How to Create the Life You Want: What If There’s More Going On Than We Think?

When I was a young child I had an imaginary friend. Her name was Jane. I still remember her vividly to this day. She had blonde hair styled into two pigtails, tied with pink ribbons, and a white dress adorned with a pink sash. My mum swore, right up until she passed away, that Jane was no ‘imaginary’ friend.

In an early primary school religious class we were taught about death, heaven and hell. The teacher explained that when you passed over, you went to hell if you were naughty or told lies. I told her hell was fine with me because all my friends would be there. Not in a defiant way. More a straightforward we-are-not-perfect kind of way.

I also told her I was excited to pass over because I wanted to know where everyone goes, and THEN come back and tell everyone about it. I thought it would be the greatest adventure! She explained that when you die, you die and there is no coming back. I didn’t believe her. A note was sent home to my mum.

Later in primary school, our teacher gave us the opportunity to create our very own assignment on anything we wished. As a creative and academic student, I was beside myself with excitement and couldn’t wait to get home, pull out my coloured markers and reams of paper and get started.

I created a book called The Supernatural.

Each page explained a different supernatural or mythical being or phenomenon, from ghosts to witches, Bigfoot, angels, aliens and the Bermuda Triangle. Everyone else in class did their assignment on their pet, their family or their previous holiday.

Go figure.

By my teenage years I was into tarot cards and creating séances with my friends. I have some stories that would make your hair curl, beliveve me! I also became very interested in the possibility of multiple dimensions.

As soon as she found out about the séances, my mum put an end to them quickly. Her exact words were, “You are messing with forces you do not understand.” She was right.

During my years of backpacking in my twenties I deliberately sought out places of wonder, curiosity and unexplained events, or places of historical, cultural or religious significance. Jordan. Egypt. Africa. The Dead Sea. Ararat. India. Nepal. Loch Ness, where I stared at that bloody lake for hours willing Nessie to pop up. Spoiler - she didn’t.

From the top of the world to the bottom, I asked people from very different cultures not only what they believed, but what they knew. What did they know about the world and the Universe and life that I didn't? And, I drank it all in.

I remember reading an article in The New York Times I found on a plane, written by someone studying the brain. I’ll never forget one of his observations: “It’s challenging to study something when it’s also the thing you’re using to study it.” He believed there was a point beyond which his own brain simply couldn’t take him. That the very thing he was using to understand the brain was also limiting how much of it he could understand. How fascinating!

In my thirties I returned home, joined the corporate world and the pursuit of the unknown became quieter. But it never disappeared.

Then, in 2011 the unexpected loss of my mum, as well as some other unwelcome surprises from life, sent me into a Dark Night of the Soul.

I took myself off to Bali for three weeks of solitude and spiritual healing and had some of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. In fact, this is where I had my first transcendental experience. And, something within me was reignited.

Ever since, I have continued exploring the questions that fascinated me as that little girl with the imaginary friend: Who are we? Why are we here? What is our purpose? What is this extraordinary world we find ourselves living in? And how much of it do we truly understand?

On both a spiritual and scientific level. My spirital side can trust. My Capricorn side wants the explanation, the proof, the science.

The older I get, the less interested I am in proving exactly what is or isn’t possible. I’m far more interested in staying curious.

There is an enormous amount about the universe, consciousness, the human mind and even our own bodies that we still don’t completely understand. That doesn’t mean we need to fill every gap with an explanation. Nor does it mean we have to dismiss everything we cannot yet explain.

There is something delicious, I think, about being able to say: I don’t know. Then continuing to explore.

That is one of the reasons quantum physics fascinates me so much.

Not because I believe it gives us a neat scientific explanation for manifestation, or proves that we can think hard enough and magically bend reality to our will. It doesn’t.

I love it because it is wonderfully, gloriously counterintuitive. More than a century after its beginnings, physicists are still experimenting, questioning and discovering more about what is actually going on at the smallest levels of reality.

And some of it is wild.

Particles behaving like waves. Outcomes described in probabilities rather than certainties. Matter that, when you look closely enough, is nothing like the solid, fixed world it appears to be.

The fact that much of the technology we use every day depends upon principles that sound completely bonkers when first explained to us delights me enormously.

