Category: INSPIRE

Just remember to stay true to who you are. Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. – Oscar Wilde

It is time to Rediscover. Remember when you were just a child and everything in front of you was all excitement and the next best thing. At a young age – learning and growing, we were at the perfect age to appreciate just about everything and a number of times we would be surprised was just another day in our lives. But looking back, there is the cliche question in which we may always go back to, or that people always ask us to remember. 

As a child, the most common question we were probably asked was: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” We were allowed to be dreamers, give the most extravagant answers; think of the craziest careers and even to have superpowers.

Time has passed and by now we started our career or have forgotten the world changing dreams we once had as a child.  Maybe we thought it was our calling, or maybe we simply found a job that pays the bills. However, there will be a time when a little voice deep within us will ask for more. And then it is up to us to decide what we do with it. The journey to discover your calling can take many years and I believe our calling changes as we as people evolve and develop, however, our life’s calling may never change. It is time to rediscover.

What is the So-called Calling?

A calling is more than just doing the work you are getting paid for, it encompasses your whole being and sense of purpose in life. If you are following your calling then you most probably feel alive, awake and happy. You feel passion for the work you do and believe your life is equally meaningful and fulfilling. The 3 most common callings: 

• Calling from outside: Looking for needs of the world and how you can help. You put the needs of others before yours.
• Inner voice: the thirst to discover your calling.
• Perfect Fit: Finding your profession based on your strengths, skills, values, and interests. 

So how do we rediscover our calling?

• Have dates with yourself to get to know the real you 
• If you would win a 100 million Dollars right now, what kind of work would you do?
• Imagine you have already lived a full life and people are gathering at your funeral
• Be brave and take small steps to change your present
• Plan and be ready for detours

Embracing your calling means to learn, plan and set goals while being mindful on your journey. It’s important to keep in mind that we are not here to “find” our calling but to discover it.

When you fail or feel like there is no coming back, remember everyone makes mistakes, everyone has setbacks and everyone will have their own struggles. Pull yourself together and take a stand and come ready for tomorrow with a stand of courage.

Need some pointers? Try these simple tips:

• Remind yourself that fear isn’t always helpful.
• Expand your comfort zone gradually.
• Remember to breathe.
• Take a step back and get objective.
• Think of how you’d view a friend in the same situation.
• Ask, “Who do I need to become?” instead of, “What do I need to do?”
• Take action.

Well when this happens (everything feels like it is falling apart), it’s extremely important that you hit the brakes, take a look at your life, and think about what you can change so that you’re actually living and not just going through the motions. 

1. Define success on your terms

Figure out what makes you feel happy and successful, rather than what society tells you will make you so. Live your life every day so that you’re working toward meeting the goals you’ve set for your own life, rather than running the same rat race day after day.

2. Embrace the positives and negatives in life

It sounds easy to embrace the positives, right? Too often, it’s when things are going well that we don’t recognize it. Celebrate every victory in life, no matter how small. It will help you stay positive when things start to go wrong. When things do go wrong, don’t think your world is crumbling down around you. Instead, look to what you can learn from the situation. Learn from your mistakes and failures, and persevere through unfortunate bad times. You’ll come out of it a much stronger person, and will be able to face the next obstacle in your life with a clear mindset.

3. Control only what you can

There are things you can’t change and, no matter what you do, you’ll just have to accept that you’re powerless against them. But the wisdom is in knowing which category a certain situation falls into. Don’t let something beyond your control keep you up at night — it will only serve to drive you crazy.

4. Don’t get frazzled

Life is full of little annoyances that we can’t control (see above). Once you recognize that Murphy’s Law is one of the only constants in life, you’ll realize things could be much worse, and you’ll be able to let the little things fall by the wayside.

5. Love yourself

If you don’t love yourself, no one else will. On that same token, you should never compare your life to anyone else’s. You have no idea what they’ve been through in their life, and they have no idea what you’ve gone through in yours. And don’t worry if other people have something negative to say about you. People will talk. But it’s those people who are unhappy enough with their own lives that they have to find the negatives in other people’s lives to make themselves feel better. Live your own life, and love every minute of it.

In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision. – Dalai Lama

It is a big wide world out there – and in the current state of an ever evolving reality (environment, culture, society, and technology) you need to be willing and ready to stretch and flow with how the things change. It is all about adapting your journey to success, based on the opportunities that are thrown/presented your way.

It is a common happening that before you set off to chase a new goal or dream, that the people around you will decide to chip in and give their sense of worth and you will be surprised by how many will give negative feedback about the fact that what you were about to do has faults or this and that and will try to stop you. Now they may be right – however, they may not be either.

In 1954, Elvis was still a no-name performer, and Jimmy Denny, the manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after just one performance telling him, ‘You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.’ Elvis went on to become the second best-selling artists of all time.

When it comes to society – you will be judged based on the concrete evidence of the work you’ve done. Proving your journey to your dream, to yourself – won’t be done through the validation of others. It will only be done by your willingness and discipline to see it through to the end – regardless of the failures.

