How to nurture your creativity

You are a creative super star! It might not be what you think you are, but I guarantee you that creativity is in your DNA. The problem is, most of us have gone through a creativity killing process called education. It’s when we inherited dreams we didn’t choose for ourselves, and forget about our own.

But let’s try to remember for a minute. All the dreams you had, the stories you performed, the endless imagination you brought to the table. Where’s that magic spark? What happened to the crazy life you were going to live? The unique career you were going to have?

They was slowly filtered out of you.

As you made your way from teenager to adult, there wasn’t much left. Your fidgeting, playful, passionate, insatiable self made way for a more manageable version. One that had a nicely predefined place in society, a clear role you’ve since then learned to perform well. So much that you’ve come to believe that this role you’re performing is, in fact, who you are.

The trouble is, it isn’t.

When creativity dies, big dreams often die too. And with them the stardust that makes us unique.

I’m a example of this. By the time I was 20 there was little creativity left in me. As a child I always had the wildest dreams. I wrote, painted, danced, sang, put plays together with my cousins, made things. There wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t creative.

As I grew older the pressure to conform, to perform, and to make something of myself increased. Creativity became a time waster, and I felt guilty for having so many interests, passions and for being unable to focus on one thing as I was expected to. Well to the dismay of my parents I decided to pursue a degree in Philosophy. Career outcomes were so insubstantial to them that they often told people I was studying to become a psychologist (slaps hand on face).

By the time I graduated, they had convinced me I’d wasted four years of my life. Although I contemplated an academic career I knew it wasn’t what they wanted. I had to make something of myself. Show them I was worth the investment. So in the final months of college I started working as a freelancer. I’d always been around computers, and it was all I’d ever seen my father do. With Internet emerging, and my DIY experience in building websites (hello 1998!), I landed a job as a freelance web project manager.

That first job turned into many other projects and clients, and eventually in me starting my own web agency. Although I’m proud of my accomplishments the truth is I pursued everyone else’s dream but my own.

Building a career that wasn’t meant for me turned the creative, multi-passionate big dreamer I was into a perfectionistic, people-pleasing workaholic.

The unhappiness I felt made me try harder. Always chasing the next thing, without taking a breath to enjoy what I’d already achieved. Or reflect on what I really wanted.

In 2010 I was forced to pause, and finally do some thinking.

I saw the dreams I’d been pursuing for what they were, and decided it was time for me. The problem was, I didn’t remember my dreams. They’d been buried so deep beneath everyone else’s that I couldn’t come up with a single idea.  

Because I couldn’t figure it out, I decided to just do something.

That let me back to creativity. Slowly at first, because making stuff was now so far out of my comfort zone. But as time went on, and I tried out new things, my creative multi-passionate self resurfaced.

Creativity was my way back to me. And to my big dreams.

I believe it can be yours too.

How do you nurture your creativity?

• Try things out

It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you allow yourself to play. I’ve done everything from writing workshops, dancing and cooking classes, to screen printing, improv theatre, drawing retreats and piano lessons. Recently I’ve realized that I need at least one creative outlet a week in order to be happy. And the more I do, the easier it gets. Pick something, and just do it! Like I signed up for a 5-day theatre workshop (dipping sweat off forehead) just before finishing this post.

• Let go of control

Creativity is a process that you can prepare for, but that you can’t control. There’s no way to know when you’ll have a creative spark, make something amazing or experience flow. Things simply unfold. This little perfectionist had to learn this the hard way. Not being able to create what I had in mind made me want to scream and run more than once. That’s what happens when you believe you have a say in the creative process. By letting go of control you’ll be able to create freely and to experience moments of pure bliss and freedom that will help you to believe in yourself and your dreams.

• Make it a practice

Creativity is a muscle, you have to train it to make it work. Doing something creative once a year is better than doing nothing. But the effect won’t last long. That’s why you should make creativity part of your daily life. By doing something out of the ordinary regularly you’re strengthening your creative dream muscle. You realize that you can do much more than you think, that things aren’t that hard or scary after all. The more you do it, the more you’ll want it. So make sure to do something creative regularly, to challenge yourself to try unfamiliar things. It really helps to dream bigger. And – more importantly – to dream you.

If you want more Dream Bigger Tips, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How Mardi is helping business leaders thrive in a state of wellness and harmony

Mardi spent the last fifteen years working as a lead HSE and Legal Compliance Advisor and System Auditor as well as an integral member of senior executive teams with global organizations in the United States, Canada, the Asia Pacific and Australia. 

