Mindset: There is only one direction, forward

How to create a mindset that helps you keep going forward, even when all odds are against you?

In this article I will give you 3 ideas and strategies to start changing right now the way you identify with yourself, with success and failure so you can create a powerful and strong mindset.

10 years ago I decided to step into being a “lifestyle entrepreneur”. What is this? Well basically you create a business around yourself to have the life you will enjoy most, that will make you feel happy, free, successful, etc. This years have given me deep understanding about the process, what skills are required and how to deal with failure, lots of it.

I like that phrase that says: “If it was easy, everybody would do it”. I believe it applies to anyone that is trying to step over from a harsh environment, your comfort zone or trying to get to your “next level” (whatever it may be).

When first arrived to France I had to start from totally 0, had no connections, not plenty of money, just a big dream and lots of new cultural challenges. I remember that I bought a second hand bicycle (about 200 euros) to move around. I was living in a small town, in an area that you are at least 15km from any other town.

I remember starting to get my first personal training clients and the first studios where I could give Yoga lessons. I was just happy because I was able to do it. Of course I had to bike a lot! It was fun but at the same time very harsh, especially when there were cold rainy/windy days during winter. Most of the people around would say: “I could never do that”.

One specially cold and rainy night, I was biking back to my home, it was one hour so I was just listening music with my headphones and seeing the whole “scene” as a movie like moment of my life. While reflecting on my life and goals I had a very powerful thought: “If you are not doing it when is hard, then you will probably not going to do it when is easy”.

Normally you would think it is the opposite, but if you pay close attention to your own life, you will probably see that the moments in which you progressed the most, were those moments in which it was most challenging. Also thinking the opposite like: “I am going to do it in a better moment”, is very dangerous, because it keeps you pushing off your goals and aspirations.

In the end it doesn’t matter how much you want something if you are not ready to do it even with the worst conditions. Because those days, when done, they make you stronger, they make you feel powerful, they become a stamp of your willpower and gives you the motivation to keep up.

How to create a powerful mindset that helps you keep going against rain and wind?

One direction: One day we are all going to die, certainly. So keep up your life very simple minded and avoid complications. There is no way to go back in time and “re do”. So just let go the good times and the bad ones too, and focus on what can you do today while looking forward.

There are no mistakes: In certain moments we are forced to make tough decisions. What happens after any decision are the consequences of it. So you can look into them with the “positive crystal” or the “negative crystal”, meaning, we are going to be judged by our own consciousness and sometimes others because of our decisions. Never let those judgments to take power from you, just learn the lessons, make the most of it, and see your goals to the end.

Embrace the present moment: By developing a disciplined “positive mind”, you will learn to see any moment with good eyes. Accept what you have around you, accept the people around you, accept it all and let it be. You will find peace instead of stress, calm instead of anxiety, gratitude instead of fear.

Would you like to get a free conversation with me?

Just click on the whatsapp icon and we can start chatting. Tell me about your life and goals! Who knows maybe I can help you out a bit!

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3 tools to wake up the fire of determination

Learn 3 tools to wake up the fire of determination and never let anything to stop you from getting what you want and becoming who you want to be.

Are you lacking the determination required to make any change in your life? Do you consider yourself a determined person when it comes to be 100% committed? What is the reason that some people can have the conviction to follow a path all the way in and many others don’t?

Why you should learn how to fire up and cut the crap quickly?

Life works with cycles and without them, probably it would lose the capacity to keep on going and evolving.

That’s right, the way we progress is by cycles too and we should aim to understand and set up our priorities accordingly. One of the biggest mistakes is to believe things are linear and we just need to go straight forward onto them.

So naturally we feel the desire to get something new and to do so we will need to make some adjustments on our daily habits in order to get it. The problem comes when we are not fully aware of our own cycles, so we expect to “work” with the same intensity all the time, for example. This bring us to deception and repetitive failure, which can make us feel frustration, guilt, anger, etc.

What will mostly happen is that we will need extra energy and time to get fired up again, and if we don’t know exactly how to do it efficiently, then we will quit that endeavour by calling it too difficult, not the right time, not enough “insert skill here”, and so on.

Most skillful and successful people know exactly what to do when having their fire down, because they create a ritual or a group of actions to change it.