It reminds me not to confuse what I currently understand with all that is possible.

And somewhere along the way, my fascination with the unknown became much more practical.

Because after years of reading, listening, questioning, experimenting. Of hiring mentors and teachers and attending events. Of meeting amazingly gifted and talented people as well as incredible charlatans and liars. Of working with and coaching people, I became less interested in simply asking, What is reality?

I became interested in different questions.

How do we create something in our lives that doesn't exist yet?

How do we create the life we want when the evidence for it isn’t here yet?

That is where all of this became very real for me. Because creating something new presents us with a peculiar problem.

The life around you today can only show you what already exists.

Your bank account shows you what is in it now. Your business shows you the clients you have now. Your career shows you the position you currently hold. Your relationships, your health, your diary, your circumstances all give you information about what is.

And your history can tell you what has been.

Neither can tell you, with any certainty, what could be.

Yet so often we use the evidence of what is and what has been to decide what we believe is available next.

That is what fascinates me.

Because what happens when the thing you want requires you to move before there is evidence that it will work?

What happens when your mind says you want something new but your body has become very comfortable with what it already knows?

What happens when you are trying to create a different future while unconsciously rehearsing the beliefs, emotions, habits and identity of the past?

What happens when you keep taking more action, working harder and pushing further, but all of that action is still coming from the same underlying assumptions?

And, what happens when we begin changing those?

This is the place I have spent years exploring.

For me, learning how to create the life you want has far less to do with forcing outcomes and far more to do with understanding the mind, the body, our beliefs, our energy and the action we take.

The mind. Conscious and subconscious.

Beliefs and identity.

Emotions and the nervous system.

Attention.

Energy.

Embodiment.

Behaviour and aligned action.

The spiritual and natural principles humans have explored for thousands of years.

And the fascinating questions raised by modern science about the nature of matter, time, probability, observation and reality.

I don’t think any single one of these gives us the answer.

I think the interesting part is what happens when they meet.

What happens when someone changes the belief beneath the behaviour?

What happens when we stop treating every thought as a fact?

What happens when we learn to regulate ourselves well enough to stay in the room with uncertainty instead of immediately retreating to what is familiar?

What happens when we begin becoming the person capable of holding what we say we want?

What happens when we stop waiting to feel completely ready and start moving?

What happens when we combine the inner work with actual action in the world?

That, for me, is where this stops being an interesting philosophical conversation and starts changing lives.

And I have so much fun with it.

Trying things. Changing my mind. Throwing out ideas that no longer hold up. Keeping the ones that repeatedly create movement.

I’m still doing it. And I can't see me stopping any time soon.

Because I no longer want certainty badly enough to pretend there is nothing left to discover.

I would much rather live in a world in which there is still room for surprise.

And this is the thinking that sits underneath my signature programme, Taking the Leap.

Taking the Leap is where I have brought all of these worlds together: mindset, identity, emotional regulation, embodiment, energy, aligned action, spiritual principles and some of the wonderfully strange ideas from quantum physics that continue to make me question what we think we know.

Not as an intellectual exercise. And not as a way of sitting at home thinking lovely thoughts while waiting for the Universe to deliver a parcel.

We use it to create something. Something you want that doesn't exist yet.

A business. A career. A body of work. A relationship. Financial freedom. A new way of living. A next chapter that feels more like you. Something you have wanted for years or something that has only recently dropped into your mind.

Taking the Leap is for ambitious, successful, open-minded people who are ready to create what comes next and are willing to approach it differently.

People who understand that effort matters, but effort alone is not always the answer.

People willing to question what they have mistaken for facts.

People willing to work with their minds and bodies, not against them.

People willing to take action before every piece of evidence has arrived.

People willing to remain curious about what else could be possible.

We begin leaping again on 1 September.

If something in you is already leaning towards it, you can read all about Taking the Leap here.

Perhaps the leap begins there.

Janelle Ryan is a globally recognised personal, career and leadership coach who works with high-performing professionals and established leaders navigating growth, change and the next phase of their life and leadership. She is the founder of Sky High Coaching, an international speaker, retreat leader and published author, known for her work on internal authority, soft strength and sustainable success. Janelle blends deep insight with practical application to help capable women lead with clarity, confidence and precision.