Hannah Braime's Blog, page 8

20 Journaling Prompts for Self-Discovery

It’s no secret I’m an avid journaler and a huge fan of journal writing as a personal growth tool. Over the last few years, I’ve stockpiled a range of journaling prompts for self-discovery. As I’ve talked about in previous posts and mention in my new book The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery, journaling has a huge range of benefits. These include things you’d expect, like increasing self-awareness and creativity. But it also includes less obvious extras like improving your memory, physical health and problem-solving abilities, as well as reducing stress.

So, what are you waiting for? :) Here are some of my favourite journaling prompts for self-discovery:

What would your ideal day look like?
What is one thing you’ve always wanted to try that you haven’t yet?
What is your biggest regret?
What does a successful life look like to you?
What gives you more energy: being around people or spending time alone?
What are three activities that light you up and leave you feeling most energised?
What is your biggest fear?
What would you say is your biggest strength?
What do you consider to be your most challenging flaw?
What is one aspect of your life you’d like to improve over the next year? What would that improvement look like?
What three to five qualities feel the most important for you to embody?
What is the number one problem you would like to solve (or see solved) in the world?
How are you most often misunderstood by other people?
What are the different roles you play in your life? (e.g. mother, partner, sister, etc.)
What is the best piece of advice you’ve received?
Name one book, movie or TV show that had a profound impact on you and describe why.
What is the number one thing that feels like it’s missing from your life right now?
Who are the three most important people in your life today?
When have you felt at your richest?
How do you think the three people closest to you would describe you if asked?

What are your favourite journaling prompts for self-discovery? Leave a comment and share your suggestions.

Want more journaling prompts like this?

[image error]If you’d like more journaling inspiration, I invite you to check out The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery. With a reflective writing prompt for every day of the year, you can take the guess work out of journaling and use your daily prompt to explore and unpack the most important aspects of your life and your being. Each month, you’ll focus on one important area of your life, including your identity, relationships, money, career, and more.

The Year of You is available in ebook and paperback (which you can write in!) through Amazon, and in ebook from iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, and Barnes & Noble now.

P.S. The paperback version also makes a great gift to yourself or a loved one :) 

 

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

The post 20 Journaling Prompts for Self-Discovery appeared first on Becoming Who You Are.

               

Goodbye, November

Let’s say goodbye to the month that has been and get ready for the next with a roundup of 10 questions, recommended reading, and fun/useful links.

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Do you enjoy the blog posts, podcasts and resources here? Please consider supporting Becoming Who You Are on Patreon. Your support helps cover the costs of running this site and is hugely appreciated! Pledge as little as $1 a month and get immediate access to bonus content and audios.

How has your month been? Thank you so much to everyone who pre-ordered or purchased a copy of The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery! Several people emailed me to say the paperback version wasn’t showing up on Amazon (sorry!). That’s all fixed now, so if you’ve been holding out for the physical book, it’s available right here. If you have the book and are enjoying it, I would really appreciate you leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews are super helpful for discoverability (especially for indie authors like me) and helping other potential readers decide if the book is a good fit for them. Thanks in advance!

Also, just a quick reminder that the 2017 Becoming Who You Are Advent Calendar starts on 1st December (Friday). The calendar runs from 1st-25th December and you’ll get one short and sweet writing prompt in your inbox each day. The prompts will help you reflect on 2017 and think about what you want from next year. This is one of my favourite things to do each year and previous participants have said they’ve found it really helpful and enjoyable. If you haven’t already registered, it’s free to do so, and you can join us below:

OK, on to this month’s questions…

10 Questions for you

November

What was the highlight of November for you?
What was something memorable you read/watched/listened to this month?
Describe something you did (or didn’t do) in November that you feel proud of.
What did you learn about yourself this month?
What did you create during November (literally or figuratively)?

December

What do you imagine could be your biggest challenge during December, and what can you plan or decide right now to face that challenge head on?
What are three words that summarise how you’d like to feel next month?
What is one thing you’re going to say yes to during December?
What is one thing you’re going to say no to during December?
How can you end 2017 on a high?

Articles of the Month

This Is What ‘Self-Care’ REALLY Means, Because It’s Not All Salt Baths And Chocolate Cake

Battling Creative Exhaustion—How to Refill the Well

The Anger Iceberg

How to Declutter Your Mind

Everything You’ve Been Taught About How To Read a Book Is Wrong

The science of giving yourself a pep talk

The long-term toll of keeping a secret

Quote of the Month

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“Being ourselves means sometimes having to find the courage to stand alone.” – Brené Brown

Book of the Month

[image error]The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery is my new book, and it’s out now in ebook and paperback!