Understanding our motivation cycles

A wise-man shaman told me once that motivation is not enough to transform your life, that is only the beginning. If motivation is like a big fire in your heart, then determination is the spark that started it.

So let set an example, imagine that tomorrow you are starting a new diet, and by the 3rd day you go out with some friends and eat some slices of your favorite pizza. Most of us will feel guilt and after that will decide to re start the diet next week to fill up again with enough determination (strength). Which predictable we are not gonna start it again in any close date.

So we want to change this and we are not sure of how. Well, first take notes of all your failures and successes and try to understand how your “motivation cycle works”. What do you do to feel motivated enough and then what do you do to start, and after what do you do to “fail” or “succeed”. Once you get a clear understanding on how do you work internally, then is time to make some changes into that.

We will want to avoid repeating the cycles that brought us to failure, but because we are never really free from them, we should aim to build a protective mindset mechanism that will allow us to fall deep enough to quit(again).

How to start the fire “again”?

Get a goal, make a simple plan and start with what you can and have at the moment.

Sounds easy… but is not.

We will need 3 items to be able to start our fire again and again until we become very skillful and we basically stop noticing any deep changes in our mood and discipline.

Item #1: A ritual to make you spark on anytime and anywhere. It can be some sort of dance, getting out in nature, a conversation with a very like minded and positive friend or coach. Anything that as soon as you do it, makes you feel again the spark to start over and continue. I used to watch some motivational videos in youtube, made a playlist that I would listen everyday after work and would go directly to my training session, no distractions in the middle.

Item #2: The right mindset. Which basically means to understand that life is about cycles, that there are always going to be ups and downs, that perfection is an unattainable ghost, that nothing is so bad or so good, and we can always start again, no matter our age or anything else. The more we cultivate the right mindset, the less danger to quit or dwell into frustration, guilt and other negative emotions and thoughts.

Item #3: An object that remind us who we are, why we started and help us keep our faith in ourselves intact. It can be anything that regardless of the tides of life will always remember us our own value. We need conviction and a recordatory of it. It can be a song, a photo, a certain emotion or experience. Anything that keep us anchored to our inner strength and purpose. I like using a visual recordatory on the wall that I can see everyday.

What now? What else is needed? Am I ready to become a 100% fully determined person that will never let my failures put me down again so I can strive to be the best version of myself?

YES! and not exactly. Why? Because of course this requires practice and repetition, over and over and over. So my sincere wish is that you learn to see failure as your best friend and as new opportunities to master your determination.

There is no specific order in how to apply this tools, just concentrate in repeating them, making changes from time to time. Build up your winning ritual, write down the exact words to cultivate the right mindset and keep your object of anchorage close to you. The rest is just practice and nothing else.

Have a fully determined day starting right now!

If you found this blog article interesting, share it with your friends and family!

Peace.

Félix.

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Inner Strength: Awaken your power within

Why is important?

If you pay attention to how life works, you will understand that strength is one of the most important abilities that anyone and any living being needs in order to survive. It is the mother of many other capacities that without strength would be dormant.

Of course there are several kinds of strengths and different dimensions to it. But in my opinion the most important one is the strength that comes from the spirit. The power of will, to exist, to be which is innate to our spirit and consciousness in the same way energy is released from the sun.

We could use the sun as a symbol of the raw and real strength that comes within our essence. We should imagine ourselves like a burning star in the cosmos giving constant energy and all sort of radiations to the entire universe.

Without those stars, life in our planet would be impossible, and in the same way, without our power of will, our life could not persevere.

How strength influences our life?

Visualize strength as a raw material that you need to create other skills; such as determination, vigor, patience, perseverance, resilience, wisdom, compassion, control, intelligence, concentration, and much more. You name it, any kind of activity you put yourself into, will ask you to make effort in some extent. Will need you to adapt or change in order to bring new results or outputs. Will require your capacity to repeat the same action or process several times until you reach your desired goals.

Discipline and Strength

If strength is the raw energy, discipline is what gives the shape. It has the capacity to empower it, remove the excess and give a purpose. But discipline without strength is useless, you can’t be a disciplined person without being strong. You need both together, even if you have tremendous amounts of inner strength, without the intelligence of discipline it will be lost. The beauty in this is that when you start working in order to build strength, at the same time you create discipline.

What have I learnt from strength training?