Throughout that time, and journeying her own struggles to adapt as a woman working in male dominated industries, she learned that to experience success as part of a business landscape there must be a balance between harmony and performance – of both chasing success with determination and zealously adhering to your own ethics and values.

This insight became the foundation of the elite performance system she developed and now calls PerforM. Clearly Mardi’s my kind of human. So I had to know more about her and how she created her system. Here’s how she did it.

What was your big dream, and what inspired you to go after it?

My big dream was to be a thought leader in creating healthier and more balanced corporate environments. There is no doubt that the corporate world is changing and we as leaders, employees and technical professionals are struggling to operate within the old structure. Performance is dropping, almost 80% of people have been found to be unhappy in their jobs, people are either getting injured at work or executive teams are having to go over the top in implementing processes where their staff are no longer allowed to be creative in their roles. The dysfunction between masculine and feminine energies can also no longer be ignored. You see it on the news almost every other day, but fighting it and demanding change isn’t the answer –the key is to create a balance between the energies, letting both operate in harmony.

My inspiration to mentor people around how to achieve higher levels of performance, wellness and sanity within this waning corporate structure until the new structure is fully born came from my previous role as a Senior Health and Safety Executive as a woman working in male dominated industry. I saw the struggles of dysfunction day in, day out and over fifteen years working within it, I realised that I’d developed a unique way of helping people and teams not only increase their performance, but find more fulfilment, creativity and wellness while they were doing it. Now I help corporate professionals including lawyers and scientists, especially in the STEM industry, move from a place of high stress, high pressure and overwhelm in their corporate roles to a place of high performance with wellness and ease.

Did you always have this dream?

I would say my dream has always been part of me however, it has grown and become defined as I have evolved and experienced life. I come from a family with a long-line of medical and health professionals so it was no surprise that from a young age I was always interested and invested in people’s health and wellbeing.

As time went on and I heard more about people being injured and fatalities occurring in the workplace, I had this burning desire to step into a role that can be influential in stopping such events, questioning the imbalance and wanting to manage this issue in a new way. I didn’t believe that lives should be lost or we should in anyway compromise ourselves in an organizational setting. This led me into a career as a Health and Safety Professional knowing this role will allow me to make a difference, be proactive and impactful to people’s holistic wellbeing in the work environment, helping create healthy and balanced corporate environments, cultures, systems and processes to protect people’s lives and wellbeing at work.

This was a crucial time as it gave me a unique insight into how we can do it differently, how we can perform in harmony, look after our people and leaders and align with the needs of today’s society. This was the platform that confirmed and brought my big dream alive.

What was one of the first things you did to get you started?

I knew I needed a strong personal brand to communicate my level of expertise to the corporate world and to start building reputation as an expert and thought leader in the field, so my first strategy was to create a website to communicate my individual and organizational mentoring packages and to start speaking at events to get my message out there. It didn’t take long to realize just how many people were suffering with corporate overwhelm. These people are all highly qualified and experienced professionals in their fields but they were struggling with how to work with their expertise within the corporate environment. Things like how to navigate office politics, how to resolve issues with management teams, how to mitigate performance review problems and how to actually get the promotions they were working tirelessly to prove they were ready for.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in working toward achieving your dream?

Oh self-doubt for sure! Whenever you have a big idea or a big dream there’s always an element of self-doubt. I could see the need was out there, but there’s not many mentors doing what I do, so there was a little voice in the back of my head that kept saying ‘You’re crazy Mardi, just stay with your comfortable corporate salary, it’s too risky’. But I took the risk anyway.

Starting a business without having a background in business management does have its twists and turns for sure. Unlike being an employee there’s so many other things to get your head around like marketing and financial management, and what I’d say in that area is hire experts to help you. If it’s not your area of expertise, outsource it, every time. Trying to save money by doing it yourself doesn’t work, it just wastes your time and makes your dreams take longer to materialize.

What do you wish you would have done differently? What would you warn others about?

I try hard not to have the mindset of “I wish I did it differently”. Hindsight as they say, is a beautiful thing. Like many others I use my own experiences to share with people so they move through their experience with more ease, with a better understanding and at a quicker pace.

One thing I would share is to find yourself a mentor(s) when you are igniting your dream, it can be lonely, you can lose sight and momentum. External support and guidance helps with accountability, perception and achievement, keeping you in balance.

