Tag: Fulfillment

To Read Is To Grow

Happiness, Success

Many people don’t read on a regular basis. They read social media posts or snippets of news stories on their mobile phones, but reading seems to be something fewer people do for pleasure these days. I may be wrong, but that’s how it seems to me.

Reading has many benefits in terms of keeping the brain active, but the benefits beyond this depend on what you read. If we are to improve ourselves, to become wiser, kinder and happier, then what we read matters more than how often we read.

There are self development books and their are spiritual books, which are also self development books. Books that reach deep into you and show you what not to be and how to be in order to be happy and fulfilled in life. The wiser the content of what you read the happier you feel the more you read it. We all need progress, to varying degrees, and reading good books is the best way I know how to do so. To read is to grow.

Check out my recommended books on the Resources page.

It Shouldn’t Be Like That

Happiness, Success

Often we feel that a situation should or shouldn’t be like our preconceived ideas, and if the situation does not match our ideas we get upset, frustrated or angry. We do this a lot, we should all over the place.

Problems arise in life when we try to make reality as we want it to be. We share the world with a lot of people, animals and insects. Each with their own views and behaviours. Trying to control what happens is like telling water not to flow, it will flow, as that is it’s nature.

If we let go of judgements and preferences then we are better able to accept what arises in life and see the positives and the opportunities that each situation creates. We also feel less upset, frustrated and angry. If we accept each moment with gratitude then we feel blessed to be alive

Looking The Wrong Way

Happiness, Health

Water is evaporated from the oceans of the world and the water vapour becomes clouds. The clouds rain on the hills. The rain become rivers and the river make their way to the ocean. This, as we learned in school, is the water cycle.

When we look at a cloud we rarely think of the ocean. We think of the rain that is about to fall on us that will either ruin our day or water our garden, depending on how you look at it. Likewise, we don’t often think about the causes of the things that happen in our lives. We focus on the effects of what happens.

A lot of what happens in life are a result of our habits, our diet, whether we exercise, the way we think about things and how we react to things. All based on our habits. We have patterns of behaviour that mean we have similar experiences again and again in life, due to our habits.

The point is that we are looking at the rain and we should be looking at the ocean.

The Power Of Being Courteous

Happiness, Success

People usually respond to you in the manner in which you address them. Courtesy can diffuse arguments and can uplift someone who is having a bad day. It has been said that courtesy is the lubrication that makes a business successful. I would say that it is the lubrication that makes society function, along with a number of other things.

So, open doors for people, smile and say good morning. If you’re getting a coffee get one for your colleague, friend or partner. There are thousands of opportunities every day to be courteous and considerate.

There are also people in our work places that often go unnoticed; the cleaners, the security guards, etc. Often we say good morning, but rarely stay for a chat. It means a lot to people if you see them and treat them as a human being.

A two minute chat will not disrupt your day and it could improve someone else’s day, and your own. Have time for people and talk about their lives, their problems and their aspirations. Put you mobile phone away and talk to people and you will be happier as a result.

Our Environment Matters

Leadership, Success

It could be said that a person’s behaviour is inseparable from their environment. This is true in many ways. If we take the example of a work environment, behaviour that is permissible due to Managers letting it happen or colleagues wanting to fit in with our peers is a slippery slope. This is how things go wrong in companies, and in Government, the culture of the company is its downfall or its catalyst for progress.

Likewise, if we surround ourselves with people who support us and challenge is constructively, we will take chances and strive to thrive. If we are surrounded by people who are attached to their status quo, then progress becomes difficult.

If society becomes restrictive, as it is in many parts of the world, or it advocates for freedom, we behave in response. Where possible, we need to surround ourselves with people who we can rely on to help us reach our goals and treat us with compassion and encouragement.

Sometimes, Just Pay It

Happiness, Health

A few months ago I went to the dentist as a tooth was bothering me a little, but not too much. They found an infection in the root of the tooth and I was told that removing the tooth would be the best course of action. The cost was £65.

