New Beginnings – The Fullfilment Project

It Shouldn’t Be Like That

Happiness, Leadership, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Quite often people say that this should not happen or this should happen. People ‘should’ all over themselves, which is to say that they project their ‘shoulds’ out into the world. The problem with this way of thinking is that it creates a kind of helplessness, because if it should be a certain way, but it isn’t, we often then have nothing that we can do about it.

It is better to see things as they are, not as you think they should be. Then decide what action you wish to take. It might be that there is a need for something to be improved and you are the person to do it. This means that you are focusing on what you can do.

Do Something

Happiness, Success

Often we wait for the right idea, the right job or the right partner before we trying something new. This waiting is a form of hiding, hiding from trying that new thing, because we fear failure or we fear making the wrong choice and wasting our lives.

If we don’t choose something we are wasting our lives. The regrets most elderly people have is the things they did not try. You have time to try and fail and try again. You will also either succeed or learn and then succeed. Failure is essential to success, because we can learn from it.

My advice is this, figure out what your values are, what your beliefs are and what your ethics are. Then go find a project to start, a challenge to take on, a problem to solve or a role to try that aligns with these and see what happens. If it aligns with your values, beliefs and ethics then you will thrive, you will feel empowered and you will feel fulfilled by the work you do.

But you must choose something and start.

Trying Something New

Achieving Goals, Success

Where do our beliefs and values come from? They are manifestations from the culture and community we grow up in, the examples our parents give us and how they raised us, as well as the experiences that we have had. Through all of this input we piece together what we believe and what we value.

All of this then affects the decisions that we make on a day to day basis, but I believe that if we are to make wise decisions in life then we should seek out wisdom as well, which can be found in any of the many religious scriptures and philosophical texts from around the world. If we have wise guidelines or principles to follow then stepping into the unknown will seem less scary.

Something else that can help us in our ventures into the unknown is to have an attitude of asking ourselves “what if…?” What if we tried something new, what if we gave it a go, what if? Being open to the many positive possibilities that could result in trying something new means that we will more likely have a positive outcome.

It is also a way of getting past the barrier of failure, a way to overcome our fear of criticism or looking like a fool; what if we succeeded, what if we achieved our dreams. This allows us to consider the possibility of actually succeeding, rather than becoming consumed by the thought of failure.

Setting Goals For 2021

Achieving Goals

“It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.” — Benjamin E. Mays

Another year has begun, and like many people I have set myself goals for the coming year, things I intend to do to improve or enrich my life. I’m sure many of you have at least thought about making new years resolutions, it is something that seems to be a requirement of starting a new year. Often our goals are based on what we have done or not done in the previous year. 2020 has been a very different year for us all. Much of what we had planned at the beginning of the year had to be set aside as we navigated the challenges of living through a pandemic.

We have had to connect through screens to feel close to the people we love, our families, our friends, and many used Zoom to maintain team cohesion at work and fellowship in collective worship. The year 2020 will be a year that we will want to leave behind us. It has taken its toll on us in many ways. However, with the vaccine being rolled out we can look at the year ahead with more optimism. We can hold true to the very human notion that better things are coming our way. There is hope that we will return to a sense of normality. More than ever in our lives, the end of one year and the beginning of another brings with it a sense of both relief and hope. Hope for a better year to come. More than ever, this is also a good time to look at setting goals for what we want to achieve in the year ahead, Coronavirus permitting.

As we set these goals we could consider some of the top new years resolutions, like being more organised, quitting smoking or learning something new. These are all good resolutions to aim for. The general impetus is the improvement of ourselves and our habits, but underneath all of them, I think, is the drive to try and become happier; happier with ourselves and with our lives.

For as long as human beings could conceive of such things, people have been in search of this thing we call happiness, this illusive state that underlies the motives behind much of our thoughts and actions. Aristotle said that “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” However, it is often something that we experience only in fleeting moments, in brief periods of time that come and then go as we venture on into the future of our lives.

