Happy Bank Holiday Monday, everyone! And it’s a sunny one at that. Wooohoooo! I thought this Monday I’d take a break from my usual New Week Kickstarter post as, quite frankly, the only action I have planned for this week is to enjoy some sun on my bones in Ibiza 🙂 Infact, I am currently writing this whilst approx 30,000ft up in the clouds on the way to the white isle. So yes, thought I’d treat you to a slightly different post this week – hope you like it.
So, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you can’t not have heard about the cinematic masterpiece that is The Greatest Showman* At the very least, you will have heard it’s soundtrack*as it’s graced the UK charts for weeks. I went to see it at the cinema with my sister and BOY, did I love it. I pretty much wept throughout – the happy, the sad, but most surprisingly for me, the inspirational!! I didn’t expect it to move me like it did and, through streaming mascara, between belting out This Is Me during the car journey home, I told my sister I just had to write a blog post about it. Soooooooo many life lessons packaged up in an all-singing, all-dancing, stunning piece of cinema. Did I say I LOVED it? And I have watched it 3 times since. I had it playing on loop as I prepared the graphics for this post in fact. I’d defy anyone to see it and not feel uplifted afterwards. I’d go as far as to say it should be made compulsory viewing on school curriculums, Goddammit! It covers everything from the power of imagination & dreams, failure, success, love, empowerment, acceptance…..just to name a few! So, using the soundtrack from the film (and the odd quote), here are the life lessons I learnt:
OK, let’s get real. A million dreams isn’t all it’s going to take – if that were the case I’d look like Cat Deeley and that ain’t ever gonna happen. Lol! But what I have learnt over the past couple of years is that having a vision of what you want your life to look like is a blummin’ good start to making it happen, albeit a LOT of hard work has to follow to get there. In August 2016, my “dream” was simply to achieve more flexibility and freedom in my life, in particular from my self-limiting beliefs. Nothing big or fancy, but then dreams don’t always have to be. The key is, never stop dreaming – you just never know what might come true if you put it out there…..
Feel the fear and do it anyway. Once you have your vision sorted, you’re set. It’s like you’ve bought your ticket for the rollercoaster and there’s no going back. The highs, the lows and everything in between. And the last 18 months have been scary and exhilarating since I bought that proverbial ticket back in August 2016. And I can wholeheartedly say it’s been worth every emotional penny as I finally feel like I’m living with my eyes wide open. I am more self aware than ever and with every scary step I’ve taken, I have finally started seeing the potential I never realised I had.
Nothing exciting ever happens in your comfort zone. And it’s true. If I’d have stayed within my comfort zone, I wouldn’t have left my job to do something I love. I wouldn’t be writing this blog post on a plane to Ibiza. And I wouldn’t own a pair of silver boots! It’s scary and hard work operating outside of the comfort zone, but it’s sooooooooo worth it!
For fear of repeating myself, I’ll keep it short and sweet as I think you get the message. You don’t get the thrill of the rollercoaster by just looking at it. You have to get on it to reap the rewards. You have to take that leap of faith. From my experience, you won’t regret it, despite all the twists and turns!
PT Barnum rose from poverty to huge success when he opened his circus, marrying the girl of his dreams, buying the home he’d dreamt of since he was a boy. But it still wasn’t enough. He still didn’t feel accepted by the high society so he pushed further until he was. However, what he realised in his quest for acceptance was that he’d lost sight of what really mattered. He’d lost sight of his “why” which, for him, was his family. Have you ever played the when/then game? I know I have. My biggest game was “When I‘ve had babies, then I’ll deal with my unfulfilling job”. But the reality? “Then” never comes. You can always find something else you “need” before you can do that thing you’ve always said you would. Often, you think you need “more” of something when in actual fact all you need is to change because you’ve lost connection to your “why”.
Amen to this. Before starting this little blog and my business, I wasn’t one for posting much on social media and, when I did, I never paid any attention to how many likes I got. However, since researching how to use social media effectively for my business and blog, I noticed I started to get consumed by how far my posts were reaching, how many people were liking and commenting on them, and even worse, who wasn’t, and, to be honest, it was making me feel a bit shi**y. Yes, I have some issues I need to resolve around acknowledgement, but the reality is I don’t need an army of likes and comments to know I’m loved and supported. Quality over quantity and all that 😊
The greatest show on earth really is life (as corny as that may sound). The key is not to miss out on it by living in the future all the time. I was so guilty of this. Always wishing my life away to the next weekend or holiday. The dissatisfaction in my job would momentarily pause if I had some big life event to plan like our house renovation, or wedding…..even the IVF was a distraction. But it meant I was never enjoying the here and now. As part of the Life Cleanse programme I did last week, I had to write a list of things I was grateful for. Before starting the programme, I’d been feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything that I’d not yet done, not yet achieved – I was living in the future again – so writing the list bought me right back to now and the realisation that life is good.
OMG – this song! Aaaaaaaallllllll the heart eyed (and strong armed) emojis. So empowering. I can’t help but get emosh when I hear it and love nothing more than belting it out – it’s just so good for the soul (although maybe not so much for my neighbours!). This song sums it all up perfectly with the most important message of all – JUST DO YOU! Unapologetic. Unashamed. Proud. With all that life throws at us – good and bad – we grow. We become the person we’re meant to be. We just need to learn how to own it!
This is the only one I have to disagree with slightly because actually? The only person who can make you happy is YOU. It’s easy to look outside of ourselves for the answers or the cause of any dissatisfaction in life, like there’s some happiness wizards out there ready to wave their magic wands and make us happy. But the truth is, our happiness is no one else’s responsibility. We have all we need within ourselves to achieve happiness. So when you find it? Sprinkle it around like confetti!
So those dreams you have that you think are impossible? Chances are there’s someone out there living them right now proving they are absolutely possible. You’ve just got to channel your inner PT Barnum and find the courage to go for it. Whilst singing “This Is Me” at the top of your voice. Obvs 😉
*This post contains affiliate links which are indicated by an asterisk (*). You don’t pay any more from clicking on that link but I might earn a few pennies to spend on more books and films to blog about 🙂