I decided to leave it as it was, because it wasn’t really bothering me. Towards the end of last year I suddenly had nausea and pain in my stomach. It lasted most of the day until I vomited around 9pm.

The pain in my stomach was so severe I ended up at Accident & Emergency (UK) at around 10pm. There was a 10 hour wait to be seen. By this time I had figured out it was the infection in my tooth that had leaked out and gone into my stomach.

I left the A&E and went home. I got the earliest appointment and paid the £65 to have my tooth removed. The point of the story, as with many situations in life, sometimes you should just pay the money and avoid what may happen further down the way.

This applies to fixing problems when they are small, not when the have been left to become bigger. The action does not have to be paying money, it is whatever fixes the problem, as soon as it arises.

Opportunities In Life

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

I work as a complaint handler for a bank, which to many may be the last job they would ever wish to do, but I find great joy in doing it. The important question to ask ourselves is what opportunities are we looking for?

Opportunities to be rich, beautiful, happy or healthy. There are many things we seek for ourselves, but the most profound joy comes from seeking things for others.

With a complaint something has gone wrong, it may be the fault of the bank or the fault of someone else. The opportunity is to help reduce the customer’s suffering, to put right a wrong and rebuild the relationship between the customer and the bank.

I spoke to a customer recently who was so unwell and in pain that his Wife was talking on his behalf. His Wife was also suffering to see what her Husband was going through. During the call I managed to make the Wife and her Husband laugh and resolved the complaint successfully.

If you do your work with compassion and the intention to bring joy to other people’s lives, you will enjoy your work, and it will give your life purpose.

The Journey Is The Path

Happiness

I have been reading the book When Things Fall Apart by the Buddhist Nun Pema Chödrön and in it she talks about the path we walk only existing in the present. We cannot see the future, but we can see the past behind us, but only in our memory of it. She said “What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.”

In other words the actions we take in the present influence what our future will be like. If we want a positive future our aspiration and exertion should reflect this in the present. We influence our next steps on our path with our mind, speech and actions in every moment.

The test comes when we find ourselves in a challenging situation. How we handle the situation also influences our future. If we lose it and react emotionally, then our immediate future will be different than if we calmly looked for a cause of the situation and looked for a solution to make it better.

It is not always easy to remain calm, but, with practise it is possible.

Causes and Conditions

The Pathway To Fulfilment

Everything in life is a result of causes and conditions, whether these be man made or simply the circumstances we find ourselves in. The thing to do is to try and understand the causes and conditions so we can improve our situation, whatever it is.

There are many different points of view on how to understand causes and conditions, religious, philosophical and scientific. In my view, when there is an agreement between these three areas of human understanding, the truth becomes available.

You may follow a particular way of thinking or a particular religion, and this should always be your first port of call, but it is important to be open to the ideas from other points of view. If we understand why we are in the situation we are in we can find a clearer way forward and we can live a better life.

Also, when people behave badly towards us, we can try to understand the causes and conditions that influenced the way they are behaving, which then opens up the possibility of treating them with compassion. Even if someone is angry, to be angry is to suffer. Meeting anger with compassion often turns their anger into the emotion behind the anger; sadness, frustration or confusion for example. This opens a door to help them and resolve the situation peacefully.

Taking Reality As It Is

Happiness, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When on a spiritual path or the path to self mastery we need to be careful to take reality as it is. We can see life as heaven or hell, depending on how we see our circumstances. Neither of which will necessarily be a true reflection of reality.

We often overlay our past experiences onto what is happening and make assumptions about what people mean or what impact something will have on us. There is much wisdom in the teachings of both religious and secular leaders.

One way of testing if an approach to life is a wise one is whether it makes you happier or not. Wisdom followed correctly should make you happier and your life better. If following a teaching or advice makes you more unhappy, I would argue that it is not wisdom. Wisdom is the root to a happier life.

What Can You Tolerate?

Happiness, Health, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Having Fibromyalgia, as I do, my threshold for pain and patience have changed. Over time my skin has become extremely sensitive to cold, so much so that cold water feels like hot oil when it touches my skin. On the flip side, having chronic pain means that pain becomes an everyday experience, therefore it becomes kind of normal, so the amount pain that I can tolerate and carry on with my daily activities has increased. But when I am fatigued and in pain my level of patience can drop drastically.