Would you say you’ve achieved your big dream yet?

Ha ha, my big dream is very big indeed! As a society we have a long road ahead of us in creating a corporate environment that honors both masculine and feminine energies. It’s not going to happen overnight, but I’m on the right path and it’s my life’s work to see it happen. I do feel like I have achieved a big dream in seeing the results my clients get after working with me. To see them go from stressed and hating their jobs to renewed and energized about the possibilities ahead; possibilities they didn’t dream they could make a reality, gets me every time. That’s the biggest reward for me.

What do you think helped you achieve it?

Stubborn determination. Dreams don’t come easy or everyone would be achieving them. It takes commitment and grit to keep believing and striving every day.

What’s the best advice you have for others who want to follow their big dreams?

Be open-minded, fearless and authentic. Find those special few friends who will support you and your dream and whether you have a win or take a little step sideways, share the adventure with them.

Dreams arise within us for a reason. It is our imagination and our intuition bringing into consciousness our higher purpose. Believe that we can achieve, that our dreams present ideas to help ignite positive societal change and growth needed in this fast evolving world.

More about Mardi – mardikeyes.com

Mardi Keyes is an International Performance Consultant, Organisation Coach and Leadership Mentor. With her signature elite program perforM she’s made it her mission to help business leaders thrive in a state of wellness and harmony delivering exponential success in today’s rapidly changing corporate landscape.

You can find out more about Mardi and her work on her website: mardikeyes.com or connect with her on LinkedIN.

Mardi’s favourite quote is:

There are so many quotes from inspirational people around the world that I adore, but here are two that I refer to when things get a little overwhelming in my life to propel me into a new perspective:

Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity.
– Coco Chanel

Mardi’s big dream for the world is:

Purely to create a healthier, well-balanced corporate environment that honours both masculine and feminine energies so it provides an environment where people thrive in a positive state of wellness, creativity, high performance and ease. And masterfully, by creating this new balanced environment by default it addresses the current diversity, inclusion and equality issues in today’s current workplace.

If you want more inspiring stories, I’ve got great news for you! This story is part of an interview series, you can find all entries here.

5 ways to cultivate a mindset of good enough (and beat perfectionism)

If I’d beam back in time to have a coaching session with my former self, let’s say from ten years ago, and I’d ask her what she wanted most out of coaching with me (I know this intro sounds super strange, but there’s a point to this madness I promise) I’m positive she’d say something like “finish the stuff I start” or “stop procrastinating all the time”. If I’d then ask her what she thought about herself she’d probably mention how she often didn’t feel confident, that life and work were overwhelming, she didn’t fit in, and simply wasn’t good enough.

(See, I told you :))

A lot has changed since then. The overwhelm and awkwardness I felt growing up and building my first business have thankfully made room for a more fulfilling state of sort-of balance and flow.

For the past ten years I’ve been my own (sometimes uber shitty) coaching client. I’ve used myself as a guinea pig to try and understand what this life and work thing is all about. I’ve tested uncountable ways to be a better, more productive and successful human. To learn, grow, and figure out what actually works.

The short conclusion – drumroll included:

Everything you thought you knew about happiness is wrong.

It’s not about being the best, having the most money, buying the Chanel bag, being *super* busy all the time. It’s not about having the seven figure business (although I’m all about money love, but that’s another story). If you hadn’t caught on yet, what I mean is, happiness has nothing to do with being PERFECT.

In fact, is has everything to do with NOT being perfect.

Happiness appears when we stop the “shoulds” and “musts”, and see ourselves for what we are – and always have been: good enough just the way we are (if a romantic scene from Bridget Jones is popping into your mind right now you’re definitely my kind of human).

Jumping back to my younger self for a minute. Ten years ago I was an utter and absolute perfectionist. Nothing I did was ever good enough. The result? I didn’t do much at all. I was also a helpless people-pleaser who lacked the confidence to make herself a sandwich before asking for permission. What I knew best was how to follow rules, to adapt to whatever I thought was expected of me. By the time I was 30 there was little room left for freedom, play, curiosity or creativity. Life and work felt like burdens. All I had were “have tos”.

The state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion I was in was the result of excessive and prolonged stress. To be clear: that I’D PUT ON MYSELF. Yes, work was hectic. Yes, building a business is hard BUT I was never the helpless little chicken I made myself out to be. I didn’t know it at the time but the truth is, I had the power all along (clicks shoes together three times).