The Year of You is an invitation to discover more about yourself, become more conscious about what you want, and create a rich and fulfilling life through one journaling prompt a day.

With this book, you can take the guess work out of journaling and use one writing prompt each day of the year to explore and unpack the most important aspects of your life and your being. Whether you’re new to journaling or have enjoyed a reflective writing practice for some time, The Year of You offers a wealth of inspiration that will deepen your understanding and awareness of what makes you who you are.

P.S. The paperback version makes an awesome holiday gift for a loved one (or yourself!)

Resource of the Month

[image error]As the end of the year approaches and you might be thinking about your goals and aspirations for the next year, I want to share a productivity system I’ve found super helpful not only for making progress with my biggest goals but also keeping tabs on commitments, ideas, and things I want to do, try, and experience in the future.

Getting Things Done takes work to set up and requires a commitment to maintain, but in my opinion it’s well worth it. Over the last month alone, it’s helped me navigate moving back to Europe after two months in the US, launch The Year of You, write a 50,000 word novel for NanoWriMo, organise the 2017 Advent Calendar, plus continue to work with coaching clients, and take care of general life things, all in a couple of hours a day when I’m not spending time with my daughter. Phew. (Full disclosure: this is not a typical month! I embrace slow living and November has been particularly crazypants, but GTD has been pivotal in making all this possible without burnout). I don’t use the system perfectly, especially when it comes to things like responding to emails, texts, etc. but even with my half-baked version there’s something very cathartic about knowing most of my open loops (anything unfinished, unresolved, or unrecorded) are written down and stowed away safely for later.

In case you missed it: on Becoming Who You Are this month

Join us for the 2017 Becoming Who You Are Advent Calendar!

3 Ways to Build Your Self-Efficacy Starting Today {guest post by Zak}

The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery is here

7 Posts That Will up Your Happiness Level This Holiday Season

5 Positive Life Habits That Actually Work {guest post by Andy}

Wishing you a wonderful December!

 

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

The post Goodbye, November appeared first on Becoming Who You Are.

               

5 Positive Life Habits That Actually Work

Before we get to this week’s post, a heads up: The 2017 Becoming Who You Are Advent Calendar starts on Friday! It’s a wonderful chance to add some reflection to a busy time of year, to say goodbye to 2017 and welcome in the next 12 months. Click here to register for free and get daily journaling prompts delivered to your inbox from 1-25th December. 

This is a guest post by Andy.

I remember when I hit rock bottom. I was only in my 20’s, yet I desperately felt the need for my life to be over soon. I felt like there was nothing I could do to make things right, so I might as well end it all…

Throughout my teenage years and my early 20’s, I struggled with alcohol and drug abuse. It all started when I was only 9 years old and I snuck a bottle of liquor at a family party. Soon enough alcohol wasn’t enough and I started experimenting with other substances. When my family and friends recognized the signs of my addictive behavior they clearly wanted to help me. The problem was I wasn’t ready to change, so all I did was push them away. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. I told myself I could quit anytime I wanted to, even though I knew that was a big lie.

At 23 I was sentenced to two years in prison for drug-related charges. It was only then that I realized what the future holds for an addict, and decided to make some serious changes in my life. I went to rehab and then got a job, which I got really good at in a short amount of time. But I began working too much and stressing over work. I traded my substance addiction for a work addiction, and it was so overwhelming that it ultimately led me to relapse.

And that’s when I hit rock bottom. I wanted to change my life, have a future, be happy, yet no matter how hard I tried it seemed like my addiction was stronger than me. I decided there was only one way of stopping the pain I was feeling, and that was ending my life. I was living with my parents at the time, and I waited for them to leave the house before I stole my mom’s painkillers. What happened next is all a blur to me, all I remember is my mother slapping the pills out of my hand, holding me, crying…

I went back to rehab, feeling weak and wounded but determined to make things right this time. I learned something there that completely changed my life: I realized I had spent my whole life looking at the negative side of everything, dwelling on my problems instead of focusing on the good things. After learning this, my life took a 180-degree turn. I’ve been sober for 9 years now, and today I’d like to share 5 positive life habits that actually worked for me and might help you as well.

1. Empowering Yourself

I spent a lot of time feeling like a victim of the things that happened to me that I couldn’t control. I used to ask myself constantly “why is this happening to me?”, instead of focusing on the things that I could change. Positivity is all about empowering yourself, knowing your worth and being wise enough to potentiate your strengths instead of focusing on your limitations.

