Creating a Blueprint for your Life

To truly have an inspired life, one has to have a philosophy about life. We cannot effectively decide about our own lives if we do not have at least an idea of what we want our lives to be about. We must get clear on what the principles are that we are going to apply to our lives. One has to decide what direction you want your life to take.

Your personal philosophy combine your values and beliefs into a workable blueprint for your life.

How to develop a powerful personal philosophy

To start developing a powerful philosophy for an inspired life, you have to ask yourself the following questions:

What did I decide about life so far?
Which ones of these decisions can I let go of or change?
Which new decisions can I make to replace them?
What thinking habits do I need to master to fit my new decisions?

Take some time and really ponder these questions. What do you want your life to be about? What do you not want in your life anymore? Can you think about life differently? What would you like to believe about your life and your future?

Once you have clarity on your worldview, you can continue to build on your new philosophy and strengthen your decisions by:

Learning from your experiences and those of others
Learning from other people’s success and failure
Capitalising on the power of positive influences
Becoming a good listener and observer
Reading good books
Keeping a personal journal
Being disciplined
Being diligent

REMEMBER:

A personal philosophy is like setting the sail on a boat:

“When the wind change, we must change.”

“It’s not what happens that matters…; it’s what we do with what happens, that matters”. – Jim Rohn

The essential philosophical elements of one’s personal life philosophy are centered on beliefs, concepts or ideas, and attitudes. To be straightforward, your philosophy answers the question: “What is your approach to living your life?”

Putting your approach into philosophical terms may seem unnecessary, too elementary or just an academic exercise. Yet, it is an indispensable way to make better choices and lead a more inspired life.

But don’t take life and your life philosophy too seriously. Do not get bogged down in the small details. Do not fret for days. Just do it! We always have the power to make new decisions, change things up and revamp. Get yourself a nice journal, write a plan for your life and keep on revising and amending as you go. You will be amazed at what wisdom and understanding come from just taking a bit of time to think about your life. And if you really get inspired and really want to do this properly, head over to the following website:

https://www.udemy.com/course/your-happiness-and-inspiration-toolkit-for-life

There you will find my course: Your Happiness and Inspiration Toolkit for Life” It teaches you exactly how to go about fashioning for yourself a beautiful life.

September 7, 2022September 7, 2022

September Inspiration

It is the beginning of September and in the southern hemisphere, this means Spring!! With spring comes new life, new motivation, new ideas, and new resolutions. One of the best ways to get inspired is to do something different.

My challenge to you for September is this: Choose something new to do during September and TELL US ABOUT IT on the Facebook page. Share your story with us and you might receive a mystery prize at the end of the month!

Here are 50 things to do to boost your inspiration.

Change your routine.
Change a habit.
Lose/gain weight.
Exercise.
Volunteer.
Donate to charity.
Take a trip.
Use a different route to get to work.
Get up earlier every day for a week.
Avoid using the word “no” for (you choose the number of) days.
Go for a car ride to a town you’ve never been in.
Make new friends.
Talk to a new stranger every day for a week.
Take up a new sport.
Join a local club (Toastmasters, Rotary Round Table, Tennis, Bowls) .
Change your diet.
Give up sugar.
Start a journal.
Start a club or organization.
Have a “friend’s night out.”
Write down your goals and make a plan to achieve them.
Design your ideal life.
Read a book.
Throw out all that stuff you’ve been saving that you’ll never use.
Take a course.
Take up martial arts.
Delegate something. (Get your kids to take out the garbage)
Order / buy something from the Internet.
Take a risk you normally would not take.
Give something you value to someone who really needs it.
Write a book.
Write an article for submission to a publication.
Write a short story.
Write poetry.
Speak in public.
Wear something you normally wouldn’t wear.
Do something you normally wouldn’t do.
Study a new subject.
Learn to play an instrument.
Learn to make something.
Plant a tree.
Start a garden.
Grow herbs.
Go to a sporting event.
Go to a concert.
Go to a play.
Play a sport you like or you’re good at.
Give something of value to a total stranger in need.
Inspire someone else to do something special.
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Number 50 is left blank so that you can fill in whatever it is you need to get inspired

August 17, 2022August 17, 2022

Being a woman takes guts!

Helen Keller hit the nail on the head when she said: “Keep your face to the sunshine because then you cannot see any shadows”.

With it being women’s month and all, I thought of just leaving you with a few sisterly reminders:

If you have to fight, fight like a woman! You can win, you can succeed. Remember that you are powerful beyond measure! I am not just talking about fighting off a perpetrator or trying to win an argument, I am talking about fighting to keep your life together, to get your stuff done, to keep your inspiration, to make sense of all there is to make sense of.

