When people ask me the secret to achieving the dream life that I live and talk about – and which I believe is absolutely achievable for anyone – these are the top 10 tips I share with them:
1. Be thankful for what is, just as it is
This can be a challenging one, sometimes, depending on what’s happening in our life. But, whatever’s happening, it’s important to understand that there’s always some part of it to be thankful for. We can choose to live with an attitude of gratitude, rather than one of bitterness, anger, negativity or sadness. We can choose to focus on the good things we have in our lives, rather than what we perceive we don’t have. The more we focus on the good things, the more good things we attract.
Why not keep a Gratitude Journal? Write in it, at least twice a week, the things you’re thankful for – little things and big things. I guarantee that when you do this, your whole perspective on your life will start to change.
2. Take responsibility for your life
It’s important to understand, and take ownership of, the fact that where we are in our lives is the result of decisions and choices we’ve made along the way. Okay, so life often throws us curve balls (and I’ve had plenty of those!), that we have little or no control over, but it’s what we decide to do with the ball once we’ve caught it that makes the difference between a life that simply drifts along, apparently prey to happenstance, and a life where we’re in control of what happens next.
3. Be the source of what you want more of
This is an interesting one, because we so often feel that we could be ‘better’, or more attractive, or more loving, or more skilled – whatever the ‘more’ is for us. Well, first of all, we need to understand that who we are is good enough – and, in fact, better than good enough. We’re constantly learning and growing and we’re the best we can be at any given time, because that’s simply where we are in our life’s journey.
Secondly, instead of focusing on what we lack, we can choose to be the source of what we want more of. So, if we want more love, we give more love and if we want more happiness, we choose to adopt a happier approach to life. If we wait until we have all our ducks in a row, and everything we perceive we need in place before we can start something, we’ll waste time doing nothing when we could be making our difference.
There are still times when I feel that I’m not fully equipped to do what I do, but if I stopped doing it, or had never started, the people I serve would miss out big time. I make a difference to people’s lives – in all my imperfection – and that’s good enough for me. What I don’t know yet, I’ll learn as I go and I’ll keep on being the source of what I want more of!
4. Know yourself
It’s so easy to forget who we are. Very often, who we are is a secret even to ourselves!
In reality, it’s not a matter of ‘finding out’ who we are; the essence of who we are has always been there, deep inside us, growing, developing and learning as we’ve gone through life. But, along the way, for all sorts of reasons, we’ve tended to put our own needs and desires aside. Our essence becomes hidden, even from ourselves. We forget who we are and, in doing that, we forget what’s important to us.
So, what we actually need to do is remember who we are, know what’s important to us and understand where our talents, passions, strengths and gifts lie . This knowledge is the foundation that our lives should be built upon. It’s a solid foundation that never changes, apart from to become stronger to support us as we grow – and it will never, ever fail us.
5. Trust yourself
This comes from knowing yourself, inside out and upside down, and knowing that you can make good decisions for yourself and your life.
It’s also to do with learning how to listen to your ’still, small voice’ and trusting your intuitive self.
Our intuition will never lead us down the wrong path; in fact, when we start to know and trust our instincts, step by step, learning and growing as we go, we open up a whole new world for ourselves, of magic, power and possibility.
6. Know your life’s purpose
In response to several of my clients’ requests to know how to achieve a life of deep meaning and purpose, I undertook an 18 month study into ‘Life Purpose’.
My studies were amazing and personally life-changing. I researched the views and opinions of many experts in the fields of business, marketing, journalism, the military, acting, training, education, philosophy, sport, psychiatry and psychology and, to cut a long story short, I found that the following was the overwhelming consensus: each one of us has a higher purpose for our life which, when we live it, brings us an almost overwhelming sense of joy, peace, excitement and fulfilment.
We can know, in detail, what our purpose is; the answers to all of our questions are inside us. The secret is in knowing how to access them. Now, I’m privileged to help others to discover their life’s purpose – what a wonderful gift to be able to give!
7. Make your contribution
Another thing I learned during my studies is that our life’s purpose is all about making our difference in the world – our contribution to our fellow human beings.
We all have a unique contribution to make, based on everything we’ve learned and experienced in our lives – and based on who we authentically are. All we have to do is find out what we’re meant to be doing, what we were born and designed to do.
8. Don’t live with regret
It took me a while to live the truth of this. It’s so easy to look back at mistakes we made and beat ourselves up for them; I used to do that – with a very big stick! Then, I learned to look at past mistakes (and current!) as learning experiences – to ask the question ‘What can I do better next time?’, or ‘How can I share this learning so that other people don’t make the same mistake?!’
Life is about learning and growing – not about living with regrets. Don’t regret the things you never tried or never did – just do them. If it doesn’t work out quite as you expected, there’ll be learning in it anyway and you’ll never need to live with wondering what could have been.
9. Get clear on what you want
The key to this particular tip is clarity. And here, what I’m talking about is being clear about what you want – about what you have a deep desire to have in your life. We attract to ourselves more of what we focus on; if we lack clarity, it’s impossible to have true focus. What we desire at a deep level is what’s important to our fulfilment, and to making our contribution, so it makes sense to pay attention to it.
The first questions I ask the people who work with me is ‘What do you want?’ and ‘What’s your dream?’
Very often, we don’t dare to dream or to think we can have what we want, because we’re conditioned to believe that having what we want is somehow wrong, or that dream lives only happen to other people – or that something miraculous has to happen for us to achieve our dreams, like winning the Lottery!
But guess what? We don’t need to wait for something to ‘happen’. We don’t have to look outside ourselves, for something like a Lottery win, to enable us find and achieve our dreams – the answers are inside us; all we have to do is find them.
10. Take action!
Being happy and fulfilled comes from being true to ourselves and living our authentic life – the life where we embrace who we are & what’s important to us and where we incorporate our passions into every day, in order to fulfil our dreams.
To make this authentic life a reality, we have to take action to change things. Change can be uncomfortable and sometimes scary, but necessary – after all, if we keep on doing what we’ve always done, we’ll keep on getting what we’ve always got.
This is where working with a Coach and belonging to a Forum of like-minded people (both of which I do) is invaluable – why go it alone and struggle, when you can have the company of a) someone who’s been there, done it and got the t-shirt & is prepared to share their knowledge & experience with you and b) people support you, encourage you and believe in you, even when you don’t believe in yourself?
If you’re ready to get the wheels of change moving, and want to know how to take the first step, why not go to http://www.absolutelyfabulouslife.com and download the FREE e-course that’ll get you started?
What have you got to lose (apart from your old, small, unfulfilling life?!)?
Jools x
PS Please know that this is absolutely and honestly how I live my life – I don’t expect you to do anything that I don’t do myself!
