The Meaning of Life

Briana was a young woman in her late twenties. She came to life coaching to find purpose and reason. My discussions with her revealed a very mature young woman. She reminded me so much of my own daughter. Life smiled at her – she got along with everyone and you could not pick a fight with her even if you wanted to. Yet, she was so smart that every job became boring a couple of months after she started it and she felt lots of confusion about her career choices, because she did everything very well, but without passion.

Here is a self-test for purpose. Let’s say you have all the money in the world, you can do anything you want, you do not have to work for a living, you are in perfect health and until the day you die, you can live anywhere you like, any way you like and have any lifestyle you like. What will you do with your time?

If you have no answer for this question, start searching for it right now. You see, Briana failed the purpose test over and over again, because every time I asked her about it, she looked at me with an embarrassed smile and said, “I don’t know”.

I have decided to write this post and share with you not Briana’s success at finding purpose, but the process she had to go through, because I think there are many people who think and feel exactly like Briana did and that blocks them from finding their purpose. That leaves them feeling like something is wrong with them, when in fact, no one has ever taught them how to find their purpose.

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Slow Down and Smell the Flowers

This month was very hectic for me and therefore for our entire family. I had many big projects to complete and I could not do them without the help of my family. Gal and the kids helped me a lot and we ended up dedicating almost 3 weekends to this work (we are still recovering from work, work and more work). All this work involved doing things I love, so it made me excited and I was in total flow and winding down was not easy. That made me think about slowing down as the topic this time.

Slowing down is a challenge for many people. The more successful you are at what you do, the more you risk being unable to slow down and enjoy the simple things. Slowing down is a challenge for me, so I am taking the time to write what happened to me in the last month and how I got over it (still doing that).

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Fear of Success

I have written a lot about the fear of failure, but I think many people are not aware this fear has a twin brother – the fear of success.

Fear of failure will make you try to fit into a standard (usually external), but fear of success will make you do anything to avoid reaching that standard.

While fear of failure is out there and everybody knows about it, fear of success is hidden so deep in our identity we may not recognize it, but it can be much worse for us.

Fear of failure is associated with making mistakes and not getting approval, while fear of success is the fear of doing things right and therefore not being accepted, not being appreciated and not being able to maintain the level of achievement and success.

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Sailing the Ship of Life

Last week, I had a session with a new client. She was very frustrated about things in her life. She had wanted to change them for so many years and nothing had happened.

“I feel like I have no control over my life”, she said to me, “It’s as if part of me says ‘go left’ and the other side says ‘go right’. For some reason, neither is the direction I want to go and I’m stuck! I can’t get the two sides of me to communicate with each other”.

I smiled. It sounded familiar.

“Sometimes, I wake up with energy and motivation that lasts for three days. There is a voice inside of me that keeps telling me it can be like this forever. I’ve tried shutting it out, but I don’t know how to”, she kept telling me about her frustration.

I listened to her and thought to myself, “She is ready for the sailing story”.

I hope you are ready too.

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The Art of Misery (Advanced)

Two years ago, I wrote about choosing to be miserable in the The Art of Misery. It is amazing how many people in the world qualify for the Certificate of Misery and have mastered this art. For some strange reason, it is easier to master misery than happiness. I do not know exactly why that is, but for most people, the definition of happiness is so hard to achieve they can never be happy. Even when they have a happy moment, it does not last long enough to get them to the next happy moment.

In The Art of Misery, I gave 10 lessons in misery with clear instructions on how to pass each test and gradually move on to the next level. Although I wrote that only those who completed the program would be entitled to the certificate, I have discovered it is enough for people to master some of the lessons to declare themselves eligible.

In the last two years, I have had many requests to extend the misery course and I believe the time has finally come. After two years of practicing and holding your misery certificate, you are ready for the next level. Today, in the second part of the Misery Mastery “training program”, I will improve, refine and help you upgrade your skills. I will add 10 more things you can do if being just miserable is not enough and you really, really want to be extremely miserable.

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My First Piano Concert

In January, I announced about my New Year resolution to fight the “too late” mentality by learning to play the piano.

The most wonderful thing that came out of it was that I have discovered many adults like me who are learning to play a musical instrument at a later stage in life. I was very happy to know I was not alone. It did not make it easier to learn and practice, but it helped me cope with my struggles.

Last time, after just two lessons, I knew it was going to be a challenge and it was, but every time I played, I felt very proud of myself.

I decided I would have my own concert at home, in front of the camera, so my family on the other side of the world, and you, would be able to watch me play.

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What If

All too often, we ourselves having a bright idea, only to shoot it down a few seconds later with, “Yes, but what if ?” Since the idea was still fresh in our mind, even the smallest hesitation can sometimes bury it, never to be seen again.

Worries, stress and negative self doubt all your creativity and pretty much guarantee that even if there was a way to turn your idea into reality, you will not be able to see it if it bumped you on the nose.

And that is a pity. It really is.

So how do you overcome obstacles and turn your ideas into reality? You use your imagination.

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What I Would Do If I Had One Year to Live

Running out of time - woman staring at hourlass

In any personal development program, there comes a time when the coach asks the client to answer this question. If you have ever been seriously sick or had a chance to meet someone who had to answer this question for real, you know it is one of the biggest and most important questions in life.

Of course, I do not wish you to ever have to plan your last year for real, but playing with it in your mind may just do that thing it does to those who must do it in real life. However, this question is important for most people as a way of gaining perspective.

About 90% of people live life without direction, purpose or drive. They live life based on what they must/should/have to do or what others might think of them and feel disempowered to take the responsibility over their own life. The reason they do it is because their parents did just the same and their grandparents and great-grandparents before them. By living like this, they are neglecting to update the things that are important to them.

Every frustration, failure or problem is an indication of such neglect to update our priorities. For example, in all my parenting workshops, parents claim the most important things they want for their kids are happiness, health and love, yet most of them spend most of their energy on fighting with their kids over homework, manners and housework.

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Force of Habit

What we do on a regular basis, even with little things, becomes our future.

Yes, this is a bold statement, but it is true. The main challenge is that sometimes, we may not realize that what we have just done or said came out of habit. It is easy to see that we eat the same cereal for breakfast every day. That is a simple one to spot, as is driving the same way to work, choosing a certain style of clothes and the likes.

What is much harder to detect is a particular kind of thinking. Today, I want to talk about focused, persistent, determined thinking, as opposed to scattered, carried away, wishy-washy thinking.

We have many defining moments in life, but we do not always know that they are defining, because they simply add a little, or chip away gently, to the definition of who we are. Over time, however, these tiny changes in our self-definition become a whole different person than the one we could be otherwise.

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Never Too Late

For some people, the beginning of a new year (and their birthday), is a sad day. When everyone around talks about goals, motivation and New Year resolutions, it is hard to avoid measuring our achievements from the previous year and those we have not achieved stand out like a sore thumb. “There you have it – another proof you have not achieved your goals and time is ticking. If you don’t get your act together, it’s going to be too late”.

Is it?

The ticking of time as it runs out is an illusion we adopt as soon as we learn to tell the time. Together with the sense of the achievement (that we can tell the time), the loss of freedom and hope starts creeping in as time starts to control us. This is the birth of the notion that something can be “late”, which sits in our mind together with frustration, helplessness and giving up. From there, the road to “too late” is short.

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