“You are what we eat, from your head down to your feet.”

So sang the public service announcement during the ABC after-school specials I used to love watching as a kid.

This week, I’ve been reconfirming my theory that “we are also what we do”. That what goes in, comes out.

“Same old, same old”. There are periods when everyday living seems to take up all my mind-space. The routine of one day follows the next until they blur together.

Despite being busy, boredom creeps in. Not just the feeling of it. What do I have to talk about? The traffic in the school-run, paperwork, what’s for dinner, the weather? I feel myself becoming boring.

I find that when I don’t feed my mind, with a healthy variety of input, it gets small ... my views narrow.

So, in the hopes of avoiding mindset and personality atrophy, every year I try to book in at least one big challenge. I find a way to throw myself into the path of inspiration.

Making an investment in myself, I look for something near the edge of my comfort zone, a workshop, event, conference, retreat...

Fortunately for me, personal development is professional development. It’s my view that every good challenge can contain both.

It’s one thing to attend a conference about industry innovation and how the bottom line is affected. It’s something more to be stretched and inspired to be more of who you are in your field, and learn how to better use your individual skills and expertise.

Over the years, through the people I’ve met and the content I’ve discovered, each challenge experience has been profoundly affecting, often life-changing.

We cannot un-know the things we expose ourselves to. Mine have fed into who I am now and how I practise, both at work and in my personal life.

Just returning from this year’s challenge, I feel so full I am still processing it all. In the coming weeks I hope to share with you the key insights and my takeaways: useful tools and techniques applicable in many areas of life and industry.

I feel so un-bored! This experience will sustain me for a long time to come — through the return to school runs, domesticity, the workdays.

I have gained new ways of seeing, fresh ideas to introduce, different and interesting things to talk and enquire about. Boredom may set in before the next big challenge is available. But there are affordable and simple ways to stretch ourselves in the meantime.

Read a different kind of book, listen or watch a different genre of music or show. Look at art. Walk in nature. Talk to someone normally “off your radar” — ask them what they are passionate about.

Seek interesting and novel experiences that will challenge and help you grow, personally and professionally.

Try out a different kind of “five-a-day”. Feed your imagination, your intellect, your soul, your sense of humour and your passion.

The more interested and inspired you are, the more interesting and inspiring you will be.

•Julia Pitt is a trained success coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on 705-7488 or e-mail www.juliapittcoaching.com