This got me thinking about the experiences we have and the level of tolerance we have for different things. Experiences that cause anxiety will greatly reduce what we can tolerate, but experiences that cause self-confidence or contentment will increase what we can tolerate.

Being someone who regularly meditates will certainly help increase our tolerance levels. It is worth having a look at what your day to day experience is and where your tolerance is with different things. Then look at how you can improve these through self-reflection, meditation or something like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. This is on the path to self mastery.

Thoughts On Change

Happiness, Poems, Success

I wear prayer beads which are made from black volcanic rock. They remind me that even rock can become liquid, given the right circumstances. The lessons I take from these prayer beads are fourfold.

Firstly, change effects everything. You cannot step into the same river twice, because the water is different. Secondly, like the river and volcanic lava, circumstances dictate a lot of what happens, but flowing with change allows new opportunities. Thirdly, the essence of what makes the volcanic rock, has remained, from lava to rock to prayer beads. Fourthly, whether the rock is lava, rock or prayer beads, like all things, it still has purpose. Every atom has a purpose, every person has a purpose, every living being on this interconnected, living, breathing planet of ours has a purpose.

These thoughts remind me of a poem I wrote. Here it is:

The Power Of Water

Health

In the tale end of the twentieth century some scientific research began into the effect different words and prayers can have on water. The research was carried out by Japanese scientist Dr Masaru Emoto and his team. The process involved labelling small bottles of water with different words, exposing the water to different music and prayer before freezing the water and looking at the crystals that the water made using a microscope. According to the words on Dr Emoto’s website,

“In all of these experiments, distilled water for hospital usage produced by the same company was used. Since it is distilled twice, it can be said that it is pure water. The result was that we always observed beautiful crystals after giving good words, playing good music, and showing, playing, or offering pure prayer to water. On the other hand, we observed disfigured crystals in the opposite situation.”

They used words like Love and Gratitude, Wisdom, Thank You, Truth, Evil and You Disgust Me. Dr Emoto and his team have repeated these experiments many times, with mantras and prayers from different religions, as well as different types of music and there is a clear difference between say classical music and heavy metal music, between saying nasty words and saying prayers.

They also noticed that there was a difference in the quality of the water from natural places, like springs and rivers, and water that has been filtered and piped to domestic taps. Crystals that formed from naturally found water were more symmetrical and beautiful and those from domestic water were deformed. 

So, perhaps there is some truth to the idea that water can take on properties that we apply to it, via words and prayers. Maybe water has memory. If this is so, then what might happen to the water in our bodies when we are angry or peaceful, would the feelings we have affect our bodies? We are around 80% water. It is true that when we are unwell being more positive seems to help us get better and being negative can make us feel worse. Also, would the way we treat others effect the water in their bodies?

Dr Emoto’s research and pictures of the water crystals are available on his website.

Managing Your Life

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success

Sometimes life seems to throw everything at you all at once, and it can be overwhelming. We all have different ways to deal with the things in our lives, some ways are more successful than others.

For me, writing everything down in a To Do list really helps, because I struggle to keep everything in my head at once. I prioritise the list in terms of importance and when it needs to be done by. 1 = Very Important, 2 = Important and 3 = Not Important. A = Do it today, B = Do it this week and C = Do it this month. Everything with an A gets done today in order of importance, everything with a B this week etc.

American President Dwight D. Eisenhower developed this matrix to manage everything he had to deal with as President.

Source: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:7_habits_decision-making_matrix.png

There are many different ways to manage the things you have to get done each day. If you have not already done so, I suggest you figure out a way that works for you, otherwise procrastination will rule your life and you may feel overwhelmed.

Meaning Matters

Happiness, Success

Thinking small is a product of how we talk to ourselves, which is often negative. Those who are successful in life have a very positive self-talk, they say all good things to themselves, which boosts their confidence and their thinking on what they are capable of.

