I often think I am going to write a short newsletter, or tell you I am, but it rarely happens. So today might be a first for me, as my revelation was pretty damn simple (it happened in seconds).
Here is the background…
For a lot of clients I work with, a major thing on their shopping list of ‘Things I Want in My Life‘ is CONFIDENCE. “How can I have more confidence?” is a common question I am asked.
Today I will share with you the most common things I have observed over the last couple of weeks (and numerous years) that hold people back from having a more fulfilling, meaningful, abundant, and joyous life.
These are basics. Simple. Common. But they have an uncanny ability to take you off on a meandering path in the opposite direction of your amazingly talented, capable and incredible self. It does not matter whether all three apply to you or just one. The sooner you get on top of these, the better off you and everyone else will be.
These days I spend a lot of time working with people to help them figure out what they ought to be doing with their precious life and time, in a way that fulfills them and adds a healthy dose of meaningfulness (to help them jump out of bed in the morning).
Today I will share with you what I have seen to be the biggest obstacles for people who are a bit lost in the jungle of life. Plus some ideas to overcome them. Given I used to be an engineer in the army once upon a time, there is nothing I like more than dealing with obstacles. Going around them, over them, under them, or for even more fun, blowing them up!!
Yesterday I had the joy of doing a presentation in Qatar to an amazing business women’s organisation on authentic success and one of my key teachings is about co-creating your success, your happiness, your health, your destiny and your results in life.
That is, being a (very) conscious player in the results you get in life. Firing up your magnificent mind and living a life by DESIGN and not by default. Sounds like a good idea to me!
So continuing on with that theme, I want to give you 5 practical ways to become a lot luckier in your life.
I actually thought I was unlucky when I was in my late 20’s; but after doing the inner work, I had a remarkable mental shift. I not only believed I was luckier, but I started experiencing freakishly weird luck in my life. Sort of like that manifesting stuff when it came to opportunities, synchronicity and even money.
If I am a person that has done very little exercise lifting a heavy weight with my left arm, how strong do you think my left arm will be? It is likely to be weak, as you can imagine.
The same applies with the ‘no’ muscles. If you have used them very little, they will be weak. They will be awkward. They feel feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable. So know from the get-go that you get better at saying ‘no’ the more you practice it.
So start small (with the less important ones) and build up to the big ones. Every repetition counts. Practice saying ‘no’ in front of the mirror. Remember a time when you said a very firm ‘No’, and how your body language and tone were. Then replicate that. Or better yet, watch a session of Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer as he shows people how to be more ‘assertive’. It is all about body language and energy. Say ‘no’ from there.
Now I don’t like to throw any blame around as a general rule, but it is pretty evident that we are bombarded with ‘messages’ from advertising (LOTS of it!!!), peers, colleagues, Hollywood movies, books, magazines, friends, family, and the little voices in the back of heads that have been building up over decades.
Most of them are telling us that we are not enough. That we are not doing enough, being enough, have enough, achieved enough, etc. etc. etc.
Now I am a big fan of tapping into your full potential, as you know, but…not at the expense of the things that are most important to you.
As I highlighted above, there are many ways we can uncover in ourselves a fear of the unknown, or a fear of uncertainty. It is ok to have a little bit of ‘real’ fear to help us focus on what needs to be done, but too much fear lessens our joy, affects our health, reduces our potential, closes us to love, and causes us to miss out on the true magic life has to offer.
Tony Robbins talks about two of our basic human needs being our need for ‘certainty’ and also paradoxically a need for ‘uncertainty’. We actually need uncertainty in our lives. I believe we need it for excitement, adventure, growth, creativity, innovation, success, joy, and to tap into the full potential that resides within us, which does not operate by any small-minded rules (unless of course we know everything there is to know in the universe). 😉
So the more we can embrace, find comfort and make peace with leaning into the unknown, the greater our lives will become and the more our fear will dissipate.
Why we need ‘it’ Continue reading
As I have already said. We all have doubts. Maybe I even had a bit of doubt as to whether a Tip on doubt would be most useful for you. 😉 Hmmmm.
So the first step, as with all less empowering emotions, is to ACCEPT you are feeling what you are feeling. Then try out 1 or all of the following Tips.
Tip 1: Take a helicopter ride
I don’t mean literally, however they can be a lot of fun. But if you have doubts about flying… 😉
All of our doubts are a psychological thing. Doubt precedes the end result. Doubt is a best guess based on our PAST experience. And does the PAST have to equal the FUTURE? Does a past result give 100% certainty of a future outcome? Not in the majority of cases. Continue reading
To keep the momentum going I am going to just jump straight in. How is that for momentum!!
Momentum Tip 1: Don’t make it about yourself
This is first and I think most important. It is what got me moving to write this newsletter when the other option was to kick back and read a book on this wet Bali morning (which for the record was VERY appealing). When I stop thinking about myself and start thinking about how I can help others, or serve others, or support others, it makes me dip into a source of creative energy much bigger than me. Quite often we will do more because of another person or for another person than we will do for ourselves. So focus on how you can help others. When you focus on serving others, you are also likely to be liberating some healthy brain chemicals to turn up your emotional energy.
Momentum Tip 2: Connect to the bigger picture
This is for two reasons really:
1. When you put things into perspective and given you are going to live for about another 50 years or so, is the two weeks where you worked at 40% productivity instead of 80% really going to matter? As much as I would like to think I make that much difference, the reality is my 2 weeks at half pace will mean nothing to me in 6-months time. So stop beating yourself up and just consider how you can change things from today forward. Which takes me to the next point. Continue reading
