Have you ever wondered how you keep moving forward in life and overcoming your obstacles despite not knowing the answers?

Yesterday I had an enjoyable workout session at the beach with my friend Sarah.

Like me, she’s also a coach, and has been impacting many lives in her own right.

We both share the same joy and fulfilment in having the freedom to do what we love.

But unlike me, she’s boxed in the world of corporate banking, where she earns an income to do two things: support her family and fund her passion for coaching.

Despite feeling like a fish out of water in an extremely toxic work environment, like a professional fighter – she knows that she has to just bite down on her mouthpiece, strap on those gloves and keep fighting to fulfil her responsibilities.

For me, every day I get to do what I do feels like heaven on Earth.

I’m in control, I have a ton of fun and I get paid. I would think she’d be in that same boat.

But from how she describes it – it seems like she has to go through a painful purgatory every week and claw her way through hell to experience that same heaven on Earth.

What made matters worse, was that she was in my position before.

But life had forced her hand and she found herself back in the corporate world. The same world that she was relieved to have ditched in the past.

So we’re two peas in a pod… except we’re in two very different pods.

I tried my best to show empathy – but I knew I could never really understand the pain she is feeling.

That doesn’t mean my reality is any less difficult than hers, but it certainly made me feel like I didn’t have to struggle as hard to do what I’m doing.

Then I thought – am I even qualified to give advice?

I’m just a 26-year old kid with his life ahead of him – what do I know about life?

And then I realized… 8 years ago at 18, when I first entertained the idea of becoming a “life coach”, I asked myself the same question.

“I’m 18 and I barely lived LIFE – who am I even qualified to coach?”

I didn’t have the answers at the time.

But I had something I knew I could rely on.

It was my inner theme.

What is the Inner Theme of Your Life?

I first heard about this idea of ‘inner theme’ from renowned international speaker on creativity, Fredrik Haren.

If you pay close attention to the moments in your life that has shaped you to be the person you are today, you’ll find that there will always be a pattern.

This pattern in your life could be your ‘inner theme’.

The concept is simple: your life is a story, and that story has a message. That message has a theme – your life’s inner theme.

So how do you identify this theme of your life?

One way to start is to think about how you have overcome the biggest challenges life has thrown at you so far, and see if there is a common theme.

For example, my inner theme is COURAGE.

If my life was a movie – it’s a story of how the main character starts off scared and timid about everything, and overcomes the odds by being courageous.

By the end of his life, he is a brave soul who has lived courageously.

Looking back, I would say that at many crossroads of my life, the best decisions I ever made were the courageous leaps-of-faith into the unknown.

Sure, there were moments where I worked hard, practiced discipline, dreamed big.

But the ones that shaped me the most were the moments where I took action… despite being scared enough to soil my pants.

If my life were captured in scenes where the main character was put in make-or-break situations, it would be…

Does he have the courage to pursue what he loves despite his parents and his family insisting that he does something else?

He does!

Does he have the courage at 15 to go on stage to speak to three thousand people?

He does!

Does he have the courage to walk up to a stranger and start a conversation?

He does!

Again and again, the main character exercises that courage to overcome the odds and somehow he pulls through.

The inner theme of ‘courage’ becomes the theme of the movie.

It is not the character that saves the day, it’s his theme that saves his life!

So knowing this, what is the theme of your life movie? What is your ‘inner theme’?

What is one of your greatest qualities that you have relied on, time and time again, and has made you successful in your journey of life?

Is it being mentally strong and tough enough to shoulder the most difficult hardships?

Is it your intelligence to be able to come up with ingenious solutions nobody would even think of?

Is it in your ability to make people laugh and form deeply rewarding relationships?

Or is it in your quiet confidence that you will succeed in the end, even when everyone else doesn’t believe in you?

What is your inner theme?

Take a moment to ponder about the events that have shaped you into who you are.

Then once you’ve connected them to a theme, ask yourself: how can I tap into my inner theme to overcome the challenges I’m facing now?

What lessons have I learnt from the previous chapters of my life that could help me take on the current challenges today?

Going back to my friend Sarah…

I may not be in a position to help her, or give her advice.

She is responsible for the decisions she makes in life and ultimately, no matter how treacherous her path of life is, she needs to be the one to walk her own path.

But if I have a conversation with her about ‘inner themes’, she might be able to gain some wisdom from MY inner theme, and she might even recharge her own spirit when she discovers and reconnects with her own inner theme.

May you find your inner theme and live an amazing life!