So, when you feel that there is something you are not capable of, pay close attention to the thoughts you are having and the reasons you are giving for not being able to do whatever it is. Then, play around with thinking about whether the opposite is true, and if it is then change your thinking accordingly.

Our negative self-talk is almost always wrong and some form of the opposite is usually true. What let’s us get trapped in negative thinking about ourselves is often either bad experiences we have had in the past or how those we care about have treated us in the past.


The thing about these past experiences is that they do not tell you who you are. How you choose to view these experiences is who you are. Often we let the past control how we feel and act in the present, but this removes our ability to choose our present and future, because we let the meaning we have put on these experiences control our decision making.

If we change the meaning we change the script we tell ourselves and we change how we act in the present. The key is the meaning we put onto what we have done and what we do now. Meaning matters.

Taking Responsibility

Leadership, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

This week Conservative MP David Davis stood up in Parliament and commented on how Prime Minister Boris Johnson has not shouldered the responsibility for the actions he has taken and that he should go.

I am not going to get into a discussion about what the UK Prime Minister should or should not have done, but the point David Davis made applies to us all. He meant it to be something leaders do, but we are all leader in some capacity.

When we make mistakes or make errors in judgement, the right thing to do is to take responsibility for them having happened and to fix them, in whatever way we can.

It is a measure of our integrity that we act ethically, even when no one is watching.

What Do You Care About?

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

It is reported flat Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime. He often lived in poverty, but he felt the urge to paint. Now his paintings are worth millions of pounds/dollars. I suppose scarcity raises the price, now that he cannot paint any more.

But given that he could possibly have earned more money doing something other than painting, why did he paint? I guess you could also ask why I write this blog, or why does anyone do anything creative? And why some people do not.

Also, you could ask whether Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings have more value now or the moment they were painted. They have more monetary value now, but I would argue that the way they make the viewer feel has always had the same value.

The value of anything we do in life, if done with purpose and mastery, stands for itself and stands the test of time. The question is, what do you care about enough to master and share with the world?

Just Surrender

Happiness, Health, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Watching this YouTube video reminded me of a dark time in my life and how I got myself out of it. I don’t often talk about personal things on this blog, but I believe this may help some if you, so it’s worth sharing. I may have even shared details of this before.

I spent nine years working in a special needs school and enjoyed it for the first five or so, but we began to get children with more challenging behaviours and physical restraints became more and more necessary. I also developed Fibromyalgia during this time, so the physical restraints became challenging for me.

I began to worry about losing my job, which was our main source of income and I was working with young people who had already given me concussion. I began getting anxiety pain in my chest and feeling stuck in a difficult situation.

One day walking home from the bus stop at the end of a day in the special needs school, I had had enough and I looked up at the sky and said in my head, “universe, I surrender to you. I will take your signs and follow them out of this situation.” I cried and felt relieved.

I found another job which had an annual salary £3000 less than I was on, but I followed my gut and changed jobs. Two months in to my new job the company increased the salary to about what I was on in my previous job. A union had been working with the company for two years to get the salary increased and I arrived when it did.

The point I am making is that sometimes you need to surrender to the universe or God or whatever your beliefs call the oneness that we are all in and look for the opportunities it/he/she provides. It can have a profound effect on your life and wellbeing. Your journey will doubtless be different from mine, but shared experience is often shared wisdom.

Pace Yourself

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

One of the things I have to always be aware of while having Fibromyalgia, is that after standing or walking around for a while my legs begin to hurt and I need to rest. I need to know my limits and plan my day accordingly.

We all have our limits, for our energy or patience or attention span, etc. Everyone has different limits. Mine will clearly be less than others, but may be greater than others. The point is that if you know your limits you can plan your day and week around what you know you can handle.

It will also help you choose the right job. If you have little patience, then working with challenging young people, for example, will be a bad mix. If you have a low attention span, work that changes repeatedly will suit you well. Knowing your limits will allow you to work and play to the maximum benefit of you and those around you.

Motivation Matters

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

In Buddhism, the motivation behind actions will often generate more karmic consequences than the action itself. Similarly, in life the outcome of our actions is heavily influenced by our motivation. In other words, our intention matters.

