What are your Daring Desires?

It’s very easy to get stuck in a familiar, safe rut in life – and forget some of the big (and small) goals and desires we have. But what would happen if you dared to start acting on yours?

Every week, our Sunday blogger Katie Phillips shares advice and her experiences on living a daring and mighty life. And this week, she shares her pursuit of ticking off the small and large goals on her personal life bucket list – her Daring Desires.

It’s time for a daring change

This week I am launching a challenge to myself and to you. I want to begin to think differently, to shake things up a little and consider, ‘What are those things that I have always wanted to do?’

Some people call it a bucket-list or a bag-list but I’m going to call it my List of Daring Desires.

‘To Dare Mighty Things’ comes from a Theodore Roosevelt quotation and has always been a part of my life – it was stuck to my dad’s office wall as I grew up. And over the years, I have used that mantra to help me to be Daring and Mighty in life in all kinds of ways:

  • I chose adventure.
  • I didn’t always follow the crowd.
  • I went to a different school from my friends.
  • I moved countries.
  • I never lasted long in a ‘permanent’ job, instead choosing to freelance and travel.

However, eventually my daring and mighty journey evolved into something much bigger and deeper. It involved daring to love myself in order to live a truly mighty life.

How I stopped being a fraud

Although my adventurous travels, interesting boyfriends and successful career in events management was nearly always something to write home about, it was more about keeping up appearances rather than being an authentic reflection of what I was really about.

On the back of a decade-long personal and spiritual development journey, I now feel authentic in teaching and mentoring women around their self-worth and self-knowing.

I feel I am making a real contribution to others in teaching self-love, and it lights me up and feels right. I genuinely, finally, feel I have found my purpose.

So now we come to the present and I am continuing my inward journey – my soul-searching if you like – and I feel compelled to consider how I can make my life even more daring. Even more mighty. An even greater authentic expression of my truth.

Because if I have learned one thing, it’s that life is much easier when we are living our truth.

What can you do to be more daring?

So, I have recently been asking myself, what it is that I’ve always wanted to do – things that feel like a bit of a stretch, perhaps a bit daunting or at least a step away from the mundane and everyday. How could I be more ‘me’? How can I walk my talk even more? How can I express myself better? Be more creative? Feel more feminine? Experience more adventure? Contribute more?

We are lucky to now live in a society that (in many ways) gives us ladies the permission to achieve what we set out to do, but do we give that permission to ourselves?

What about you? What is is that you have always wanted to achieve but been too afraid to go for? The goals on your list don’t have to set the world on fire. You don’t have to be posting selfies as you take a skydiver’s leap from 20,000 feet – unless that is your bag!

In truth, the daring thing about your desires might actually be the fact that you are allowing yourself to express them. Your list might involve small things like walking a different way to work, calling an old friend you haven’t spoken to for a while, opening a holiday savings account, giving yourself a lunch-break for a change, or choosing to start your day with a cup of hot water and lemon rather than a caffeine hit.

How I starting acting on my own Daring Desires

Although I am still compiling my own list of Daring Desires, recently I began consciously acting upon a few ideas. For example, I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like if I had sheep mow my lawn. Admittedly this was easy to achieve given my rural locale – I simply had to ask my neighbours if I could borrow a few sheep!

My son and I had such fun out there with the sheep, being headbutted and getting (perhaps a little too) up-close and personal with them. These creatures were not afraid of anything and they ate everything EXCEPT the lawn – the catflap, the plants, the pathway lighting… Anyway, my son and I got huge enjoyment giggling, laughing and taking videos. We had fun and ticked off a Daring Desire!

Another thing I’ve always wanted to do was see a cat rescue centre. I adore cats and have driven past the Cat Protection Society many times, always meaning to in and find out what they are about, why they are there and what they do.

Well, I finally did it this week and my son and I had a lovely time meeting the rescue moggies and learning all about the society. I was in my element. Another Daring Desire, ticked!

Last week in LA I dared to take myself out for a drink, on my own! I found myself in the rather swanky roof-top bar of the Shangri-La overlooking Santa Monica beach and had no trouble making friends. It was such a riot and I felt so liberated, so feminine, so gregarious and oh so ‘me’. Daring Desire, ticked!

A few weeks ago I took my son to test-drive a BMW Z4 – my dream car. I wanted to experience how it would feel to own a car like that because it features on my vision board. Feeling the leather seat cradle my bum and the electricity shoot up my arms as I placed my hands on the steering wheel simply lit me up. I felt so excited, extravagant, luxurious and again, in my element. Daring Desire, ticked!

Are you ready to start working on your daring desires?

So you see, it’s actually quite easy (not to mention fun!). Injecting some new experiences that make you feel more ‘you’ is liberating. As I said, I’m working on my List of Daring Desires. Are you?  Will you give yourself permission to be more ‘you’? I would love to hear what you have planned!

Katie Phillips is the founder of Daring & Mighty, an organisation committed to sharing the importance of having a healthy, loving and conscious relationship with yourself.