I’d spent the last 15 years planning what I wanted my life to be like and writing bucket lists of all the things I wanted to achieve one day then I realised that had actually been my life and I needed to start living my dreams not just thinking about them.

My search for happiness took me around the world only to arrive back where I started to find it had been with me all along. After 15 years as a Human Resources professional climbing the corporate ladder I had enough, I felt empty and anything but the ‘success’ my life looked like from the outside. This lead to a change for me, I took 12 months out to write a book, travel the world, volunteer and became a yoga teacher.

I learned more about life during this time that any number of years at school or hours in leadership courses has taught me, here are 50 lessons I have learned from living life;

Before you love anyone else, first you must love yourself
Nothing is out of your reach, unless you put it there
Know which direction you want to go before you set off
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food (Socrates)
If you let go of excess baggage that you no longer need you’ll make room for what you really want
You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the last one
It’s not what you’re walking away from, it’s what you’re walking towards
Stretch yourself and grow, learn new things
Balance is not something you find, it’s something you create
Laugh everyday, even at yourself
You are not defined by your bank account, street address, job title
You make a living by what you get but you make a life by what you give
You don’t always have to have all of the answers
You do not need to have valuable stuff to feel valued
Don’t try so hard to fit in if you were born to stand out
You define your own success
The time is now be in the present moment
Sometimes you have to disconnect to reconnect
By slowing down you’ll find you have more time
The quieter you become the more you can hear
You can’t always control what happens to you but you can control how you react to it
Instead of wondering when our next vacation is we should set up a life we don’t need to escape from (Seth Goldin)
You can’t learn to surf without getting wet (John Kabat Zinn)
Live simply so that others can simply live
There’s always enough time if you spend it doing the things that matter
Don’t be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life
We are what we think, our thoughts make our world
There are no mistakes only lessons
Happiness isn’t about getting what you want it’s about loving what you have
I can be wealthy even when my purse is empty
Don’t chase your dreams, live them
Don’t change so people will like you, be yourself so the right people will love you
Everyone is fighting their own battles, always be kind
Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results (Einstein)
We should measure in value not in price
You can do anything you want but you can’t do everything you want
Do what you love and love what you do and you will be successful
That man is poor, not who has little but who hankers after more (Seneca)
You can’t change anyone but yourself
Not all those who wander are lost
You don’t have to see the whole staircase to take the first step
Security is not having things it’s handling things
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult (Seneca)
A journey of a thousand mile begins with a single step (Lao Tzu)
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action. (Benjamin Disraeli)
Everyone who got where they are started from where they were.
Live as though you’ll die tomorrow, but dream as though you’ll live forever
Some pursue happiness, others create it
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. (Robert Brault)
The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be, (Ralph Waldo Emerson)