Welcome to my first Enriching Life blog... This is something that I have wanted to do for a while and feel that now is the time.
Who am I? I'm James Muir, a 36 year old NLP Master Practitioner, Freedom Therapist and businessman, I am the founder of James D Muir a businesses I am very passionate about, set up entirely to make a difference to people on both a personal and business level. I have like many had my fair share of ups and downs in life and now I have decided to take every opportunity possible to share a little positivity with the rest of the world. I hope that you enjoy my postings and I know that you will benefit from the lessons, experiences and exercises I will be sharing over the coming weeks.
Lets get started: I like many others have worked since leaving school, sometimes doing as many as three jobs at a time, desperately trying to fill my bank account, believing that the marker of success was how much money you earned, how many holidays you went on each year and how many gadgets you could fill your house with. If these things were the true measure of success then I made it, I had achieved by my mid twenties with a home full of gadgets and a passport full of stamps from exotic places, I had a healthy income, was in a serious relationship and received many comments from friends and family about how lucky I was, how great things were and how happy I must be... Was I happy? The answer is yes and no... I did experience happiness and I have memories that I will hold dear forever, however for the most part I felt loss, I was missing something in my life, I continued to want and never really felt like I was getting anywhere. I worked harder in my desire to achieve success, I set more goals, I became more and more tired and spent less time with the people I cared about. I became sharp with people, I felt stressed most of the time and even though I was in a relationship I had never felt more lonely. What was I doing wrong? It was simple, I was in a relationship that was more about status than love, I was failing to recognise and celebrate my achievements and I was striving for something that did not exist. It is this realisation that changed my life and it is in the answer to this question that I wish to share my learnings and tips to enrich and fulfil others lives.
Enriching life: Each of us strives for a place on this planet, we all want, we all desire and we all need. Some of our wants and needs are crucial and shared by all of us, such as the need for food and water to sustain our lives, other wants are more personal, individual to each of us, such as the desire to own a lakeside house or drive a sporty little car. It is these more personal wants/desires that have the ability to trick us, they become our focus, our drivers and at times our stumblers, they thrill us when we succeed in obtaining them, however they can at times frustrate us when they are not within our reach. The trick is to establish your true want, what is it that achieving your want will give you, what is the feeling that will be felt when you are driving that car or sitting in the new lakeside house, it is this feeling that is your true want, it is what will reward you. For many of us we will find that we already have the ability to achieve the feeling more easily and frequently than is currently apparent. I am not saying we should not aim for our wants, however we must ensure we know why we desire them and we must recognise that it is the feeling we want in order to maintain an enriched and happy life.
Missing the feeling leads to unhappy lives: I recently heard of a 90 year old millionaire who had until just a few years ago worked up to 16 hours a day in his desire to make more and more money. He was born in to a very poor family, he had nothing as a child other than the love of his mother and father. From day to day his family would struggle to place food on the table, the clothes he wore were second-hand and only replaced when they were too full of holes to wear or too tight to get on. As the young boy grew he vowed that when he grew up he would never want again, he would make lots of money and never go without food on his table. At 12 years old he gained his first employment, he peeled potatoes in a local cafe, he earned very little but it was money in his pocket which brought a smile to his face. By the age of 14 he was holding down 2 jobs, he started helping out on a local market stall and by 16 he was working 3 jobs. He was very careful with his money and had saved enough to set up a drinks stand in the local park to bring in some extra money, this was his first venture into the business world, he employed a 12 year old boy to man the stall and continued to work his 3 jobs, after 6 months he set up a second stand and within 4 years he had 40 stands across a number of towns and cities. At 20 he was making a tidy profit and left his 3 jobs in order to pursue his desire to become a millionaire, he purchased an office in a large building and rented it out by the hour, he increased this to more and more offices until by the age of 30 he owned 5 office buildings and had made his first million. By the time the man was 40 he employed over 3,000 people, had 8 successful businesses and had become a multimillionaire, he had achieved what he set out to do. He had married, had three children (not that he had spent any time with them), 3 large homes in different parts of the world and never went without food on his table, sadly this man was very lonely and very unhappy... He didn't change at this point, he carried on for another 40 years, working every hour he could, gaining more and more finance and becoming even more rich, rich rich.... In the man's late 80's he was asked by one of his many grandchildren "why do you not enjoy your money Grandad?" he paused for a moment and began to cry... "Why are you crying?" the grandchild asked, he responded "all my life I have worked so that I never go without, I wanted to be a millionaire so that I could have and give my family all the things I didn't have, I was so busy making sure I had all the money I could possibly get I forgot to notice that I had achieved what I set out to achieve". The old man realised that in his pursuit of money he had missed so much of his life, he had failed to fulfil the one thing his mother and father had given him and that was love, he could not remember his childrens childhood, nor that of his grandchildren. It was upon this realisation that he retired immediately, he took his entire family on a long overdue holiday and now spends all of his time with those he loves, he is now a very happy man with a smile on his face.