That power is called CONFIDENCE. And it’s the result of (many things including) cultivating a mindset of good enough. That mindset will help you:

• Focus on what’s really important for you

• Find and do work that feeds you instead of drains you

• Actually create the freaking thing instead of just thinking about it

• Get off your time machine and discover where the fun’s really at (spoiler alert: it’s called now)

• Start living your own dreams instead of trying to build everyone else’s

But Murielle, I hear you ask, how does one cultivate such a seemingly magical mindset?

The truth? It’s super easy AND palm sweat complicated at the same time.

You change the way you think.

Simple enough, right? There’s just one little tiny thing though… All the years you’ve been gobbling up and repeating so many other thoughts about yourself and the world. They left a mark on you. They’re the reason you think the way you do. So to get to the good stuff you’ll need to get passed those first.

It’s a process that takes dedication, time, and discipline. This pink-loving guinea pig knows because she’s been there. So here are 5 ways that work(ed) for me and hopefully will get this life-changing process of *finally feeling good enough like the star that you are* going for you too.

#1 Stop comparing your awesome self to others

Comparisitis is the disease of our time. The rise of social media – a process that’s been going on for about 15 years now – marked the beginning of an exponential cycle of out-of-control expectations and judgments about ourselves. Don’t get me wrong. We’ve always glanced at the neighbors to see what they were up to, but it was never in our face the way it’s now. We could still escape it, because we were in control of the information stream. Today things are different. Everywhere we look we see what looks like awesome people doing what looks like amazing stuff. Online nobody has a bad hair day or doubts about their life. And that’s a shitty problem. Having those perfect humans pop into our feeds so many times a day (about every 18 minutes studies find) is making us sick, unhappy about our lives, forced to hide the *real* struggles we all have to deal with.

My recipe to stop comparing your awesome self to others includes:

• Limit your time on social media (15 minutes a day will do – yes I mean one five)

• Unfollow accounts that make you feel blah

• Avoid being sucked into the research hole that inevitably leads to “she’s awesome and I suck”

• Remember that all humans are unique. A valid comparison would need both of you to be equal in EVERYTHING except the one thing you’re comparing. Identical twins wouldn’t even meet those criteria, so how could you? Ever?

#2 Accept that perfection is bullshit

As long as you think there’s an absolute state of perfection to be attained, you’ll never be happy with what you have or who you are. The truth about perfection is that it doesn’t exist. Plato (and a heap of other philosophers) believed life on Earth was a poor imitation of the *real* world. Surely, he thought, if we can imagine something to be perfect it must BE perfect somewhere. Since it clearly wasn’t in the physical world (clears throat to hide discomfort) he concluded it must be in the world of ideas.

Yes, there’s something to say for Plato’s ideas. There are many flowers in the world, but none of them compare to the idea of THE flower we have in our mind. We’ve never seen this perfect flower with our own eyes, we’ve only IMAGINED it. The point is, we’re great at conceptualizing. According to Yuval Noah Harari one of the indispensable qualities we needed in order to rule the world. But there’s a difference between ideas and reality, just like there’s a difference between being perfect and being human.   

#3 Be a fearless scaredy cat

I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. Every single freakin’ day. But that doesn’t stop me from taking action (anymore). Fearless is what I call feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Because mmm… the fear never goes away. So we might as well learn to live with it, right? My advice is to be a fearless scaredy cat. To do your thing, even if you feel like you’ve got a giant sign on your back saying “I have no clue, please rescue me”.

#4 Don’t believe everything you think

Seven years ago I enrolled in a 10-week mindfulness training program. Before that I’d never meditated, never considered the power of my breath or body, and certainly never thought about the things I told myself every single day. In session one of the training our teacher, in response to a question about that subject, *casually* mentioned that we – humans – are not our thoughts.

Say what?! I’d never considered that the voice in my head could be different from who I was. This was such a revelation that it took me weeks to grasp the full power of what she’d said. Especially with the negative tune that was playing in my head at the time, realising I had CONTROL over what I was thinking gave me back my power. The thing is, you have that power too. You’re not your thoughts either, so don’t believe everything you think just because you well.. think it.

#5 Focus on smarter, not flawless

Know that you can grow, learn and improve. A mistake isn’t a problem until you get stuck in making it over and over again. Instead is trying to be flawless, learn how to learn from your mistakes, to integrate what happened so you can do a better job next time. That’s the only thing anyone could ask of you, and the only thing you should ask of yourself.

