how fear holds us back from our future 🤔

S T O R Y

I recently got to do a really exciting and rewarding piece of work. I took my Young Adult Purpose Pursuit course on the road, and delivered it to a group of incredible young people at Nottingham College. They all were facing significant challenges that could get in the way of their progress, but had been selected by their teachers as having incredible potential. 

It was quite intimidating to begin with. I know I used to be a teacher, but it was a while ago, and they weren’t 17. Would they listen? Would they like the course? Would they like me?

Turns out we travelled a long way over two days. They grew, and I grew, too. There was on particularly stand out session that taught me a great deal. 

As part of the purpose pursuit (young adult version or adult version) there is a module called ‘The Lighthouse’ where we begin to imagine what our future might look like. 

We use a pretty challenging method called the odyssey plan where we imagine different life plans depending on different choices and opportunities. I won’t go into the details here, but I was a bit worried about this lesson as I know the people I usually work with can find this particular lesson really difficult. They just don’t know how to go about doing it. 

But that wasn’t my experience with the students. They surprised me with how they approached it, and how they completed it...

L E A R N I N G

- Young people are much more able to dream, hope and imagine

- As we get older, we make sense of our hopes and downplay our dreams

- It’s easy to filter and sanitise what we really want from life

- It feels scary and costly for adults to say what they really want 

A C T I O N 

- Take some time to think about what you used to dream about when you were younger

- If there are some young people in your life, ask them what they would do with their life if other people’ opinions, status and money didn’t matter

- Then ask yourself the same question

The future is still out there. There might be more to lose, there might not be, either. There might be a whole lot more to gain. What are you most frightened of? Never doing the things you wanted to, or failing at them when you actually gave them a go?

There’s still a dreamer inside of you. Have a listen out for them today.

Love, Hannah x

P.S It’s exam results time of year, and so I know the future is on the minds of many of our young people. If you know someone who would benefit from the Young Adult version of the course, you’ll find it here. Have a 10% off discount code - PURPOSE10 on me.