What was the point of the story: The man wanted not to feel poor, had he known this in his 30's or even his 40's he could have lived an enriched and fulfilling life, he could have enjoyed his family and most importantly he would have been happy. Once we have identified the true want we can ensure we know when we have it, for me it is to feel happy, previously I thought I needed lots of material things to achieve this and now I realise that happiness can be found everywhere, all I needed to do was open my eyes and embrace the feeling.
Do you know your true wants? All too often we strive to achieve, stretch our goals and push ourselves into positions of unhappiness all for something we already have. In order to live an enriched and happy life we must identify our true wants, the feeling we want to achieve, once we know this we can check to see if we already have the resources to achieve.
I am not saying for a minute that we should stop wanting and aspiring to evolve, progress and achieve, I am saying the opposite, we should do all of these things but along the way we should recognise that we are achieving our true wants, we should be celebrating our progression and we should embrace our personal evolution.
Some simple tips: Throughout your journey in life set out some checkpoints, a mechanism of recognising your achievements, this need not be overly complicated but it must be regular and it must be maintained. Remember the 90 year old man, had he taken a few moments every now and then to check where he was against his desire not be poor he would have realised he had achieved, he would have found happiness much sooner. A quick list: My way of checking in every now then is to spend just a few minutes writing a list of everything I have achieved and the feeling I got from achieving them. I really enjoy doing this as it often provides me with a bit of a wake up call, but mostly it gives me a chance to relive those feel good feelings. An added bonus from a bit of reflection is that it gives me the energy and enthusiasm to move forward to achieve more and experience even more great feelings... For me this is a win win.
For now I think I have given you enough to think about and hope that you have found my blog interesting and beneficial. To finish I have posted a small exercise below to help you on your path to an enriched life.
Getting that feel good feeling:
This exercise should take you no longer than 30 minutes...
Who am I? I'm James Muir, a 36 year old NLP Master Practitioner, Freedom Therapist and businessman, I am the founder of James D Muir a businesses I am very passionate about, set up entirely to make a difference to people on both a personal and business level. I have like many had my fair share of ups and downs in life and now I have decided to take every opportunity possible to share a little positivity with the rest of the world. I hope that you enjoy my postings and I know that you will benefit from the lessons, experiences and exercises I will be sharing over the coming weeks.
Lets get started: I like many others have worked since leaving school, sometimes doing as many as three jobs at a time, desperately trying to fill my bank account, believing that the marker of success was how much money you earned, how many holidays you went on each year and how many gadgets you could fill your house with. If these things were the true measure of success then I made it, I had achieved by my mid twenties with a home full of gadgets and a passport full of stamps from exotic places, I had a healthy income, was in a serious relationship and received many comments from friends and family about how lucky I was, how great things were and how happy I must be... Was I happy? The answer is yes and no... I did experience happiness and I have memories that I will hold dear forever, however for the most part I felt loss, I was missing something in my life, I continued to want and never really felt like I was getting anywhere. I worked harder in my desire to achieve success, I set more goals, I became more and more tired and spent less time with the people I cared about. I became sharp with people, I felt stressed most of the time and even though I was in a relationship I had never felt more lonely. What was I doing wrong? It was simple, I was in a relationship that was more about status than love, I was failing to recognise and celebrate my achievements and I was striving for something that did not exist. It is this realisation that changed my life and it is in the answer to this question that I wish to share my learnings and tips to enrich and fulfil others lives.
Enriching life: Each of us strives for a place on this planet, we all want, we all desire and we all need. Some of our wants and needs are crucial and shared by all of us, such as the need for food and water to sustain our lives, other wants are more personal, individual to each of us, such as the desire to own a lakeside house or drive a sporty little car. It is these more personal wants/desires that have the ability to trick us, they become our focus, our drivers and at times our stumblers, they thrill us when we succeed in obtaining them, however they can at times frustrate us when they are not within our reach. The trick is to establish your true want, what is it that achieving your want will give you, what is the feeling that will be felt when you are driving that car or sitting in the new lakeside house, it is this feeling that is your true want, it is what will reward you. For many of us we will find that we already have the ability to achieve the feeling more easily and frequently than is currently apparent. I am not saying we should not aim for our wants, however we must ensure we know why we desire them and we must recognise that it is the feeling we want in order to maintain an enriched and happy life.
