​A few years ago a friend told me during a catch up that her son, aged 4, had told her, when I grow up I want to be a giraffe. There were no recent giraffe references, nor were there any giraffes (toys or otherwise) in the room.  Her response, quite naturally, was that he couldn’t be a giraffe because this is an animal, and he is a boy – language and limitations learnt in one foul swoop. I started to wonder what his response would have been if she’d have asked him why?
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I’ve been a careers adviser and coach for over fifteen years, as well as working in communities and with private clients I work in schools and I am in the unique and, I think, privileged position to talk one to one with every single student in a school by the time they have reached 16; I talk to them about what motivates them, what they are afraid of, what they want to improve and what they want to achieve.  I have worked in areas of deprivation and areas of influence, and every young people predominately share the same feeling at one time or another…the feeling of not being confident to take the route that they have previously considered. During a workshop with high achieving post 16 students, the entire year group admitted to being scared of making the wrong choice with reasons for that fear ranging from it being the wrong university to it having a detrimental effect on their entire long-term happiness and existence. Recently a student I was working with told me I sounded like a Ted talk, so I applied for their 2019 'Reflect, Rethink, Reboot' event and was lucky enough to be short-listed and attended a workshop for speakers. This is what I am most passionate about:

When we reflect on our younger selves, we often don’t connect the dots as to who we were and who we are now but what motivated us then, our values, natural skills, interests and talents may well still be the same, or similar. I work with anyone from 15 to 50 plus; one story I love to reflect on is of a 60-year-old who wanted to change from the charity sector to being a comedian. Almost without fail a client will refer to their school days as having been the point where they changed their minds, and with it, their course in life. Having dreamt his entire young life of a creative career he took a safe route and regretted it. There’s a famous study done by a palliative nurse on the regrets of the dying, the top 5 included working too hard and choosing a life that others expected of them. Many of the people I work with already have that regret, they are not waiting until the end of their life to make changes and are looking to rethink their career path; studies show a massive 37% of people are not happy in their job in the UK, it could be worse, in the US it’s almost 60%.

When I’m working with a client, no matter their age, I often start with the question, what did you want to do when you were younger? Not only is it a way to take the pressure out of the now, but it allows us to remember a time we thought about careers more freely, and very often, the motivation behind the past ideas based on a knowledge of very few careers, can link to now. For example, a little boy who wants to be a superhero, may then want to be a police officer, may then end up being someone who gives people advice on housing. The link is a caring nature, and perhaps that boy will end up being someone’s hero, even if it is not as obvious and certainly, he may not know it.

What I want to do is change the world’s perception on what is possible… starting with us. The language we use, the opportunities we share, the actions and behaviours we present have the strongest influence on young people. The media are only just starting to change out dated adverts of women doing the child care and men fixing the house, during a recent study, girls, who, following a question on ‘tell me about yourself’ would identify with themselves via their looks and relationships, are now redefining themselves by now identifying in a similar way to boys, by sharing their skills and interests first.  Things appear to be changing, but at ground level, the biggest influencers are parents, carers, family, friends and teachers and the young people still have the same obstacles – a 15 year old I once met wanted to be a marine biologist, her face lit up when talking about science but she had already opted for accountancy and business because ‘it would be too hard to have a family as a marine biologist’, I’ve met too many students who were thoroughly depressed because they were trying so hard to become a doctor or lawyer, but academia was not their strength, the grades would simply not be met and the belief that they were not good enough was growing ever stronger, all because of unrealistic cultural expectations that could have been redirected to create an army of amazing, caring and practical people making a difference in their own way. I have met a fifteen year old boy who wanted to become a barber but was taking the academic route towards engineering because otherwise his friends would laugh at him – I’m grateful to say this one did follow his passions, but an hour with me is generally not enough to follow dreams when outside of my office is a world that says we should be doing something else. What society are we creating to put this pressure on young people, the society where we work hard to get a good job to buy a home and have a family? We need to recognise that life has changed and our aspirations may not be those of our next generation.
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I could get political here, I could talk about social mobility, about funding cuts to schools, about how creative subjects are being taken off the curriculum whilst emphasis is put on English, Maths and Science. But I won’t mention all that. We can create change and reboot as a nation, we simply need to reflect on how we communicate, with ourselves first and foremost, we can have results or reasons and every time we point fingers we have three pointing back at us. What we tell the next generation is important, ask them why and tell them they can, then find a way. Language used with young people that can install beliefs and behaviours, beliefs that can have the power to create or the power to destroy.  Let’s get creative, remember the time when our imagination was used for joy and play, rather than control and anxieties? If we, as adults, can get back to that, then we can redefine what is possible for ourselves and recreate our story and in doing so, reboot the possibilities for our future generation.

