One day when I was strolling around PMQ (Police Married Quarters where the site has been revitalized as home to Creat-preneurs since 2009), I came across a store with lots of creative art on ocean creatures. Apart from ocean life, it also houses artworks by different artists around the theme of Environmental Conservation. The founder shared the concept of the store: Transform “Awareness” into “Knowledge” and finally into “Cherish”. This is a simple yet fantastic way to capture what life should be:

“Beware of our bodies, the messages from our bodies; Learn what they are telling us; Acquire the wisdom of the interconnecting magical body; and Cherish the beauty of the magical interconnection and Nourish our bodies physically and mentally”. Through this Awareness-Knowledge-Cherish transformation, you discover your values and beliefs; you learn how emotional intelligence acts for and against you; and you live your life fully with flourished relationships.

Through your upbringing, your experiences in life, there may be moments that you hide behind the masks of some sort. The masks that earn us some way out or desired outcomes. You may have behaved in a way that may not be true to yourself. In other words, behaviors that may not be in line with your values. Your behaviors are what you showed to the outside world, the tip of your iceberg. Underneath the iceberg is your true self, a magnificent and radiating self that nobody has access to – your values and beliefs.

For example, coachees who value creativity in life have been working on various creative projects in their limited spare time outside the regular day job. Most of them felt powerless – the stressful day job has taken away their time and energy for creativity, yet they felt their options had been limited. “Not good enough”, “not financially viable”,  and “not sustainable” are some of the typical thoughts. The younger generation thought that they have time, so there is not any rush. The middle-aged believed that they have too little time, so there is not any support or incentive. Either way, the common theme of belief is creative work may not be practical, creativity and career are contradictory, so they continue with their day job while keeping creativity alive with minimal effort. Different people hold different beliefs based on their upbringing, experience and cultural and social background.

To cherish your life may require a new understanding of your values ​​and beliefs. The first step is to be aware of your values. And understand how your belief system is shaping you – with limiting or enabling beliefs. And the correlation between the values and beliefs, and beliefs and behavior, in particular limiting beliefs. You can consider limiting beliefs as assumptions. Children have fewer assumptions than adults, and they are exploratory when they learn and play. They asked you questions that can surprise you from time to time. Their skies are unlimited!

What if your skies also become limitless? That happens when you have lots of resource pools to support your pursuit of goal(s). Becoming aware of your values, your beliefs and their interconnection; Build resource pools to help you to unlock the power of your values and strengths; Your action plan will naturally shift to align with the goal(s). They no longer remain locked and constrained. You are free to experience the life you create that is true to yourself!