Living your purpose in life comes with steep learning curves...

In the wake of doing that ‘something’ I am passionate about and 'living my life purpose', I find that there are times when I need to take a deep breath, and some days, I need many of those deep breaths. I need to stop and assess where I am, where I am going. Interestingly, I never need to assess the why? That’s an unmovable constant.

The last eight weeks have been amazing but also a huge learning curve...

THE DETAILS, THE DETAILS….I know that while I am very capable of hitting the ground running with all the passion, enthusiasm and discipline of an Olympic athlete, I am equally capable of neglecting the smaller details. Those small mundane ones, that over time can and will come back to haunt me.  And as everyone who has started a business, charity or project knows, the devil is in those details. 

LETTING GO… that’s a big challenge for me but a necessary skill I must acquire and excel at if this project is to succeed. So I am on it and learning every day to let go of certain expectations, disappointments, setbacks and even people.

THE COMFORT ZONE... now this one is a mixed bag. The Comfort Zone is called that for a good reason – being in my comfort zone I produce great work, have amazing ideas, I talk the talk. Then I step outside the zone, even just a few millimetres and sometimes its like being on the front line….incoming missiles are raining down on me from all sides (in the form of those voices in my head).        

So I came up with a strategy. Instead of stepping outside of my comfort zone, I now push the parameters of my comfort zone further out, a millimetre at a time. It’s working and eventually my comfort zone will be a huge region.

KEEPING MY MOUTH SHUT... when some people tell me the project won’t work but don’t really tell me the reason why not. I am willing to listen to constructive criticisms but just saying “well that won’t work” and then leaving the statement floating in the air, pisses me off (and I quote) “Ain’t nobody got time for that”. But I am working on recognising the difference between those people who are just making noise and those who actually have a point to make.

TRUSTING MY INTUITION... This weekend someone told me ‘that I need to trust my intuition, listen to what my gut is telling me’. One area where this intuition thingy comes into play is ‘time and money’ - I do need heaps more of both and I feel panicked at odd moments of the day and night. Yet, I know it will be resolved, I don’t know how or when but it will and I just need to keep moving forward.

That statement right there terrifies me but I am guessing that learning to trust my intuition also means overriding the negatives and the rational and replacing them with the certainty that all will work out as it should.

Countering all of this is the 'effortless and the happening naturally' of the project- the flinging open of doors, the support I receive every day from people I know and those I don’t, the wonderful people I am meeting, the happiness and calmness  I feel when I talk and work on the project and best of all, the feeling of pure joy when the project connects with the people it is intended to for.

The 10 Realities of Life ... in my opinion!

1. Life is all about expectations.
   
2. When you think you have it all figured out, the goal posts inevitably get moved and everything changes one more time.
3. Wishing for something to happen? It rarely does…but neither does expecting the worst.
4. Hope is overrated, but it is necessary to keep going when things are bad and you need a reason to get up in the morning.
5. When the light at the end of the tunnel goes out and the tunnel is plunged into darkness, we quickly learn to see in the dark.
6. Our perception of life and the situations we face is usually a totally distorted version of the reality.
7. We pray because we want to believe that we are turning our problem(s) over to someone/something bigger than us.
8. Eventually you end up where you should have been along. Sometimes it takes years but you will end up where you need to/should be.
9. Trying to resolve/fix the past is a complete waste of time and will definitely mess up your head. 
10. Thoughts and ideas without action remain simply thoughts and ideas.  No more, no less

Hope… Our Reset Button!

Hope, the word and the emotion, is such an inherent part of our way of thinking and being that we rarely notice how much of our behaviour and actions are based on it. Just for fun, record how many times in one day, you have hoped, were hopeful, lived in hope, and used the word hope in your thoughts and in conversation.

On opening our eyes in the morning, our first lucid thought is about hope: ‘hope it’s going to be a great day’; hope it won’t rain’; hope there is not too much traffic on the way to work’; and hope continues to show up throughout the day: It permeates and transcends all aspects of our life…..from hoping for a better life, to getting better, to hoping for the one, more money, better job, new car, and on and on.

This is because hope is intrinsic to our basic survival instinct and is fundamental to surviving anything. We don’t have to learn to have hope or to be hopeful; we just know how to hope, instinctively. When all else fails, there is always hope.

As humans we do hope very well.

Hope fulfils our need for instant gratification. When we feel down, some small incident, random thought or word, gives us hope that things may turn around, and in a split second our mood lifts and we are able to look forward with hope and make plans that hopefully things will work out.

In business, hope is a natural sales and marketing tool. Let’s face it, when we are pitching our products and services to potential clients, we are for all intents and purposes selling hope. People want and will buy hope. They may not necessarily want solutions – but rather they buy into the hope that something can be done to solve their problems/issues/pain. Consider the first time Obama was elected US president; the campaign that won him the US presidency, was based on “Hope and Change “.

Yes, hope sells.

Why do we jump head first into business deals relationships, partnerships, friendships that we know are illogical or improbable?

Well, when someone sells us hope or gives us hope, no matter how illogical or improbable the end result is or that we may end up getting hurt or losing lots of money, most of us will jump, eyes wide open, on to that band wagon.

We don’t question hope, we just do.

Hope also relives us of accountability, while giving us the illusion that we are in control of a situation. It provides us a way out when things don’t work out as we hoped that they would.  More often than not, we place the onus, on the person or thing, we have pinned our hopes on.

The thing about hope is that it gives birth to other emotions like trust and faith, two very close cousins of hope. For example, we put our trust in someone or something, hoping for the best, and we have faith that things will hopefully work out.

Hope is a fundamental and necessary gateway to our other emotions:

Trust: the sum of Hope + Desire/Need. We trust in something or someone when we are hoping they/it will give us what we desire/need.

Certainty: hope on steroids;                                                  

Prayer: a litany of hope;

Inspiration: Hope + Creativity compel us to change our circumstances and ourselves;

Hope is a pure and a very powerful emotion, one that we create effortlessly; yet paradoxically it can also be toxic when hope is false or unrealistic. Devoid of hope, we open the floodgates to despair, helplessness and anguish.

As a mechanism that allows us to replace fear and anguish with courage and determination. Hope also allows us to reset our expectations and face our tomorrows with a degree of optimism, regardless of how grim and terrible our circumstances are today.

Luciana Cousin- July 2013