Flawless, we’ve seen above, doesn’t exist. So it would be mighty silly to put any effort into trying to achieve it. Focus on what you CAN change, on the stuff you do have control over. Meaning: just be smarter next time. Because you’ve got this!

How to visualise your dreams so they come true

What we focus on becomes our reality. This basic and simple truth holds so much power, yet is it so often overlooked, dismissed, or not even known about. We’re taught so many things at school, but this absolute key piece of success isn’t one of them.

Think about it. What are the things you think about most in your life, and what is actually present in it? This notion goes further than mere physical things. The thoughts you repeatedly have, I’d argue, account for as much as the external things you focus on. What you tell yourself over and over will manifest one way or another, just like what you think about all day long.

It’s not a magic trick, it’s not even spiritual. Our actions and thoughts are so intertwined that one simply follows from the other. And guess what? The same is true for our dreams – duh!

Dreams get born as ideas. Or wishes turned into words. Or heartbeats turned into thoughts. However they start, they eventually find their way from our subconscious to our conscious mind. All of a sudden they’re there. We “think” about them. We have a dream, and it’s taking shape in our head.

The more we think about them, the more our dreams have a chance at being realised.

The problem is, life gets busy. Staying focused is hard. A lot can get in the way of our dreams. Literally. People, circumstances, twists of fate. If we’re not careful we might forget about our dreams altogether. Sometimes for a few months, often for years, in some cases for life. Until we wake up, and finally remember.

That’s why it’s so important to stay focused on our dreams.

A surefire way to do this is to visualise them. This makes them palpable. As if you’ve already achieved them even before taking the first action-step toward them.

How to visualise your dreams?

• Imagine you’re already there

From sports science we know that the brain doesn’t distinguish between imagined action and physical action. That’s why athletes now spent parts of their training imagining running around a track or jumping as far as they can. It fires off the same neural networks as physical training, and thus helps make the athletes better at their sport.

I believe the same is true for our dreams. Imagining and visualising our dreams helps strengthen our creative and action-taking muscles. It creates new neural pathways in our brains that will make the impossible seem possible, and will pave the way for us (to become the person we need to be to) achieve our dreams.

So take time regularly to imagine your dreams. I do it a few times a week, sometimes more when I’m trying to put together a clear plan to achieve a goal. I take out my list of goals and read through it. I close my eyes and imagine what it’ll feel like and be like to have achieved them. Sometimes I focus on one goal, sometimes I think about all of them. It depends on my mood, and the time I have available.

• Create a vision board

I’m sure you’ve heard of vision boards before. They’re so simple to put together and often referred to as this magic thing that will miraculously make your dreams come true. Cut out images you like from magazines and glue them together on a large sheet of paper and you’re done. Tada! You’re dreams will follow. Really?!

That’s how I felt when I put my first vision board together. I didn’t believe it would make a difference but since I was desperate for change I was ready to try anything. The whole experience felt silly. As I was cutting out images and gluing them I kept on wondering what I was doing. But when I was done there it was: an inspiring and soulful collage of all the things I wanted in my life. Looking at it made me feel so happy. I hung the vision board next to my desk. Every day I looked at it, for about six months. That’s the time it took to achieve the things I’d glued down on it!

The vision board reminded me of my dreams in such a vivid and persistent way that I achieved my goals faster, and in a more systematic way.

Since that first vision board, I’ve created many more. In fact, I use this technique not only to help visualise a goal, but to organise my thoughts about it too. Seeing the end picture helps me to put the plan together, and to define the steps I need to take to get there.

• Keep a dream jar

This is a cool technique that mixes together visualisation and imagination. You take a jar of any kind, and you write down your goals on pieces of paper. You put the pieces of paper folded in the jar and every day you randomly select one piece from the jar. You look at the goal on it and visualise already having it in as much detail as you can.

Grappling in your dream jar is something you can do once a day, or a couple of times a day. My jar sits on my desk so I often do it when I’m taking a short break from work. It relaxes me and inspires me at the same time. I love the feeling it gives me. Plus it helps me to stay focused on my goals!

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How to streamline your business for growth (before hiring a team)

Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for a while, I’m sure you heard the phrase “don’t work in your business, work on your business.” I always found this to be such an eye-opening perspective on what building a business actually is.