2. Learning the Difference Between Quitting and Letting Go

As I mentioned before, the main thing that led me to relapse was how hard I was working despite the high levels of stress and anxiety I was under. I was too proud to stop working and give myself some time to heal. I felt like I had to prove something. I understand now that there is a difference between quitting and letting go. Sometimes, things can get unbearable or unmanageable, and a positive person recognizes that the best thing is to step back and let go. This applies to relationships, work, even a lifestyle. Making the decision of doing only what you feel is right for you is the most liberating feeling you’ll experience.

3. Making Every day a Good One

To me, positivity means finding a good side to every situation. We all have those days when we wake up on the wrong side of the bed. It’s your choice to dwell on your problems and inevitably make your day a miserable one, or, try to concentrate on the good things in your life, which, if you look on the bright side, are a lot. Creating simple routines -like singing in the shower or saying hi to everyone- can help you get in a good mood that can last throughout the day.

4. Leaving the Past in the Past

This was a hard one for me. During recovery, I used to beat myself up for all the pain I had caused my family and the damage I had caused to my body and all the years I wasted with drugs and alcohol. It was like I wanted to change the past and it was frustrating not being able to do so. I ended up learning that, even though I couldn’t change what I had done, I could choose what to do next. Instead of living in the past and letting those terrible memories bum me out, I learned to only revisit them to use them as a motivation to make good choices from now on. I found self-forgiveness, and I learned that positivity means living each moment to the fullest.

5. Focusing on Your Possibilities Instead of Your Limitations

There was a time when I thought I simply couldn’t do it. I thought I wasn’t strong enough to ever quit drugs and alcohol. I managed to push through it and I realized I was strong enough and smart enough. After getting clean I found out I had many talents that I had never given myself the chance to exploit.

You probably have more talents than you know, you just haven’t realized it yet. A good exercise for this is to make a list of all the things you do well, every single thing. Being aware of your abilities and strengths makes you more confident, and even though you can’t fix every problem, you can focus on changing the ones that are under your control. Furthermore, positivity is also about constantly seeking self-improvement, be it personally, academically or professionally.

It’s been almost a decade since the day that I tried to end my life. I’m glad my mom found me before it was too late. I’m glad I got another chance. It doesn’t matter how bad things may seem at the time, all you need is a little perspective, and positivity can give you just that.

We all have habits in our daily lives, some are good and some are bad. So why not try and change the negative ones for these simple, positive ones? They helped me rebuild my life, even after I thought it was damaged beyond repair. I still put them in practice every day, and I can sincerely say that I am happy and at peace. I hope they help you as well, and if you have any other positive life habit you’d like to share, please feel free to leave a comment below.

About Andy

[image error]Hi, I am Andy! I was born in Bogota, Colombia but raised in Los Angeles, California. I am 8 years sober (almost 9!). I spend my time helping others with their recovery and growing my online business. Read more of my writing at Northpoint Recovery.

Would you like to submit a guest post to Becoming Who You Are? I’d love to hear from you! Learn more and check out the guidelines here.

 

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7 Posts That Will up Your Happiness Level This Holiday Season

The last few years I have shared a couple of posts each holiday season about ways to stay connected to ourselves, our integrity, and our authenticity at this time of year. This week, I’ve brought some of these posts together into a collection. Keep reading to learn about fun party games, how to manage the holidays as an introvert, self-care during the winter months, and more!

Christmas party games for people who love personal growth: three fun games to play with your nearest and dearest that all have personal growth angle. These party games are awesome for finding out more about friends or acquaintances (and yourself!). They encourage authenticity, self-expression, and most importantly fun.

9 simple suggestions for blissful self-care during winter: Self-care during winter is more important than ever, especially for people who find their mood and sense of well-being are influenced by weather. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the busy-ness of the holiday season, or find yourself in a self-care rut after the new year, here are a few suggestions to reinvigorate your self-care and reconnect with yourself.

Self-compassion exercises for the holiday season: The combination of Thanksgiving, holidays, and New Year (and especially the traditions and conventions that come with them) cast a spotlight on baggage we have around money, our “upper limit” of enjoyment, our relationships with other people, our relationship with food, our health, our future goals, and more. So this is the time of year to relate to ourselves from a place of kindness rather than criticism. Here are three exercises that will help you do just that.

