Light your Fire and Thrive
3 Elements (FIRE, FRAME, FORWARD) that contribute to a successful breakthrough or change you are seeking to make.
We tend to lean towards starting with ‘move Forward’ which includes goal setting, creating a vision for the future and setting out action steps. These are must haves for sure, but we have all had goals before which we never achieved – why does that happen? Many reasons may come to mind at this point. Let’s look at the first element above – light your Fire.
In order for us to achieve goals, bring about change, break through challenges and obstacles, we need energy – your driving force, life force energy, your fire. Can you remember a time you felt drained and depleted? You were most probably not up to do anything, never mind focusing on changing habits or thinking about thriving. You may even have reverted back to old habits like reckless eating patterns, skipping exercise, spiraling thought patterns, reaching for substances (coffee, alcohol, cigarettes) and binging series on Netflix. In this state, actioning your steps to achieve your goals might be the last thing on your mind.
How do we manage our energy and keep ourselves in peak state? Short answer – habits. This quote by Neuropsychologist Donald Hebb sums it up perfectly: “Neurons that fire together, wire together”.
You can change your energy state by building habits that support heightened energy. It may take time, it may take effort, but you will reap the benefits.
How to change your energy state – below we will discuss points that have been shown to influence our energy levels and through adapting and implementing it as habits, we are able to be in control of our own fire instead of relying on our external environment to work in our favour.
Physiology: Exercise is probably one of the best ways to influence your energy levels immediately. Do you feel good after a run / cycle / walk? The food you choose to consume also influences your physiology – are you offering your body the support it needs to function efficiently with your current eating habits? “Being” time is another energy generator – gardening, meditation, relaxing in nature, reading, painting, pottery – can you think of a few activities that makes you feel in love with life?
Awareness – “where you place your awareness, is where you place your energy” – Dr Joe Dispenza
Where are you placing your awareness? Negative events of the past / future? When you focus on any other moment than the present, you are also placing your energy in those moments, taking it away from the here and now. Have you ever felt drained when worrying about paying the bills at the end of the month? Or reliving a past moment of road rage where someone drove in front of you and almost caused a fatal accident? Generate awareness of when your thoughts drift off to these moments and gently bring it back to the present moment.
Language: What word choices do you use when speaking with yourself and others? What thoughts are running through your mind all day? How do you address yourself when something didn’t go as planned? You didn’t lose the weight you aimed to or you failed at what seemed to be a super easy task? When you look in the mirror, who do you see?
Reason – I love this part. This has the power to light your fire in a way you never knew was possible. What is your reason for getting up in the morning, your why? Many will answer to go to work, to make money, etc. Dig a bit deeper – you can use this exercise: start with your first why (ie why do I go to work) then repeat the process 7 times and see where you end up on your why. Even if you don’t like what is coming up for you, just write it down. Finding your reason and reminding yourself of that reason regularly will keep you on track. I am sure you have all, at some point, felt that energy come from “nowhere” when you are super passionate about something or some task. That is the energy you can expect when you find your true why.
Identity: Tony Robbins stated, “the strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves”. How do you define yourself – procrastinator, unorganized, an emotional eater, perfectionist, workaholic? Whether that is true or not, your personality will work towards it, just because you made that part your identity. This is also the space in which we experience self-sabotage – when you are trying to change without expanding your identity. Imagine for a moment you defined yourself as an emotional eater. Now you are trying to lose weight and stick to a healthy eating plan. What happens when you go through a stressful time? Or when you received bad news? What will your automatic response be – just because you have already defined yourself as an emotional eater your personality will guide you towards the food/snacks that usually satisfies this emotion. Your identity includes your core values, how you react, what you believe about people, habits. Your memories and experiences of the past also contribute to your identity and who you believe you are – whether your recollection of the event is true or not.
The above summarizes energy, or your fire. There are many techniques to light your fire and to keep the fire going. It takes conscious effort and actions to work these habits into our lives so that it becomes such a big part of who you are that you even revert to them during difficult moments. It is always easier to keep up change when things are going well. So during the good times is when we must practice these habits so that it is second nature when the hard times are there. It is like driving a car – when you first started it took a lot of conscious effort to know what to do and when to do it, but after days, months and years, it becomes so automatic that we sometimes don’t even remember the drive home on a familiar path.