  • Our body needs to adapt and external changes take their time to become “permanent”. Grow the strength of patience.
  • It is a slow process, we don’t have to rush things over, if you are strong enough to persevere, you will see results, without a doubt.
  • Growth is not linear, adaptation and change are a constant. There are ups and downs, be relentless.

What have I learnt from meditation practice?

  • A clear mind is awake and ready to act anytime, it commands and empower your body with determination.
  • A mind that is able to stay concentrated even in harsh environments is stronger and superior than a mind that doesn’t.
  • Emotional strength and stability is only available for us when there is enough consciousness.

How can I grow my inner strength starting today?

  • Wake up to see the sunrise.
  • Do physical strength training 2 or 3 times a week.
  • Meditate 10 minutes daily.
  • Do fasting once every month.
  • Express your feelings in a healthy way.
  • Have cold showers.
  • Learn to be lonely in silence.
  • Practice forgiveness, gratitude and compassion.

Was this article useful? Let a comment to know your experience!

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Yoga, Fitness and Meditation in Saint-Tropez Book Your Class Today! Private and group classes for people that prioritize their Health and Fitness Life is movement, and from this premise, we learn how to move in ways that our body reaches new limits. Our practice (physical discipline) should bring us health and well-being, altogether, it should…

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Follow your Heart

Undoubtfully, our heart always knows our hidden truth. For some reason this will always apply, regardless of any situation. If we could just focus on what our heart and intuition has to say for us, we could really walk our daily life without all the mumbling that our mind has. 

One day a friend asked me what did I do with all my preocupations when speaking about decisions for our life. And I just told her, “I quit them”. Just plainly and simply, I was cornered to a position in which whatever I could do, would solve none of my problems. And at this situation the only thing I could really do was to quit thinking about my problems and just “go with the flow” with whatever decision I took.

Suddenly this became a mayor wisdom for me, because the only thing left for me, was a huge amount of determination that I could really use in my everyday life to just go through whatever it was tossed to me. It was’t that my problems disapeared from me, I just understood one simple principle, “the only thing i really had, was my present moment”. And at this level, when you understand this and you really start living it, then every preocupation, fear and doubt, just go away. You stop thinking about what might be, and you start doing what you can with what you’ve got. And life turns simply into a matter of doing and following this energy of determination and will. Like if suddenly you could grab the wave, and you would just flow with it, without thinking about anything else.

I’ve been travelling and having deep conversations through all my journeys with different people from all over the world, and many of them, eventually would say me something like, “wow, Félix, you are so inspiring”. And this, far from getting me into feeling like a better person, just make me realize that probably is because of the passion and positivity from which I tell my stories.

One day I just realized that our past is imposible to change, but the way you talk about your past, is completly changeable. The words you choose to describe how your life is and how is going to be, are 100% up to you. And after this I just focused on changing the way I saw myself. My grandmother would always say, “It all depends on the point of view, from where you choose to see”. And this profound grandma wisdom, was one of the keys to turn my life into a positive and heartfull experience.

Because whatever you are doing, where you are living, whatever your job is, your carreer or your lifestyle. There are two facts imposible to deny, one is that you are alive, and the second is that you are going to die. So whatever you choose from now on, I would really implore to you, that you start following your heart from here on.

Stop making fearfull decisions, stop making excuses, stop acting and playing. Start doing what you heart tells you to do. And you will discover that our heart, is always positive, is always full of love and is always right. 

Let yourself be inspired by life, let yourself be.

Purpose

Once upon a time, there was a child, who would look into the stars and ask, why am I here? For what reason I came to live in the place I do? And this questions became an important thing to find out, so at the age of 11, I started to be interested in philosophy and different ways of understanding what was going on, why should I go to school, or why was important to do what adults where stating to be “important”. And what happened is that, I never found any answers, not until I was already an adult in my mid twenties. Even going to University, to study and deepen my knowledge in phylosophy, could not help me find any clue about life itself and my own purpose. So my decision at that moment was to drop it, and just start having all kind of experiences for which, someday, they would help me comprehend and not only understand, all that “phylosophycal knowledge”.