Missing the feeling leads to unhappy lives: I recently heard of a 90 year old millionaire who had until just a few years ago worked up to 16 hours a day in his desire to make more and more money. He was born in to a very poor family, he had nothing as a child other than the love of his mother and father. From day to day his family would struggle to place food on the table, the clothes he wore were second-hand and only replaced when they were too full of holes to wear or too tight to get on. As the young boy grew he vowed that when he grew up he would never want again, he would make lots of money and never go without food on his table. At 12 years old he gained his first employment, he peeled potatoes in a local cafe, he earned very little but it was money in his pocket which brought a smile to his face. By the age of 14 he was holding down 2 jobs, he started helping out on a local market stall and by 16 he was working 3 jobs. He was very careful with his money and had saved enough to set up a drinks stand in the local park to bring in some extra money, this was his first venture into the business world, he employed a 12 year old boy to man the stall and continued to work his 3 jobs, after 6 months he set up a second stand and within 4 years he had 40 stands across a number of towns and cities. At 20 he was making a tidy profit and left his 3 jobs in order to pursue his desire to become a millionaire, he purchased an office in a large building and rented it out by the hour, he increased this to more and more offices until by the age of 30 he owned 5 office buildings and had made his first million. By the time the man was 40 he employed over 3,000 people, had 8 successful businesses and had become a multimillionaire, he had achieved what he set out to do. He had married, had three children (not that he had spent any time with them), 3 large homes in different parts of the world and never went without food on his table, sadly this man was very lonely and very unhappy... He didn't change at this point, he carried on for another 40 years, working every hour he could, gaining more and more finance and becoming even more rich, rich rich.... In the man's late 80's he was asked by one of his many grandchildren "why do you not enjoy your money Grandad?" he paused for a moment and began to cry... "Why are you crying?" the grandchild asked, he responded "all my life I have worked so that I never go without, I wanted to be a millionaire so that I could have and give my family all the things I didn't have, I was so busy making sure I had all the money I could possibly get I forgot to notice that I had achieved what I set out to achieve". The old man realised that in his pursuit of money he had missed so much of his life, he had failed to fulfil the one thing his mother and father had given him and that was love, he could not remember his childrens childhood, nor that of his grandchildren. It was upon this realisation that he retired immediately, he took his entire family on a long overdue holiday and now spends all of his time with those he loves, he is now a very happy man with a smile on his face.
What was the point of the story: The man wanted not to feel poor, had he known this in his 30's or even his 40's he could have lived an enriched and fulfilling life, he could have enjoyed his family and most importantly he would have been happy. Once we have identified the true want we can ensure we know when we have it, for me it is to feel happy, previously I thought I needed lots of material things to achieve this and now I realise that happiness can be found everywhere, all I needed to do was open my eyes and embrace the feeling.
Do you know your true wants? All too often we strive to achieve, stretch our goals and push ourselves into positions of unhappiness all for something we already have. In order to live an enriched and happy life we must identify our true wants, the feeling we want to achieve, once we know this we can check to see if we already have the resources to achieve.
I am not saying for a minute that we should stop wanting and aspiring to evolve, progress and achieve, I am saying the opposite, we should do all of these things but along the way we should recognise that we are achieving our true wants, we should be celebrating our progression and we should embrace our personal evolution.
Some simple tips: Throughout your journey in life set out some checkpoints, a mechanism of recognising your achievements, this need not be overly complicated but it must be regular and it must be maintained. Remember the 90 year old man, had he taken a few moments every now and then to check where he was against his desire not be poor he would have realised he had achieved, he would have found happiness much sooner. A quick list: My way of checking in every now then is to spend just a few minutes writing a list of everything I have achieved and the feeling I got from achieving them. I really enjoy doing this as it often provides me with a bit of a wake up call, but mostly it gives me a chance to relive those feel good feelings. An added bonus from a bit of reflection is that it gives me the energy and enthusiasm to move forward to achieve more and experience even more great feelings... For me this is a win win.
For now I think I have given you enough to think about and hope that you have found my blog interesting and beneficial. To finish I have posted a small exercise below to help you on your path to an enriched life.
Getting that feel good feeling:
This exercise should take you no longer than 30 minutes...
- Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the centre
- At the top of one of columns write achievements and on the other write feelings
- Now simply write a list of achievements (this could be qualifications, holidays, employment, children etc)
- Once you have listed your achievements spend a little time thinking about the feelings the achievements gave you.
- Really enjoy reliving those feelings and if you have pictures, letters, videos etc of enhancing these feelings use them.
- Keep this list and revisit it daily, relive the feelings and enjoy them.
- Add to the list if you think of any additional achievements.
- Most importantly ENJOY!
Thank you for reading my blog.... Please come back to read my next update.
Why not take a moment to like my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/JamesDMuirUK
4 comments:
Great Blog James!
The story about the millionaire certainly makes you remember that you should regularly check what you have achieved and whether you are happy doing what you're doing, otherwise why do it? Plus if you don't, before you know it, it could be too late - life is short and we must all make the most of the time we have - working towards our goals of course but more importantly rewarding ourselves along the way and not forgetting what's important here and now.
Can't wait for your next post!
Kaori x
Hi James,
Just wanted to say wow, reading this has really made me think about what I'm doing now. Can't wait for the next instalment.
Hope this finds you happy and well.
Take Care xx
James the blog is very much you well done , it all comes from your heart ,i just hope people will take your advice it makes so much sense x x x luv yer
Hi All... Thank you greatly for your comments, I really appreciate the feedback. I am halfway through writing the second update and reading such positive responses has given me some additional motivation...
Keep the comments coming, I love to hear what people think.
James x x x x
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