You have permission – an important reminder for the holidays: Most of us have many ideas about what the holidays should look like, not to mention the cultural pressure to have a picture-perfect festive season. This post is a list of gentle reminders that it’s OK to do you this holiday season, to honour your energy, your boundaries, and what the holidays represent to you.

Gift ideas for the introspectives in your life: If you’ve yet to finish (or start) your Christmas shopping, here are a few gift ideas for introspectives in your life. All the suggestions in this post are perfect for people who are passionate about personal development, deep thinking and self-reflection (also, gift for yourself? Totally counts!) As a cheeky plug, I would like to suggest my latest book, The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery, as an addition to this list :)

An introvert’s guide to enjoying the holidays: This time of year can be meaningful, fun and a chance to create special memories. At the same time, enjoying the holidays, and its busy social calendar, can be a challenge for those of us on the more introverted end of the energy spectrum. Fellow introverts, I know you feel me! During the holidays, more so than any other time of year, there’s a lot of pressure to be a social butterfly, do all the things and attend all the events. If you’re wondering about making the most of the next few weeks and enjoying the holidays without running out of steam, this post has a few suggestions.

12 fun things to do if you’re alone for the holidays: You might find yourself alone (or at least feeling alone) during the holidays for many reasons. The emphasis on togetherness during this period can bring home a sense of loneliness and discomfort, which might leave you feeling at a loose end even if—like me—you usually enjoy your solo time. If you’re alone for the holidays, this post has a few suggestions about how you can make the most of having a few free days to spend time with yourself.

P.S. The 2017 Becoming Who You Are Advent Calendar starts soon! Get free daily questions and journaling prompts for reflecting on 2017 and planning for 2018 delivered to your inbox between 1st and 25th December. Enter your details below to register:

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The post 7 Posts That Will up Your Happiness Level This Holiday Season appeared first on Becoming Who You Are.

               

The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery Is Here!

Have you ever sat down to journal and come up blank? If you’re anything like me, you might have some days when the words flow and some days when you have no idea what to write. You might find it super duper easy to write about certain areas of your life, while you notice with other areas you just don’t know where to start. The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery takes all the guess work out of journaling and gives you one prompt for every day of the year to explore and unpack the most important aspects of your life and your being.

The book guides you through 365 structured journaling prompts to explore the most important areas of your life, from identity, health, and relationships, to money, career, and the future. Some of the prompts involve light-hearted trivia, some get straight to the heart of the matter, but they will all help you discover more about yourself, one day at a time.

Here’s a list of topics you’ll cover during your Year of You:

January: Identity


February: The Past


March: Environment


April: Fun


May: Career


June: Relationships


July: Growth


August: Money


September: Travel and Adventure


October: Health


November: Sprituality


December: The Future

Whether you’re new to journaling or have enjoyed a reflective writing practice for some time, you’ll find a wealth of inspiration that will deepen your understanding and awareness of what makes you who you are.

Get your copy using the links below:

Amazon (ebook and paperback)

Kobo

iBooks

Google Play

Barnes & Noble

Journaling has been one of my go-to tools for personal growth over the last decade plus. It’s a simple yet powerful method of self-connection and self-expression, and I hope this book helps you with your next chapter of your journaling journey!

 

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3 Ways to Build Your Self-Efficacy Starting Today

This is a guest post by Zak.

Separate from, but an important component of, self-esteem, self-efficacy allows ourselves to set goals, plan into the future, and see those goals as possible achievements.

High self-efficacy individuals say yes to projects and ambitions that play into their values and goals. They are the types of people who always seem to be moving forward, even after experiencing failures. They see themselves as effective at what they do and at least capable enough of achieving goals to at least go after them.

Low self-efficacy people suffer from seeing themselves as incapable of setting and achieving ambitions and improving themselves over time into the future. If you’ve ever heard anybody say, “I can’t do this,” when thinking of difficult or ambitious tasks in front of them — even tasks like getting married, having a happy family, or completing community projects — you have witnessed low self-efficacy in action.

Self-efficacy can be developed over time through a process similar to strength training. Just as muscle strength is build through increasing starting with easy loads and gradually increasing those loads as strength increases, self-efficacy is built through starting with easy tasks and gradually increasing the difficulty of the tasks at hand. You build self-efficacy by doing harder stuff.

Here are three habits I built with clients as interventions to build self-efficacy. These are the building blocks to allow them to set more ambitious goals and become who they are around those goals.

Write Regularly and Publish Your Writing

Hannah is an advocate for the usefulness of journaling activities and programs and for good reason. Writing and journaling programs (particularly around introspection and goal setting) have measurably positive results for participants.