At first, many entrepreneurs are the only ones working for the business so it’s hard not to work “in” the business, that is it’s impossible not to address all the mundane tasks that are required to keep the business going. This isn’t the same as from working “on” the business, which refers to taking steps to grow the business. It’s the difference between focusing on keeping the soup warm rather than making a bigger soup.

Once the foundations are in place it’s important to think about growth. There are different ways growth can manifest in your business. More and more customers might come knocking at your door wanting your products or services, forcing you to work longer hours. Or the profits your business is making might raise the question of investments and where to take your business next. Perhaps it’s your business goals driving growth, or the vision you have as an entrepreneur.  

Whatever the situation, some level of change in how you operate your business will be required to push the business forward. You’ll need to make the switch from working in your business to somehow working on it.

It’s tempting to think that this is the moment you need to hire a team. If you’re a Silicon Valley startup, chances are it is. If you’re a self-employed (online) entrepreneur however, it probably is not.

I know, because I’ve been there. I’d love to tell you I learned the lesson fast and straightened up my act. I didn’t. It took me many years and a lot of money, time, and stress to understand the difference between working in and on my business. But finally I got it. And it changed everything for me.

Before hiring a team there’s one important thing to do first: streamline your business.

The truth is, without systems you don’t have a business – you are the business. It will be almost impossible to delegate effectively, and to let other people work for you. Hiring a team without a plan and clear, documented business systems will do nothing for you except give you more work, more frustrations, and less sleep. Because now you’re not only slaving away for hours on end to keep the business going, you need to find extra time to keep your team at work too.

How to streamline your business for growth?

The magic is in the systems.

Although you cannot automate every aspect of your business, many tasks can be structured, systematized, and put on autopilot. A streamlined business gives you the time and freedom you need to focus on growth instead of maintenance, and allows you to delegate the tasks that can’t be automated in an effective way.

#1 Plan out your business

The first step in streamlining your business is to get clear on what you ultimately want your business to become.

Do you want to keep your business small?
Are you looking to expand and eventually sell your business?
What are your financial goals for your business?
How many employees do you see yourself working with?
By when would you like to achieve your business goals?  

Having a long-term business vision will allow you to get clear on your short and medium term goals. It will help you create a sales and marketing strategy, decide on what products or services to develop, the amount of new customers you need to acquire and so on.

#2 Structure, systematize and automate your business

Once the plan is in place you can start looking at how your business operates. For each business department (sales, marketing, administration, accounting, production, research and development, …) create systems by mapping out how things are done.

For instance, how are clients onboarded in your business?

Every business owner should know the answer to this question. To figure it out, map out all the steps you’re currently taking when a new client signs up with you. This is your client onboarding system.

Now that you have the system you can structure it. Make the steps repeatable so someone else can do this task instead of you. Where needed make sure to finetune the system. If you’re sending out the same email to all your new clients but you’re still typing it from memory every single time, that email needs to be stored as easily accessible template.

By looking at your business tasks as systems you’ll be able to do something else that will make your life so much easier as well: automate. I talked about automation last week when I listed 7 ways to simplify your business for success. There are so many apps that can take over parts of our business systems, and if set-up correctly, do an amazing job for us. Look at your business systems with automation in mind. What parts of the system can apps take over for you?

Once the above is done, you’re ready to hire a team. But not sooner. If you’re in a hurry to build a team, make sure to have at least your most important business systems mapped out and structured before you take anyone on board.

Your team will be grateful for the clarity, and you’ll have so much more time to focus on what really matters to you and makes a difference for your business.

How to Write down your dreams to manifest them faster

Writing things down has many benefits. It helps to remember the important stuff, to clear our minds, even to feel and work through our emotions. When it comes to dreaming bigger, writing down your dreams is essential. Not only because of all the benefits stated above, but mostly because writing your dreams down will help you to clarify them, prioritise them, and to keep you motivated.

The busyness of life is something we all have to deal with to some extend. It’s easy to get swept away by it. When we’re running from A to B, tending to everything and everyone, trying to stay on top of things we can literally forget about our dreams. Sometimes for a little while, in some cases for years or decades.

We’ll attend to them soon, right after this one last thing is done. Or we’ll get started as soon as work is not so busy anymore.

If this sounds anything like you, know that you’re not alone. This was me for so many years too. I would keep on pushing my dreams further in my future, waiting for this one last thing to be done first. The problem was, there was always a next thing. Then a next one. And so on.

Until I started writing down my dreams.

