June 7, 2022 - Inspiration, Exploration, Expansion

Life Coaching: Inspiration, Exploration, Expansion… and our Goals

This is a follow-up on my previous article “Life Coaching: Let’s Start With Discovering Who We Really Are”.

Now that we have a better understanding of who we really are, right now, it would be tempting to immediately look into who we want to be, where we want to get to, work on setting-up goals and on how to achieve them.

Inspiration, Exploration, Expansion

But I’d suggest that we start by spending some time looking for inspiration, exploring and expanding our view of the possibilities that are “out there”… in order to get more ideas before looking into who we really want to be and where we really want to go…

Let’s start with a few definitions:

Inspiration is “a feeling of enthusiasm you get from someone or something, which gives you new and creative ideas.”

Exploration is “the activity of searching and finding out about something”

Why Do I Suggest That?

Because most of us live in a fairly closed circle:

Between the routine of day to day life (work, family life, social circle, community involvement), which often doesn’t leave us with much free time to do something different;
Between what we’re used to watching and listening to, and the technology (Google, YouTube, etc.) that leads us to more of the same;
And the fact that it’s so much easier and quicker to stick to what we know, to stay within our comfort zone…

Because this situation restricts what we think is possible…

… And therefore restricts our ability to imagine who we could be and where we could go….

How to Be Inspired, to Explore, to Expand?

First, let’s look at ways we can insert some changes into our existing routine, especially very small changes that ought to be easier to integrate:

Notice what’s around us during our commuting;
Take a different commuting route;
Listen to podcasts or read articles instead of catching up with social media;
Replace our usual evening program by a different one;
Check-out different sources of information to get different perspectives;
Change our holiday format / destination;
Attend different types of events on our own, with family, with friends, with colleagues;
What else comes to mind?

Then, let’s look at what other activities we can do from time to time, and maybe even reserve some time for on a regular basis:

Research different topics, even those that we’re not that interested in at first sights;
Spend more time reading, watching webinars, films and documentaries, listening to podcasts, that address a wide range of topics;
Subscribe to newsletters providing summaries of what’s going on in the world, on different topics;
Join some discussion groups, making sure that these groups cater for different opinions;
Think about people who inspires us, who we find interesting: Why did they do what they did? How did they do it? What can we learn from them? What can we “take” from them and adapt to our life?
Keep note of new ideas passing through our mind, and go back to them from time to time: Are we still interested by these ideas? What can we do with them?
Think about past interests that we didn’t pursue because of “lack of time” or because we thought they were “not worth it”: Is it time to get back to them?
Connect with people outside of our circle:
What else comes to mind?

But let’s also acknowledge that this process is new, that we need to get used to doing some things differently, that we need to understand what works for us and what doesn’t.

So let’s view it as a “trial and error” process.

And let’s keep practicing until it becomes a habit!

Finally, let’s check-up with ourselves from time to time: Are we really being inspired, exploring and expanding our view of the possibilities that are “out there”… Or are we still somewhat in the same familiar circle?

How Is that Working for Us?

Now that we’ve taken some steps to change our view of the possibilities that await us, how is that impacting who we want to be and where we want to go?

Are we getting different ideas about what we could do?
Are we being inspired by something or someone we saw or heard?
Are we seeing different possibilities on the horizon?
Are we discovering new opportunities?

I hope we are…