If there’s one thing we’ve learned from running Authentic Lives workshops all around the world, it’s this: you have to translate insight into action. What exactly does this mean? Well, after nearly ten years of running the workshop, in over fifteen countries, we’ve found that there are two kinds of people: those who discover and do, and those who discover but do not act on what they have discovered.
Both sets of people report that they loved the workshop – “I had such a great time, and learned so much about myself! Those were two of the best days of my life!” But after that initial burst of enthusiasm, the responses vary wildly. Some say, “I’m in exactly the same place as I was when I did the workshop, and that was nearly two years ago…” Others will excitedly tell us, “It’s incredible! I’ve seen all of the dreams I wrote down on the course come to life – in fact, I now need to set new goals, so I think I need to come on another workshop! When’s the next one?!”
At Authentic Lives, we believe that each individual is unique, beautiful, and full of potential. When participants come on the workshop and discover this for themselves, they are amazed – and rightly so. We often hear that, after going on an AL, people realise that they are valuable and worthy of love. Others receive deep healing from the wounds of the past, and others still realise, for the first time, that it’s OK to dream about the future.
Sadly, it is possible to lose sight of all these wonderful insights if you don’t do anything with them. All birds have wings, but they won’t start flying until they start flapping. Transformation – taking flight – happens in the following way:
- You gain an insight;
- You reflect on what it means for your life;
- You make a decision to act on the insight;
- You start implementing this action in your life; and
- The insight impacts your life in a meaningful way, and might even lead you onto new insights!
So, whether you’re reading this blog post as someone as a previous AL participant, or you’ve never heard of AL, the question is: when you discover something new about yourself, what will you do about it?