When you look back to your childhood, did you become the person you dreamed you could be? Did you take an even greater path, or did you settle for a life that you don't quite know how you ended up with?
Life takes you on many journeys and through many paths. Sometimes you may feel that you're traveling in a single direction, only to wake up years later and wonder how on earth you arrived at your current life. The reason this often happens is that people often fail to spend time learning about themselves and discovering who they really are. What they really desire in life. The other reason people tend to give up on their dreams is due to the desire to please others, or live up to a conceived societal ideal.
Each day, week, month and year provides you with an opportunity to rediscover who you really are and who you would like to be. This doesn't mean you have to walk out the door and start your life again, but more to start finding ways to bring your true personality, interests and desired lifestyle into your current world of existence.
One of the other issues you may have faced is lack of self confidence that you could reach your goals and desires. This lack may have been the result of internal self beliefs, or the beliefs of others or society at large. Regardless of its origin, poor self belief has the power to prevent you from pursuing your desires. Thus resulting in living half a life and ending up in a place you find unfulfilling.
Dramatic change can be terrifying, which is why gradual steps towards self discovery are recommended. You may need to read more, travel more, research more, speak up more, or listen more... In order to find yourself. It takes time, but it's worth it. Take time to think back to that inner child and her/his hopes and dreams. How did others in your life respond to your desires? How well received where your ideas? These reactions would certainly have played a part in either increasing or decreasing your self efficacy in your ability to transform your dreams into a reality.
Through introspection and meditation you find the quickest path to self discovery. Your passions may seem elaborate and fanciful to others, but all realized ideas where once just pipe dreams. When there is a big leap to take you from the here and now to your future goals, give yourself permission to make gradual changes whilst you remain in a more secure position. (Eg financially). This will also give you time to adjust to your new self discoveries.
If you are completely happy with your life - that's great. Just remember there is always room to dream big and succeed. Life is here to be lived, enjoyed and experienced.
You are the creator of your destiny so don't wait for a better time. Now is the time to start really living your life.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Trying to have it all and remain relaxed
Do You want success, happiness, money, fun, family, holidays???..and the list goes on...
You grow up learning that you can now have it all, but if this desire for everything is not balanced well, you can be left feeling overwhelmed, overworked and underachieving in almost all areas of your life. More importantly, you may find your stress levels are so high that it impacts on other people in your life and you may find it difficult to even enjoy the fruits of your labour.
The expectations you place on yourself are often the keys to how well you manage your levels of stress and your ability to 'get the jobs done' well.
Being a working mother is a perfect example of dealing with high expectations. Mums expect themselves to be able to get the kids to school/daycare on time every day, organize their social lives (& their children's social lives), run the household, feed the family, look after their own (& their children's) health & fitness, get to work on time, achieve success at work/career and the list goes on.
The single mum can have it even tougher if she does not have great support financially & emotionally. She has the pressure of trying to look and feel good to support her kids and hopefully attract a new mate, whilst trying to look after her kids, work, cope with the side effects of separation and help her kids deal with the separation too.
The single woman has all the same stress and expectations, minus the kids & partner, but plus the need to socialize and look and feel her best in order to hopefully attract a suitable parter & often places more pressure on herself in terms of career success to ensure she can provide for herself now and in the future.
Men also have to deal with high levels of stress due to expectations to be fit and healthy, earn a substantial income, support a family/partner/kids, be a fun and supportive friend AND... Cope with the exceeding demands at work to produce more, work longer hours, be innovative and so on...
So in the midst of all these pressures and expectations from others, it's important to be realistic about what you can achieve within your constraints of time. Then it's important to communicate with others about your time pressures and ensure you and others also have realistic expectations about what is possible.
Being organized is also imperative, so take time to sort out your work and home life, so that you know where things are when you need them. Schedule time for you and with those you love - again within a realistic timeframe.
Being organized and realistic will assist you to stop berating yourself every time you fall short of your expectations and will also serve to help you reevaluate your expectations regularly to ensure you're not asking more of yourself than is really possible.
You grow up learning that you can now have it all, but if this desire for everything is not balanced well, you can be left feeling overwhelmed, overworked and underachieving in almost all areas of your life. More importantly, you may find your stress levels are so high that it impacts on other people in your life and you may find it difficult to even enjoy the fruits of your labour.
The expectations you place on yourself are often the keys to how well you manage your levels of stress and your ability to 'get the jobs done' well.
Being a working mother is a perfect example of dealing with high expectations. Mums expect themselves to be able to get the kids to school/daycare on time every day, organize their social lives (& their children's social lives), run the household, feed the family, look after their own (& their children's) health & fitness, get to work on time, achieve success at work/career and the list goes on.
The single mum can have it even tougher if she does not have great support financially & emotionally. She has the pressure of trying to look and feel good to support her kids and hopefully attract a new mate, whilst trying to look after her kids, work, cope with the side effects of separation and help her kids deal with the separation too.
The single woman has all the same stress and expectations, minus the kids & partner, but plus the need to socialize and look and feel her best in order to hopefully attract a suitable parter & often places more pressure on herself in terms of career success to ensure she can provide for herself now and in the future.
Men also have to deal with high levels of stress due to expectations to be fit and healthy, earn a substantial income, support a family/partner/kids, be a fun and supportive friend AND... Cope with the exceeding demands at work to produce more, work longer hours, be innovative and so on...