We will always find ourselves in situations where one way or another we feel like our patience is on its last thread or we will find ourselves at a point where we are fearful of what the day may hold. Maybe due to past experiences from the week before, due to a set deadline or maybe it is because it is that daunting Monday.

It’s vitally important that you learn to calm yourself down in the highly charged situation before you lose it or make mistakes. There are ways to calm down and get through it with your sanity intact. Contrary to what you might think, fear is not an uncontrollable force that takes over us. It is a manageable emotion.

If you’re ready to take control and lead rather than be led, here are seven tips you should follow:

1. Stay optimistic and embrace positivity despite the surrounding negativity.

2. Work on being happy and become known for it. Smile!

3. Remember that there will be those who like you and those who won’t. Don’t waste your time running after the latter. Build yourself to become strong, and they’re bound to come to you.

4. Become more intuitive and tap into opportunities that are all around you. 

5. Operate with tacit knowledge, i.e., do what you do with confidence rather than just doing a task.

6. Repel people who are negative, especially while you’re building your own, or it will drag you down.

7. Remember that you may be lonely, but you’re never alone. The quicker you realize this, the less likely it will be for you to succumb to depression and other negative thoughts.

If you struggle to get moving and taking action, you need to change your mentality and perception, especially when it comes to talking about something you wish to do, but cannot due to time, or how busy you are or this or that. Well, that is your first problem. If you are making excuses, putting up walls and listing all the ways why you can’t do it – well maybe you don’t want to do it. Don’t wait around for the right time or when this or that is in place or when you have something to start you. Start now and do it with what you have and this will enable you to stretch your mind early and start your journey even stronger. 

Waiting around for the perfect time or when things are ‘better’ to get your act together is never really going to get you moving and shaking. Waiting around is pretty much just killing time. If you want to make some ripples, make a difference and succeed further than before. You need to take action. You need to make it happen.

Do these sound familiar?

• The circumstances are not right
• I can’t start because of this person… 
• I don’t have time to do it
• I have been too busy with work
• I am not a morning person / I am not a night person
• It’s a big risk
• What if people don’t like me

But putting off and continuing to make excuses to avoid taking action is a problem. I get it… it is your life and you can live it how you want. That is fine. But my point here is… you have potential, you have what it takes and you can do whatever it is want, as long as you put your hands to it. Your passions, goals, dreams, and aspirations, you can make these all happen – as long as you get up and start putting some actions into motion and some decisions set in stone.

“One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.” – Paulo Coelho

In this world, you benefit from what you create with your own two hands. Unless you make life better by yourself, chances are it won’t get better on its own. Even if a miracle is to occur – most of the time you need to act on asking the big man upstairs!

Everybody wants advice but nobody wants to do the work. If you cut the time you spend deliberating in half and spent that time actively pursuing what you want, how much farther ahead do you think you’d be? Answer honestly but don’t agonize over it.

Your challenge, should you accept it: Less thinking, more doing.

What’s stopping you from achieving your dreams? Who or what has been dragging you away from the steps you need to take to achieve your goals?

Let me guess…

• circumstances
• other people
• maybe bad luck
• no time
• been too busy
• too scared
• it’s a big risk
• too tired
• and I am sure the list goes on

It is so much easier to put the responsibilities of your circumstances and situations elsewhere. But you should understand that, in order to achieve greatness, you need to take responsibility for your situation. By taking charge of what is going on in your life, you get to be in control.

So what do you need to do?

Firstly… Stop getting in your own way and secondly…

News flash — your fear is what’s stopping you. You don’t see it, or refuse to see it subconsciously because it makes you vulnerable. You are afraid of having to deal with the setbacks from your own failures. You think you are afraid of how others might react to your failure, but the truth is that you are afraid of how you will deal with your own failure.

“Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.” – Judy Blume

In short, you can overcome fear: 

1. Acknowledge your fear 
2. Identify your fear 
3. Write down the consequences of giving in to your fear 
4. Write down what you will gain from overcoming your fear 
5. Use your past success experience as your reference 

Take baby steps

Have you ever observed a baby who was learning to walk? Did the baby ever worry about falling when he or she attempted to walk?

You see happiness boils down to a choice.

Define happiness as “to choose to be happy.” This way there is no infinite list of things that we are never going to obtain or accomplish that we are requiring of ourselves to be able to be happy. There is going to be no insatiable desire for money, clothing, houses, cars and good-looking significant others to fulfill our happiness quotient–because we will already have chosen to be the happiness quotient.

There are plenty of books surrounding how to be happy and even more than before!

Happiness should be a perspective, not a goal. A lens through which we view the world, our family and our jobs. Through this lens, we are not going to want to make money because we think it will make us happy. We are going to make money because we have chosen to be happy at our jobs; the people around us are going to see it and choose to support us in our career progression. We are not going to look at life and set unrealistic expectations for things that even Bill Gates and Warren Buffet cannot afford. We are going to be happy that we are healthy and live in a world where we even have the choice to make the choice to be happy.