1. If you don’t learn the lesson the first time around, it will keep coming up until you do. It’s a whole lot less hassle to just learn it the first time
2. Sometimes the only cure for what ails you is a 3am dance party in the kitchen, preferably with hats.
3. Everyone else is making it up as they go along too.
4. Most times, what other people do is nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.
5. Nothing happens as fast as you’d like, but if you keep your eyes on the distance, you never see what is right in front of you.
6. Comparing yourself to other people is a surefire route to abject misery. You never know what is going on underneath their unruffled exterior.
7. There are very few things in this world that we actually HAVE to do, like really have to, or we’ll die. Far fewer than you think. If you’re breathing in and out, that’s a good start.
8. Letting go may sound easy when your yoga teacher says it, but it is a lifetime’s work.
9. Some people will disappear from your life and it’s okay to let them go. Some will reappear and some won’t. (see number 8)
10. Putting things off is an exercise in futility. Either it’s going to get done, or it’s not. If it’s not, just face it and let it go (again, see number 8)
11. It really is true that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If you are a hippy at heart and you’re surrounded by corporate people for eighteen hours a day, you’re not going to find it easy to grow into who you want to be.
12. Doing things to please other people is misguided. Doing huge things like deciding on a career, or where you want to live, or how you want to live, to please other people is monumentally misguided.
13. There is no such thing as low risk. Walking out your front door is risky…..and, frankly, thank God. Most of us can’t even imagine half of the wonderful things that could happen to us, if only we’d let them.
14. The thing that scares you the most, I mean scares you so much that you can’t even admit you’re scared of it, is most likely the thing you should be doing.
15. If you can pay someone less to do something than you can get paid for doing something else, then for the love of god do that something else and give someone a job doing the stuff you don’t need to do. (see number 8)
16. Transformation is hard. It hurts. If you’re trying to get a kick ass set of abs, you know that getting there is not going to be comfortable. If you’re trying to go from corporate stooge to super entrepreneur, it’s going to hurt more than that…..a lot more.
17. Energy flows where attention goes. Not to get all “Law of Attraction” on you, but it is fair to say that if you focus your attention on what sucks, rather than what is going well, you’re just not going to feel particularly happy about life, and that’s a recipe for inertia.
18. When you feel like you don’t know what to do, doing nothing is rarely the best course of action.
19. Let yourself feel what you’re feeling. Emotional numbness is one of the chronic problems of our age. Your feelings, if you actually stop suppressing them, will guide you towards what you actually want, rather than what you think you want, or what your mother wants, or what you think you should want. They are not good or bad. They are just feelings.
20. For God sake stop multitasking all the time. Lack of attention span is one of the other chronic problems of our age. I blame texting. And Facebook.
21. Ignoring your body is a surefire route to an unhappy existence. If you can’t even find time to pee, much less drink a glass of water, the damage you’re doing will eventually come back and bite you in the ass, and you will be sorry….really sorry. Personal experience alert!
22. There is a lot to be said for a walk in the woods. Hopefully you know I’m a hippy by now and there are no scientists reading this, but I genuinely believe that we receive energetic downloads from the natural world and there are places that are reservoirs of spiritual and creative energy. There are times when you can literally feel the trees breathing. If you think I’m bat shit crazy then maybe there’s a scientific explanation – the chlorophyll, the fresh air… Whatever. Trees make people feel good.
23. You’ll learn more from your failures than you do from your successes. It definitely won’t be as much fun but, by God, you will learn from it.
24. Working from home is an exercise in keeping away from the TV, and Facebook…..and the fridge.
25. Some days are for spinning and some days are for twirling. Some years are for spinning and some are for twirling. (Ok, so I stole this from the fine art photographer Jennifer Hudson – she put it better than I could)
26. Sometimes you have to fall apart, so that you can come together again. Ditto for relationships and businesses.
27. It is a great cosmic joke that making a huge change in your life, doesn’t make a huge change in your life. Basically, all your shit follows you around. Workaholic before? You will find yourself a workaholic yoga teacher or workaholic artist afterwards. People pleaser? Prone to overwhelm? Changing the outside doesn’t change these things because they are on the inside. Take a look in the mirror.
28. It really is true that, if you do what you love you’ll never work a day in your life. There is nothing like getting paid to do something that doesn’t feel like work.
29. Routine can be stifling but rituals and habits can make life so much more enjoyable. Finding small ways to celebrate and enjoy each day can really help to offset the chaos of modern life.
30. The mean voice in your head that basically tells you you’re shit and you don’t have a clue what you’re doing, is really quite unimaginative. In fact, it says the same thing time and time and time again. If you can learn to recognise that thing, you can stop yourself from falling into a tailspin before you even start.
31. You’ve got to show up….every day. Well, most days anyway (let’s not put too much pressure on ourselves). Coasting is so dangerous because it’s easy to lose years that way, perhaps even a whole lifetime. Show up for your life.
32. And, following on from number 30……There is no better time to get on your path than right now. You haven’t missed anything. You’re not behind. You are just where you are. Get on your path.
33. You can’t have it all. But you can have more than you ever believed possible.
34. The gift of your full and complete attention is the most valuable gift you can give to another person.
35. When a little voice inside you keeps saying the same thing over and over….listen. Even if it doesn’t sound like your voice. Even if you love steak and sushi more than life itself and it’s telling you not to eat meat anymore. (God I miss sushi)
36. Sometimes gin on a Tuesday morning is the answer……and sometimes it really isn’t.
37. And finally……if you want to do extraordinary things, maybe you can’t expect to have an ordinary life. Accept its unordinariness, embrace it. Release the things you won’t have and open your arms to everything extraordinary coming your way.
****Ok – so there were 37 lessons. I could have taken out that one about gin so you didn’t judge me, but as I only learned it this week it’s fresh in my mind (just kidding – ahem)