A Guide to Doing Things Your Way

It is day 31 and the very last foothold in the mountain that has been Make Your Life Amazing 2012. 

I’ve given you the basic recipe, the next step is to add your own secret, special ingredients, to make it totally your own.

Your amazing life will never be like anybody else’s, because you are not like anyone else. That’s why, although I hope to have given you a helping hand, it is down to you how far you take this concept, and how far you really start existing spectacularly.

People rarely have much faith in their own way of doing things, which is a real shame, because it’s usually their very best way of going about things. Once you can put faith in your own ability, you can truly start growing into something special; whereas, if you cannot believe in yourself, you will always stunt your own progress.

How far do you truly support your own manner, actions, opinions, and idiosyncrasies? How far do you truly feel you are equipped to start living an amazing life right now? Once you invest faith in yourself, and once you can feel safe in the knowledge that, whatever happens, you can stand by your choices, then you have armed yourself with the mindset you need to be your most amazing.

You have the tools to fashion whatever style of life you choose, all you need to do is take the plunge and back up your aspirations with action.

Summary:

♥ An amazing life requires your own special ingredients

♥ You are not like anyone else; put faith in your own ability

♥ Arm yourself with the mindset and actions you need to be your most amazing self

Homework:

Have faith in your own way.

Now that the series is over, it’s time to stop listening to me, and start hearing yourself. In all honesty, have you lost faith in your own decisions and aims?

I think, with all the work we’ve done this month, a summative homework is necessary. Therefore, in light of the above quote, we’re going to rationalize a sort of MYLA ‘toolkit’ to take with us from this series. Instead of Kazantzakis’ ‘colours and brushes’, however, we’re going to record our aspirations, our tools for action, and our prospected outcomes. List these three headings in your journal, and write between three and five points for each one. See my example:

Click for larger version!

It's okay to go back through your journal and repeat your most powerful points from the other exercises, in fact, that’s kind of the point; we want to gather the best bits of the whole experience to give you that final surge to super-self-stardom.

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And that was Make Your Life Amazing 2012, folks! I will announce the eCourse winners in the next few days, so still a chance to comment on this post to be in with a chance. Any final thoughts? Doing this again has really inspired me to create a whole new big project which we can all get involved in - so I'll start scheming and keep you posted. I can safely say that, personally, I find myself in a whole new bracket of amazing since the start of this month, with some big practice-what-you-preach actions being taken just today - all will be revealed.  

I hope it got your 2012 fire started, too. ♥

Focus on Fun

We all know that old adage: ‘it ain’t what you do; it’s the way that you do it’. 

Well, whatever you’re doing, if there’s enough fun, joy, and passion behind it, you cannot fail to succeed, because your enthusiasm and enjoyment will shine out in the way that you go about it.

We often overlook having fun, not considering it a valuable use of our time; but the truth is, what are we here for, if not to be truly enjoying ourselves and reaching our capacity to embrace all the good in the world? Fun is our drive; fun is the reason the world dances and sings and cuddles and laughs and creates and comes together – fun makes it all worthwhile.

Fun is catching; if you’re having fun, people will want to join in. Fun attracts people to your cause, whatever that might be. If you can find substance in fun, and look past its often misconstrued reputation as a superficial endeavour, you will find that your world can become bold rather than washed out; your day can become an extravaganza, rather than a slog, and your work can become wonderful, rather than wearing.

Once you’ve made fun your priority, it won’t be merely an isolated event which only happens at the weekend, or on payday, or at Christmas... Your life will simply be fun in itself, and you’ll begin to see it for what it is: a glorious carnival of experience, enterprise and landmark achievements.

Summary:

♥ With enough joy and passion, you cannot fail to succeed

♥ Don’t underestimate fun, it makes life worth living

♥ Fun isn’t reserved for weekends; let your entire life shine with it

Homework:

Make fun your priority.

