by Janelle Legge | Jan 4, 2017 | Wellbeing |
It’s hard to stay motivated when you haven’t been investing in your wellbeing. Maybe you’ve experienced the inertia and lack-lustre approach to life that comes from neglecting your wellbeing? Just getting caught up in everyday life?
Your sense of self is shaped by your body and your most important relationships and experiences. It’s not just about your brain and changing your thinking.
Exercise / physical activity is a must-do to stay motivated, optimistic and focused on your goals.
Because when you stop investing in your own wellbeing, you often end up hitting invisible barriers and getting stuck. That’s when your fear of failure starts to set in. There’s a direct relationship between staying motivated and succeeding in life and the quality of your daily habits, your thinking, and your social environment.
Focusing on your wellbeing is a mindset and lifestyle choice. It’s about choosing to look after yourself in a more conscious and mindful way.
The good news is you can fix this easily.
3 Ways To Invest In Your Wellbeing And Stay Motivated
#1 Don’t Isolate Yourself
One of the quickest ways to step over your own thinking habits and stay motivated is to connect with creative, motivated people. They see things from multiple perspectives. They are people who are able to hold space for you, help you clarify your own thinking, and open up a whole new world of fresh, creative solutions and ideas. It is these conversations that have you walking away with a brand new take on things, feeling energized and optimistic about what’s possible for you. Investing in good quality relationships with people who want you to succeed is a sure-fire way to avoid self-limiting thinking or beliefs. It gets you thinking more creatively, outside the box. When you try and solve a problem in isolation from your fixed level of awareness, you usually find that six months later you’re still in the same spot, feeling even more frustrated and demotivated. In some cases this is dangerous.
#2 Get Healthy and Fit
Physical fitness has a direct impact, not only on your health, but also on the strength and flexibility of your mind and wellbeing. It improves your levels of self-mastery. Exercise gets those valuable endorphins kicking in, lifting your mood and in turn making you feel more positive and self-confident. Going to the gym, exercising outdoors, swimming and other types of physical activities are all great ways to get you out of negative, self-limiting thinking habits. Similarly, yoga, qigong and tai chi that cultivate meditation and mindfulness are also beneficial. Any type of physical activity where you have to focus on your body and your breath and be more mindful is ideal. It gets you into the present moment, clears your mind, and helps you see things differently. It’s about finding things that you genuinely enjoy so that you’ll commit to doing them regularly. Daily rhythms are becoming increasingly important in a complex and constantly changing world. Regular routines make you feel more grounded and focused, regardless of what’s going on around you.
#3 Have A Purpose
You achieve your best by being really clear on why you’re doing what you do every day. Having a clear purpose in life is what keeps you motivated and optimistic, even when things aren’t going exactly as you want them to. It’s about having a purpose and mission in life. Whether that’s being a great parent to your kids, being your best self to the people you care about most, or wanting to positively impact the world via your career and business. Having a purpose is what gives your life direction and meaning. This is because you know what really matters the most to you and why. It’s when you’re feeling motivated, useful and purposeful that you’re able to thrive and be your best.
A version of this article was featured in the December 2016 issue of The Sydney Standard.
by Janelle Legge | Aug 19, 2015 | Living With Purpose |
Becoming purpose-led is high on the radar for businesses that want to survive and thrive in an increasingly complex world. Why? Because smart people in business know that sustainable business growth, talent retention and achievement of strategic goals relies on having purpose, meaning, and enduring motivation. At the end of the day, bottom line results depend on how engaged your people and customers are.
Salary alone is not the top driver for ambitious, talented people who want to have a positive impact in the world. Eventually, top performers seek out other opportunities if there is a disconnect between the organization’s purpose, values and goals and their own. I’ve seen this happen time and time again as a consultant and executive coach.
In a rapidly changing world and constantly changing business landscape, being purpose-led is becoming more and more essential. It’s what makes everyone prepared to go over and beyond in order to achieve meaningful and compelling visions and goals. It’s an inner and shared-collective-group orientation that breeds certainty and confidence, rather than constantly looking over your shoulder to see what the competition is doing.
Purpose driven, constructive cultures lead to the attainment of an organisation’s mission and positively correlate with desirable organisational outcomes, such as, high staff and customer satisfaction, sales growth, profitability and shareholder value (Cooke and Szumal 2000).
So if organisations are beginning to realize that having a shared purpose is what powerfully guides and positively impacts the achievement of its goals and success, why is it that people often don’t have a clear purpose in their own lives?
Exactly the same purpose-led principles can be applied to achieve your own goals, and have fulfilment and success in the areas of life that matter the most to you.
I’ve seen clients over the years who appeared successful and together on the outside, yet inwardly doubted themselves and under-valued what they were doing in the world. Because they weren’t clear on their purpose and were still questioning why they were here, and what they were meant to be doing with their life. Helping them figure out their purpose gave them the self confidence to go for bigger goals and accelerated their success across a whole range of areas.
Living with purpose, knowing you’re on the right path in your life and work, is not a new trend or phenomenon at all. It’s something that’s been seen as essential to living a meaningful and well-lived life by philosophers and spiritual traditions since ancient times. It’s been central to my work over the last 16 years. Now businesses are increasingly seeing the value of being purpose-led, particularly with the success of brands like Virgin. It’s having a shared collective purpose that inspires everyone to go beyond what’s required to achieve meaningful goals. The improvement in people engagement and staff satisfaction levels, business results and organizational culture show that it works.
On a personal level, having a clear purpose is energizing and inspiring. It encourages you to be more creative and resourceful and it’s good for your wellbeing. You’re able to stop doing the things that waste your time and take you off track. Being purpose-led gives you a more zen-like focus and brings you more inner peace and cohesion.
Image by Joschko Hammermann
Knowing your purpose gives you a roadmap, a strategy and a meaningful plan in life and in business.
Title image by Kalen Emsley
by Janelle Legge | Nov 25, 2014 | Living With Purpose
Are you stuck in a mindless default drive of over-doing, running from one bright shiny object to the next, or are you living your life on purpose? There’s a lot of misplaced value these days on DOING and being busy all the time. It’s a seductive trap that disconnects you from your life’s purpose, your easiest pathway to creating a life in which you thrive.
When you’re trapped on the treadmill of busyness, you’re unconsciously buying into values, beliefs, and goals that are not your own. You’re a slave to the outer-directed life. And the more you live this way, the more disempowered, distracted and dissatisfied you’ll become. Deep down you know you deserve better.
If you’re feeling it’s time to reclaim authentic you, set bold goals and access your wealth generating potentials, then there’s a smooth sailing and clear pathway for this.
Purposeful living, having a mission, is your most powerful way of expressing authentic you. Be your own boss. Enrich your life and the world in unimaginable ways. It’s your most clever and lucrative manoeuvre for working your gifts and talents with zen-like focus for maximum reward.
Because when you don’t have purpose, you get swept up into over-doing and comparing yourself to everyone else. Your energy and focus are scattered and everything feels like a struggle. Nothing comes together with synchronicity and ease. Because you’re working against the natural rhythms and cycles of life that support you in manifesting whatever it is that you want.
Finding your purpose and then living it is your most competitive advantage for success. It’s the ultimate inner image for outer success reset. You’re more confident, focused, and disciplined. Purpose fulfilment for the greater good releases self sabotage and self obsessive habits. They’re no longer so seductive and attractive to you. You’ve outgrown them.
If you’re not yet living your life on purpose it’s so worth the journey. It’s your most direct and potent pathway for self-actualizing and sharing your natural strengths and talents with the world.
Image: Caitlin Brown