Please feel free to comment or get in touch to find out more and if you want to follow the #giraffedreams project you can find me on Instagram @holsamlife

If you would like to learn how to give yourself all you deserve and have a more positive outlook on life through coaching please do get in touch for your free consultation - http://www.holsamlifecoaching.com/contact.html
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The seasons seem to have changed here in the UK in the blink of an eye, like an overnight success we knew was coming and yet it still seems so sudden.

But I do so love the change in seasons as much as the change in the colour of the leaves, and an excuse to change the things that the summer sun didn't work it's miracles on, hence being fully booked with lovely new clients right now I suspect.

For those of you reading this for a healthy dose of motivation and inspiration I've got a big one for you, all about a recent challenge I set myself and the people I met along the way, and within all that, a reminder on how to set yourself free from your own challenges.

A few months ago I read a book that inspired me to Google 'walks in Europe'. Between me and you, I was hoping for something with a pool I could do the occasional day walk from, but what came up as number one was the 'El Camino', which runs between France and Northern Spain. I'm acutely aware that life is short, and if I am going to do something, I want to do the best I can, so I started saying out loud that this is something I might do, to get used to the idea, but also, to make myself accountable (it's harder to back out of things when you tell other people you'e doing it!). In doing this I found a fellow walker buddy, and so it was on!

Now the whole thing is 750km, and we opted to do the last 113km; it was enough for me and it felt good to get my travel shoes back on, although the back pack took a little more getting used to in the heat of Spain!

You may have read me referring to the uncomfortable comfort zone, the one many live in where their head is in the sand and they're effectively on their knees, unhappy with life but stuck in changing it because it's so familiar/comfortable, in an uncomfortable way...anyway, I don't live in that, but I do have a comfort-zone of course, and I love my comfort-zone, but I still see the value of stepping out of it and challenging myself to learn something new, and this 'holiday' was definitely that.

Doing something like this reminded me to be grateful, even for the little things; a bed to lay my head after a long day, noticing the detail in nature, taking in the smells of roasting pine forests, as well as the sight of a sun-rising on a new day. Appreciating different cultures, yet the same language in acts of kindness, and the caress of a breeze on a hot, sunny day.

Along the route we met many people, doing the same walk, often in a different way. Some for 6 days, some for 6 weeks, some carrying a day pack, some a backpack and some had the weight of the world on their shoulders. Everyone of us, although in the same boat, walked to our own beat, doing the journey how we chose, taking on what we wanted to endure, and how we handled it was also a choice. Some did it alone, lost in thoughts, I'd sometimes overhear them talk to strangers about how they were driving themselves mad in their minds; some did it in groups, old and new friends alike, gaining momentum as they gained support. Some did it for someone who couldn't, some did it for themselves, when they'd been told by doctors they wouldn't; old, young, big, small, mothers with their newborn babies, mothers who'd left their 'babies' at home for some quality alone/daddy time... we walked together, and along the way we all wished each other a 'buen camino'  - a good journey.

All comments are welcome...

It isn't often that I post about politics (as in, never)  but waking up this morning and switching on my social media channels I was hit with a wall of negativity that crumbled as if hit by a tsunami, getting me full in the face and stabbing me in the heart. 

My friends and family shared post after post, using words like, angry, sad, disappointed and afraid... and I felt it too. Why? Because they were feeling it. because we are going into the unknown. The negative energy behind their words was creating a fear and sadness in me, where in truth, my life as it is right now is just as great as it was yesterday.


The simple fact is, we don't know what will happen, we can only listen to predictions and buy into them.  Which ones we buy into is our choice, and this choice will determine our actions. Another choice we made was electing a party in the UK who was promising a referendum on the EU leave or remain campaign. We chose this....did we choose it so we could keep things as they are? I doubt it.

Whilst I myself voted remain, the percentage of the leave/remain results was about as clear as I was on my decision. I ignored the majority of the campaign from the politicians on both sides, because I felt that both sides largely tapped into the UK's fears and angers, and I honestly could see positives in both choices. 

The simple fact is that the EU and the UK was a relationship that wasn't working as it should, where the majority of people are happy about it; David Cameron spoke on behalf of the nation to try to make it work, and the EU could not compromise enough to maintain the relationship.

