Why faith is an essential part of happiness…

Easter is a powerful time of year which resonates with spiritual energy. Ancient and modern religions all have ceremonies to celebrate the surge of life at this time of year. The role of oestrogen (oestrus = Easter) in bringing new life to birth is at its core. The plant and animal kingdom Is full of potential energy: the sap is rising. It’s Spring!

I was brought up in a strong Evangelical Christian family (don’t switch off!) and educated in a ‘High’ Church of England convent school so my young life was crammed with religious ritual and observance which my little brain – always switched on to awe and wonder – lapped up and felt quite at home with. I still remember fondly the wonderful feeling of peace that ‘everything would be OK’ because God was on my side.

Decades later, my life has been through many revolutions which have tested, stretched and wrung out the beliefs I started with and, if I went to confession at all these days, it would be to admit that I have lost my faith in those man-made, largely political, structures that our religious institutions have become. But I have never lost my desire – in fact my need – to respond to the world around me with awe and wonder.

And I think we all have that space in our brains. I’m convinced that in our modern, high-tech, feet-on-the-ground world we are missing the role that faith used to play in our lives when we were all a little less savvy, a little more inclined to follow authority figures. I think that without a space for faith we have less joy, less hope and feel more alone: themes that come up time and again with my clients.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating a return to unquestioning loyalty to a convoluted creed that allows some in, and rules others out, and asks ritual observance from its followers. But I am suggesting that religions were historically successful because they answered a need in us to look beyond our own lives, to believe in something bigger than our own small span, to rejoice in the simple wonder of nature and to link with other human beings to provide help, hope and happiness.

With a 4-day bank holiday looming, this is a good time to have a think about what’s happening in your ‘faith space’. What are your hopes and dreams for your future, what keeps you going when times are tough, what do you do to lift your soul? If your answer to any of these is ‘don’t know’ then it would also be a good time to arrange a coaching session to build some purpose into your life and re-connect with the faith and hope that is a natural part of every human being. It’s not about religion and rules but about celebrating your own amazing potential. It’s not so much that God is on your side as recognising that ‘God’ is inside you. Perhaps that’s just a way of saying have faith in yourself?

I’m reminded of the Max Ehrmann poem, Desiderata, a favourite all my life:

Therefore be at peace with God,
Whatever you conceive him to be.
And whatever your labours and aspirations
In the noisy confusion of life,
Keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
It’s still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Have a Happy Easter, whatever that means to you, and find some time to rejoice in the simple wonder of being alive.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Is it time to put all your eggs in one basket?

One of the very strong messages from my childhood and early working life (when I worked as an investment adviser) was ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’ There is a satisfying logic to the idea –  it feels good to have a backup plan – but is it a good rule for life? Fundamentally, it’s an attitude based on fear: fear of failure. And we all know that fear of failure is the biggest reason that most of us fail.

One of the difficulties of living in 2011 is the amount of distracting tasks and messages we have to shove out of the way to find time to do what we really want – or need – to do. Not only are we overloaded with all the mundane stuff, we’re also bombarded with lots of exciting choices. It has never been easier to experience all the delights this world has to offer in one lifetime. It’s very tempting to try to do it all and have it all.

But is that the route to happiness? Or success? The sort of success that you feel in your heart, that leads to inner peace.

When I was looking around for evidence it seemed to me that scatter-blasting your attention is definitely not the way to achieve anything lasting. Success, however you want to define it, seems to surround the people who have a strong sense of who they are and what they’re doing, people who are really focussed on their unique role in society. Martin Luther King didn’t run a grocery business on the side; Mother Theresa didn’t make curtains; Anita Roddick wasn’t going to go into animal testing; and Steve Jobs doesn’t have a second business selling Granny Smiths. There are countless examples of people who have put all their eggs in one basket, focussed on one specific goal, and achieved enormous success, personal satisfaction and, in the process, moved mountains.

It’s my belief that we all have song to sing. It may not be an opera, and it may not go platinum, but until we find our song we have a vague sense of missing out on life. But how do you decide what your song is?

Many of us are stuck in a discomfort zone. Maybe we feel trapped in our uninspiring job by our economic circumstances. Or we wallow around in a number of jobs, hobbies or training courses trying to find our way. We might have lots of projects on the go, plenty of opportunities and some great ideas about what to do with our lives, but we just don’t know how to pull is all together into a sense of direction. And without that sense of direction it’s very difficult to make a decision.

There’s a simple way to leave the confusion behind. It sounds almost too simple. But it works… You need to create your Purpose Statement. And there are 2 ways to do it.

1. If you like working through books on your own you can buy a great little workbook, Living on Purpose, published last week by me and my great friend and guru, Neil Crofts. It’s available from Lulu by clicking here.

2. Or if you prefer a bit of friendly human interaction you can book in for a session with me.

Either way you’ll end up with a statement of purpose which truly reflects who you are and which melds your greatest motivation with your greatest talents to show you the way to the most fulfilling path of your life.

A path where you can safely carry all your eggs in one basket.