Have you been having enough fun? Fun is something we often leave to happen spontaneously and organically, meaning that, if we have other distractions in our lives, fun sometimes fails to happen at all. Make the choice to experience life more vividly; make the choice to skip on the bright side, to laugh and to smile at every opportunity.

It is easy to let fun slip in our list of priorities, so it is important to prompt and remind ourselves to keep a fun focus. To be having more fun, the spirit of it should be running deep throughout our entire day. For that reason, try taking one minute at the very beginning and very end of each day to evaluate the fun you’ve had/will have. 

Visualise positive incidents, value your friends, be grateful for opportunities, and smile at just how much pleasure your day brought/will bring you. If this becomes a repeat action, you will forever be reminding yourself to have fun.

If you start to see yourself forgetting about fun, take a day off to make it your only priority. Be irresponsible, purely for the joy of it. Prepare your favourite breakfast. See your favourite people; do something you’ve been meaning to try for ages like paintballing or horse riding. Watch a classic film. Have an indulgent bath and get an early night in a freshly made bed. Get blissed out, and then let that feeling channel into all the other corners of your life.

Make Your Money Creatively

One of the major factors in feeling great about your life is to have work that is satisfying and worthwhile.

It is not, as many misconceive, to simply have a good salary; a good salary is not the be all and end all. The bubble of consumerism in which we are stuck tells us we need a lot more than we actually do. In reality, we can live on far less than we think. We can’t, however, live amazingly unless we feel inspired and rewarded through our everyday efforts.

We all need to make a little money to survive, sure we do; money helps further enrich our lives in exchange for our talents. But the obvious ways of making money are not always the most appealing. The 9-5 office job might pay well, but only if we are willing to sacrifice our sense of amazing for a steady pay cheque. If we want a sustainable feeling of contentment from our work (and really from our lives, as work takes up so much of our life) we need to be working creatively.

Though it may not be something you’ve considered, satisfying work comes down largely to our own sense of our output of creativity; whether it’s being an all-out artist, being self-employed, leading a small team, or simply having ideas with some weight - we all run on a basic desire to have some impact; to have our voice and opinions heard and acted upon.

I won’t tell you it’s the easy route, because you already no it’s not. But if you can strive to make your money creatively – rather than simply strive to make money – your sense of purpose and fulfilment sky rockets and life, for you, becomes ever more amazing.

Summary:

♥ An amazing life needs work that is stimulating, not merely well paid

♥ Stimulation in our careers comes down to our creative output

♥ It might not be easy, but it can make your life amazing almost single-handedly

Homework:

Have a creative career plan.

It is when we lose our truest sense of aspiration and ambition that we meet the horrors of quarter life and mid-life crisis. Aspiration has long been associated with naivety, but I don’t think this is the case. Nothing was ever accomplished without there first existing someone’s dream to make it so. Do you want to accomplish things? Then you simply have to dream.

Today I want you to focus on constructing a creative career plan. Whether you’re in a job you could improve with creativity, stuck in a bad one and need an avenue out, or a student who has yet to set foot on the ladder - a structured career plan can put you on track.

I know this won’t be the most appealing thing to all of you, but at its heart is responsibility and passion for the direction your life will take, which is what all of MYLA has been about, so give it a shot. Mark points from one to twelve, one being where you stand now in your career and ten being where you want to be in your career in five years.

With the ten middle points, mark two things you could do each year to creatively impact your career. They can be obvious - like taking an evening course to gain an appropriate qualification, or networking with the right people - or they can be less obvious like saving enough to take the plunge into being self-employed, apply for an arts grant, spend some time living in another country perhaps learning the language, or investing in a piece of equipment that will drive you forward, like a Digital SLR camera, a sewing machine, or a computer programme. Push yourself to come up with ten even if it’s hard.

Arrange them appropriately and you will have the bones of your creative career plan. If it appeals to you to do so, then elaborate on it, but if you simply hate this kind of thing then just commit to following the steps you have.