The Empty Cup Principle – so you grow, change and enjoy your life E52
July 26, 2022
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Today I introduce you to the empty cup principle: a way of living life for you to grow towards your desired future, to make the changes for you to enjoy your life to the fullest. So stay tuned to find out all about the empty cup principle.
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So, what is the empty cup principle all about?
It’s a process to support change and growth in your life. It’s a way to receive inspiration, new energies and magic into your life.
- If you are looking to change something in your life but have not been able to do it yet.
- If you are uninspired or dissatisfied with your current situation but feel stuck on where to go from here.
- If you have a dream or a goal but you think it is unachievable or you just don’t know what the next step is going to look like.
If any of that resonates and made you feel something inside of you then learn about the empty cup principle. Without a lot of effort, just by approaching life from this perspective, can you open up new doors for yourself. It for sure has changed my life on a scale that I never thought was possible. And the more I consciously apply it in my life, the more synchronicities and magic happen in my life. It’s beautiful!
The opposite of the empty cup – full cup people
Before we go deeper into the 3 areas of the empty cup principle, let me review what the opposite of it is and why this is not helping you to live a fulfilled and abundant life.
Would you agree with me that there is not one person who carries all of the information in the world inside of them? There is not one person that knows everybody and everything about everybody’s life? And there is not one person that has made all the experiences there are to make on this earth? Great, I am happy you agree with me on this!
Well, some people live their life with a limited perspective on life:
- They believe they know already everything.
- They think they know already enough people and that this is enough for the rest of their life.
- And then they live their life, in the same way, every single day. Every day, every week and every year they do the same things, in the same way, at the same places at the same time. And they don’t think that they need any new experiences.
And the phrases people use in their lives that live like that are:
- “That’s how we always have done it. “
- “Oh, I know that already. “
- ” I have heard this before. No need to tell me again. “
- “I know what I like. No need to try out something else that I know I won’t like.”
My question to you about full cup people
Do you think that these people are 100% happy with their life?
Do you think they never complain about anything in their life?
And do you think that they probably have nothing that they would like to change in their life, for example, their health, their job or their income?
No, like me you cannot think of a person like that, right? But how should anything ever change in their life, if they stay exactly the same? They are living a life that will stay exactly the same because they are the same person. Do you see that?
Empty your cup for more life
There is a very simple way of avoiding living the same life every single day. And that is to empty your cup for more life. Think about a cup of coffee. It’s a full cup of coffee. But suddenly you realize you would like to have tea instead of coffee. If you just have this one cup, this one life, what do you need to do? You need to empty the cup first before you can make yourself a cup of tea and enjoy drinking it out of that one cup.
It’s the same with your life. How should ever anything new or exciting come into your life, if you are living your life with a full cup? So ask yourself, where in your life do you have a full cup? Where in your life do you see the opportunity for you to empty that cup and use the principle of the empty cup?
To help you find an area in your life, I will now talk about the 3 main areas that will give you the biggest effect. Once you understand these 3 areas, you can start applying the principle to more areas in your life. So let’s start with number 1:
1 – Be open to new information
Be open to new information, knowledge and people’s opinions. Living life with a full cup and an “I know it all” attitude will keep you stuck in your current situation.
We discussed already people that are closed off-minded, and narrow-minded. If you don’t want to be one of them, stay open-minded and learn new things, see other perspectives, and expose yourself to new knowledge. Walk around in your life with an empty cup, so you can fill in new information.
The cool thing is if we want our life to change, the easiest thing we can do is to have new thoughts. And how can we have new thoughts? You can have new thoughts by exposing yourself to new information, and new knowledge. If you have a full cup, you think you know everything already and you’re close yourself off to other people’s opinions. This means that you are not going to have new thoughts. But if you are interested in changing anything in your life, then it starts with your thoughts and you need to have some new thoughts.
People who had new thoughts
Think about a new invention, something great that was invented. It started with someone having a new thought. There was a time in history when it didn’t exist, so do you see that the person who created and invented needed to have some new thoughts? I bet you do!
Get inspired by new information and with that, I don’t mean the news (Episode 32). That is not new information that is reporting and sensationalizing what has already occurred in the past. Or it’s creating worst-case scenarios of the future based on what has happened in the past. That is not new information.
