New Book Featuring Success Teachers including Jack Canfield, Dr Wayne Dyer, Neale Donald Walsch, Mark Victor Hansen and Brian Tracy

Packed with inspirational stories, tips and strategies on how to create more abundance in your life…my chapter below….

Have you been searching for ways to live a truly abundant life? Do you want more happiness, wealth, good health and joy? Are you stuck in your journey trying to find the tools to assist you? 

In this book you will learn some of the best kept secrets on how to enrich your life beyond your wildest dreams from some of the greatest international leaders and teachers in today’s world – including Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Brian Tracy, Dr Wayne Dyer and Neale Donald Walsch. 

You can find out more information about the book from this Book Review post

 

You can also read more about the chapters and buy the book here => www.AbundantEntrepreneurs.com 

I am also featured in the book, and I am sharing my chapter with you here…..

Discovering Life in all its Fulness – Joanna Penn

Kneeling on the shower floor, I let the hot water rain down on me as I retched into the drain. My head pounded with yet another hangover from the excesses of the night before… and I couldn’t remember how I got home. I work long hours at a highly stressful job, commute for two hours a day, and use the bar every evening for therapy. I take caffeine tablets on the train to work, and have regular panic attacks on the Underground. I am overweight; miserable at work, and in my private life and my drinking has become an increasing problem. I am having memory blanks and I self-medicate with sugar and painkillers. This is the third working day in a row I am being sick before 7am.

That was my life – and the day I decided to make a change. I felt disgusted with myself for becoming this unhappy person who just worked too hard and drank too much. I felt that I was just existing and not living a life I wanted. I was burnt out and empty physically, emotionally and spiritually. I did not recognize myself anymore. This was not “life in all its fullness.”

I needed to make a change, but it was hard because I had made a life that centered on my job. My salary paid the bills and I didn’t have any money saved. My friends consisted of co-workers and I didn’t know what else I would do for a job. I was desperate to quit my job and move on, but I just didn’t know how to do it. I had tried to make changes before, but had always stayed where I was. But this time was different. I had hit rock bottom.

I learned then that until you look and analyze your life, you can’t change your behavior. There needs to be a compelling reason to change. You also need to acknowledge why you want to change before you are ready to act. Once you are sure about what you want, you can change your behavior through action and persistence.

It took nine more months, but I did resign my London city job and head for the Australian Outback. I needed space and silence to heal myself and become well again. I wanted to feel alive – to be closer to nature and be away from the city. By then I had some money saved and just thought I would see what happened.

I arrived in Perth, Western Australia and spent the first week repeating all the behaviors I had lived in London, and crying on the phone from homesickness. Then I learned to scuba dive and I discovered a different world.

The experience of learning to dive took me out of my comfort zone and into nature in its most elemental form. I had to learn to breathe again, to move differently, to use my body and relax. I was truly out of my element, but underwater was an abundance of life I had never experienced before.

I travelled for three months through Western Australia, scuba diving on the coast and driving through the desert and bush. I got back to the important basics in life and met people who lived a totally different life to the big city.

One day hiking with a group of fellow travelers, I found myself alone in the bush at the top of a waterfall. The area is sacred to the Aboriginal people and I could feel the spiritual energy of the rushing waters. I looked out across the gum trees and red earth and felt an incredible peace. I finally felt this was me – that I had shed the fake person I had become in the city. I built a little pile of rocks at the top of the waterfall and poured water from my bottle over it. Fresh water is precious in the outback and I felt it was the most important thing that I could offer right then. As I poured the water out, I said thank you to the Universe for the experience and the abundance of nature that I was part of, and for how my life would change. That night we made camp at a remote outback sheep station. There was a very basic shower in a tin shack, but after four days away I was covered in red outback dust and grateful that there was a shower, no matter how rudimentary it was. As I stood under the hot water, I thought, “This is how a shower should really feel.” I was no longer retching and full of despair. Instead I was invigorated and alive. I washed myself clean and laughed at how far I had come.

Eventually I was ready to come back to the city and start my career again. I realized that it was not the city that was the problem. It was not my job, my boss, or the industry I worked in. The problem was the way I dealt with all of these things, the way I had shaped my life around my job and had let other priorities slide. I had neglected my body, my spirit and emotional life, and devoted all my energy into work for someone else. You get what you focus on and I got a life filled only with work. 

During my time in the outback, I had thought about how I wanted to live my life and what I wanted to do for work. I realized I wanted to contribute to society and make a difference in people’s lives, and wanted to feel useful plus have a fulfilling career. Most people feel the same way. They want to work – just not at jobs that are soul-destroying. The problem comes when the job they work at solely for the paycheck doesn’t fit with who they are as people and doesn’t offer growth, challenge and development.

We want to love what we do every day, but many people detest their jobs and don’t know how to change the situation. So often people are held back by a limited view of their capabilities and the possibilities of what work they can do. They are trapped, as I was, by money, responsibilities, expectations, and by not knowing what to do instead. My experience showed me that you can change your life for the better.

When I came back to the city, I decided to shape my future career and aim for what I wanted to achieve with my life. It has been a zigzag path, but I am now a freelance consultant and author, helping other people to change their working lives. I have used my own journey to develop paths for others. 

I know you have the power to change your work situation and in doing so, improve your whole life. The most important thing is to take responsibility for your life, right now, and take the first steps in a new direction. Whether this is a small change, or a big step into a life-changing decision, start now because life is too short to not enjoy what you do!

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Joanna Penn is an international consultant and the author of “How To Enjoy Your Job.” This powerful book is targeted to your specific work problems so you can start making changes tomorrow. It contains easy to use visual diagrams, strategies, tips, questions and inspiration to change your job and your life! For your Free e-workbook, go to www.HowToEnjoyYourJob.com or email Joanna at info@HowToEnjoyYourJob.com