This is often the case because we are seeking happiness out there in the world. We often make the acquiring of things the way in which we try to find happiness. Whether it is a new car, a new TV, recognition for an achievement or becoming wealthier than we currently are, the failure is always going to be in the hope that the things and people in the world are going to match our expectations. Things rarely work out as we expect them to, life, as we have discovered over this passed year, is often not like that. If we look at the many religious and philosophical writings of the world we will find a recurring idea, that the root to happiness is to be found within ourselves rather than in the acquiring of worldly things.

In the Bible in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke it says “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” A parable I think many of us have frequently heard, and what Jesus means by the ‘Kingdom of God’ is heaven, a place or state where we would have complete and unending happiness. You may not believe that there is such a place or state as heaven, and you are well within your rights to do so. Beliefs are personal and personal beliefs should be respected. But if there was such a thing as unending happiness, it would be such a wonderful thing that most, if not all, of the world religions have this desire at their very heart. Indeed it is at the very heart of what it means to be human. Whether we call it heaven, moksha or nirvana the experience of it will be the same.

Just before the passage in the Bible about the camel and the eye of a needle, Jesus says “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” Here I think Jesus means that if we try to receive heaven with expectations then we will never receive it. In other words, if we seek happiness with expectations then we will not become happy, because, as I have said, life rarely conforms to our expectations of it. I say this because one of the main things that separates children from adults is that children begin from a place without expectations, they do things for the pure joy of doing them. They spin around on swings, climb trees, dance and run around because they enjoy doing so. They do not think about the end result of spinning around on a swing, they just do it. We can learn a lot from children; I think we loose a lot when we transition into adulthood.

In the Tao Te Ching, a text written around 500 BCE by Lao Tzu, a Chinese sage, teacher, and scribe, it says,

“Better to stop short than fill to the brim. Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt. Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it. Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow. Retire when the work is done. This is the way of heaven.”

To be and to do, this is what is important, rather than to get and to have.

I have heard it said that we struggle to find happiness because of the very act of seeking it. This might sound crazy, but what I mean is, that if we make the pursuit of happiness a demand, something that we feel we must do, then the pressure of this demand can make us unhappy. The desire to be happy becomes twisted into a demand that we think we have to achieve. What we need to do instead is to create the conditions for happiness in our lives. This could be found in enjoying activities for their own sake, much like children do. When we are engrossed in something we become one with the moment that we are in. There is no past or future, only the now, the moment we are in. When we are engaged in sporting activities, creative activities, good conversations, listening to a fantastic piece of music, we are lost in the moment, we are centred and content. We have all experienced glimpses of this and once we have had a taste of it we generally want more, and I think this fuels our pursuit of happiness.

The problem with life is that with the fantastic moments also come the sad and painful moments, moments that can make us feel that we may find it difficult to find happiness again, so we immerse ourselves in the pursuit of happiness in the world, when the answer is not in our experiences in the world, but in our understanding of those experiences. Happiness is found in how we view the world and all the people and things within it. It involves our beliefs and our opinions, and it involves letting go of our prejudices and judgements.

There is something else which is important, especially in times such as these, and that is building resilience. Some people are generally more resilient to challenges in their lives, and some really struggle. I recently watched a TED Talk on The Three Secrets of Resilient People and I think they are good pieces of advice. The first is that resilient people now that challenges happen, that everything is not all a bunch of roses, they are realistic about the ups and downs of life. They also do not say to themselves, “why does this happen to me,” which would put them in the position of a victim, which takes away any control they think they have in the situation.

The second is that resilient people are careful where they choose to put their attention. They focus on what they can change and not what they cannot. We are hard wired through evolution to pay attention to the negative, to the things that could harm us, but we no longer have to worry about a sabre-toothed tiger being around the corner. In short, resilient people tune into the good things in life, they focus on being grateful every day. In fact studies show that if we think of three things to be grateful for each day over a period of months our tendency towards depression decreases and we become happier.

The third is that resilient people ask themselves, “is what I am thinking or doing helpful or harmful” and if it is harmful they they stop and change to something more helpful. They are kinder to themselves, and this puts them in the drivers seat of their lives. It gives them control over the decisions they make.

These three actions are things that we can all do, and we are all people who have and will have challenging times, especially at the moment. Following these three steps can make the challenges we face easier to bear and make us more proactive in our own happiness making.

