Tag Archives: writing

Doing what you love (again and again)

July 12, 2016 By in Get motivated Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

One year ago, I published my first ever blog post. As I wrote then, this blog is a deep passion of mine.

Today, I’ve published over 15 000 words, or about half a non-fiction book.

I’ll be honest. It’s been hard.

Hard to start writing when there is so much else that could be done. Hard to persist with writing when I debate what to write about. And hard to come back to writing when I feel what I’ve written could have been done better.

What’s kept me going is an intense energy and feeling inside of me. An energy that comes from doing what I’m passionate about, and a feeling that it would be even harder to give up doing what I love.

It’s important to understand willpower isn’t something that is ever out of your reach.

Instead, it’s something that grows inside of you when you find the courage, and make the commitment, to do what truly excites you.

Why you should take a new approach to your New Years resolutions

December 29, 2015 By in Boost your happiness Tags: , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Here’s an exercise well worth doing:

Think about your life at a specific time in the future. Imagine everything has gone as well as it possibly could.

You have worked hard, used your strengths and succeeded at accomplishing each of your life goals at that point in time.

This moment is the realisation of your life dreams.

Now, for 15-20 minutes, on 4 separate occasions, write continuously about what you imagined.

When we take the time to write about ourself accomplishing our long-term goals, we benefit. These benefits are substantial and numerous, and include:

  • improved mood and well-being,
  • more optimistic thinking,
  • greater clarity about our motivations, priorities and long-term goals,
  • improved confidence,
  • integration of our emotions and life experiences in a more meaningful way,
  • enhanced physical health, and
  • a lower chance of getting ill.

When done right, the process of writing our New Years resolutions can not only benefit us one day in the future.

It can also benefit us today.

One of the easiest ways to help you overcome your troubles

October 1, 2015 By in Boost your happiness Tags: , , , 4 Comments

When really bad things happen in our life, such that there is no direct action that can or will fix the problem, there are really only 2 methods that we use to try and cope:

  1. Avoid what has happened, and look for drugs, alcohol, denial or some other form of escape to try and hide the pain, or
  2. Understand what has happened, and see it as an opportunity to grow and gain strength, wisdom and perspective from it.

There are a number of effective strategies to help us to overcome our troubles and move from avoidance to understanding, but the simple act of writing about them is highly effective around two-thirds of the time.

Here’s how:

Write continuously for 15-20 minutes, on 4 separate occasions, about:

  • what happened,
  • how you truly feel about it,
  • why you feel that way, and finally,
  • what good you might derive from it.

Don’t worry about getting it right or wrong, and don’t feel pressured to come up with a solution straight away. Just focus on writing, in private, about your deepest thoughts and emotions that arise when thinking about these things.

This very process doesn’t just tend to heal us emotionally by helping us to gain the insight, clarity and perspective needed to grow from the adversity. It also, quite remarkably, heals us physically, and results in significantly:

  • less doctor visits,
  • improved immune functioning,
  • reduced blood pressure, and
  • improved liver and lung functioning.

Our biggest adversities in this life can, ironically, end up being some of our life’s most wonderful gifts, as they offer the potential to contribute to our growth and expansion in ways that ‘good’ things rarely can.

And sometimes, all we need to see this is an hour of time, a piece of paper, and a pen.

The 12 steps to setting (and achieving) your New Year’s resolutions

August 29, 2015 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Step 1. Brainstorm your dream list. Write a list of everything you may possibly want to achieve this year. Think big, without limits.

Step 2: Link each goal to your core life values. For each goal, ask yourself: Why is this important to me? What is it (exactly) that will make the sacrifice, discomfort and effort that’s required to achieve this goal truly worthwhile? If you don’t have a good answer, cross it off your list.

Step 3. Re-frame your remaining goals to capture your motivation. For example, the goals “Go to the gym” or “Lose weight” might become “A strategy to improve my fitness in an enjoyable and sustainable manner, which will be evidenced by having more energy and being able to enjoy playing with the kids when I get home from work.”

Step 4: Decide on what’s most important to you. You can’t be an Olympic marathon runner and our Prime Minister at the same time. Of the goals you have left, decide which are most important. I suggest choosing your top 4, that you truly believe can be achieved together over the course of 1 year.

Step 5: Ensure there is a balance. If all 4 goals are about climbing the corporate ladder, is that really how you want to spend your year? Research shows our well-being is highest when we find a balance between relationships, religion/spirituality, work and generosity/focusing beyond ourselves.

Step 6: Re-check before you commit. Ask yourself: are these goals really, truly how I want to invest much of my time this year? (Hint: If you’re not screaming out yes, the answer is probably no.)

Step 7: For each goal, write a (very) specific action plan to get you there. Decide on the small and simple behaviours you will commit to regularly that will get you to your goal. They should be things to do (go to the cycle class on Saturday mornings) as opposed to things not to do (stop eating chocolate). Consider also any extra skills, knowledge and support you’ll need, as well as the potential barriers that may come up.

Step 8: Create a clear timeline for your action plan. Divide your behaviours into steps you can do on a daily (or at least weekly) basis.

[Important: if you’re not extremely confident that you can do the action plan, read this post, or change it so that you are.]

Step 9: Plan exactly when and where you will do the actions. Choose both a time and a place that you will come across every day (or week).

Step 10: Each day (or week) you encounter that time and place, do the action. I highly recommend creating a chart that you can mark off every night before bed so that you can see your progress.

Step 11: Put a monthly reminder in your calendar to review your progress. Don’t wait until the end of the year to realise that what you have been doing hasn’t worked. If you find that at the end of the month you are not making consistent progress towards your yearly goal, revise your action plan (and double check that it’s truly an achievable goal).

If the problem is that you are not doing your action plan, either i) make the action plan easier, ii) understand and question your thoughts that are holding you back, or iii) make changes to your environment to better support your desired behaviour. (Note: Don’t beat yourself up here. It’s normal to fail – the trick is to learn from it and change accordingly.)

Step 12. Celebrate! Decades of research shows that when you do this process, it works.

That is, if you have the courage to face the possibility of failure, you also have the ability to make your dreams come true.

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