About ten years ago, at the turn of the old to the new year, I stumbled upon Danielle LaPorte's Desire Map. I’d never done such extensive prep work to organise my goals or what I was planning on achieve the year ahead but something triggered me. I wanted to try.

What convinced me was what Leonie said about the type of people that actually achieve their goals. According to research 80% of people do not even think of goals (that used to be me). From the 20% remaining, 16% don’t write them down. From the 4% remaining only 1% writes goals down AND reviews them regularly. They have the highest success rates when it comes to achieving their big dreams.

Writing down my goals and sticking to reviewing them throughout the year was eye-opening for me. The first time I did it, I reached more goals in 12 months than I’d achieved in the past 10 years combined.

I’ve kept on writing down my goals ever since, tweaking and fine-tuning the process as I went on, and have become absolutely convinced it is an essential practice to achieve your dreams. We create what we focus on.

How to write down your dreams?

• Reflect on what’s important to you

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, it’s easy for life and work to get in the way of our dreams. The busier we get, the less we remember what’s really important to us.

Make sure to carve out time regularly to reflect on what’s most important to you and to assess whether you need to make some changes to move toward your dreams.

• Create dream mantras

I love to work with goal or dream mantras with my clients. Instead of writing down pragmatic goals (which are great to have!) I love to go a step further, and infuse those goals with soul. That way the dream mantras become more than simply goals to achieve, they become an inspiring way of life, a path to our dreams.

To create a dream mantra start by writing down your goals.

Then, for each of them, write down how achieving that dream will make you feel and why you want to achieve it. Use the answers to those questions as building blocks to put together your dream mantra.

Prompts to help you craft your dream mantra:

I want to ….
so that I can / have  …
achieving this goal will make me feel … .

I want to write a book
so that I can share my story and inspire others to dream bigger
achieving this goal will make me feel proud, fulfilled, happy

Dream mantra: Be fulfilled and happy by writing an inspiring book about dreaming bigger.  

Once you’ve created your dream mantras write them down in your planner, on a sticky note, in your journal. Make sure to read them out loud at least once a day, preferably a few times more.

• Make it visual

There are many ways to write down your dreams. There’s the obvious note, journal or planner entry like I mentioned above. But it’s not because your goals are written down that you’ll actually remember them. In order for that to happen, you need to “see” them.

It’s a great idea to use sticky notes with your goals throughout your house or office. Places I particularly like for dream cues like that are the fridge, the bathroom mirror, my computer screen, a picture wall, and the pages of my planner. The point is to create a reminder system for your dreams.

Another way to visualise your goals is through a pictures.

I use a combination of Pinterest, pictures on my kitchen walls, and an art journal to keep track of the goals I’ve set for myself. Every day I’ll spend a few minutes browsing through my boards, or looking at the pictures either on the wall or in my journal.

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How Michelle’s Ultimate Life Binder became a bestseller on Etsy

I met Michelle through the Members’ Club of the Female Entrepreneur Association. First online, by going through the creative bundles she created for the members and the work she did for FEA. Then last year in person at Carrie Green’s Inspired Vacay. Michelle’s story is one of those stories that immediately inspires you to become a better version of yourself. Her mission is to help people take 100% responsibility for their life. She does this by creating beautiful products to help others manage their projects and lives. It’s also how she went from living what she calls a mediocre life to becoming a best seller on Etsy with her absolutely amazing The Ultimate Life Binder™.

What was your big dream, and what inspired you to go after it?

My big dream evolved from a big fear I had – the fear of living a mediocre life. Looking back, I realize that I was stuck in a pattern of putting other peoples’ needs above my own and this led to me becoming an empty version of myself. I woke up one day and realized that I had just lived the same year twice and that it was a mediocre year. I had given away my power to design my own life by putting myself last. My dream from that point was to create a life in which I was fully in the driver’s seat. I’ve learned that helping other people needs to come after helping yourself, otherwise you end up right back where you started from and no one really benefits.

Did you always have this dream?

I remember how as a child, I always wanted to be the next best version of myself. I was always playing at being a “grown up” and I wanted to learn everything. In my teenage years however, I found myself dealing with many challenges at home as a result of my parents’ failing marriage and I put my dreams in the “back seat” and got into the bad habit of being everyone’s “rescuer” at my own expense.

What was one of the first thing you did to get you started?

