Last week I posted a fascinating article by a young New York life coach who shared her 30 life lessons.
It got me thinking about the most important lessons that my involvement with life coaching has taught me.
I have to admit, there are a LOT but I’ve chosen what I think are 20 powerful life insights that I’d like to share with you this week.
I hope they resonate with you and I humbly invite you to comment and/or share one or two of your own insights on life immediately below this post.
[box type=\”shadow\”]\”The best vision is insight.\”
– Malcolm Forbes[/box]
20 Life Insights to share with you
Universal law
1. We live in a no holds barred, free will universe. Everything is allowed and everything is possible. Do whatever you wish and aspire to whatever you want. The only boundary is that you must not infringe or detract from the ability of others to do likewise.
Life purpose & goals
2. There is nothing more rewarding, fulfilling and motivating than finding your true purpose in life.
3. If you do what you love, the joy and happiness you experience will motivate you to find ways to render it lucrative. If you do what you don’t love, you’ll spend all the money you make trying to find happiness.
4. Without goals, your life purpose will remain the stuff of dreams. Without life purpose your goals become nothing more than boxes to be ticked for the sake of it.
Taking action
5. Life will always seem hard until you learn a simple secret … called ‘taking action’.
Responsibility
6. You are the only one who has responsibility for your life. Adopt the mantra “If it’s to be it’s up to me!”
7. Just as you must learn to take sole responsibility for your own life, you must learn to allow others to take sole responsibility for theirs.
Self awareness
8. You cannot possibly hope to understand and appreciate others in any real depth unless you have come to understand and appreciate who you really are.
9. When all is said and done there is only one person’s expectations that really matter and that you should try to live up to – your own.
10. Realise that what you fear most is not your inability to meet the exacting demands of the external world but your inability to live up to your own expectations.
Relating to others and your world
11. Absolute truth is an illusion. Each of us is unique and therefore has a unique perspective on the world and everything around us.
12. When you can appreciate and celebrate the fact that every person is unique, you will gain tolerance, empathy, trust and hope.
13. If you want others to understand you better then help them to see the world through your eyes by looking at the world through their eyes.
14. If you want to be perceived as authentic you must take responsibility for communicating such that your intent is as clear to the person you are communicating with as it is to you.
15. If you want to be a master at selling your services you must first become a master at building rapport.
16. Make it your mission to share the one thing you have learnt from life that you believe would be of the greatest benefit to others.
17. The kindest and most charitable thing people can do for others is to empower them to go after their goals. When our governments start to understand and apply this thinking, mankind will have taken a truly giant leap.
18. Adopt the mentality of ‘fair exchange’ in all of your business dealings. If what you give and receive are generally of the same perceived value you will flourish in the longer term.
Self empowerment
19. Learn to ‘dance in the moment’. By that I mean stay flexible. Look for the opportunity and learning in every situation that comes your way, and be adaptable so you can make the most of it.
20. Master your thoughts. Don’t let them master you. Realise the huge creative power that your thoughts have. You can choose to allow them to fuel a vicious cycle of worry, anxiety and fear … or you can put them to work for you to create a truly wonderful future.
Thank you for the inspiring message. I do believe in absolute truth, we may experience it in different ways and reach the truth through different paths, but when the truth is understood, it is the same truth.
For example, we may realize that- Love is the miracle cure- however how we reached that understanding will differ.
Thank you again, these are such important aspects for each and everyone to understand and practice. A good tool that has helped me to improve my thinking has been using affirmations, what are your thoughts on affirmations and are there other tools that a person could put to use?
Thank you Dirk,
With regards to affirmations, you may be interested to read this article that is closely related:
http://www.life-coaching-insights.com/power-questions/
I think these are all so powerful and important. As I was reading, I also thought of having the ability to apply certainty in our life to what we are good at. By feeling certain in our abilities we can achieve anything and have the determination to go for our dreams.
Thanks Natalie. Certainty … or Confidence, perhaps?
Absolutely Bill, maybe even a bit of both feeling certain that it will happen and the confidence to make the change and make it happen 🙂
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Thank you for the blog post Bill. Truly life insights that we all should live by. “Be the captain of your own ship”
I must go down to the sea again … 🙂
Wonderful stuff Bill; I love reading all the blogs but this one is extra special – I want to print it off and keep it close, making it easy to refer to daily-))) All best wishes.
You’re most welcome Joy Lo
Fabulous Bill. In line with taking full responsibility for our own lives within fully recognising ourselves, I believe point 14 becomes a central pillar – not only communicating with others but so importantly that the communication with ourselves is perceived by ourselves as authentic and with clear intent.
Love the thought to be like water Carmen.
Also congratulations on international accreditation recognition Bill.
Thanks Lucienne. Having been a corporate internal communications manager I know just how easy it is for sloppy communications to cause real problems in relationships 🙂
Hi Bill,
Great post, thanks.
One of my personal insights is the word LOVE. Love Living Life – Openly – Vivaciously and Enrichingly. It is so true that you need to understand and know yourself first before you can truly unlock your fullest potential and be the person you truly want to be.
Such a great point, Jack!
I recently started a personal blog and website (still in its embryonic stage) and it’s called ‘Live the Life you Love’:
http://www.billburridge.com
Hi Bill
Thank you for all of those and all of them resonate with me. I would like to humbly add a thought which I live by. To be like water. To fully experience water, you have to gently touch it and run your fingers through it or let it touch you. Only then can you “feel” water. To try to grab water is useless. Water is gentle, but has the strength to erode solid rock. With enough persistence and gentleness, we can remove any obstacle or simply smooth the edges of the rough spots we sometimes find ourselves in. Water can also penetrate even the smallest hairline crack. It finds its way inside. If we can all be like water. Gentle, flexible, persistent, yet incredibly powerful.
This has the makings of another post! Wonderful – thanks Carmen!
Wow, Bill! Thank you for 20 golden nuggets of wisdom!
You’re so welcome as always!
Great message, point 8 should be at the head of the list, if you do not know the journey you are on, how can you receive or give instructions.
Thanks Chris. The list is in not intended to be in order of importance but I appreciate your passion!
Hi Bill,
These are really great and I can relate to them all and trying to really follow them.
I also strongly believe in what is also one of the ten commandments and that is “treat others and you want them to treat you”.
Never judge anyone as you don’t know what road they are on or have been down.
Regards
Geoff
Thank you Geoff. I think your comments are closely related to my points 12 and 13 🙂
Hi Bill
A truly inspirational message.
I believe we all have something to contribute as we have all had different life experiences. Its learning and growing from them that matters and taking positive action no matter how small the step towards out dream and goals.
Once we understand and realise that our life it is our own responsibility, that makes a huge difference. Well, it did to me anyway. Perhaps scary at first but very empowering.
Thanks Annette. I agree with you completely on the responsibility issue. This is perhaps the most fundamental tenet of good life coaching – helping people learn to take full responsibility for their lives.