Time for a switch-up. Let’s consider a case study.
I’ve spent the last five weeks sharing insights about mental and spiritual progress.
Now it’s time to see these concepts in action.
How can we apply:
- Our understanding of mental and spiritual progress,
- Our discovery of core values and purpose,
- Our development of self-awareness,
- Our cultivation of mental clarity, and
- Our ability to transcend our internal barriers.
So, let’s consider an actual case study. This week, I aim to show you what we can do to apply these five weeks to our lives.
Meet Sarah, a 24-year-old marketing junior who feels stuck in her life. She wants to make a change, but isn’t sure where to start.
Let’s follow her journey as she applies the principles from our first five weeks to achieve her goal.
Sarah’s goal: To start a photography business that aligns with her creative passions. This is while maintaining balance in her full-time job.
How did she decide what mental and spiritual progress looked like for her?
Well, let’s take a look at her current situation.
May 12th, 2025: She recognised that her mind was often cluttered with racing thoughts. It was usually about work deadlines and social obligations.
She often doubted her creative ability and so struggled to focus on her passion after working a full job.
So to address this, she implemented Huberman’s technique:
- After work, she went into her bedroom without her phone.
- She stared at a point on her wall for 60 seconds and took a few deep breaths.
- She did 30 minutes of work on her photography each week.
Through this technique, she created a bridge between her job and her passion project. This was something she wanted to develop.
This was her idea of mental progress.
Now, spiritual progress. Sarah realised that she needed space away from her stream of thoughts. Being a marketing junior led to constant pressure to be online and be available.
She needed space away from the job to allow herself to feel free.
So she began taking 15-minute walks without her phone in the evening. She practiced simply being in the moment.
This also led to the ability to separate her mindsets. This created space for her photography passion to breathe.
She knew this had to be maintained to achieve success and enjoy her passion project.
This was her spiritual progress.
So, we know what Sarah wanted to develop to ensure mental and spiritual progress. But why was she doing the project? What were her core values/purpose?
Sarah spent 20 minutes identifying her core values and purpose:
- What were her most significant life events?
- Traveling solo through Southeast Asia and documenting the journey
- Leading a successful marketing campaign that highlighted authentic stories
- Teaching her younger cousin photography basics and seeing her grow confident
- What were the three main values that appeared in all three events?
- Authenticity – Capturing real moments and telling true stories
- Growth – Learning new skills and helping others develop
- Connection – Building relationships through visual storytelling
- Then she wrote a detailed description of what each value meant to her.
- She put these values through the litmus test:
- Would she sacrifice them for money? No.
- Do they hold during stress? Usually, yes.
- Could they last 25 years? Absolutely.
Sarah then converted these values into daily virtues:
- Authenticity: Take one unedited, raw photo that tells a story each day
- Growth: Learn one new photography technique weekly
- Connection: Have a meaningful conversation with the subject before photographing them
She now knew why she was doing the passion project. She knew what meant the most to her.
But her purpose? Sarah answered the three key questions:
- Who am I called to serve? People who want their authentic stories preserved through imagery
- What problems am I called to solve? The disconnect between people’s true selves and how they’re represented visually
- How am I called to solve the problem? Through thoughtful photography that captures genuine moments
Sarah’s purpose became clear: “To create authentic visual stories that help people connect with themselves and others.”
Whenever we start our goals, there are two key problems:
- We are hesitant to even start, and
- We don’t know which advice to take.
So Sarah created a routine to become both self-aware to tackle these forks.
Sarah set up her morning routine to include 10 minutes at 8 am. She sat at her desk, with the lights dim, phone in another room, and eyes closed. During this time, she began asking herself tough questions:
- Why am I hesitant to start this photography business?
- What past experiences make me doubt my abilities?
- How do I respond when I receive criticism about my photos?
This tackled the first problem. Writing those issues down led to understanding what was holding her back and finding ways to combat it.
She also asked three trusted friends to give her honest feedback about:
- Her photography skills
- How she responds to suggestions
- What they perceive as her strengths and weaknesses
The results were eye-opening. Sarah discovered she was much more critical of her work than others were.
She also realised she had a pattern of abandoning creative projects when they became challenging.
When receiving this feedback, Sarah shifted from asking “Why do I always quit?” to “What can I do to maintain consistency with my photography business?”
This simple change created actionable steps rather than self-criticism.
Now, Sarah knows how to stay committed to the project. We also know what her purpose and values are. We know that she is self-aware.
But Sarah sometimes feels overwhelmed when making decisions about her passion project. She doesn’t know why her decisions, which are meant to be simple, are so complicated.
For example, when deciding on what type of photography she wanted to pursue, she found herself in a dilemma of choosing ten different styles.
It was too complicated when it didn’t need to be.
So, she identified three obstacles clouding her judgment.
- Cognitive Bias: She was comparing her beginning photography business to established professionals’ polished portfolios and websites.
- Planning Fallacy: She underestimated how long it would take to create her photography website and portfolio, leading to frustration.
- Information Overload: She was consuming too many photography tutorials and business advice, leaving her overwhelmed and unable to start.
So to address these issues, she simply implemented the mental clarity practice:
- She asked herself the simple question: ‘What are my true feelings?’
- The answer to this was that it is the fear of perfection and failure.
- She then questioned if these were useful thoughts.
- The simple answer was that they weren’t, and so she didn’t need to focus on them.
Our negative thoughts are not always facts – they are simply thoughts!
Nonetheless, we sometimes drift into setting internal barriers that hinder our success.
Sarah always would say to herself: ‘I don’t have enough technical expertise to charge for this’
What was the reason for this?
Let’s use the ABC Method:
- A (Antecedent): Comparing her work to professionals with years of experience
- B (Behavior): Procrastinating on launching her business
- C (Consequence): Never starting and remaining stuck
So to combat this, she applied the ‘What-If bias intervention’.
“What if my current skill level is exactly what some clients need? What if I can learn while growing my business?”
She then adopted an elastic mindset, committing to growth, and ended up:
- Setting up a simple website with her best 15 photos
- Offering free photoshoots to three friends to build her portfolio
- Learning resource per week instead of consuming endless tutorials
Most importantly, Sarah reduced the impact of her barrier by getting lost in the process of doing.
She scheduled three hours every weekend to commit to her goal of Photography.
As a result of this, Sarah had:
- Launched a simple photography website
- Completed 8 photoshoots (3 free, 5 paid)
- Developed a clear editing style that reflected her authentic approach
- Created boundaries that allowed her to maintain her full-time job while growing her side business
- Established a weekly routine that prevented burnout
Most importantly, Sarah developed a new relationship with herself. She learned to:
- Process her thoughts more effectively
- Understand her strengths and accept feedback
- Recognize when fear was clouding her judgment
- Make decisions aligned with her values and purpose
- Push through mental barriers with consistent action
From Sarah’s situation, we can see that all goals can be achieved if we apply these five steps.
All goals can be achieved if our mindset towards them is positive. Keeping positive is hard, but is essential to committing and succeeding in our goals.
So, here is my weekly challenge:
- Choose one goal you want to accomplish
- Define what mental and spiritual progress would look like for this goal
- Assess your self-awareness regarding this goal using the “what” instead of “why” approach
- Apply the mental clarity questions when you feel stuck
- Identify how this goal aligns with your core values and purpose
- List your internal barriers and create a consistent action plan to overcome them
Have a great week 🙂
Dylan