So I reflect on relationships that I have been in that have not worked; I have tried to resolve our differences first, but if my partner cannot meet my needs or compromise to a point that I am happy, I have walked away. Does that mean I have walked away to be completely alone in the world, no! Of course I still have a support network. Have I turned into a quivering mess, no! I choose to take each relationship as feedback, not just on them, but on myself. I could worry about who or what is going to be affected, such as my financial situation or my loved ones, I could imagine myself alone and sad,  but I don't, I focus on what positives are likely to happen in the future as a result. I take my learnings, I say goodbye with love and respect, and I even maintain a sporadic contact that offers mutual support. My hope is that the UK can do the same, and certainly, as individuals, we can choose to find the positives in this change and be fundamental in making sure it is managed well.

The simple fact is, over half of the UK were unhappy, and as negativity is four times stronger than positivity, their unhappiness with the situation means that the situation cannot work for anyone in the long term. This result is not just about your relationship with the EU, but your relationship with each other. 

This is an opportunity for us to get things right; to learn and to do things better.

How many people stick with what they know because it feels safe? The uncomfortable comfort-zone. Be honest, have you ever stuck in a relationship you are not completely happy in? What about a job you don't like? And when you finally leave, which is inevitable, you'll wish you'd done it years before.

I am proud to be British and brave as we move forward together and change with the times. 

​What is NLP? What does it even stand for? It’s a catchy, roll off the tongue phase hey? NOT!!!
 
Let’s not focus on what it stands for or even what it means, let me share with you what it can do, that to me is the most important thing when I am working with clients around the globe and teaching others to become Ultimate Coaches.
 
With my understanding of the NLP processes, which is basically a step by step, follow the dots on how to achieve a better life kinda thing. Let me give you an example, I was recently working with a seven-year-old who is still wetting the bed, I followed the steps and after one 60-minute session, the child is dry and building in confidence. This has nothing to do with me really, it is the study of how others have over come the same problem and this is then extracted and popped into a handy follow the steps process. Sure you need to have an understanding of what is going on in the client’s neurology, you need to know how to get the client to relax with you, to play full out, to be themselves.
 
NLP is not magic, it is not some mystical tree hugging full moon stuff, it is easy and it just works. Whether we are helping a client to over come a fear, phobia, habit, addition, self sabotage, anxiety, depression and the list goes on, basically anytime a human being is doing something inside their mind that is unhelpful then NLP can generally, used well, help.
 
To the client it does seem like magic, they will say things like “If I had known it would be so simple then I would have come to see you years ago.” Sometimes they feel you have done something to them, but alas no, they have made the changes themselves, all you did was hold the remote control and hit the right buttons.
 
With NLP you can change your life, shape it and tweak it until you are living your ultimate life, you can also help others change theirs. I have been in personal development for 30 years and started my love affair with NLP in 2005, I felt like I had been given the key to the treasure chest, the ONE set of tools that can make real changes that last.
 
I set up my own company Your Life Live It in 2005 and encouraged other coaches to join me, get NLP’d and really help, not just thinking we are helping, but really changing lives one at a time. I now license my brand and help new coaches to get working as soon as possible, we supply a business in a box and do some hand holding. We now have 20 Coaches world wide and we are growing, many coaches come on our Ultimate Coaching course to get the real deal, to have the key to that treasure chest of change. Simple steps of excellence I like to call the real gig, most others might call it NLP.

Dr. Amanda Mortimer

International Training Company, Your Life Live It is bringing 'The Ultimate Coach Course' to the UK and Holsam Life Coaching are lucky to be hosting it in Bristol. This is a unique, one-off opportunity to learn NLP and get three accredited certificates in NLP, Time Line Therapy and Coaching, and it is the best training I have experienced. Find out more and secure your place now. Simply go to the Ultimate Coach Course page and get in touch. Action takers discounts are available until end June!

Sam Holman is a qualified career adviser and NLP Master coach who is experienced in working with others to achieve life changes beyond limitations. If you are ready to get focused on the positive in your life so that you can move forward easily in 2016 and achieve your goals sign up for the free webinar Monday 14th December at 8pm  for you to get clear on what you want and how you can get it. Sign up HERE now to secure your place.

Are you living your life in the amazing? Are you riding the waves...or drowning in them?

Living life in the amazing is whatever that means for you, but for some this means envying the ones who have the life you think is not possible for you, this is why the personal breakthrough is all about breaking out of old patterns and beliefs to make room for who you are truly are and were born to be.