Keep your mind positive and strong! Sometimes we have to put up a fight to get that done! Do it anyway! You always have enough thinking and acting capacity to do what needs to be done! Do not let anyone tell you different!

Don’t compromise who you are. You are a unique creature of nature! Og Mandino calls you “Nature’s greatest miracle”. Live up to that expectation. Not everyone will always like what you do or say and that is okay. But you have to like what you do or say. Authenticity is key.

To be successful in life you need something to hold onto, something to work for, something that makes you jump out of bed in the morning. Find that thing! Dream big dreams! A wise old owl once said, “If you can dream it, you can have it”. Make a contribution to something or someone. Help wherever you can. Zig Ziglar said” If you help enough people get what they want, you will have what you want”. I am a true believer in the law of “Service to many leads to greatness” You are great! Remember that!

Don’t waste your precious time and energy worrying. Worry does not make things materialise or disappear into thin air! It only steals your inspiration, kills your joy and it encourages you to drift. To drift is to do nothing. Doing nothing is NO good THING!

Remember to count your blessings. Live in the moment. Be here, now! You will have a brighter tomorrow once you stop rolling in yesterday’s mud!

There! I have said it!

August 10, 2022August 10, 2022

On becoming a swan

I am a woman, just like you. A woman with dreams and aspirations, with goals and to-do lists to accomplish those goals. I want to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous. Just like you!

Sometimes I am also afraid, scared to take risks, and scared of rejection and disappointment. I worry about what people will think! I also messed up in my life. Some of those messes I will never be able to fix.

For most of my life, I felt like a DUD, (Damned Ugly Duckling)!

As a duckling, I did not fit in in the farm yard. Not in the school cliques, not in the hockey team. Not at the office or in the boardroom.

As a duckling in the farmyard of life, I was bullied too! I had to do things I did not really want to do. I had to be who I was not! …. I so had enough of “Duckie do this!”, “Duckie do that”, “Duckie, you shouldn’t”, Duckie, you have to…” I tried to duck out of it….. Many times I just wanted to shout “Duck off!”

I came to a place where I looked in the mirror like the ugly duckling looked at her reflection in the water of the pond, and I hated what I saw.

Then… one day… someone came to my aid and said: “Duckie, you are much more than you have become…” She said: “Duckie, I believe in you, you can do this!” The words “Duckie, the world is your oyster!“ was such an inspiration to me!

So, I put my big girl pants on and went on a journey! Not a journey out into the world, but a journey inward.

My wish for you is that you will go on this journey. Choose the road less traveled by. And go it alone. No baggage, no worries, no expectation!

On this journey you will discover that there are two important days in one’s life… the day you are born, and the day you find out why you were born. I figured out that my purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand! I can become the swan I am destined to be. I am not a DUD, not a heap of tangled feathers in the dirt.

But times of transformation are uncomfortable, and yuk – just like the time when the ugly ducking spend that dark and dreary winter hidden away in a makeshift shelter in the reeds. In those dark times, we work on our belief systems. We mend our relationships. We learn to stop sabotaging our success. We grow our confidence. We watch our language. We speak life over ourselves. We start to understand that we are enough!

We are more than the numbers on the scale! We are more than the price tag on our clothes. I learned that I was more than the mark on my math test and much, much more than the number of likes I got on Facebook.

As we go through trials and tribulations, we realize good things about ourselves. These realizations create ripples in the pond…it makes us expand our consciousness. And one day, when we look again… we are no longer ugly ducklings.

Dear one, you are a …. SWAN! Significant Woman, Acting Now! You do not have to play small in the world just to make sure others do not feel uncomfortable around you!

All we need to do is to remember that “being hatched in a duck’s nest, in a farm yard, is of no consequence to a woman if she is hatched from a swan’s egg!!”

Inside of you is a force, that knows that it knows, that it knows that you are nature’s greatest miracle. Accept the challenge to share your wisdom with all those searching for a wise, comforting voice…. I salute each one of you!

_{Source: Some of my phrases are reworked from much-loved books such as “The greatest salesman in the world” – Og Mandino.}

May 3, 2022May 3, 2022

Inspired Inspiration

“Inspiration” has to do with those light bulb moments when I have a bright idea. It has to do with those moments when I think of or do something unique and extraordinary. Inspiration is a deep-down personal calling to do something huge and epic. But I can only be inspired when I am breathing.