This all being said, should we still make new years resolutions? Of course we should. Without setting goals we will never progress or achieve anything, but I would suggest we should firstly think about what it is we really want, what personal problems we are currently facing and how we might change our thinking or our actions to make them better. However, these goals should come from a desire rather than a demand, within a context of the changes we can make in our lives that will allow our goals to happen. This is creating the conditions for happiness to find us, rather than seeking the happiness we want.

Every living being has the right to be happy, but we should remember that it is OK to be happy with what we already have; we can be content with what we already have. So it can be helpful to think about what in our lives is just as we want it to be, what things don’t need changing, and whatever is left over can become things we aim to improve. Being aware of the good things in our lives first can make us more grateful, and therefore happier without trying to achieve happiness.

We could also set ourselves goals aimed at improving the lives of other people. This could be giving to charity or a food bank, it could be trying to make other people smile each day, whatever we can think of to help other people. Whether we did or didn’t achieve our goals last year let us strive to achieve our goals this year. Let us aim to make it a very good year for ourselves and all of those around us, because some of the best goals are those that enrich and improve the lives of other people.

2020 was a very challenging year, but we got through it. People came together and did extraordinary things in the service of others. The human spirit persevered. We take this energy through to a new year. Let us make it a wonderful year, for us all.

Making The Most Of 2021

Achieving Goals

“There is nothing magical about the flip of the calendar, but it represents a clean break, a new hope, and a blank canvas.”
― Jason Soroski

The year of 2020 will go down as possibly the worst year we have lived through, especially for those born after World War Two. The Coronavirus has ravaged our health services, our economies and our personal lives through loss and separation. The end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 was an emotional one for many, as it means that even though we still need to remain vigilant around keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe, through social-distancing measures, 2020 is behind us.

In 2020, many of us had to adjust to living more solitary lives, with us not being able to mix with friends and family as we normally would, and many had to learn new skills around working from home. The term Key Worker took on new meanings, as supermarket assistants became essential to keeping us all going. Those on the front line in hospitals in our battle with this virus went through seemingly unending heartbreak with a kind of hardy stoicism that made them into superheroes in our eyes. The use of technology like Zoom became the way we remained connected to loved ones, to congregations from places of worship and to colleagues for team meetings, where we gathered remotely. Much of which we will be taking with us through to the coming year.

All of the normal things are true about starting a new year. The days will be getting longer and warmer, we get to set goals for the year ahead and there is a new beginning before us; we can rethink what we want out of life and we can reinvent ourselves to a degree. This is our moment to decide what we want our 2021 to be like. There will still be much that we cannot control, as is the nature of life, but if we accept what we cannot control we can put our focus and our energy into the things we can. The prime example of this is our attitude to the circumstances we are in. If we are working from home, we can see this as a barrier to team cohesion or we can see it as an opportunity to learn new skills and work in a more flexible manner to get our work done. If we have to use technology like Zoom to keep in touch we friends and family, we can learn new ways to connect and be grateful that this pandemic is happening now and not before the invention of the internet.

So, when it comes to setting goals for the coming year I would like you to consider that one of the reasons that new year’s resolutions tend not to work is that as we are resolving to make the changes for the year ahead, by default, we are not thinking of them as permanent changes, therefore we are often not 100% committed. Research on this tells us that even if we are 98% committed, we often do not follow through, because that 2% matters. Instead, if we see the new resolutions as life resolutions with 100% commitment, then the decision is made, it is done, and we do not need to deliberate it any more. We are all in on the new changes we are making.

The areas I recommend you look at making goals in are your health, your career, your relationships and in your self mastery. The last one is around developing a growth mindset, seeing confidence, optimism and resilience as skills to be developed. Also, to go all in on the project, the plans or the challenge you have been putting off. If we have learned anything from 2020 it is that life is precious and a long life is not a guarantee. So, let’s go and make 2021 an amazing year, full of ambitions achieved, kindness shared and joy generated.

