Tag: Personal Development

Do The Work

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

I was watching an interview with Jay Shetty on Impact Theory and he said something that resonated with me. It was something that is really obvious, but my brain omitted the logic of what was said to avoid the risk of making a change in my mindset. We often fear change more than staying the way we are.

Jay was talking about his book Think Like A Monk, which he wrote after living for some time in an ashram as a monk. When he left the life of a monk he spent seven years testing what he had learnt in the real world before then writing the book. The logic that struck me was that he put in the work of learning how to think well while training as a monk and spent seven years testing this out.

Essentially, the obvious truth is that in order to gain self mastery you have to put in the work of mastering your mind. I am some way down the path of self mastery, but I am far from mastering myself, and the journey does not have an end point, it is a life long pursuit. Step one is, as always, admitting that there is a problem and that action is required, but you have to do the work. Progress is not automatic.

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.

Mastering Your Work

Quick Thoughts

While we work we are often asked by our Manager to complete a Personal Development Plan. This is often limited to office based work, but applies to any field of employment. This can be seen as another task to do or it is seen as a tick box exercise. The PDP is in fact a huge opportunity.

It is an opportunity to actively develop yourself, to take ownership of your career and progress to the level or role that gives you the most fulfilment.

In my opinion your PDP should begin with the values of the company you work for as well as your own values. This is because it is important that these values are compatible. You should include how you learn, how you work and what your skills and experience are. This will give you a good foundation to build your PDP from.

Set short goals, usually weekly, mid-term goals, usually quarterly and long term goals, usually yearly. I would also review your progress against these goals on a regular basis. I will be trying daily reviews at the end of my shift to highlight what went well, what I could have done better, what I learned and what actions I will take from the learning.

I feel that daily reviews will speed up my development and make sure it does not plateau at a low level. Try it yourself and see how you go. If it is too frequent, try weekly reviews. You will not regret it.

Self Knowledge: Limiting Beliefs

The Fullfilment Framework

“Happiness has to do with your mindset, not with outside circumstance.”
― Steve Marabol

Our Beliefs

One of the key things to figure out when we are aiming to get a deep knowledge and understanding of ourselves is our beliefs. Often our beliefs are subconscious, yet they will dictate our thoughts, speech and actions repeatedly. Our beliefs play a major role in our thinking and how we react to people and situations and how we handle stressful times; do we find the positive or do we crumble? There are beliefs that we have which are very beneficial, but there are also limiting beliefs that get in the way of us progressing and being happy in life. 

Strategies To Change Our Beliefs

It is important to figure out what our limiting beliefs are, so we can replace them with beliefs that will help us to thrive. There are techniques employed by Performance Coaches that get deep into our psyche and make constructive changes. For example, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP). There is also Byron Katie’s The Work, which is on my list of things to research.


It can also be beneficial to keep a journal, to write about the good and the bad each day, what we plan to do with the day and what we have learned at the end of each day. To write down our thoughts and feelings, so we can become familiar with our thought patterns, to figure out the limiting beliefs from the empowering ones.


For example,  I have limiting beliefs around failure, which can lead me to assume I will fail, that in turn can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is unless the thoughts are spotted and corrected when they pop up. If corrected enough these thoughts stop showing up as much, and can even disappear all together. This something I am working on at the moment.


We are capable of the things we believe we can do, with hard work and many hours of practice, if we believe big. It is no different with changing our mental habits, it takes time to remove limiting beliefs at their root. Some are more deeply rooted than others. I would begin by writing a journal to get a sense of your thought processes, and to watch how you react to good and bad situations. It is also important to observe what we consider to be good and bad as well.

Fixed and Growth Mindset

Some see challenge as a prompt to try harder, where as some will think “why does this always happen to me?” The latter is from a fixed mindset, where things are fixed and not flexible; things are the way they are and we can do nothing to change them, or we are the way we are and there is nothing we can do the change ourselves. This is, of course, not true; our brains are very capable of change, they are changing all the time.

Developing a flexible growth mindset that sees adversity as an obstacle that can be navigated is a lot more beneficial. A fixed mindset will be full of limiting beliefs that create barriers where there are opportunities. For example, if our role at work begins to change, like suddenly having to work from home during a global pandemic, you can think about all the issues that you might face, or you can think about the new skills you will learn working remotely, and all the job opportunities this will open up for you in the future in other job roles.

Owning Our Own Thinking

If we are going to work at our best, live at our best and be happier and more successful, it begins with figuring out our limiting beliefs and replacing them with ones which fill our lives with potential, but as the title of Byron Katie’s website suggests, we have to do the work, no one will do it for us. So, take ownership of your own life’s journey and remold your thinking towards happiness and success, and you will start to live better and your level of fulfilment will rise to levels you may never have felt before.

Something To Think About…

What are the goals that you hope to achieve in life and what are the barriers you put in place that prevent you from starting on these goals? What are the beliefs behind the barriers? What beliefs would put you in a better position to achieve your goals, that you could replace the limiting beliefs with?