Be Open To Alternative Perspectives.

As you walk your path with commitment (bravery with daily actions) taking time to change your perspective.

This is where we grow. Whatever your currently reality is, the chances of changing it totally in one fell swoop are slim.

However, working on your perception of this reality will allow you the opportunity to change how you feel about it. Little by little and change some aspects of reality.

But don’t leave it to chance. It takes practice?

How to practice?

*If you understand the things your need to do and they are difficult, embrace them. Relish doing the difficult stuff.

*If the the things you need to do are repetitive, and they most probably will be, use that time to remind yourself why you are doing this work.

* Whatever you approach take a positive mind set into it.
”I Get to do This”. “I’m the sort of person who…”. You have made a decision that the needs to be done. Approach the task with the decisiveness that you brought to the initial decision.

*Be content with the effort you are putting in but don’t be complacent that the effort is finished.

*Be Confident in your approach. You’ve made a decision on action. Live that decision. But be Confident in reviewing that action over time without sentiment. Make sure it works for you and make a new decision to commit to new action.

Ultimately, growth is embracing change. Being able to change your outlook, your perception of what needs done. Being able to change your perception of who you are. Knowing that other perception of you will change too.
Growth is knowing this things and still doing it!

Being content with the work you are doing today and knowing that that work will change to bring you closer to what you want to be doing.

Take Daily Action Through Courage!

Commitment is a decision that is backed with action.

Make a decision, don’t be a martyr, stick to it and workout if the outcome is helping you. Be confident in your decisions. Follow through with implementing those choices.

Don’t be in a hurry but don’t waste time either.

Create a set of standards for how you live your life.

Follow them. Recognise the changes and and adjust them when needed.

Commitment doesn’t mean slavishly following a certain course of action forever. But it does mean following it long enough to determine if its is working for you.

If it is working for you, great! Carry on, for now.

If it is not working out, determine why not. Decide does this plan of action need reworking or does a new plan need to be found.

Very few things will continue to work for you forever.

Review what is and isn’t working and commit to making the changes needed.

This approach is what we need to embrace Growth!
There is opportunity for growth throughout our life. Being ready to embrace those opportunities is the key.

8/30

This may seem like a strange statement to make.

You may have a subconscious thought that of course you value yourself. That is a given surely!

But how do you measure or judge that value?

Do you check in with that measurement regularly?

Maybe you are now wondering what is this guy even talking about?

Well I believe that to have self awareness and acceptance you should have values.

These ‘values’ can be used to measure your value and inform the actions you take daily.

The use of this structure can create the filter you use to make decisions; inform how you show up in a given situation. This can help you provide clarity on how best you can improve your life and the lives of those around you!

So to have Value and understand yours, use Values to set a framework to decide what that value is.

I have done this and they are straight forward:

Acceptance

Commitment

Growth

Freedom

I can and do use them to map out what I do.

These values also help inform how work with anyone!
Each value informs the next and can become a structure to fall back on when progress stalls or things get hard.

6/30

This is another enjoy the journey not the destination post.
You’ve read them before or heard the sentiment a hundred times.

What I would like for you to consider is why it pops up all the time as a statement…

Because it’s True!

All the things you do on your way to your grand goals or milestone constitutes your life.

Do pass over it waiting for the big things to hit.

Find fulfilment in the day to day. What you do today is as important as achieving a fitness target, getting a job promotion or anything that is in store in the future.

Be happy with the work you are doing today and be mindful where it is taking you that can be reward in itself.

However don’t be complacent in the effort or blind to what direction your efforts are taking you.

Content but not Complacent!

Value your intuition and awareness of what is working rather than blindly following advice and instructions.

This is not to say advice is bad. What I am saying is that mindlessly following advice and/or instructions will only get you so far. And there will be a time when that advice will no longer be the thing you need to progress and flourish.

So practice your Awareness, learn your language to describe your experiences and build a Happy, Healthy and Confident Life.

5/30

Everyone has the potential to offer Advice.

It’s possible that advice will be beneficial to you.

The skill as we wind our way through life is to be cognisant of whether that advice is useful or will be useful to us!

We can use a couple of filters to help to recognise if the advice will be helpful.

1. Is this person doing what you want to do. Will their advice help get you to where you want to be?

2. Is the advice giver being over cautious? Are they close to you and although care for you, are they wanting you to stay small and not expose yourself to discomfort, hardship or challenge?

Advice can be seductive and safe.

Just follow the advice and you’ll see results. And to a certain extent this is true. But true in that you have to DO SOMETHING.

Action is the key starting point. Action coupled with reviewing what your action produces.

Being aware of the outcomes of your effort will help gauge if you are building the life you planned. *

Your awareness of how the actioned advice is working for you is more important than the advice you receive.

Ultimately you decide what you do.

It may not seem like that at times, but the earlier you can take steps to making the right decisions the quicker you are on the path to your Happy, Healthy and Confident Life.

*Planning your future will be a later post…

4/30

Make Decisions about your health, your life, your futures.
For two main reasons decisions are the bedrock to our success.

1. Will Power.

Will Power is a tricky thing. When we are rested and not stressed will power seems like a good way to deal with life.

And the thing is we manage our ‘plan’ by dealing with what life throws at us one decision at a time.

In many cases each day we freshly make the same decisions over and over again.

What to eat, what to wear, where to go. Whether to walk or train.
The thing is each time a little bit of will power is used if you try and make good decisions each time.

My suggestion is that you batch make decisions and stick to those decisions for a set amount of time.
Make the decision once for that period of time and you don’t have to waste will power every time you do that activity.
This develops into your Standards.

2. Make a Decision rather than a Sacrifice?

Sacrifices sound grand and purposeful, but they are hard to live with. They suggest you are giving something up or going without.

Sacrifice sounds hard and noble. But sacrifice can also be a drain on the limited will power you have.
It can be a negative approach to living the life you deserve.

Making a decision is decisive.

Not permanent, but a choice that stands up to distraction from the world.

Will power is finite, don’t waste it on random choices all the time.

Make decisions about how you live your life and you will reduce the number of decisions you have to make.

Will Power is Finite.

Make fewer Decisions!

3/30

When you want to achieve something, goals can be useful.

Setting the goal and planning all the ‘things’ you need in place to make it happen is exciting. I get that.

But when each new goal is accompanied with extra ‘things’, then you may be complicating life.

Standards may help reduce the clutter.

Why standards?

Well when you have standards in how you live day to day it creates a platform to complete new goals, tasks or challenges as you select them.

Or indeed, as they crop up in your life.

Creating solid standards will make ‘things’ easier.

Standards are not habits or systems. They are Standards.

Habits can be mindless, autopilot repetitions that hopefully provide the outcome you want.

Standards are crafted personalised ways of living, that are borne from clarity.

Standards come from decisions not sacrifices.

Standards create success…

…success is self determined!

2/30

Over the past 30 years I have developed a way of working where I can encourage people to become more self aware.

Creating an Awareness that includes acceptance allows a platform for action.

This coupled with a belief that we can and are ‘allowed’ to take that action is a powerful combination. (Empowerment)

Imagine what you will be capable of when you get both of these together at the right time…

…Imagine you could create the environment to do this at will!

What would you do?

You are more powerful than you think you are.

Act accordingly! Seth Godin

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