The positive effects of regular writing exercises go beyond writing for oneself. Writing openly and publicly creates a following, engages a community, and provides an opportunity for a relatively quick constructive feedback loop while simultaneously making use the knowledge one already possesses. 

A few years ago, when I first started experimenting on self-interventions to increase self-efficacy and conscientiousness, I set out to write once a day upon receiving a challenge from a friend whom I considered high-efficacy.

Many days, I wrote nothing more than a mishmash of thoughts at the front of my mind or a poem. Other days, however, I developed long pieces on the nature of education or reviews of education books I read at the time. The end-result was well over 30,000 words in content at the end of the month and minor expert-status in the field of alternative education.

Through the process, I watched my writing improve and developed the rapport and confidence to write more authoritative pieces, allowing my content to be promoted to a wider audience.

Consider a similar challenge for yourself. Write once a day, three times a week, or once a week for a month. Write about those things which you know. 

If you need prompts, consider setting up an account on Quora and answering questions about your job or field of study. 

Increase Your Physical Fitness through Strength Training

Improving your physical fitness shows yourself that, if you can set a goal, research how to achieve that goal, schedule in execution of that goal, and follow through on that execution, you are capable of literal physical transformations.

Consider the inverse: failure to lose weight, gain weight, or gain strength are major contention points around depression and isolation. Individuals who see themselves as incapable of basic physical improvement often fail to see additional opportunities due to these limitations.

Much of self-image is literally self-image (i.e,, what the individual sees in the mirror every day), so making reasonable improvements on physical fitness tends to have a cascading effect for self-efficacy. I have noticed this to be especially true of my clients who are young men. For them to gain or lose ten pounds of weight is often the first step towards landing a promotion, improving their grades, and figuring out what they want to do with their lives.

Take Control of Your Schedule and Your Day

A feeling of control over one’s life and one’s future emerges at the center of self-efficacy. As such, feeling at the mercy of the day or other people’s schedules undermines the individual’s ability to set his own plans and execute on those.

Many people allow their schedules to form reactively to the demands of the day and of other people’s schedules. Phone calls, meetings, and obligatory commute time fills the schedule before time dedicated to the highest-payoff activities. Rarely are the highest-payoff activities these obligatory commitments and often do these get in the way of writing time, development time, or the other kinds of work that are required to make substantive progress on goals.

Getting out of reactivity mode in scheduling your day allows you to take a proactive stance towards crafting not just your workday and your week but also your goals and your plans to create these goals. Use a system to do this so that you do not have to rely on memory or willpower at the beginning of each day.

One such system is Organize Tomorrow Today from the book of the same name.

Do not depend on the mercy of others’ schedules to create proactive efficacy in your day. Before you go to bed, identify the highest-value activity you must complete tomorrow and schedule it into your calendar of choice. 

Schedule meetings and calls around that activity, not the other way around. Try to schedule it as early in the day as possible so that it does not get pushed down the calendar when fires pop up or your psychological willpower is limited. Schedule in at least two more high-payoff activities in the remaining space. Higher-priority activities come earlier in the day.

Making these interventions into habits builds self-efficacy and makes engaging in other activities like ambitious goal-setting and pursuing those goals easier. Developing that self-efficacy is the first step towards building a flourishing and healthy future. 

About Zak

[image error]Zak Slayback is an entrepreneur, writer, and speaker focusing on education and professional development. He writes at ZakSlayback.com and is the author of the forthcoming book, How to Get Ahead When You Have Nothing to Offer.

Would you like to submit a guest post to Becoming Who You Are? I’d love to hear from you! Read the guidelines and find out more here.

 

Photo by Amanda Perez on Unsplash

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Join Us for the 2017 Becoming Who You Are Advent Calendar!

The Becoming Who You Are Advent Calendar is a set of 25 prompts leading up to Christmas. It’s a review of the year that has been and an opportunity to dream and scheme for the year to come. It’s a chance for you to add some reflective time to a busy period and create space to consciously evaluate 2017 while exploring what you want from 2018.

With the prompts, you’ll also receive a weekly suggestions for activities and practices that will help you stay connected to yourself.

The calendar series starts on 1st December. It’s free to register and much better for you than chocolate, so I hope you’ll join us in bidding adieu to 2017 and laying some solid intentional groundwork for the next 12 months.

Register here:

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Goodbye, October

Let’s say goodbye to the month that has been and get ready for the next with a roundup of 10 questions, recommended reading, and fun/useful links.