Yes! Breathing! When you breathe, you can make things happen! A wise man once said that there are three types of people in this world: The ones who make things happen, the ones who watch what happens and the ones who get to the station after the train has left… they wonder “What the heck just happened and why?”. Inspired people do not spend time wondering. They make things happen.

Inspiration is about genius. We all have our own special brand of genius. It is also about vision and I believe that most people have it. Vision is closely related to having influence. One’s influence depends on who you are and what your circumstances are. Vision, genius and influence help us each to develop our own unique brand of inspiration. We can all “make things happen”. The Archaic meaning of inspire is “to breathe life into” something.

People often ask: “How do I keep myself inspired to keep on working towards my goals and make my dreams a reality? When my inspiration loses steam, I remember some age-old wisdom.

I do not let my dreams be “crowd-funded”.

My dreams and goals are specific to me, not a generic cut-and paste version of what everybody else wants.

I don’t worry about what other people think.

There are many well-meaning people in my life that have ideas about what I should and should not be doing with my life. I must decide whether I should do what they want me to do, or do what I want to do. I found that when I live my life according to someone else’s rules, I am almost always miserable and uninspired.

I protect my excitement inspiration by not letting the dream stealers rain on my parade. I respect those that have different ideas to what I have but I talk about my dreams and goals with passion and conviction. I remember the words of a wise man who once said: “One man with conviction is a majority!”

I don’t worry about how things will turn out.

Worry is a useless activity. I remind myself often that “things” do not lead me to inspiration. A new car will not make me more inspired. A new glamorous job or a gorgeous partner will not inspire me! To be truly inspired, I must simply recognise every precious moment of life and make the best that I can of it. Every moment is an inspiration, no matter what it looks like.

Everything I need to know is already mine!

I have everything I need to know, for every moment in time, already filed in the cabinet in my head. I can be “left to my own devices” and my own devices are sufficient for what I want to accomplish in my life. This may sound strange to you. The fact is that I came into this life with nothing, I go out of this life with nothing and I do not need anything to live my purpose on planet earth. All that I will ever need to live an inspired life is in the space between my ears, which is connected directly with my heart. The challenge is to believe it is there.

This idea is beautifully illustrated in the ancient story of David and Goliath. David was inspired to slay the giant because he wanted to be somebody. But he did not go onto the battlefield with a sword, a spear and a shield. He went with a slingshot and a few pebbles and he still completed the task successfully and became somebody. Our belief is more important than our pebbles and slingshots.

These four little reminders inspired me to make my own beautiful noise. Inspiration is a one-man band. You have to make all the music yourself. As soon as I realised that I have my own unique rhythm, and that I can make what ever noise I want to make, my life started having a sparkle it never had before. Remember that your dreams and aspirations are your own, don’t worry about what others think, don’t worry about the outcome. Trust that you already have everything you need. Your life would be a symphony … if you choose it to be.

April 20, 2022April 20, 2022

You are strong enough to persevere

One of my favourite authors of all times, Jim Rohn, wrote a very special book called ”The greatest Salesman in the world”. What makes this book special is that there are universal lessons and reminders built into an ancient story. In this book, the main character received a gift of ten scrolls containing life lessons. On one of the scrolls is written: “I will persist until I succeed”. In other words, I will hang on and persevere until I am successful. When the going gets tough, one of the scrolls reminds the recipient of the scrolls that ”This too shall pass”. No matter how tough it gets, no matter how dark the night, the sun will always rise again, if you can just hang on a little bit longer, take one more step, keep on moving because “Never will you know how close success lies, unless you turn the corner”.

Perseverance means to persist, to keep on keeping on, and sticking to your plan, no matter what happens. And keeping on going is tough sometimes. I get it! It is hard work to keep on digging and digging in a back-breaking fashion, hoping to strike it lucky and maybe find some diamonds. But digging and digging with no result can bring one to a place where you just want to give up! We all feel like that sometimes.! But you know the story of the person who gave up and stopped digging half a meter from where the diamonds were. He came so close, yet it was so far, he walked away with nothing. What if he just persevered for a little while longer, took one more step, yielded his spade one more time..?

Here is what you can do in those “Oh! What is the use?” –times. Here is what you can remind yourself in those “I just cannot go on any more” –times:

1. You overcame tough times before. You can do it again.

The current rough patch might not feel like anything you have worked through before. But you have successfully overcome the last difficult situation. And if you think back to that time, you will remember that perhaps you were worried that you might not have what it takes to overcome the obstacle… and then you did! So this time around, remember that you proved yourself wrong the previous time, you will probably prove yourself wrong again, because you are much stronger than you think.

