because someone has asked us to do it, or assumed that we would ‘be fine with it’. It is a scary and intimidating skill to practice at first – where we tell someone that we are not comfortable with that situation, or we would prefer not to do something that they have suggested or asked. Our society has pushed us to always be amenable. However, as you continue to practice this skill and employing it with grace, an explanation and politeness, you will find that others will actually have an increased respect for you and your time. You will also spend less of your life feeling trapped by others’ demands of you and you can find ways to help others in ways that build on your own strengths and preferences and enrich their lives in ways they may never have thought to ask for. It isn’t about being selfish with your time (although, sometimes you do have to be), it is about using your strengths and values to make yourself and others better people with fuller lives. So, if there is something in your life that is putting an upleasant pressure on you, consider having a conversation with a key person about the situation and a potential solution that will benefit everyone involved.

Failure is not easy to take. It often brings feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, especially if we know that we are responsible for the failure. If you ‘ruin’ your diet by having a huge weekend of unhealthy eating, if you miss three workouts in a week, if you lose a race or competition or promotion, if you miss out on a great opportunity; these things threaten to shake our resolve and leave us running back to our old habits or giving up. Failure or personal disruption, however, is one of the most powerful tools of insight into your own character and needs in your life. It is an opportunity to monitor your personal behaviour patterns, reflect deeply on them and then grow in wisdom and strategy to ensure future success. If you do not take the time to look at yourself honestly in times of failure, however, and simply blame circumstance or write it off as a moment of weakness, you lose out on the opportunity to build a greater understanding of who you are and where you can grow in discipline and maturity. If you begin to dig into the causes of self-sabotage (ruining your own opportunities by neglecting discipline or important actions to get you towards your goal) or adverse reactions to the unexpected, you will learn about your own fears and habits. Some of us are simply afraid of success – we can’t picture what it looks like and our comfort zone beckons us to remain where we are. The unknown can be truly frightening. The temptation to blame external circumstances, rather than to look at our actions and reactions and be honest about how we can respond in a way that benefits ourselves and others prevents growth and success, even if it makes us feel temporarily less guilty. Even acknowledging our weaknesses isn’t enough. For the process of reflection to be successful, one has to implement action in response. Write down how you could have responded, what the appropriate action would be and identify an upcoming opportunity in which you can actively practice this new self-knowledge and how you will feel about yourself once you do this. Writing this down creates an element of certainty and accountability that is extremely powerful and will assist you in creating real and positive change in your character. So, when you hear the clichéd “you win or learn”, take it deeper than a simple statement.

The way that we begin our day sets a precedent for our mindset and performance for the remainder of the day. If you press the ‘snooze’ button six or seven times before you kick your feet onto the floor, your brain and your body are receiving messages that you are not ready for the day, you are not excited and you don’t have a passion for what comes next. We recommend setting a daily time that suits you and allows you to get ready in a calm fashion and sticking to that, ensuring that you get 7-8 hours of sleep by being disciplined about your bedtime. We also suggest spending some time each morning doing something that is beneficial for you that you really enjoy. This could be anything from a morning run to a guided meditation, reading a chapter of a book, sitting with your favourite tea and watching the sunset – the options are endless. Taking this time for yourself gives you a sense of contentment and fuels the rest of your day, which is most likely full of doing things for and with other people. This is your sacred time of reconnection with yourself. Incorporate it into a planned morning routine which stays more or less the same each day – then the effort to get out of bed, make a healthy breakfast, spend some time connecting with yourself and getting ready for a full and positive day will simply become part of what you do and, increasingly, who you are. We challenge you to write down a morning ritual and try it for 10 days. See if it makes a positive impact on your daily movements and thought patterns as a whole.

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!

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.