Unlock your innate power
RECOGNISING GROWTH
I had an experience the other week that made me recognise how far I’ve come on my personal development journey.
Thursdays are our cleaning day. The cleaning lady had just finished wiping the floors and I was in the kitchen making her coffee.
I was dressed up ready to go for dinner and as I pressed down the lid of the French press the coffee sprayed like a volcano.
EXPANSION
EXPANSION
Contrast helps us know more clearly what it is that we want. It helps us define our personal preferences. First when you go after your preferred version of living life can you be satisfied.
It is all about closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be. And you do so by stopping looking at what is and instead investing your energy in creating the life you want to live by giving your attention to what you want.
Many times we feel stuck because we have a contrasting moment that helps us know what we don’t want, so we also know more clearly what we do want.
CONTRAST IS THE LAUNCHING PAD FOR MORE
CONTRAST IS THE LAUNCHING PAD FOR MORE
You are ever growing, ever evolving and ever becoming. You did not come here to follow someone else’s wishes for you. You came here to create.
Your choices are what makes YOU UNIQUE.
Contrast helps you define your personal preferences. When you know what you don’t want, you also more clearly know what you do want.
Celebrate the VALUE that contrast gives you.
INTENTION TRIAD
INTENTION TRIAD
The motive to life, I believe, can be split into 3 segments:
Freedom
Expansion
Joy
FREEDOM
You are so free that you can choose bondage. Freedom of choice of how to live your life. Just like you love this freedom, so do the people around you including your partner (reminder to myself).
EXPANSION
Growth just happens. You can not stop learning and growing. With each experience you launch new rockets of desires based on the new found preference.
JOY
We are in for the fun of it - right? (For the fun of it... not just the money, the love, the fame...but for the fun of creating). It’s good to feel good, to have fun, to invite play. To be satisfied with what is and EAGER to create more.
ARE YOU FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS OR YOUR FEARS?
ARE YOU FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS OR YOUR FEARS?
We can end up being driven by fear as a result of a traumatic experience, unrealistic expectations or if we grow up in a highly controlled environment.
Fear makes us miss out on great opportunities because we are afraid to venture out. We play it safe, avoid risks and do our best to maintain the status quo.
Fear is a self-imposed prison that makes you play small which keeps you from being the full version of you. Fear is a push away from the unwanted instead of a pull towards the wanted.
For survival, fear has been a crucial feeling. However the things we are afraid of today are rarely life threatening.
PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE
PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE
DRIVE = Guide, control, direct
What drives you?
Are you driven by:
Love
Joy
Expansion
or by
Problems
Pressure
Deadlines
Your choice of fuel affects how you feel, the actions you take and the result you produce.
FEELING UNWORTHY? - HERE IS WHY
The core of your unworthiness feeling comes from the flawed premise that it’s your responsibility to make someone else happy.
I used to think it was my responsibility to make my partner happy. Leading me on a path of twisting and tweaking MY own behaviour so that HE could be HAPPY.
Taking me further and further away from living life the way that made ME happy.
Result: WE both ended up UNHAPPY.
We get it all wrong.
We worry more about how OTHER people feel than about how WE feel.
IT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENS THAT DETERMINE YOUR LIFE
It’s not what happens that determines your life, it’s what you do with it. What happens, happens to all of us. What you do with it is up to you. The meaning you give it is up to you.
This morning as I was on my way to enter the security gate to catch my 07:00 flight. A red light flashed as I scanned my boarding pass. The screen read “flight cancelled”.
What?! Nooooo! Really?! Come on!!
A million thoughts were racing through my head as I made my way over to the ticket counter. Why my flight, why didn’t I check before I left home, how could they…
I pulled up my phone to check what alternatives I had. All last minute flights were 3x the price, with a stop and leaving first in the afternoon. Meaning I will loose both the hole day and waste money.
I checked my email and saw that I was rebooked on a pm flight with a stop in Venice, which made no sense as I was travelling North.
As I stood in the queue waiting for the customer before me to finish, I closed my eyes. I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself that all the energy I spent on getting irritated over the situation was a waste of time as I could not change it and it did not help me move forward. Then I heard a voice behind me asking if she could assist me.
SUCCESS STARTS WITH MANAGING YOUR MIND
Your THOUGHTS generate your FEELINGS which drive your ACTIONS which create your RESULT.
So if you don’t like the RESULT you produce, you first need to understand what THOUGHTS that creates it.
It’s called the Model of life:
Circumstance - always neutral
Thought - gives our circumstances a positive or negative meaning
Feeling - generated by our thoughts about our circumstance
Actions - driven by our emotions
Results - created from our actions or non actions
SURROUNDED BY MAGIC
Society is predominantly oriented towards what’s wrong. We criticise, focus on what we don’t like.
We predominantly worry instead of predominantly knowing that all is well.
What if you just for one day give more of your attention to what makes you feel good?
What if you made a conscious decision to look for what you want to see. Intentionally look for the magic in your everyday life:
Fresh air
Birds
Flowers
Someone returning a smile
LIFE MIRROR HOW YOU FEEL
How you feel will create a lens which you view the world through:
When you are in love, life presents loving things to you.
When you are irritated, all you see are annoying things.
When you are anxious, there are alarming things everywhere.
Your feelings send signals to your brain to hone in on things that match with how you feel. Now you have proof that justifies how you feel, which intensifies the feeling.
Your brain is more interested in being right, than being happy and will go on a hunt for whatever YOU ASK it to find.
MOTIVATIONAL TRIAD - OUT OF DATE
Our brains top 3 priorities:
Avoid pain
Seek pleasure
Conserve energy
Used to help us survive but are today preventing us from thriving.
It's no longer enough to live a life by default if you would like to have an above average life.
TRUE SATISFACTION
TRUE SATISFACTION
There are two kinds of pleasures:
Short term - False pleasure
Long term - True satisfaction
The instant gratifications, short term, is when you CONSUME while delayed gratification, long term, is when you CREATE.
Consumption only lights up your dopamine centre temporally and makes you want more and more. Your dopamine receptors get less and less sensitive to the external stimuli → leading you to need bigger and bigger does to get the same dopamine hit.
Once the dopamine spike wears off you don't feel so good. This is why we call it false pleasure.
CONSERVE ENERGY
We are lazy by nature.
Always looking for the least effort option. Trying to reach for shortcuts. For the most efficient way.
This allows us to create habits which free up energy that can be used elsewhere.
However it also has us rethink old thoughts and repeat past behaviour. Meaning we stay the same.
Where in your life are you staying the same even though you would prefer a change?
AVOID PAIN
Our survival brain is doing its best to keep you safe.
It sees the world as a dangerous place and is constantly scanning your environment for threats.
As it has learned to survive under the current circumstances, it will do its best to keep you repeating the same old patterns of behaviour as this feels safe for the brain.
This part of the brain is against any changes in life.
MOTIVATIONAL TRIAD
• Avoid pain
• Seek pleasure
• Conserve energy
These are your brain's top 3 priorities. They used to help you survive but are not the recipe for success, happiness and growth.
If you are more motivated to lay on the coach, eating popcorn and watching Netflix your brain is working as it should.
Good vs Bad Habits
When we talk about change, we really talk about removing old habits and replacing them with new better ones. If you think through what habits you perform on a regular basis I’m sure you pretty quickly can divide them in good vs bad habits. More or less all behaviour processes multiple outcomes across times:
Immediate outcome
Ultimate outcome