Life & Love: Creating the Dream

Stanford University researchers found that a person’s creative output increases by 60 per cent on average when they’re walking.

As Mother Theresa said, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” It’s something amazing to aspire to, isn’t it?

Instead I’m asking you to ask yourself: where do you feel most comfortable and confident? Where do you laugh the loudest? Where do you let your guard down? Where do you feel the urge to take an Instagram photo because you want the world to see what you see and feel how you feel? Where do you get your biggest ideas? Where do you feel free to stretch

Their study found that adults who actively engage with people they don’t know also tend to be happier and less moody with their friends and family and feel a greater sense of belonging in their wider community, compared to adults who just go about their business, blinkered and insulated.

It’s the moments in between, when you give yourself space, freedom and flexibility to stop thinking so methodically, to stop trying so hard, and make room for ideas to arrive.

Where do you feel at your most optimum? What are the common factors in the places, spaces, environments and locations where you feel at your most invincible, grounded, rounded and vibrant? This is about growth and getting to know yourself, discovering your triggers – both positive and negative – and putting them to good use.

When you give without expectation, when profit isn’t always your end goal, you might find unexpected rewards that surprise you.

“Find someone who has a life that you want and figure out how they got it. Read books, pick your role models wisely. Find out what they did and do it.”

As I get older, I am more and more concerned about nurturing a community around me, and happy to invest my time and energy into it – whether that’s my friends, family, neighbourhood or further afield. Even that is a selfish unselfish act in a sense. Doesn’t everyone yearn deep down for a sense of belonging?