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Do you enjoy the blog posts, podcasts and resources here? Please consider supporting Becoming Who You Are on Patreon. Your support helps cover the costs of running this site and is hugely appreciated! Pledge as little as $1 a month and get immediate access to bonus content and audios.

[image error]Hello! How has your month been? I’ve been busy finishing up my next book, The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery. The book is an invitation to discover more about yourself, become more conscious about what you want, and create a rich and fulfilling life through one journaling prompt a day. The Year of You provides you with 365 structured journaling prompts to explore the most important areas of your life, from identity, health, and relationships, to money, career, and the future.  A couple of updates to share with you today:

The Kindle version is available for pre-order now for a special price of £0.99 (this will rise once the book is released on 17th November).
I am looking for a few reviewers; if you would like a free copy in exchange for committing to leave an honest review on Amazon and/or Goodreads, please get in touch here (you are also most welcome to buy the book and leave a review too!)
I’ll also be sharing a paperback version you can write in soon, so if that interests you stay tuned! The proof copy is in the post now and, all being well, will hopefully be available later this month.

Journaling has been a steadfast tool for my own personal growth, and this book comes out of my own experience of how powerful a daily journaling practice can be. I hope it serves you on your journey!

10 Questions for you

October

What is your favourite memory from October?
What was challenging this month?
And what did you learn as a result of that challenge?
What did you read, watch, and listen to this month?
Who were your favourite people to connect with this month?

November

What would you like to do with the last 8~ weeks of this year?
What would you like to learn more about during November?
What will you do for fun this month?
What is one area of your life you’d like to pay more attention to during November?
Complete this sentence: “A fulfilling November will include…”

Articles of the Month

If someone is angry at your boundaries, it’s their problem, not yours

A lazy person’s guide to happiness

Do you know if you’re taking care of yourself?

I’ve never had any desire to reach the top. Why is this a taboo admission?

5 steps to up your personal dignity quotient

25 self-care ideas for exhausted parents

Quote of the Month

[image error]“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” – Daniel Gilbert

Book of the Month

[image error]Your True You Journey: What to Do When Life Stops Working by Kendra Tanner is an 8-week self-guided journey into deepening your authenticity and living as the truest version of yourself. Completing a lesson each day, Kendra uses insights from her own experience, powerful questions, and journaling prompts to help you cultivate greater self-awareness, self-acceptance, and the courage to show up as your true self.

Kendra is a previous guest on the Becoming Who You Are podcast (here and here). She is someone who clearly walks the walk, and her passion for helping others do the same shines through!

Resource of the Month

[image error]The Becoming Who You Are Advent Calender is a set of 25 prompts leading up to Christmas. It’s a review of the year that has been and an opportunity to dream and scheme for the year to come. It’s a chance for you to add some reflective time to a busy period and create space to consciously evaluate 2017 while exploring what you want from 2018.

With the prompts, you’ll also receive a weekly suggestions for activities and practices that will help you stay connected to yourself.

The calendar series starts on 1st December. It’s free to register and much better for you than chocolate, so I hope you’ll join us in bidding adieu to 2017 and laying some solid intentional groundwork for the next 12 months.

In case you missed it: on Becoming Who You Are this month

Moving Through Fear and Self-Criticism Towards Action {guest post by Esha}

7 Non-Physical Things to Declutter for a More Tranquil Life

Inspiring Brené Brown Quotes from Braving the Wilderness (& a Review)

The 7 Stages of Personal Growth {guest post by Chris}

Wishing you a wonderful November!

 

Photo by Javier Molina on Unsplash

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The 7 Stages of Personal Growth

This is a guest post by Chris.

The journey of personal growth is not something people just invented. It has been here since… since forever. As individuals, we get to say and choose where we want to take our lives. Many of us want to grow. Some of us choose to make a commitment to personal transformation. Others are not strong enough.

It’s not roses and sunshine all the way for those who stay on the path of spirituality. In yoga, for example, there are nine well-defined obstacles: sickness, dullness, doubt, lack of interest, fatigue, desire to enjoy in sensuality, self-deception, being stuck in place, and losing the qualities we already achieved.

But you know what? The obstacles are good. They test us. If we’re strong enough, the obstacles push us towards constant growth.