If we have a purpose in life and our actions are aligned with that purpose, then the outcome will usually be aligned with our purpose too. This is because the way we act out our actions or the words we choose to use are influenced by our motivation, by our purpose.

If we want to make a sale because we will get a bonus out of it, we will likely try to manipulate someone into buying what we are selling. If we want to make a sale because what we are selling will help certain people, we will look for those people and sell to them in order to improve their lives.

Whether you believe in karma or not, the consequences of how we do things in life mirror our motivation behind our words and our actions. Our motivation matters.

What Is Your Potential?

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Some years ago I gave my daughter a small wooden box which contained an acorn and a picture of a tree. Under the tree I wrote the words “Think like a tree.”

The point of this is that we often look at something like an acorn and we only see an acorn. At best we might see it as a squirrel’s lunch, but not what it could be. Every acorn is a potential oak tree. Likewise, we each have the potential to be the wisest, kindest and happiest version of ourselves.

Don’t look at yourself as you currently are, as an acorn, see yourself as a potential giant oak tree, so to speak. You all have the potential to be many things, what is stopping you is how you see yourselves.

The Pursuit Of Ignorance

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

I took this title from this TED Talk about science and education and how the best way to educate and pursue science is to explore what we do not know. It should not be the collecting of facts and showing the ability to repeat them on command.

This applies to our lives too. We usually know very little about how to live a fulfilling life, because no one teaches us how to find this out. We don’t really know what questions to ask or what parts of ourselves to explore.

The guidance is there in religious texts and writings on philosophy and psychology, but we are not exposed to them in our education. Or if we are, we are not given guidance on what questions to ask. In some cultures and religions we are told “This is the way” and are expected to follow it.

My advice is to read widely, use a journal to explore ideas and get to know different kinds of people. Learn what it is like to walk in another person’s shoes and then learn how to walk in your own. Your life is a journey, so don’t spend your life living in a cul-de-sac.

Change Is Not Progress

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Two of the Principles I live by are ‘Change is constant’ and ‘Progress is a journey.’ They are not the same thing, but they are both helpful.

Often people think they are making progress because they are getting a lot done, but doing the same thing over and over does not help you progress. In order to have progress you need to have a destination in mind and you need to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try new things.

The destination could be a losing X number of pounds in weight. You will need to change what you eat and your habits around food to take you to where you want to be. Just eating less won’t help.

Change is automatic and it requires no effort, but it is wise to remember the nature of change, and say to yourself ‘This too will pass.’ Both good things and bad things in your life are temporary. Remembering this will help us see the light in the darkness of our despair and the preciousness of our joy in the good things in our lives.

Understanding both change and progress are needed to live a fulfilling life.

Work On Your Craft

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When we think of someone’s craft we often think of Blacksmiths or some other vocation that requires training, often passed down through generations, and they normally have a specific purpose. However, I would like to broaden out the meaning of ‘craft’ to include the work that you do.

Mostly, we have jobs rather than vocations and often these jobs can feel like we are exchanging our time and effort for money to pay our bills. We can, however, look at our jobs and see the opportunities to make other people’s lives better. This can be seen as a craft, because it takes skill and purpose.

So, ask yourselves how you can make other people’s live better while you are doing your job and in your life generally. Then ask yourselves, how you could make this your craft. The fulfilment you will get from the work you do will then begin to grow.

Being Mindful

Happiness, Success

In Chi Kung (Qigong) there is a saying, ‘where the mind goes the Chi flows.’ In other words, with practice, you can move your own Chi around your body to improve your health. This may sounds far fetched, but I can say that I do this in my daily Chi Kung practice.

The reason I am mentioning this is because it got me thinking about what we focus on in life. When we assume we are going to have a bad day we often do. Not because it was going to happen, but because we focused on all the negative things and ignore the positive. Sometimes our actions create the bad day, because we assume it will happen. We create self fulfilling prophesies, so to speak.

