Ali Luke, Author at Possibility Change

You Can’t Force Other People to Change – But You Can Help Them

Do you have a teen who just won’t get off his backside and do anything? Is your brother deeply in debt? Have you got a friend whose romantic life is a series of disasters which she never seems to learn from? Are your parents severely overweight? Is your partner a smoker?

The chances are, there’s someone in your life who you believe is in need of change … but they’re not making any progress. If you’ve devoted yourself to change, perhaps making great strides in your personal and professional life, then it can be frustrating to see others – friends and loved ones – remaining stagnant.

So what can you do about it?

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What Advice Would You Offer a Friend?

By Ali Luke / 9 Comments

Are you great at giving advice … but bad at taking it? Often, we’re great at seeing a solution for a friend, and we can easily spot the patterns and habits that friends fall into. It’s harder to get the same perspective on our own lives.

I know that I’ll often write blog posts of great advice which I’m not so good at following myself! Whether it’s about the importance of regular exercise, or the need for simplification, I don’t have a problem knowing what I should be doing … but it can be much harder to actually do it.

Perhaps you always feel that you are always an exception or a special case. You have no problem telling your friends that they should take time for themselves, or that they should love their body just the way it is … but somehow, you find it a lot harder to convince yourself of that.

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The Different Seasons of Creativity: Finding and Following Your Patterns

By Ali Luke / 6 Comments

Wherever we live in the world, we’re used to the pattern of the seasons. We know that some months are good for planting new seeds, others are good for picnics in the park, others involve warm soups and thick blankets. The rhythm of each year is the same, but the seasons turn from hot to cold, from wet to dry. We wouldn’t blame the weather for being unsuitable for harvesting when it’s time to sow, or for being no good for wearing our favorite shorts when kids are out building snowmen.

Our creative abilities follow seasons too – but we’re often unable or reluctant to recognize these. How often have you blamed yourself for not being creative or productive at a particular time? How often have you tried to rush on with something, only to quickly stall?

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3 Shortcuts to Faster, Easier Change

By Ali Luke / 10 Comments

It takes time to make positive changes in our lives. Often, it’s not the external circumstances which are hardest to change – but our internal state. It only takes a few seconds to hand in your resignation letter and quit your job, but it can take months of slowly building your courage (and your emergency fund) before you get to that point.

And all too often, we feel as though we’re not making any real progress at all. Perhaps we’re trying to change a habit, but keep slipping back into old ways. Maybe we’re not sure what we want to change – but we know that we’re just not getting all that we could from life. Often, change can feel like one step forwards and two steps back.

Wouldn’t it be great if you had a shortcut to change? If you could get a clear map of where you need to go – and keep up the motivation needed to get there?

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15 Simple Ways to Get a Bit More From Life

By Ali Luke / 10 Comments

Having just started a blog with the tagline “getting more from life”, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to do this myself! A lot of personal development or change advice focuses on the longer term (especially in areas like finance or career), but here I want to look at squeezing the most from the little moments and how to feel satisfied and fulfilled in the shorter term.

Some of the suggestions below are things I’m already doing, some are ones I plan to do. I’d love to hear some of yours too, so please do add to this list in the comments, if you have any favourites that I’ve missed out!

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Why You’re Staying Where You Are (& How to Move On)

By Ali Luke / 17 Comments

Have you ever been in a situation in life where you weren’t happy with where you were at – but you somehow couldn’t get up the motivation to change? I don’t mean cases where there are good reasons (such as financial ones) to hold back from change, but when there’s not really anything stopping you except yourself.

Here are a few, very very common, examples of where you might be stuck.

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When The Price Of Change Is Too High

By Ali Luke / 15 Comments

I’m a big fan of change, as you can probably guess, since I’m writing on a blog called “The Change Blog”. I’m very much in favour of growth: people finding their path through life, taking the next steps, learning, discovering and doing new and fulfilling things.

Sometimes, though, it’s necessary to hold back from change. Sometimes, you might be tempted to implement a big change in your life – but a nagging feeling warns you against it. Not all changes are appropriate for everyone, and even if a change is right for you, you may need to be cautious about implementing it at the right time.

Over-hasty change can exact a high price. At a minimum, you’ll probably end up wasting some valuable time – and quite possibly some money. In worse cases, you could lose friends, spoil relationships, make yourself ill, or even suffer a financial set-back which takes you years to recover from.

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Are You Trying to Live Up to Other People’s Values?

By Ali Luke / 26 Comments

Do you often feel guilty about things that you aren’t doing – or things that you are doing? Do you find yourself saying “I really should…” or “I know I’m supposed to…” or “I must…”? Are you trying to live up to someone else’s values?

There are so many pressures on us to conform. You might think that you have your own priorities straight (and that you’re failing to meet your own standards), but chances are, you’re being influenced by a lot of external pressures. These could come from:

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Does Your Life Feel Like Work Or Play?

By Ali Luke / 25 Comments

Have you ever had the experience of something that you once did for fun turning into work or a chore?

Maybe you loved knitting in the past, but recent requests from friends for specific items have left you feeling that turning out a new hat or jumper has become something you dread. Perhaps the website design skills which you were learning purely for enjoyment’s sake became tedious to keep up with once you started charging for your talents. I found that reading novels (previously something I did purely for fun) felt like work when I started studying English literature at university.

We all know what work feels like. It’s something that we:

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Loving The Life You Have, Not The One You Think You Want

By Ali Luke / 29 Comments

Do you love your life? Or do you sometimes feel dissatisfied, certain that you’d be a lot happier if you had a bigger home, better relationships, more money, exciting leisure activities, the respect of your peers…

So many of us keep striving for happiness, convincing ourselves that a new computer game or outfit, a pay rise or a vacation, will somehow bring us closer. Many of us equate happiness with success – and success with money. But plenty of rich people aren’t happy.

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How To Get Yourself Out of a Bad Mood

By Ali Luke / 33 Comments

We all have times when we need to get out of a bad mood, or escape from a negative frame of mind.

I know I need to make an effort to change how I’m feeling when I find myself spiraling into a black mood. I might be unreasonably angry, irritable or tearful. I might be in one of those moods which we all get from time to time – wanting to scream, or hit something (or someone). Obviously, this isn’t pleasant for me or for the people around me, and it destroys my ability to focus on doing anything productive.

So I’ve found, partly through trial-and-error, and partly through reading the advice of others, things which help me to pull myself out of a bad mood.

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