After some years, had a relationship break up, and also a life changing experience. One day, just as normal as any other, I took a profound and deep decision with myself. To love who I was, no matter what. To accept everything I was at that very moment, and open up to feel that life loved me as part of everything else. That day, I decided to start making decisions with my heart and with love as my number one pillar. Nothing that others could do or say about me, would matter to me anymore, and the only one that I would listen, would be myself. So that day, I learned the best truth of life, one can never love others more than how we love ourselves. So the first priority, is to understand, accept, be honest with, respect, trust, and take full responsability for oneself.

Of course, many experiences came in the form of tests, to grow into this decision, and still feel that there is a long way to go, regarding self love, but I am thankfull to all what happened in my past, because is thanks to those experiences, the good ones and the bad ones, that I am here today, writting this, and looking forward for a life full of purpose, love and freedom.

In my late twenties I was again in a critical point, this time regarding work. I felt so emty at the current job I had, and also the current lifestyle I was carrying. The only thing I knew, is that I wanted that my job, would be on the benefit of others, and not just a matter of making money, paying bills and grow old. How difficult can be, to have the life that you really want? When you are in that messy point, in which you need that job to live, but you feel empty as a dead shell, and all you do to stop that emptyness, in becoming bigger and bigger, are temporary “fun stuff”. Until one day, I realized, that even those things, are as empty as everything else I was doing.

So I started to use all the knowledge on Human Development, Leadership, Coaching, Buddhism and Shamanism, that I had been learning those years, Coached myself and received mentoring, to find the right answer.  Finding your own life purpose, can be difficult, but finding a job that you really like, has to be easier. And of course, finding both, a purpose to live and a job that you love, have almost the same answer. So I took my chances and decided to reinvent my self as a professional, and from that point forward, everything became clearer, my footsteps became stronger and the vision of a life of purpose, started to seem posible.

Then I reached another moment, in which I took another life changing decision, that would be, making physical activity (training), a priority and a fundamental pillar for my life. On that day I had a confrontation with myself, because at the same time I was thinking, that I should train more often and make it part of my lifestyle, my mind would give me all kind of crappy excuses, such as, “I have no time, I have no money, etc”. And looking at a bonfire I shut off that mind, and replied, “hey, you don’t need money to go to a park and do some squats and pushups, or run a mile. And regarding time, you just need to priorize it, organize your agenda, and do it.” I mean, you only need motivation, and there is, when i started to understand my lack of motivation towards life and my current job, and that strong desire to find a purpose. I could see with certainity, all what I needed was to make the decision and start doing it, right now, so two days later, i started and kept doing it until today (6 years later).

Thanks to training and determination, I developed skills like, self motivation, resilence, perseverance, consistency. I became more tenacious, my self-steem improved, all together with some physical changes, becoming stronger and braver. Training taught me that “fear”, is not my enemy, unless I let it, it is a teacher and a friend that shows me all those things that I could be good at, but that I just need to invest more time and more effort, because if you follow a good training program and eat healthy, you will get the results you want, the only thing you need to do, is to keep doing it, no matter what.  So the way to make fear into your ally, is by trusting who you are, what are you doing, and what you want to become, and stop making excuses.

The second good thing about all this training, is that I discovered a new passion, which is coaching and training people. For some years I always wanted to develop professionally as a Life Coach and was doing it for some time. Training and the passion for it, gave me a way to make a new carreer, this two skills, together with my tireless search for a deep meaning of life, gave me the vision I was looking for as a purpose. What if I could be able to support and help others to find themselves, find their purpose and meaning of life, be there to motivate and inspire with my own life as an example, that everything is posible, that everything we dream can be done, if we just do it. The same way, my mentors and coaches where there for me, I dreamed of becoming a human being like them, someone whom to look up and receive inspiration, human wisdom, love and caring. Be completly congruent with my own ideals, emotions and actions. I knew this was no easy task, almost like a never ending one. But one of many thoughts I had, that pushed me to do it, was that, “If i am alive, I have the chance to do it, and I just need to believe in my self and my dream, and devote to it, breath it every day, and never surrender, even if things get hard”.

If I train my self physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, I can be that human being, I thrive to be, I can be my own light and show to others, that there is always a way to make things happen, that life can be fullfilling, that the job we have, can become one of purpose and hope, that like the sun shines every morning, we all can do it too. I know, that there are others like me, with the same motivation, I know that there are millions of people wandering if they can become aware, and fullfill their hopes and dreams. And for sure I know that is possible to do it, every day until our time of death, we can live our dreams.

Coach Félix Fuenzalida