On the way to becoming who we are, we face obstacles and we overcome them. We can identify seven stages on that journey. Not all of them are pleasant. In a strange way, that’s the beauty of it all. These are the seven stages:

1. The State of Unawareness

If you’re reading this, you’re probably past this phase. At least you’re near the end of it. When people are in this state of being, their lives are ruled by fear, mundane pleasure, and lack of personal fulfillment. They care about making money. When they make it, they care about making more. They want to meet more people, have more partners, and have better time. When they make a mistake, they blame someone else for it.

The most notable characteristic of this stage is lack of fulfillment. Whatever goal you achieve, it doesn’t give you lasting satisfaction. At one point or another, we start the spiritual awakening. We realize there’s more to life. We realize there’s more to us. That’s when we start getting out of the deep sleep.

2. Awareness of Your Old Habits

When you surpass the state of ignorance, you start feeling like you’ve wasted a lot of time on it. You become aware of the fact that your old habits were preventing you from growth. Working too hard, watching too many TV shows, reading shallow books, getting lured by distractions all the time… you’ll start highlighting all bad habits.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Do you know how you become a better person? – By recognizing your flaws first. You can overcome the bad habits that were distracting you from the journey of personal growth.

3. You Ignore “Logical” Advice   

If you thought you could easily get on board, you were wrong. When you start exploring various disciplines and methods that lead you to spiritual growth, you become part of a community. Many other people are seekers, too. Having such a support system is great.

Your close ones, however, will not necessarily be part of it. You’ll be getting strange looks from friends and family members. Some of them will be trying to “bring you back on the right path.” If you really, really want to go to Tibet because that’s what your heart is telling you to do, they will tell you you’re crazy.

Even if you keep making career progress and you start making more money, they will still think you’re crazy. You’ll find yourself ignoring the “logical” advice they give you. If you’re ready to move forward, you’ll do it regardless of what other people think of you.               

4. Making a Commitment

In this stage, you shift from knowing you have to make a change to doing. You start making the changes.

You’re probably going to alter your belief systems. You’ll realize that what you knew was not enough. During this stage, people start reading spiritual literature. They explore. In the meantime, they act.

5. Resistance

This is more than just a stage. It’s a recurring pattern. You will experience doubt, dullness, sickness, and most other obstacles we mentioned at the beginning of this post. You may find yourself resisting your own will. You made a commitment to stay on this journey, but your body and mind will resist.

It’s a test. It will either push you away from the values and goals you set, or push you forward on the path. If you persist, you’ll come out stronger.

6. The Stage of Judgement

Although you promised to yourself you’ll become a better person, you’ll be judging. You’ll become allergic to anything that seems superficial to you. Have you seen those comments by people who critique yogis in bikinis and shorts? That’s the stage of judgement.

When your friends decide to go see a horror movie, you won’t join them. You’ll think that’s superficial. You’ll be judging them. This is not a good place to be in. However, it’s a stage of personal growth. It means you’re understanding what’s right and what’s wrong in your book. Still, you need to go forward to the next stage:

7. Acceptance                                           

By this point, you’ve developed new habits and you started taking actions towards growth. You surpassed few obstacles and you’re aware of the fact that more of them will come. You’ve developed inner strength that keeps you going. You’ve been judgmental, but now you’re ready to get over that mindset. You’re ready for acceptance.

You’re not a new person. You’re just more authentic. Everyone else out there has flaws, just like you have. You learn to accept them for who they are. You’re not being pushy with your attempts to “enlighten” them.

You start accepting the good and bad things that happen. You realize that everything has a purpose. You start seeing the signs. You continue learning.

Now, you know: you’re ready for the big things to happen.

Personal growth is an important factor in everyone’s life. Even when we don’t realize it, there’s an inner calling begging us to get on that road. When we start following the journey, it’s not easy to stay on that path. If we do stay, however, we’re finally heading towards real personal satisfaction.     

About Chris

[image error]Chris Richardson is a journalist, editor, and a blogger. He loves to write, learn new things, and meet new outgoing people. Read also his article about the harm of using technology. Follow him on Facebook and Google+.

Would you like to submit a guest post to Becoming Who You Are? I’d love to hear from you! Check out the guidelines here.

 

Further reading: The Johari Window: a useful framework for personal growth & how to balance the desire for self-acceptance vs. self-improvement

Photo by Daniel Hjalmarsson on Unsplash

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Inspiring Brené Brown Quotes from Braving the Wilderness (and a Review)

There are very few books that leave me thinking “Everyone should read this book!” but Braving the Wilderness, the latest book from Brené Brown, is one of them. An exploration of the growing division, strife, and loneliness inherent in parts of our cultures today, Braving the Wilderness is a call to reason, encouraging readers to stand up for their individual values and get comfortable with belonging to themselves, rather than striving to fit in with others. With so many relevant insights, I wanted to share some of the most inspiring Brené Brown quotes from Braving the Wilderness with you today, along with a brief review of the book.

