“Don’t mistake activity with achievement.”
― John Wooden
Figuring Out Your Beliefs and Values
This might seem a little too hippy for you to think about doing, but our beliefs and values are the prism through which we experience and act in the world. They are the reasons we do what we do and how we do it. If we believe it is wrong to steal we won’t, if we believe it is right to be generous then we will be.
Our beliefs are what we believe to be right and how we believe the world, and the universe, works. It is not just religious beliefs, which do also matter, but also beliefs about right and wrong, our morals and how people should behave. We also have beliefs about ourselves and how we allow ourselves to be treated. If we believe we are not worthy of respect, we will let people walk all over us, but if we believe we are worthy of respect, then we will expect it, or perhaps demand it.
Figuring out our values and beliefs sets the parameters for our lives. It gives us tools to navigate the world, to make good choices and will impact how our coming year and the rest of our lives will work out. If we don’t clearly define our beliefs and values we are kind of hitting and hoping with how we live our lives, which is certainly not a recipe for a successful, happy and fulfilling life.
Reviewing Your Priorities
Once we have our values and beliefs clarified we can set our priorities for the year ahead and look at how we are spending our time. If we look at our day or week we can see what percentage of our time we spend working, with friends, with family, engaging in hobbies, keeping fit, attending our place of worship, working on our goals etc.
Often we get stressed out because our life is out of balance. We sometimes spend too much time working or doing things for other people and not enough time for ourselves. Conversely, it is also not good to spend too much time doing personal activities and neglecting our loved ones or our jobs.
Finding a balance is a personal thing and therefore reviewing all the areas in our lives and thinking about what we care about is important. It may take a bit of time but it will mean your level of happiness, satisfaction and fulfilment in life will grow exponentially.
Removing The Bad Relationships
We all have relationships with other people, that is obvious, but the quality of those relationships matters. If someone in your life brings you down, makes you feel small, disrespects you on a regular basis or is just not good for you then you have two options.
The first option is to try and mend the relationship, to confront them on how they are treating you and stand up for your own wellbeing. All relationships should be built on equality and respect. They should include kindness, encouragement and generosity, if they do not then odds are they are having a detrimental effect on your wellbeing.
The second option is to cut them out of your life. If they are having a significantly negative impact on your life and confronting them on it either did not work or is not an option then they are not worth having in your life. Your life is wonderful opportunity to reach your full potential, to experience joy, success and fulfilment. No one has the right to get in the way of this and it your responsibility to manage your relationships, no one can do it for you.
Cultivating The Positive Relationships
On the flip side, we all have relationships in our lives that are very positive. People who give us love, encouragement, support and their time. These are the people we should be building our relationships. It can be easy to take these people for granted and assume that they will always be our friends and partner without any effort to cultivate these relationships.
However, if we do not spend time with these people, ask after their wellbeing, support them when they need us, and be a good friend or partner then we will grow apart and friends become acquaintances and partners move out of our lives.
it is also important to maintain and cultivate our relationships with workmates. These are people we spend a significant amount of time with and in order for the companies we work for, the team we work with and for us to thrive we need to build strong relationships with trust, loyalty and collaboration. All of these come from spending time with each other, face to face. Human being are social animals and we only trust people we know. We cannot do this over social media or by video conferencing, etc.
Reverse Engineer Your Dreams
We all have something we want to achieve, something big that lingers in the back of our minds, but seems too big to be able to get done. We usually tell ourselves that we will get around to working on this goal but life always get in the way. The reason we are not working towards this goal, whatever it might be, is that we are not prioritising it, we are not allocating time for it.
This might be because we have a mega busy lifestyle or it might be because the goal seems too big and we don’t think we will ever achieve, so we never start it. The first reason can be solved by breaking the goal into very small chunks and find time to slot these in during our day. For example, if you take public transport this is a perfect opportunity to read up on the goal in question or write assignments, notes, plans, etc.
The second reason is a lack of self belief. Depending on how deep this is you might just need encouragement from others or you might need something like Cognitive Behaviour Therapy if the issue is based on underlying bad experiences. If the latter is true there is no harm in seeking professional help to improve your well-being and quality of life, it can really help and is private.
Also, for the first reason asking someone who has a positive impact on your life to be an accountability partner can really help. Someone who knows your goal and who can check in with you on a regular basis to see how you are getting on and to give you encouragement and tips.
All of this is good, but you also don’t want the journey to your goal to take too long, so you need to speed up the process. To do this I recommend finding someone that you admire that has achieved the goal that you are seeking to achieve and study how they got there. Then you can reverse engineer the steps they took and take the same steps.
Some of the steps might not be applicable to you, or be things that are not available to you, but it will give you a road map. It will take some creative thinking and persistence. Once you have a plan it is important to set daily, weekly and monthly goals. Have a check list for time-frames like 3 months, 6 months, 1 year and 5 years. Take a course, read books, listen to podcasts, whatever it takes, you can do it. Have faith in yourself and go for it. We regret what we do not do more that the things that we do.
When you are at the end of your life in a nursing home don’t let this goal be a regret you wish you had tried to achieve. Good luck my friends, you can do great things with effort and persistence.
Something to think about
The limits we have in our lives are often created by ourselves, based on what we think the world expects of us. These limits are flexible barriers that can be changed or even removed. You are in charge of your reality.
The Fullfilment Project 