Shape Your Own Destiny

It is the choices we make and the actions we take – not where we start out – that determines where we will end up.

The above is a quote from my book, “A Boerewors Roll for the Soul – awaken to the magic of the life you love” and it is a direct reference to the philosophy that underpins life coaching, and New Insights life coaching in particular.

Many people think that their futures are sealed from the moment they are born and no matter what courses of action they decide on throughout their lives, the general direction that their lives will follow is predetermined. In other words, they believe that one’s ability to shape your own destiny really does not exist.

Others believe that the poor choices they made in the past coupled with unfortunate events or happenings in their lives up to now have shaped their futures forever. In other words, once their beds are made they have to sleep in them. This implies  that one’s ability to shape your own destiny is seriously limited by the past.

At New Insights we believe that both these lines of thinking are fundamentally flawed.

[box type=\”shadow\”]“We\’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That\’s who we really are.”

― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix[/box]

Shape your own destiny (continued)

 

Free will and open minds

In my book, as well as in the New Insights life coach training and certification programme, I argue that we are masters of our own destinies, equipped from the outset with the wonderful gifts of free will and open minds.

As we go through life, we are presented with a myriad of information and ideas along with a myriad of challenges and opportunities. We are then free to make choices as to what to believe and what not to believe and when and how to respond to the challenges and opportunities that are sent to fuel our growth.

Control and choice

Some may argue that, thanks to third parties who may seek to control us, or events outside of our control, we are not always free to make our own choices in life and sometimes these are made for us.

It is true that during our early years, as we are learning to apply the free gifts that we have been endowed with, our parents, siblings and teachers step in, hopefully to provide us with positive and constructive guidance aimed at helping us to use and develop our gifts in our best interests.

Of course, this is not always the case. Even when we become adults there are people who may seek to control or manipulate us to serve their own interests ahead of our own.

But even in extreme cases of forceful control when our actions are severely restricted, we still retain the choice over what to think and believe. Being controlled in the long-term then, is ultimately a choice we make.

More challenge, more growth

We are all born into different circumstances that are as unique as our fingerprints. Some face seemingly greater challenges than others, yet we all face challenges. These challenges are simply opportunities to grow and develop and one could argue that the more the challenges we face the more opportunity for our growth and development.

How we respond to the challenges and opportunities we face determines who we become, how we grow, and ultimately the level of joy and fulfilment we achieve from life.

Influence need not equal constraint

And how we respond is simply a combination of the choices we make and the actions we follow up with. Although we may be influenced by what has gone before in our lives in making our choices and taking actions, our futures do not have to be  constrained by this.

Never too late to change

It is never too late in life to change your ways.

Where you are now may be a product of the choices and actions that you have taken in the past based on what you value, what you believe in and how you relate to yourself and others, but none of those things are set in concrete.

Beginning right now it is possible to change or reprioritise your values, interrogate, question and change those beliefs that don’t serve you and start to make different choices and take different actions that can make your future what you really want it to be, not what you think it is destined to be based on your past.

All it requires is to ‘re-open your mind’ to the fact that your mind may have become closed to certain ways of thinking – thanks to the choices you made in the past – then to use your free will to make and take new choices and actions to set you on an exciting new path.

Awaken to the magic of the life you love

New insights life coaching uses specific tools and techniques to bring about the change in mindset necessary to help you shape  your own destiny and ‘awaken to the magic of the life you love’.

 

 

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This is the official Blog for New Insights Life Coach Training.
Find out more about life coaching and becoming a life coach here:

SA/Africa: http://www.life-coach-training-sa.com

UK/Europe: http://www.life-coach-training-uk.com

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