Working in schools I have seen how easy it is to become 'uniformed' - literally! I thought being grown up was all about wearing office clothes, and earning a certain amount of money to own a certain amount of things, and so I agree when some young people talk about their frustrations about being encouraged to find out who they are, yet the (sometimes) illogical rules can restrict them from their own journey of self-discovery and expression.

When I was growing up I couldn't wait to be seen as 'grown up' - yet now I do all I can to stay young, and I'm not talking hair dye and anti-wrinkle cream! Mentally being youthful and experiencing play is one of the most important ways to achieve balance, doing what you love and loving what you do, being creative, having fun, being curious and experimenting with ideas, stepping out of the comfort-zone, understanding that a mistake isn't the end of the world but a beginning of a new chapter with a new learning....

....it is this that takes me travelling; it literally takes me out of the comfort-zone that, in our world full of convenience and luxury, can be so easy to forget that we are even in. One of my biggest dreams was to have a business where I was not only doing something I was passionate about, helping others in positive change, but one that allowed me to include my personal loves, such as writing and travelling. I focused on the image of working abroad but whilst away this year I also continued to work with three of my amazing clients, all at different places in their journey, and realised then that I literally have achieved my dream. In these moments it's so important to make time to step back from your path on occasion and realise you have achieved exactly what you wanted...even when it may be that you got exactly what you said you didn't want (remembering that the unconscious mind doesn't do well with negative instruction)! It's all there for us to see how to move forward, be that in doing things differently, or keep doing the same if it's working for you! Remember the be, do, have principle - start with the positive thoughts and emotions. 

My chosen destination this year was Morocco, a beautiful place, so rich in culture, and after a short escape to the mountains I went to the coast, where I decided to take a surf lesson... and this is where I met a lovely surf instructor (too beautiful to really be teaching anyone who is clearly going to spend too much time looking like a drowned rat and needs to focus on the learning, but an amazing teacher all the same).

Surfing waves that are coming at you whether or not you are ready is a challenge, yet one we all need to learn how to handle successfully at some point in life...so it was this in mind that I listened to the instructor's advice to me as I scrambled onto my board and paddled like a crazy, struggling to stand up and fall off with grace - consciously incompetent. 

The rules of surfing

- Trust yourself
- Feel the waves and believe you can ride them
- Focus on what you want and where you are going....just follow your heart
- Stop thinking so much and let go
- Let yourself connect to nature
- Allow yourself to be in the moment
- Smile

In the end I tried to drown out the instructions whilst I focused on doing all of these things, but what magical, wonderful lessons within a lesson. NLP is essentially a study of excellence, and these wise words can be applied to anything we want to achieve...just think back to a time that you were successful, how did you do that, how did you feel, what were you thinking...I'll bet you had belief and focus at some level!

The instructor told me of a group of girls who had come to surf, but one girl stood back. When he asked her if she was joining the group she gestured towards her body, which she believed overweight, and joked 'do I look like a surfer?' In that moment my surf instructor instructed her into the water and within two hours she was riding a wave and crying with pride. Our beliefs are the only thing that limit our ability to reach our full potential, and all we need to do is step forward, out of that uncomfortable comfort-zone of negative self-talk, focus on what we want, and embrace the feelings of pride and happiness we can get from achieving something we once believed we couldn't. Can you imagine if she hadn't? She would never have known that feeling, the feeling of living life in the amazing.

The surf instructor wasn't the only person I met living their passion in Morocco. One man told me he had chosen a 'profession' to be a chef, but he found it hard and stressful...yet he carried on for years believing this was what work was supposed to be like. He told me 'one day I was introduced to horses by a friend, now I spend every day, riding on the beach with tourists, meeting new people and feeling free. I may only be 28 but I know you need to have passion in life, whatever age you are.' When you allow yourself to live in the moment the future can take care of itself.

Of course I'm not saying ditch the forward planning, but it really all depends on your priorities and values - what is important to you to have, who is it important for you to be? Take a step back now and work out what is propelling you forward; are you moving towards something for you, and what is the purpose of having it, what is your deeper why...

You can learn to stand alone and ride the challenging waves, but isn't it better to have support, to have some guidance on how to do it well, and in a way that won't tire you out so quickly, to learn new more positive habits that make it easier to get to where you are going much sooner, whilst unlearning old behaviours that, in the past, meant you kept falling off every time a wave hits (seriously, the Surfin USA Teen Wolf moves did me no favours). My surf lesson was the best two hours of my travels, not only because I got to ride the waves, but because I got a refresher in life's lessons, which incidentally, are all around us, when you are open to paying attention. There is only ever feedback after all.