After reaching a breaking point in my early 20’s, I resolved to put my dreams and myself first again. At the time, what I did was drive alone to a coffee shop every Saturday and sit there with myself and my empty notebook spending time thinking about who I wanted to become and what I wanted to do with my life. I started to realize that the fastest way to get out of my rut was to do whatever I was afraid to do. I started to plan things that scared me into my week: go to a networking event, say yes to co-hosting a radio show, enter an essay contest. I started inviting other girls to join me on my Saturday night planning sessions. When one girl could never make it to the meet-up, I decided to put up what I was learning on a blog for her to read. I called my blog “The Secret O.W.L. Society” and without knowing it at the time, that was the birth of my business. I didn’t start my business to change my life. I changed my life first by changing myself and out of that my business was born.

What were the biggest challenges you faced in working toward achieving your dream?

I would say that my biggest challenges come from slipping back into my old pattern of over-giving to people who never give back to me. As I’ve said, nobody really benefits from that arrangement. Sooner or later, the giver ends up used up and starting over and the people who you gave your energy to end up back to where they started as well. I’ve learned that being a leader doesn’t mean holding someone’s hand and making sure they’re there every step of the way. Les Brown said that when two people are walking together, one person will always either speed up or slow down to match the speed of the other person. By being an over-giver, I’ve slowed down more often than I would like to admit for the wrong people. You simply cannot help everyone. The only people who will benefit from your help are the people who will do what they need to do with or without you. Now, I believe that the best way to know who will truly benefit from my help is to see who is still following while I walk on ahead on my own, without holding anyone’s hand.

What do you wish you would have done differently? What would you warn others about?

I’ve been learning a lot about what it means to be an empathic person. The book “Dodging Energy Vampires” by Dr. Christiane Northrup has been exceedingly enlightening. As an empathic person, if you don’t learn how to protect yourself from people who would take your energy from you, then you’ll never fulfill the purpose that you’re here to fulfill. If you truly want to help people, you have to learn how to help yourself first as an empath. If I could go back in time, I would have given myself the book I just mentioned, but seeing as how the book was only just recently published…maybe everything happened according to diving timing after all.

Would you say you’ve achieved your big dream yet?

I’d say I have a lot to learn and a long way to go. I’m not going to say that my dream is to “help as many people as I can” because I know that for me, that statement comes with a precursor in order to actually work. My dream is to become the best version of myself, to take care of myself, to learn more about myself and THEN, from that place, help as many people as I can. Since human potential is nearly limitless, I’d have to say that the dream is to continue to make every year 10 times better than the last because I’m constantly becoming 10 times better. I never want to live the same year twice again as a result of letting myself stagnate in a rut. The beautiful thing is, I’ve had so many people – thousands – benefit from the contribution I’ve been making in the world since the day I started my blog. Not a week goes by without someone reaching out and thanking me for the value I’ve added to their life and business. Which tells me that this recipe for life really works – the more you help yourself, the more you can help other people.

What do you think helped you achieve it?

When I realized I had just lived the same year twice I started to do things differently. By driving alone to a coffee shop every Saturday and sit there with myself and my empty notebook I was slowly changing my habits and my thinking. This initial realization, and the intense wish not to live the same year yet again helped me move forward, and stay on track.

What’s the best advice you have for others who want to follow their big dreams?

Don’t be afraid to let your old life fade away. Old friends, circumstances, and people… What you hold onto holds onto you. Making progress is about letting go more than it is about what you put on your to do list. We are all overcoming old beliefs and debilitating patterns that we picked up in childhood. As Dr. Christiane Northrup said in an interview I watch today, “The minute you put yourself and your needs first, your old life will start to go away.” Let it.

Michelle during a hot seat session hosted by Carrie Green during the Inspired Vacay (Mallorca)

More about Michelle – secretowl.org

Michelle is the founder of the Secret O.W.L. Society and the creator of the Ultimate Life Binder™. She believes that when you take 100% responsibility for your life, you can create anything you want and she create printables, courses, videos, and articles to help people do just that.

You can find out more about Michelle on her website at secretowl.org.

Follow Michelle’s adventures on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest.

Michelle’s favourite quote is:

If you want things to change, you have to change. If you want things to get better, you have to get better.
– Jim Rohn

Michelle’s big dream for the world is:

That more and more people become a shining example of what it means to love yourself, take care of yourself, and put yourself first. Life never works until you do.

If you want more inspiring stories, I’ve got great news for you! This story is part of an interview series, you can find all entries here.