So in the midst of all these pressures and expectations from others, it's important to be realistic about what you can achieve within your constraints of time. Then it's important to communicate with others about your time pressures and ensure you and others also have realistic expectations about what is possible.
Being organized is also imperative, so take time to sort out your work and home life, so that you know where things are when you need them. Schedule time for you and with those you love - again within a realistic timeframe.
Being organized and realistic will assist you to stop berating yourself every time you fall short of your expectations and will also serve to help you reevaluate your expectations regularly to ensure you're not asking more of yourself than is really possible.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Who do you see when you look in the mirror?
One of the most common locations you are likely to find yourself self criticizing is in front of the mirror. Thanks to the instillation of reflective surfaces in lifts, bathrooms, cars, iPhones, wardrobes, department stores (and the list goes on...), it's hard to escape the temptation to 'check' whether you still look ok.
Research tells us that children as young as 6 years of age are suffering from body image problems and thus engage in a fair bit of self criticism. The saddest aspect of this behavior is that the images they are judging themselves against are not reflective of the average person. In fact, most of the ideal beauty portrayal is fabricated by the media. For instance, Jennifer Anniston was once reported as saying that she felt a lot of studio pressure to stay very thin during her years filming the show Friends, when this was not natural for her at the time. If she had been allowed to remain her beautiful curvier self throughout the show, perhaps she could have led a movement of self acceptance similar to the one she began with her hair styles.
It's not just females who criticize themselves regularly, now more than ever we are seeing males with dysfunctional body images. Just think about the physical transformation sportsmen have gone through over the past 20-30 years. Now, its perfectly acceptable for them to have the latest fashionable clothes, perfect white teeth, manicured hands and feet, wear tanning products and have cosmetic procedures in order to look attractive, youthful and sexy (perhaps David Beckham has had some influence changing this ideal too).
When I was a teenager my mother took me to the dentist to look into having braces. I remember at the time crying my heart out because I was so worried I was going to be teased at school. Lucky for me at the time, I had a perfect bite, so my dentist did not want to potentially damage that with braces.
HAVE THINGS CHANGED SINCE THEN!!!
If I had been in this position now, I would have been excited about choosing all the different styles of braces available Now, it's very common for kids to have braces because they lead to perfectly straight teeth - a very desirable quality.
It would great, though, if we could teach our kids that whilst it's important to feel good about your physical appearance (being clean, tidy, healthy etc...), attractiveness ultimately comes from within. The reason people put so much effort (& money) into their physical appearances is really to feel good about themselves on the inside. However, whilst initial attraction is based on the physical, positive feelings are the drivers behind others finding you attractive. Yet, people often assume its because they have 'improved' something physical that others like them more. When in fact it's the positive energy that it most attractive to others - especially long term.
The cheapest way to start feeling better about yourself is to flip reflective criticism into reflective complements. For instance, you're at work and catch yourself saying "gosh I look tired today". Flip it... Stop. Tell yourself "I'm not doing this today". Then say something positive, such as "I love the way I tied up my hair today", or "I'm on fire in meetings today", or "this outfit looks great on me".
The point is to start to like the person you see in the mirror. That way you give her/him the best chance of shining through - every single day.
Research tells us that children as young as 6 years of age are suffering from body image problems and thus engage in a fair bit of self criticism. The saddest aspect of this behavior is that the images they are judging themselves against are not reflective of the average person. In fact, most of the ideal beauty portrayal is fabricated by the media. For instance, Jennifer Anniston was once reported as saying that she felt a lot of studio pressure to stay very thin during her years filming the show Friends, when this was not natural for her at the time. If she had been allowed to remain her beautiful curvier self throughout the show, perhaps she could have led a movement of self acceptance similar to the one she began with her hair styles.
It's not just females who criticize themselves regularly, now more than ever we are seeing males with dysfunctional body images. Just think about the physical transformation sportsmen have gone through over the past 20-30 years. Now, its perfectly acceptable for them to have the latest fashionable clothes, perfect white teeth, manicured hands and feet, wear tanning products and have cosmetic procedures in order to look attractive, youthful and sexy (perhaps David Beckham has had some influence changing this ideal too).
When I was a teenager my mother took me to the dentist to look into having braces. I remember at the time crying my heart out because I was so worried I was going to be teased at school. Lucky for me at the time, I had a perfect bite, so my dentist did not want to potentially damage that with braces.
HAVE THINGS CHANGED SINCE THEN!!!
If I had been in this position now, I would have been excited about choosing all the different styles of braces available Now, it's very common for kids to have braces because they lead to perfectly straight teeth - a very desirable quality.
It would great, though, if we could teach our kids that whilst it's important to feel good about your physical appearance (being clean, tidy, healthy etc...), attractiveness ultimately comes from within. The reason people put so much effort (& money) into their physical appearances is really to feel good about themselves on the inside. However, whilst initial attraction is based on the physical, positive feelings are the drivers behind others finding you attractive. Yet, people often assume its because they have 'improved' something physical that others like them more. When in fact it's the positive energy that it most attractive to others - especially long term.
The cheapest way to start feeling better about yourself is to flip reflective criticism into reflective complements. For instance, you're at work and catch yourself saying "gosh I look tired today". Flip it... Stop. Tell yourself "I'm not doing this today". Then say something positive, such as "I love the way I tied up my hair today", or "I'm on fire in meetings today", or "this outfit looks great on me".
The point is to start to like the person you see in the mirror. That way you give her/him the best chance of shining through - every single day.
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