Tag: Pivot

Program Yourself To Thrive

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

I was in a taxi on the way to work the other day and while we were stopped at the traffic lights I saw a little blue flower growing out of a crack in the tarmac path. It had no business being there but there it was anyway doing its best to survive and thrive. It got me thinking about the way nature strives to live and grow all of the time, as if it is programmed to thrive anywhere it finds itself.

Often we talk about needing the right resources or the right conditions before trying something new. We overthink new ventures and often talk ourselves out of them. If we were to take examples from nature and aim to thrive no matter the conditions, then we would do well in life. We would take every opportunity with both hands and just get on with it.

Thriving is not about the conditions we have but the mindset that we have. To be excited about a new challenge and to have the courage to give it a go and see what happens, while also applying our skills and common sense to bend our path towards success. We can program ourselves to thrive by the thoughts we have and how we explain both and bad situations to ourselves.

Be like the little blue flower.

Using Your Energy Effectively

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

In Physics it is known that energy can change state, but it cannot be destroyed. When a ball is held in the air it has gravitational potential energy. Once this ball is dropped this energy becomes kinetic energy as it moves towards the ground. When it hits the floor some of this energy is lost as sound energy and heat energy. The ball then squashes and the remaining kinetic energy becomes elastic potential energy before bouncing back up with kinetic energy.

This is not a science lesson, don’t worry. I give this example to point out how energy moves through the universe and the world, it changes state. This illustrates how we can view our own energy. When we invest energy into a particular activity sometimes the activity is not fruitful and we feel like we have hit a dead end. If we do nothing after this and move onto something else the energy spent doing the activity is lost.

But if we were to pivot and used what we have learned and the experience we have had to move in a different direct the momentum we have built up moves us forward and we are more likely to succeed. The building up of momentum matters. A train going at speed can break through a brick wall, but a train standing still cannot move if you put a one inch block in front of its drive wheel.

Failures often cause us to stop, but they are really opportunities to pivot and move in a different direction. With this mindset our lives will flow more than stop and start and we will be more successful and happier as a result.