Igniting your spark is about realising your innermost potential. It is the taproot from which all your other talents and skills grow. It is what feeds your energy. It is the precise clarity with which we see ourselves as part of the puzzle, the solution and what makes things function.
This journey isn’t without its own set of challenges. It isn’t without awareness facing the realities of our world. It isn’t without realising that everything we thought we knew could drastically change or be wrong. It isn’t without considering a longer road lays ahead to unlearning, relearning and adapting to something relatively or entirely new. Rather the pursuit of igniting one’s spark is realised through the fearless push of all that lacks. Through this defiance and intentional focus to ”see the good” and ”challenge ourselves” do we not only find our spark but are we able to ignite it. 2020 without a doubt gave us a lot of significant unknowns, fears and what lacks.
Today, as we assert ourselves, we have an opportunity to use the hard lessons of 2020 to ignite a brighter future. Here are a few I’ve personally found useful in turning the chapter.
1. DO NOT DISMISS 2020. IT DID HAPPEN.
As we look to the future, for many 2021 is a silver lining, a sort of new beginning. Still, the reality is, it is a continuation of events set into motion that we continue to battle with today. The failure to acknowledge what we have endured and look at ourselves through a sharper focus will be our biggest missed opportunity to craft new hope.
2. STOP DOWNPLAYING THE MOMENT. FEEL IT.
It took courage to continue along a path that required much stepping out of oneself in constant discovery and rediscovery of ‘what to do next.’ These are not the moments you forget or simply wash away. These are the moments to stare directly into and own as your power of self. To realise reactions, what worked, what didn’t and how we still in the face of discomfort can strive to be better. Seek-out those moments, feel them and let it be your guiding force to a remarkable and inspiring everyday life.
3. EMBRACE THE CHANGE AND CHALLENGE
The reflection of 2020 is unlike any other year of our time, and one that has, without a doubt, changed how we will forever look at the dawn of a new year. The meaning behind how we live and what we live for echos with new meaning. Not only does this affect how we do business or must change, adapt and challenge our standards but significantly on matters of our health, wellness, how we care, treat others, love, inspire and coexist at large. There isn’t a single area of our lives, ambitions, hopes, dreams and becoming that has not been affected. Embracing the change enough to learn more about it opens up our mind to step up in the face of the challenge.
4. BE FEARLESS WITH YOUR OUTLOOK
I’ve thought of many words that could possibly be fitting to what drives new motivations and all but one stood firmly within my consciousness— this word being, fearless. It is not without sensitivity or awareness to the present, past and future but serves as a stark affirmation of the courage and resilience taken to overcome the challenges faced over the last months. It is the affirmative letter that reiterates ‘yes you can do this’ because ‘you have been doing it’ and ‘yes, you did pick up the pieces when you could feel it all slipping away, and ‘yes you did stand even when it was scary.’
5. CONTINUE THE CONVERSATIONS
For years we have battled the right way and the wrong way, the right time and the best context to have uncomfortable conversations. Most of the time, we have simply ignored them if it wasn’t our burden to bear. Having these conversations takes us out of a particular belief system, ways of doing and thinking and cultures of silence or looking the other way. As we have learned over 2020, our voice even though protectively masked has never been more powerful and needed in challenging the norms in pursuit of needed change. To fuel a greater sense of hopefulness that keeps many trapped within anxiety, loneliness and uncertainty.
6. BE KIND. IGNITE TOGETHERNESS
This is an area I genuinely believe we have all in one way or another found deeper meaning after the severe impacts of 2020. Everyone’s been affected in some way or another, some much more than others. Recognising this and our role as we continue to move forward is part of the puzzle. It is part of our responsibility as a neighbour, a friend, a colleague and a citizen. How well we move forward, is largely dependent, on how well we come together to support each other to heal.
-”To igniting the little everyday sparks that keep us going!”