Life is filled with challenges for all of us. We need to accept that life will deal to us some challenges along the way. No-one is immune from them. They come in all different forms; financial, health, relationship, career, business, emotional, spiritual etc. Why should we embrace these challenges rather than fear them or view them in such a negative way? The answer to this question is critical for you to understand. We need challenges in our lives. They are sent to us for a beneficial purpose or reason. Challenges help to shape us to be the best that we can be and to force us to look at aspects of our life in a new way. They help us to grow on a personal level. They teach us lessons that enable us to progress forward in life and cause us to take necessary action to move us to where we need to be. Challenges importantly help us to learn a great deal about ourselves. The key thing to understand here is that tremendous learning, personal growth and opportunity can accompany c...

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This story is inspired by one of my clients who has already accomplished so much in his 37 years and yet he does not see what his accomplishments are, instead he is focusing on what is still missing.. I guess we all tend to focus on that from time to time, what we want is still out there elusive and un-touchable. So after awhile this becomes demotivating and we get stuck in our predicament. All we want is to do better and putting this into practice becomes the real challenge. This is when we need to tackle each day as it comes one at a time. Set yourself some realistic mini-goals each day. Focus on the action and get on with living authentically. If you find yourself reflecting on the past this will not serve you going forward so make a conscious decision to minimize the mental tennis matches and be in the now.. Being better takes work, otherwise you just stay complacent and nothing will change. The world changes around you and you are left behind. Just imagine what your life would ...

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Success is a very personal subject as everyone has different goals, aspirations and targets. Success is what keeps us happy at all times and should be lasting. I often wonder what success is and hear mostly that you are successful once you have a great career which earns you lots of money. However, I don't believe that is necessarily success. Most of you would agree that money doesn't always make us happy, hence it is not 'success' for all of us. Let's look at some of the things I have achieved in my life so far: I started a new life by moving from the Netherlands to Australia with two suitcases in my hand and the rest of my 'life' on a ship on its way to Sydney. It was all very daunting and scary but exciting and fun at the same time. A whole new city and country to explore and to love. Now, 13 years later, I have a wonderful family, a very close circle of friends and my own business! To me, that is success!! A few years ago I discovered I have Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia ('CML'). Th...

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What if there was more to life than just existing? What if there was a bigger plan? What if when we were souls, awaiting our birth into the human experience, we formed a plan? What if we decided that in order for our souls to grow, evolve and learn, we needed to explore and participate in certain experiences during our human existence? What if, in order to experience this growth, evolution and learning we deliberately chose those who would journey with us and assist us in accomplishing our task? What if we imagined our life here to be like a theatre production? What if we all had our specific roles, our specific wardrobe, our specific dialogue within this story that, when delivered as it should be, ended in a grand finale? What if all the people in your life, friend or foe, were in fact just playing their role in your own growth, evolution and learning process? What if they were part of your life for a reason, and whether your experience with them was positive or negative, what ...

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Learn how the words you use affect the results you're going to get! As an amazingly intricate piece of work, our mind is constantly filtering and sorting for evidence that the world around us matches how we think it should be. We are constantly evaluating...thinking and analysing people, circumstances, words, actions, our environment, today, yesterday, tomorrow, and in particular what these all mean to us. If you stop to think about it long enough, we are constantly evaluating. So, since we spend most of our day doing it, should we get clearer on exactly what an evaluation is? I tried to evaluate what an evaluation is and then I realised I was asking myself a series of questions. Is it possible that evaluations are questions? Of course, that in itself is a question is it not? Can it be that thinking itself is nothing but the process of asking and answering questions? Are you familiar with that little voice that pops up from time to time, that little fella that sits on your shoulder a...

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  Persistence is the ability to overcome all obstacles between you and your goals. It is an important trait for you to have if you want to realise your goals. Whenever you set a goal there will be the inevitable obstacles and challenges. You need to understand and accept that. How you respond to these obstacles and how persistent you are will determine your success in achieving your goals and ultimately the level of happiness that you experience in your life. I love reading biographies of people who have achieved great things in their life. The reading of these biographies not only has inspired me, it has revealed to me some common attributes of successful people. On top of the list is persistence. Every person that has achieved success has had their share of failure and setbacks. They would have had obstacles in their way. The key to their success was their persistence and their will and desire to find a way to make their goals a reality. They have a ‘never say die’ attitude...

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If you’re anything like me, you’re probably swamped with numerous things to do, all pulling you in different directions and all demanding your immediate attention. Thing is, we so often get caught up in doing the small things, or the more enjoyable things, that before we know it, time has passed us by and that big task that you say you’ll keep getting to tomorrow, still isn’t done! 2008 is drawing to an end so now’s the time to stop … take a deep breath … and jump right in! If you’re finding everything a little too overwhelming then make sure you take some time out each day (even if its only for 30mins) to just relax and recharge your mind. If its that you really can’t get motivated to do it, then change the environment you’re doing it in, alter the process or bring someone else on board to keep you company. Your time is valuable – make sure you like how you spend it. If your task is still too daunting, then look at it in a new way… We’ve all heard many times before that we need t...

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Have you ever wanted something so much that it doesn’t come or doesn’t happen. You’ve done everything you can think of to get this “thing”, you’ve been constantly thinking about having it and yet its still not coming your way… In desperation you finally reach frustration point and “give up”. But then guess what happens next – you get it! That’s because part of the process of positive thinking involves a certain amount of surrendering. When you’ve believe enough in an outcome and have taken every action to achieve it then you must let it go and have faith that it will occur when its meant to. When I talk about faith I’m not referring to a particular religion per se. You could be surrendering to God, Buddha, Allah or the Universe. Whatever external source you believe in is absolutely perfect, it’s the action of belief that is important, not the subject. A mentor of mine once said to me that surrendering your belief is like hot chips and seagulls. If you chase after a seagull to feed ...

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We can get so caught up in our actions and in our future plans that once we achieve our goals we just create new ones. For me I seem to be going up and down and this is life. I guess enjoy the highs and reflect on the lows, however to get yourself up as quickly as possible that is the key. The destination will come; it is all about the journey, the learnings and the insights along the way. This is what makes it all worthwhile what you did to get there. I was reading about another channel nine news reader who finally fell pregnant after 11 attempts of assisted conception (IVF)! What a journey she has had thus far, and I know where she is coming from, we too have been there and it took us 9 attempts! The journey is just that the path to the ultimate prize: motherhood. Our journey has taken us to many places in our hearts and minds, emotionally jam-packed and definitely made us closer as a couple. We have weathered many disappointments and heart-ache and now I am glowing at being six m...

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Many of us are driven by our desire to do more/better/faster. So we often take up jobs that provide us with a challenge to be conquered and then precede to the next one and we fill our days toiling away completely absorbed at the task at hand. As a consequence we get ‘tunnel-vision’ as we have laser beam focus on what is next. We forget to be totally present in the moment as our energies are thinking ahead of those future obstacles/tasks. Here are some ideas or suggestions to do just that... Enjoy the moment: Be mindful of what you are doing, keep your thoughts right there in the now If you find yourself wondering about the next step/task then be aware you are doing this and refocus on where you are Take time out to not plan! Close your diary/outlook calendar and relinquish some of the control! Instead of completing your entire TO DO LIST in record time, take a breather mid point and not feel guilty Involve others in some of your tasks, this will build rappo...

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