According to Dr David R. Hawkins, we cannot experience reality directly. All we have is our perception of reality. This means, for all of us, that reality is perception. All our perceptions are different therefore all our realities are different. Many assume that the way they see the world is the same as their neighbour or friend, when in fact they are different experiences of the ‘same reality.’

We have seen how true this is over the last year or two with all the goings on in the world. In fact, perceptions of reality have been stretched and divided even more, recently. Here’s the thing that can be difficult for us to recognise or even see. We are all talking about the same thing but from completely different vantage points.

To understand this more clearly, let’s turn our attention to water. Yes water. Depending on environmental conditions, water can appear in so many ways. At one extreme, under very hot conditions we have steam. At the other end of the same...

Dear me could this be true? Well let’s go behind the behavioural scenes here and look at how signs are created on our reality. Firstly, we need to understand that we can’t experience reality. We can only experience our perception of it. Our perception is a very personal, unique, psychological construct which we create, whether we are aware of this or not. Gravity doesn’t require us to believe in it. It just is whether we believe in it or not.

We know from the world of quantum physics and consciousness research that what we focus on is all we will get to the exclusion of everything else. We can only experience one radio station at a time. What we do not focus on ceases to exist in our experience. All the radio stations which we cannot tune into still exist. Just not in our experience.

When I first began thinking about becoming a behavioural coach and trainer, I also considered very seriously perhaps becoming a personal trainer. I went to one of the highly regarded...

Contrast and uncertainty can affect us naturally in many ways. The two ends of this affect spectrum are confusion right through to clarity. Most of us in the world over the last 18 months have experienced higher doses of uncertainty then most of us are accustomed to. I know for me personally this has created incredible clarity of what matters most. Clarity of my values, clarity on where I stand in my world view of politics, relationships and career.

When we are clear on our values, which I call our emotional compass, we are aligned to what matters most. Fundamentally, a value is an emotional state we want to experience on a consistent basis. When we follow our emotional compass, we feel emotionally well. When we don’t, we feel emotionally unsettled and vulnerable to fear.

Intimately knowing our emotional compass, breeds certainty within us. When we are clear on our values the potentiality for anxiety and depression is reduced. Clarity of values energises us and provides the...

I have always thought (and still do) think that having the courage to be you is to be more loyal to our own values than to the values of others. Extending this thought even more is having the courage to grow and embrace new experiences, both chosen and not chosen.

To dive deeper into courage let’s turn our attention to the wonderful words of Socrates describing Plato’s story called “The Republic” some 2400 years ago. This story’s central focus is Plato’s cave. Socrates described a group of people who lived chained in a cave all their lives. This whole time they faced a blank wall.

All they could see was this blank wall and some shadows reflecting on it from things passing by a fire behind them.

This dazzling show of shadows on this blank wall became their lives…completely. These shadows, sadly, would be the closest the cave’s prisoners would get to seeing reality. They had continually been told about this outside world. However, they...

Anything in your life that attracts you, whether that be a relationship, a certain career path, a new business direction or any of the above continuing in a wonderful way….is all because of one reason. This one reason is an unconscious driver behind all our actions, especially when it comes to relationship, career or even activities we enjoy immersing in.

That one unconscious driver is …growth. Everything we do is so we can grow. Let’s try this on. We can do this by reverse engineering what is being said here. In other words, lets take away growth as a massive contributor to our actions and see what we are left with. How long would a relationship last for if there was zero growth in it for you. What about a career or business path? How long would that last for without growth? What about any hobby or skill set you are learning or enjoying developing? No growth no interest, in the long term anyway.

To know and realise if this is accurate, we must once again turn...

There is a delicate balance when it comes to boundaries. There are different levels of boundaries depending on the relationship situation. How do we be ourselves at work with out oversharing or crossing lines? When or if we cross a line how do we retrace our steps? Have you ever been in a middle of a conversation and suddenly there is an awkward silence? That is the silent sound of a boundary being crossed!

Firstly, what is a boundary? There are many ways we can define this. My definition of a boundary is an awareness of which aspects of yourself is appropriate to share with someone. The way I see this is that the closer you are to someone the wider and deeper you avail aspects of yourself. The more distant you are the less of you will be available.

What does this all mean? To understand, this we need to be aware of the 5 levels of boundaries.

1. You share activities/experiences, ideas (your life philosophy) and all values eg a best friend, a close husband/wife/love partner.
2. You share...

Has making a decision ever given you even more confusion? Has it left you feeling despondent or disappointed? Have you ever found yourself stuck on the wheels of procrastination whilst trying to make a decision?

In order to eliminate confusion, disappointment and procrastination, we need to become aware that there are fundamentally two kinds of decisions.

1. Macro Decisions (made slowly)
2. Micro Decisions (made quickly)

Macro decisions are the big picture decisions which can impact our life situation significantly. These can  be (not always) reasonably complex and may involve others or perhaps consulting someone else who may or may not be impacted by the decision. Micro decisions are like the sub decisions related to the macro big picture decision. Once macro is clear all micro decisions happen quickly, and this is where we find clarity, great energy and momentum.

Great! So how does all this translate to real everyday life? I’m glad you asked . Earlier this year my wife...

The most dangerous word in the English language is…..conclusion. If we were to allow ourselves to arrive and land on a conclusion about anything our emotional fitness is about to take a hit. The psychology of ‘conclusion’ potentially introduces rigidity in our thinking. Rigid thinking is a sign of immaturity.

Arriving at a conclusion closes us off to new possibilities. If I can really go out on a limb, arriving at a conclusion is a form of arrogance. Let me explain!! We experience our everyday lives via a spectrum of perception with sliding scales of awareness. Dear lord, what does that even mean?  Lets use water as an example. At one end of the temperature (perception) spectrum we have steam and at the opposite end of the temperature spectrum we have ice. In between that we have water in liquid form from freezing cold right through to boiling hot before it becomes steam.

If water had an ego, steam would come out and say with great certainty, ‘I am...

Have you ever thought about how amazing someone else is at a particular skill, or ability? What seems completely normal to them is amazing to us.

Well same goes for you and I. There are aspects of us that are normal to us but amazing to someone else. For example, your fitness level, as good as it is, may be normal to you but amazing to someone else.

Someone else’s capacity to make lots of money is their normal and amazing to someone else. You get the drift.

Having an awareness of this, creates within us a reminder to be grateful for what we seem to be good at. Just the other day I was running with a friend of mine, what we would call a casual 10km run. We ran past another runner who seemed to be working really hard. I mean they were puffing pretty intensely. My running buddy commented saying, do you remember those days when that was us!

Instantly I realised and remembered how far we had come in our everyday fitness. In our world to say that on Sunday you are running 20km is like...