Read a book, watch a documentary, read a biography of people that were great in the past – if you want to achieve something particular or change something in your life, read books from people who have done it before you and learn from them, ask yourself what have they done to achieve it.
And one last thing for you to consider: Just because you know something does not mean you truly know it. Having learned something with your brain is just the first stage in the knowing process. You need to experience something, take action, and use your body to truly know something. If it just stays in your mind, in your brain, it’s just a concept, a philosophy – you don’t really know it. Just if you actually put this knowledge into action and do something with it, will you be able to truly know it or even master it.
2 – Get to know the people in your life
Get to know the people in your life – they are in your life for a reason. Find out what that reason is and you will be surprised by what you learn about yourself.
Be open to meeting new people. Where do you think new information is supposed to come from if you see the same people every day? Step out of your comfort zone and get to know another person. Maybe they are already in your life but you never took the time or guts to speak to them. They are in the orbit of your life for a reason, you will be surprised to learn why they are in your life. That could be a colleague to that you never said more than hello. It could be your neighbour with whom you just have small talk in the elevator or the person on your commute to work that keeps sitting opposite of you every morning.
Talking to new people in my life
Getting to know new people on a deeper level always gives me
- new information
- a new perspective on a topic that I had already an opinion on
- a solution to a problem where I could just not see it for myself
- a helping hand
- their story is so aligned to mine but they approach it from a different angle, maybe I can try this.
Challenging people in our lives
I get to understand now that all the people around us have a reason to be there. But the reasons can be very different. The reasons can be happy, supportive and joyful – and they can be demanding, eye-opening or challenging us (Episode 17). When you are faced with such a person in your life, ask yourself, ask your inner voice, ask your heart:
- What message is the universe trying to give me through this person?
- What am I supposed to learn from this interaction?
- What can I learn to finally let go of in my life?
I am now much more conscious about the people that I want to spend my time with – but if a person comes into my life that does not typically align with me, I know it’s a message. It’s happening for a reason and I start to observe myself in the interaction with the person. That’s how I learn so much more about myself. It opens up doors to my subconscious, it points out blind spots to myself, it’s like someone is holding up a mirror and asks to look closer.
3 – Welcome new experiences in your life
Have an empty cup when it comes to new experiences – be open to welcoming new experiences in your life.
For you to truly master something, you have to experience it with your body, in your life, and with your hands. I always use the example of learning to swim. You can read a book on how to swim, you can know all the techniques, but does that mean you can swim? No, just when you jump into the water and apply the learnings to your life and use your body to actually swim will you be able to move from learning to knowing – or even mastering it.
So where in your life do you think you know something but you actually have never experienced it? In which area have you never moved from concept to applying it to your life?
Take this as a message from your higher self to take action now
And empty your cup of experiences. Don’t think just because you might have experienced already a lot in your life that it’s enough. The reason why we are even born is to experience. So if we stop experiencing new things, we are standing still, it’s like we are stuck in one place. It’s like Groundhog day where you live every day the same day. It’s like you hit pause on the movie of your life and the story just does not evolve anymore.
If you are not willing to have new experiences, if you are not willing to do something different then your life is going to stay the same. You are staying the same, so your life stays the same. There is no room for you to grow, accomplish a goal, to fulfil a dream that you keep having. Do you see the connection?
Use the law of attraction
Suppose you are willing to put yourself into new situations and experience something new then the universe is going to respond by sending you more new experiences. But that sometimes means stepping out of your comfort zone. Sometimes it just means you have to do something different than you always do it. It can be as easy as going to a different restaurant, taking a different way to work, cooking a completely new dish, or spending your holiday in a new location (Episode 43).
If you want your life to look differently at some point in your life, you have to do something differently. Does this make sense to you? If you stay the same and you keep experiencing the same things, your life is going to stay the same.
Summary of the Empty Cup Principle
To summarize, I explained the empty cup principles in 3 main areas which are:
1 – Be open to new information
2 – Get to know the people in your life
3 – Welcome new experiences in your life
Pick one of these areas and change something today. Apply this learning to your life today and see what happens.
Two easy ways to show your appreciation!
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So whether you choose to donate, leave a rating and review, or both, know that you’re an integral part of my vision. You are helping everyone who struggles with burnout or high-stress levels to experience how awesome their life can be. So, thank you for your support!
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