What if we woke up grateful to be alive for another day. What if we were more mindful of everything we did during the day. The smell of morning coffee, a colourful sunrise, the bus being on time, having a conversation with a stranger, and so on.

What if we looked at the challenges of the day as opportunities to make a difference. If we were to be focused on finding opportunities to learn and grow and serve, then we would find opportunities. The brain looks for what we tell it to look for. Where your mind goes your life flows.

To Be Grateful

Happiness

I will be 40 years old in a few days time and it has got me thinking about life and how we spend it. For you 40 might seem old or it might seem young or you could be a similar age. Each point of perspective is important.

Our age is often our frame of reference for how we feel about things in life and how we explain our relationship to them. For example, someone who has retired and has not touched a computer for a while might describe themselves as way behind when it comes to technology and they decide they will never catch up. For others of a similar age new technology is an interesting adventure. So how we each see our age matters.

One thing that has struck me while coming to terms with another decade having past, is that I am grateful. I am grateful because many do not make it to my age. This is true in normal times, but especially during a pandemic. To make it to a new birthday, at whatever age, is a privilege, a privilege denied to many.

So, take a moment and reflect on what you have been through and how it has shaped you. Think about how far you have come and be grateful that you woke up this morning and that you have another chance to make a difference.

Don’t Focus On Your Strengths

Achieving Goals, Success

We hear a lot of motivational speakers talk about focusing on your strengths, whether it be your top 5 or your best strength. However, anyone who has become successful at anything had to develop and become good at what they currently do.

Strengths are certainly useful, but they do not provide long term success, because there is no long turm objective, other than to become better at what you are already good at. It is smarter to have a vision or purpose for your life, a reason why you get up in the morning, and centre your development around that.

It could be to help people to read or to make a difference in people’s lives or to run your own company or many other things. Your strengths will often help with these things, but only if they align with your vision, purpose or reason. It is more likely that you will need to develop in areas that you are not strong in currently and with work these then become your strengths. The goal is to live your best life, which will require developing in areas that are not your current strengths.

Setting Goals For 2022

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Over the past few days I have briefly covered the 6 Steps of the Pathway To Fulfilment to help you consider what goals you want to set for yourself this year.

As I have said, often it is better to build in new daily habits and aim to keep them consistently and to link these to your overall purpose in your life, if you want to make long term, positive change in your life. Goals are important too though, because they give us something to work towards and deadlines to hold ourselves accountable.

Whatever goals or daily habits you choose to undertake this year, commit, go all in and make this year an amazing and transformational year.

2022 Goals: Living Your Purpose

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

It is one thing to figure out what your Purpose is, but it is another to act on it. To live by your Purpose takes courage and determination, because it can put you at odds with people in your life and can require you to make some difficult choices.

Step 6 in the Pathway To Fulfilment is Living Your Purpose. Once you have gone through Acquiring Wisdom, Self Mastery and Defining Your Purpose, if you do not live your Purpose it will have all been just a theoretical exercise. In order to live well and have a fulfilling life, you have to live by your Purpose, once you have defined it.

So, what will you do this year to live by your Purpose?

I appreciate that you may not yet have defined your Purpose, but you can work on it this year. While this important work is being undertaken you could figure out your principles, beliefs, values and ethics and live by them. These will be guides to how you live your day to day life.

Once you have defined your Purpose, however, you will be ready to set your sights on your north star and make big decisions on how you want to live your life over the next months and years.

2022 Goals: Defining Your Purpose

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

There is a lot of talk about finding your Purpose and then everything being good in your life. It is not as simple as that, but it is important to figure it out.

Step 5 in the Pathway To Fulfilment is Defining Your Purpose. This step comes after Step 1 and 2, where you firstly Acquire Wisdom and then develop Self Knowledge and then Self Mastery.

This process involves figuring out what your beliefs, values and ethics are. Then looking at the reason you do everything you do in life. Behind each reason is your Purpose. My Purpose is to help others live well.

So, what will you do this year to work on defining your Purpose?

You could look at what principle you already live by, you could define your beliefs about the important things in life, you could figure what you value or what your ethics are.