12 perspectives that will change your life
Today I'm sharing with you perspectives from the book "12 words to unlock your potential and build an incredibly fulfilling life" by Alexander Butler, a life coach and author whose book I love and find very inspiring, to help you build peaceful and successful lives.
Live a life of purpose
It is very easy to fall into a passive mindset where we feel like things are happening to us. We lose the power of our own choices, rely on other people to make decisions for us, and then complain that things don't go our way. Great things happen when we accept that life is entirely our responsibility. My life, as it is right now, is the result of my choices. I choose the direction my life takes: I am the author of my own story. Focusing on returning power back to your own conscious choice is a direct way to feel more confident, more determined and more powerful.
Accept your nature and fulfill your needs
Human beings have certain needs. From the need for food and shelter to the need for emotional security, creative expression and belonging... If you know, understand and accept your inner needs, you will take the necessary steps to meet them. Unmet needs will always try to find ways to be met, and this can cause us to act erratically or do things we don't understand or expect. As we become more conscious of our needs, we gain more wisdom about our inner processes and control over our own choices. A fulfilling life is a life that meets all your needs, so understanding them is very important. Often, being aware of them also enables us to act more consistently, more effectively, which in turn enables us to create a fulfilling lifestyle.
Grow into your authentic self What is adulthood?
What does it mean to be an adult? How is it different from childhood? Can we really claim to be a fully mature adult? We go through life with many childhood behaviors and reactions, and because of this, we can experience a lot of confusion in our lives. There are things we can all do to step into our adult selves. Understand the nature of your inner child and learn to parent it so that it doesn't get out of balance with our needs from decades ago. Let go of impulses and learned responses that no longer serve us. This is often a long and arduous journey, but stepping into true adulthood is one of the most transformative things we will ever experience.
Reconnect with nature
There is very strong evidence that a strong connection with nature is good for our mental health. There are things that only the wilderness can teach us. Nature is not always kind or comfortable, so we need to get out in challenging weather, travel through wild terrains, leave our comfortable worlds behind. As we grapple with the raw experience of mother nature, we will find the essential aspects of ourselves that we have lost. Inner wildness is the freedom of our soul, our unquenchable desire to explore, to grow, to express our passion and to be truly alive in every moment. We can easily fall into the trap of our domesticated lives; we move slowly through our days and forget the feeling that we are here now, living this wild and precious life. So this lesson is an exploration of what it means to be a wild, free, conscious animal.
Let go of cultural expectations
Our society has achieved incredible things: Science, political freedom, art and culture. But it also has toxic lessons that we have unconsciously accepted. Men and women are expected to act in certain ways, and these expectations force us into personalities that are not real. We may believe that happiness is something we find through money, fame or other signs of success. We may have unhealthy ideas about relationships that we learn from books, movies or social media. We may believe that nothing we do really matters. We need to explore the lessons our culture imposes on us and learn strategies to protect our true selves.
Identify your core values
Knowing what we value and believe in most is crucial to building a happy and fulfilling life. It creates trust in our relationships. It gives us confidence when making decisions. It creates a strong foundation for our personality.
Allow yourself to challenge and grow
When we face something difficult and then overcome it, we grow. We adapt, learn new skills, stretch ourselves and discover new things about ourselves.
It is very easy to fall into a comfortable way of being, to avoid things that are new, unfamiliar or different, and this tends to get worse as we get older. People become more and more confined to their comfort zones and ridicule people who take risks, make mistakes or exhibit bizarre behavior.
As a result, we experience less peace in our lives because we are more and more afraid of change. It is important to keep stretching ourselves throughout our lives, because as long as we keep doing scary, unfamiliar things, we build a strong foundation of trust and adaptability, and this fosters a more peaceful, joyful life.
Face your fears
Fear is a friend that will always be with us. It is an important part of our emotional landscape. To deny fear is to let it control us. If we want to take our life in a good direction, it is necessary to acknowledge our fears, to understand the purpose of the emotion.
Support others, don't save them
We tend to rescue people emotionally. We soothe upset friends or relatives when something difficult happens to them. We comfort them and say things to ease their pain. We don't want to see our loved ones suffering.
But suffering has a purpose. We don't want to abandon our closest friends when they are suffering. So this lesson is about empathizing with people who are struggling, but not jumping into the role of savior, not taking away their struggle. It is about standing in solidarity rather than stepping into the role of a parent. It is often difficult because we are taught that it is good to rescue people, but empathy and compassion help us support the development of others and build stronger adult relationships.
Cultivate independence and self-care
Sometimes you will need to be alone on your journey, sometimes it will be difficult. This is why it is so important that we have strong resilience skills.
Are you good at taking care of yourself in ways that are really helpful? If not, what gets in the way? Learning to love ourselves and take care of ourselves in healthy, sustainable, effective ways is a very important skill. Self-love is a skill that has practical applications in the real world. This lesson is about understanding our own blocks to self-care and learning what self-care looks like for us personally.
Embark on a lifelong journey of growth, learning and change
We do our best when we are open to growth, change and adventure. We never reach the end of this journey.
This lesson is an invitation to see our whole life as an unfolding adventure. As we enter new chapters or periods of our lives, the nature of the adventure changes, but there is always more to learn, more experiences and new ways of understanding ourselves better. Committing ourselves to this lifelong journey means that we are always growing, open to change, resilient and truly alive until the end of our life story.
Balance vulnerability and limits
We need to connect deeply with others, so how do we keep things real, balanced, fair and healthy?
Vulnerability is the ability to be real, to let our guard down in a healthy way, to let people see the real person behind the mask. It can be scary - it means losing too much control and risking rejection. In the meantime, we need to be clear about our boundaries: What is good for us, what is bad for us? We need to be able to express them in a way that does not harm the relationship but helps it to develop.