If you are ready to live life in the amazing remember that there is a wait-list for the next online coaching programme (join it here). This will be the last one of the year and will allow you to learn some powerful tools and techniques to access resources you already have, you will connect with other like-minded people whilst you re-connect with yourself and move toward an even more amazing 2016. Get on the wait-list to hear about the early-bird discount here first.

Alternatively, if you want to have more tailored sessions that include an alternative form of coaching therapy to remove what has held you back in the past so that you can really break-free and get what you want with my one to one support simply contact me TODAY (sorry, no surf lessons are included, I'm not that good....yet!)

Be brave, be beautiful...comments are welcome:

But to really shake off these 'mind viruses' you also need a clear focus, absolute belief, and a whole dose of positive emotions! Our unconscious minds take everything personally after all.

A recent study by 'Escape the City' showed that: 

"More than 60% of 1,000 working professionals said they didn’t make an active choice when deciding their current career path, and that they chose it because they couldn’t see any alternative.

Around 40% of people wanted to leave their jobs because they were concerned that they would regret spending their career in that industry, and 8% admitted that they had felt pressured by parents, friends or teachers to choose that career path.

The survey has highlighted the clear need for better careers advice to improve job satisfaction and help people to reach their potential. 

The survey also found that: 

• 50% would most like to pursue entrepreneurial ambitions
• 14% would like to take time off to go travelling
• 29% would like to work for an organisation aligned with their values"

So where, if anywhere do you fit into this...these surveys are all very well, but I have worked with clients who felt unfulfilled and unaligned at work and once they'd removed their own limitations, personal beliefs, and the frustrations and depressions connected to this, the work they desperately wanted to escape from suddenly offered the opportunity they craved and they began to hear the validation externally when giving themselves permission (i.e doing it for themselves) internally. In other words, once we remove our own beliefs and negative emotions aka the unconscious things that block our path, we are free to move forward and notice possibilities that were always there.

Wayne Dyer, self help author, passed away recently. He was famous for quotes such as:

 - If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
- How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
- Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.
- When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.
- You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.
- Conflict cannot survive without your participation.
- When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the  way.
- You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with.
- The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.
- Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.

(Love these!!!)

As I read up on his life I was drawn into a video he had published, a story about a man's quest to find his father so that he could confront him...anger had built up over the years focused on the man he barely knew, but the symptoms came out on his family, his relationships at work, and importantly, on his own health. At the end of the story he found that his father was no longer living, and he had a sudden 'aha' moment that allowed him to let go of all that was no longer serving him. The anger that once helped him to not feel the pain, to not miss and love his father,dissipated, and he shared his feelings as follows....

"Nobody ever died from a snake bite, what kills you is not the bite but the venom, the poison that stays with you and stays with you long after the bite. The venom stays with you unless you figure out a way to release it and get it out of your system. Or better yet, if we can actually figure out a way to assimilate, to transmute what was once toxic so that the toxin becomes more like medicine...this is a primitive way of thinking but is very evolved, to look at what has caused you the most pain and turn them into your most greatest teachers. This is what we are supposed to do, for the world around us, starting with ourselves." 

So as we head into autumn, and the changes that this season will bring, think about this - when you focus on bad things, you are going to feel bad. Simples! If you consider autumn to connect to the dark depths of winter that you are already dreading, you will feel bad now, if you worry that bad things will happen, you will feel anxious now, and if you think about quitting your job with no safety net, you will feel fear now, if you allow the thoughts of past loves lost to plague you, you will feel hurt now....unless you consider what you learn from those past times and allow yourself to feel love, and gratitude for them being your greatest teachers, you will bounce back to exactly what you don't want.

By reading this article all the way down to here you have already decided to do things differently, so ask yourself, what do you need to do today to get what you really want?

Author note: Sam Holman is a qualified careers adviser and Master NLP Coach. If the answer to the last question is that you are ready to get some support and you think that learning the tools to unlearn old beliefs is for you then sign up for her next online course today or contact her for your own personal breakthrough. The 'Braveheart DIRECT' Brave Bootcamp has a distinct flavour on changes within your career, although can be applied to any area of your life if you are specific about what you want to achieve and have found that you are holding yourself back. With a big pinch of inspiration, some guaranteed 'aha' moments, and a mix of award winning tools, all you need is the motivation to end 2015 on a high and start 2016 with clarity and confidence and a desire for positive change.