New Beginnings: It Takes Courage

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success

“Fear wins or freedom wins. And so let us ask ourselves, will my life be about aversion or ascension?”
Brendon Burchard

In our lives you could argue that every moment is a new beginning, in which we always have a choice in how we respond to the circumstances we find ourselves in. Perhaps a choice of either Fear or Freedom, often a difficult choice to make when the harsh realities of life seem set against us. This is the question that connects the two opening chapters of the book The Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard.

The first chapter is entitled On Freedom and the second is entitled On Fear. The opening words in the third chapter, On Motivation, sum up the opening message of this book. “The dominant motives of Humankind involve either freedom or fear; there are no other pathways in our psychology. One demands engagement with our true self and ambitions, and inevitably leads to independence, growth, happiness, and transcendence. The other causes us to skirt around challenges, avoiding struggle as much as possible – despite struggle often being the very thing required for growth.” [The Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard, page 51]

Whether you agree with this or not, it does bring up the question of how we ourselves respond to the events within our lives. Do we respond with the confidence to tackle the challenges in our lives or do we avoid conflict and therefore forfeit the potential rewards that lie on the other side of these challenges, if we were to tackle them rather than run from them?

We each have our own ways of making decisions, of dealing with the demands that beset our lives. So, what is your default setting, so to speak, when you are faced with a challenge? Most of us are not aware of the how and the why of our decision-making process. It is not until we start to question ourselves, and start to observe ourselves that we get a sense of whether we fall prey to fear or if we embrace freedom.

It has been said that every moment is full of potential and all around us there are metaphorical doors opening to new possibilities, but most of the time we choose not to take opportunities when they appear in our lives. We are too busy, we don’t want to deviate from what we are used to or we are just uncertain of what the outcome might be. When we do take opportunities that come our way, things can go wrong for us, but wonderful things can also happen too.

You may be thinking that it is all well and good suggesting that we take more opportunities when they come our way, but how do we know which opportunities will bring positive results and which will bring negative results? Unfortunately, we don’t really know what the results will be until we walk through the doors of opportunity and see what happens. It is like the act of being brave, you have to do something that scares you, even though you may be terrified, and the bravery comes afterwards. The more opportunities we take the more experience we get and we start to realise which might be good opportunities and which might not be.

We can think about our experiences in similar situations and make a judgement call. It is the difference between intelligence and wisdom, you could say. Intelligence is knowing lots of things, but wisdom is intelligence plus experience. It is the culmination of trying and failing over and over until we don’t fail as often, because we have learned from our experiences and applied some intelligence to our decision making. This is why elders are so respected in so many cultures, because they have the experience that gives them wisdom. I for one would someday like to be an elderly person who has made lots of mistakes, but has not been afraid to keep trying.

I think that as we get older we can develop an instinct for good opportunities, perhaps it is a little bit of wisdom. We can look at an opportunity and have a good or a bad feeling about it, and I think this can guide our decision making. I definitely feel that my good opportunity radar is beginning to work fairly well. I sometimes get the feeling that I should do something and I have tried to trust in this feeling and go with it and see what happens. Don’t get me wrong, it is scary trusting in these feelings, but in my experience trusting in my good opportunity radar has brought good things into my life.

This might be the divine in the world at work, guiding me, I don’t know. I like to think of these situations are karmic sign posts pointing to good things, as the Buddhist in me believes in karma. You may well see these kinds of situations in your own lives in a different way, depending on your own beliefs and experience. You may think that it is God guiding you or that there is no divine hand guiding you or anyone else. Whatever your theological beliefs I do believe that when we begin to trust our feelings about whether we should try something new, or take a chance, then we invite more positive outcomes and experiences into our lives.

Every moment is full of potential, there are doors of opportunity all around us, but it is up to us to walk through these metaphorical doors and try something new, whether this is a new job, a new relationship, rekindling an old relationship, a chance to learn something new or a chance to try something you have never done before, we will always grow as individuals. The outcome might not always be a positive one, but every mistake is an opportunity to learn in itself, even this can lead to making better decisions in the future and therefore a better future, as we become wiser with every mistake we make and every challenge we try to overcome. Go forth, try new things and keep going, and if you fall, fall forwards, pick your self up and try again.

Something To Think About

What opportunities are thee in your life that you are fearful of taking? How would it feel if you give it a try and it works out well for you?