2. It won’t feel this bad forever

“This too shall pass” says Jim Rohn. We are not very good at predicting our feelings and actions (or the future, for that matter) when we are in the thick of a difficult situation. In fact, in the midst of a crisis, we think that we will always feel the way we do now,… awful! But this is not true! Yes! It might be awful now but it will never be awful for as long as, and as much as we think it will. So no matter how bad you feel right now, know that you will not feel this way forever.

3. You are not your problems

Don’t let your circumstances determine who or what you are. You are not your problems. You are not your enemies, your job status, or bank account or the really messy divorce or anything else that has ever happened to you. Who you are is far beyond any external situations and circumstances or experiences.

To get out of the funk:

Accept that things will change – keep looking on the bright side, remain hopeful.
Ask for help if you need to. Do not keep struggling on your own. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness.
Stay positive and laugh as often as you can, even if you have to laugh at yourself, sometimes!
Focus on things that make you happy. Read a book, go for a walk, run yourself a nice bubble bath.
Above all, do not fall in the trap of letting your past define your future. Keep moving forward.

This too shall pass… never do you know how close success lies, until you turn the corner. A bright new day awaits on the other side of darkness.

January 24, 2022March 23, 2022

Get the Mojo back, FAST!

The middle of January 2022 had come and gone! Many of us now only stare at the New Years resolutions that we made only three weeks ago! Some of us had already given up on this 2022 to-do list. We are no longer inspired to do, be or have something new and exciting in 2022. We had already fallen back into the old mundane groove. Face it! Some of us are no longer inspired with 2022 and the year has just begun! Getting the Mojo back, is crucial!

Don’t’ despair! There are ways in which you can get your Mojo back! Ways to revive the spring in your step! Widen the smile on your face!

Here is how you get your Mojo back!

Address Stress.

Getting the Mojo back means dealing with your stress in an effective way. If you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed, lighten your load. Address the source of the stress before you do anything else. Work, a personal conflict, too many things on your to-do list, or too many demands on your time causes more stress than we would like to acknowledge. Earnestly try to pinpoint the reason for your stress and take action. With the help of a friend, or a HeartCore Transformation Specialist, let some things go or find ways to delegate them. Very few things in life are worth the physical and emotional toll of chronic stress.

Have more fun!

Fun is an essential element of a strong mojo. Right now, go grab a pen and paper. Think about the times in your life when you really had fun, and write them down. Go over the events in your head and mentally re-live these fun and happy times. Circle some of these activities that you might want to enjoy again. Then pick a couple and go do them!

Get your body moving!.

Choose fun activities that allow you to move. Without putting the pressure on yourself to start an exercise routine (which can feel like work and create more stress), think of some ways you can get physical and really enjoy it. I know which one you are thinking of, and by all means, go for it. Otherwise, just play some tennis or basketball. Go dancing with a group of crazy friends. Drive to the mountains and take a hike. Go skinny dipping at night. Get up from your chair and skip around the room or do some jumping jacks. Just get moving and enjoy it.

You can also do this…

Switch off the television!

It’s so easy to plonk in front of the television or the computer when you are feeling low on mojo. Once you are in that chair, it is so hard to get back up. For a few days at least, turn off the telly and computer so that you are forced to do something else. Go surf somewhere other than the internet! Have a conversation with your spouse or children. Clear clutter or organize something. Go buy some flowers and arrange them. Read something inspirational or motivating. Do something, anything, that is positive, productive and joyful. Therefore, no more sitting around and zoning out!

Do Something Adventurous.

Take a risk! Shake your life up a bit. Do something that is totally out of character for you! Do something completely unexpected. Take a road trip to nowhere in particular!! Eat sushi! Go whitewater rafting. Have a trolly race at the mall! Be spontaneous. Do something that you’ve always wanted to do. Do not worry what other people might think. It is your mojo!

Love Your Body.

When we lose our mojo, we can mistreat our bodies with too much alcohol, fatty/sugary foods, or medications. It’s impossible to get your groove back when your body is sedated with yucky stuff. In the light of this, remember to treat your body with loving kindness. Eat mojo-supporting foods like lots of veggies, fruits and lean meats and less processed, high fat bad-for-you foods. By all means, have a chocolate or a glass of wine, but do not overindulge!

Your Mojo still missing?

These are simple but very effective ways to open the door for your Mojo to step back in again! If this does not help, then DOWNLOAD my comprehensive plan to get your mojo back. See the sidebar for details!