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:
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:
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:
Sarah then converted these values into daily virtues:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
So to address these issues, she simply implemented the mental clarity practice:
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:
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:
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:
Most importantly, Sarah developed a new relationship with herself. She learned to:
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:
Have a great week 🙂
Dylan