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Braving the Wilderness is, in my opinion, Brené Brown’s most personal and timely book yet. Whereas her last three books have formed a trilogy (how to live wholeheartedly, how to get into the arena, and how to get back up when you’ve been knocked down), Braving the Wilderness is a separate but equally wonderful book.

The central message is this: true belonging starts with ourselves. Rather than seeking to find belonging amongst friends, people who think the same way we do, or other groups, we need to get familiar and comfortable with our own beliefs, values, opinions, thoughts, and feelings first. We have a tendency to meet our need for belonging by seeking out people who think the same things we do and share our beliefs and value sets. While this is a well-worn strategy for finding community, things can go wrong when we start basing our shared ground on a dislike, even hatred, of “the other”—people who think differently and have different beliefs and value sets to us. Not only that, but when we desire to fit in with a group who shares one of our beliefs or values, we might end up adopting all of their beliefs and values in an effort to stay connected to them, even those that are irrational or require us to disconnect from our true selves.

The eponymous wilderness is the space we have to be willing to go in order to be ourselves, to live with authenticity, and to speak up for what we believe in with integrity.

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While still sharing the research-based findings she is well-known for, this book interweaves data with stories from Brown’s own life and interviews with others. The result is a moving and perspective-shifting book that shows us how to stay connected (and sane!) while everyone around us seems to be breaking off into “us and them” factions based on emotional triggers and faulty logic.

One of my favourite distinctions she makes in the book is that between fitting in and belonging:

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As she summarises later in the book,

“Belonging is being accepted for you. Fitting in is being accepted for being like everyone else. If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.”

As our culture trends more and more towards warring collectives, Braving the Wilderness is a breath of fresh air. One of the things I appreciate most is the way Brown isn’t trying to push a particular agenda, but instead encourages us to stand up for our own agenda, based on our values, principles, and beliefs, rather than going with the status quo or aligning ourselves with a particular group out of fear or peer pressure. This isn’t a book that tells you what to think, but rather gives you the tools and the courage to reject the idea of being on a particular “team” altogether and stand beside what you know to be true.

“Most of us are either making the choice to protect ourselves from conflict, discomfort, and vulnerability by staying quiet, or picking sides and in the process slowly and paradoxically adopting the behavior of the people we’re fighting. Either way, the choices we’re making to protect our beliefs and ourselves are leaving us disconnected, afraid, and lonely.”

I admire her courage in spotlighting this paradoxical behaviour. As she points out, language that dehumanises anyone is wrong—wherever and whoever it comes from. As she also remarks, this kind of truth-telling is rarely easy and will evoke criticism from others who are invested in fitting in. But it’s also the path to deepest connection with the right people—those who value curiosity, vulnerability, authenticity and also want to view people as individuals rather than make assumptions about them based on the supposed groups they belong to.

If you’ve ever wondered where you fit in and who you fit in with right now, if you’ve ever felt afraid to speak up for fear of being judged or labelled, if you find yourself feeling disillusioned or frustrated with the way people communicate about important issues, and if you know there is a better alternative to all these things, this book is a must-read.

Here are a few more of my favourite Brené Brown quotes from Braving the Wilderness:

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“Anger is a catalyst. Holding on to it will make us exhausted and sick. Internalizing anger will take away our joy and spirit; externalizing anger will make us less effective in our attempts to create change and forge connection. It’s an emotion that we need to transform into something life-giving: courage, love, change, compassion, justice.”

“There is a line. It’s etched from dignity. And raging, fearful people from the right and left are crossing it at unprecedented rates every single day. We must never tolerate dehumanization—the primary instrument of violence that has been used in every genocide recorded throughout history.”

“True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don’t negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own.”

Read Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown












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Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone




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“There will be times when standing alone feels too hard, too scary, and we’ll doubt our ability to make our way through the uncertainty. Someone, somewhere, will say, ‘Don’t do it. You don’t have what it takes to survive the wilderness.’ This is when you reach deep into your wild heart and remind yourself, ‘I am the wilderness.'”

 

Have you read Braving the Wilderness? What did you think? What were your favourite quotes and takeaways from the book? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Further reading: Brené Brown: The Power of Vulnerability & How to cultivate self-trust

Photo by Tommy Lisbin on Unsplash

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