Last week my beloved yellow car broke down, yes, only four months in. But this is not a tale of woe, quite the opposite, this is about trusting ourselves by being able to listen to our intuition.

I am very conscious of my unconscious mind and I have spent a lot of time trying to understand the science behind the woo woo (as it can often be seen by those outside the world of personal development), but one day it just seemed to click. It's difficult to explain what exactly clicked, but anyone who has experienced a personal breakthrough with me will know what I am talking about...things just made sense, and I didn't have to over-think any more, because things just 'were'. Perhaps we can simply call it trust and acceptance, but it's an amazing head space to be in, especially if you find you are a worrier, experience overwhelm or anxiety, or find the same negative thoughts keep going round and round your head or the same problems keep arising. I am wondering if you are reading this knowing that you would like to experience a deeper sense of calm, clarity and confidence?

Einstein once said that 'the Intuitive Mind is a sacred gift and the Rational Mind is a faithful servant'. Isn't it funny how we seem to have created a society that worships the servant and dismisses the gift, starting with how we teach our children in school (an area I started in and am still hugely involved with and passionate about). Creativity often takes a back seat as English, Maths and Science become the most important subjects in the latter years of schooling, and academia becomes "the best way" to learn.

It's important that we can learn to trust each niggle and investigate any aches, to be able to live the most healthy and Holsam amazing lives that we deserve. There's so much going on in our worlds, there's so much noise, we need to sit down and listen, and work the intuition muscle in the same way as you would prepare for a marathon. We stretch, we warm up and we work the muscles that we need to help us on our journey. Your intuition is one of them.

Two minutes before my car broke down I had a thought about my car breaking down, the thought was attached to an important decision I was making at the time. There had been no sign that my car might break down, but as a pondered on the coincidence, or the possibility that this was a 'thoughts become things' moment, I realised that this was actually a moment where I had needed to trust my intuition.

With the 40 billion bits of information that come to us per second, somewhere in there I picked up on the cars problem with a thought that I had quickly (and rationally) filed under 'random'. But there is no such thing...our unconscious thoughts are always there to give us information.

How often have you had a thought before something happened? A thought of a friend before the phone rings and he or she is there? A thought of a potential accident before actually having it? A niggle that a new beau is wrong for us, before finding out years later that we were right? Can you really keep putting this down to coincidence?

Learning to listen to ourselves and trust ourselves is an amazing, empowering feeling... even when the car does break down!  My car was easily fixed but the situation helped me to make the decision I had been mulling over before it had happened and strengthened my relationship with my unconscious mind, because I listened and acknowledged it.

So if you have a decision to make, if you are feeling unsure, ask yourself the question and listen to the first thought that pops into your mind. Are you in the right job? With the right person? Surrounding yourself with the right people? Are you living the life you truly deserve, the one you want? Could you do more to achieve it? Are you being honest and true to you, or are you doing what you feel you should?

I read an article over the weekend about the biggest mistakes people make when choosing a life partner which discusses how society would prefer us to choose unhappy marriages over being single later in life . It reads,"In our world, the major rule is to get married before you’re too old—and “too old” varies from 25 – 35, depending on where you live. The rule should be “whatever you do, don’t marry the wrong person,” but society frowns much more upon a 37-year-old single person than it does an unhappily married 37-year-old with two children. It makes no sense—the former is one step away from a happy marriage, while the latter must either settle for permanent unhappiness or endure a messy divorce just to catch up to where the single person is". How often have you stayed with someone you shouldn't have, and ignored that voice of your intuition in relationships?

Further, this article about career happiness  discusses the need to play to our strengths in our jobs, yet I have worked with many fifteen year olds who, even with my expert advice and guidance, are not ready to listen and trust their intuition, instead preferring to take the well worn path of the adults before them, making mistakes, disliking their jobs (or , indeed, their partners) and wishing they had chosen a different path.

The voice of our intuition, a voice we can trust as a gift that will serve and protect us if we let it, is simply being drowned out by fear, our own and others, and a whole heap of other bits of information telling us what we should and shouldn't do...more importantly, who we should and shouldn't be.

So let my yellow car be a lesson to us all, listen to that small voice, pay attention to your thoughts and be curious to ask - what do I really need to understand that, if I were to get it, would allow the current problem I have to totally disappear?

Just trust your first thought.

Your comments are welcome, when did you trust your intuition for a positive result?