The world is burning. It’s time to find your fire.

It sure does seem as though 2025 has started with a big old bang. I usually think of January as a sort of ‘soft landing’ into the new year, a gentle reorientation away from the previous year, and a sort of easing into the new; wrapped in a blanket, still eating leftover festive chocolate. Not this year, it seems.

A new president has been inaugurated in the USA, and whichever side you’re on, it will bring a whole lot of change. Wildfires have destroyed thousands of homes and natural landscape in Los Angeles, wars are raging on, politics feels volatile and edgy here in the UK. So much for the soft landing.

And yet within all of that chaos there is little old me, watching and wondering what to do. Who am I, as this little person, to affect any kind of change? What power do I have?

That thought doesn’t offer much hope. There’s no catalyst to act contained within it, no impetus to jump up and envision something different. I don’t feel inspired to follow my passion in service of my purpose in life. It is passive, defeatist – and it’s a lie.

No, I can’t control the outcome of a war, or put out fires on the other side of the world, but I can do what I’ve been designed to do. Because, you see, while you may not know it yet, a sense of purpose has been encoded within you. There is a unique way that you’ve been designed to serve the world – and yourself – to contribute to the overall puzzle with your little unique piece. It’s not a static thing, it will shift and change over time, but its there, within you, and that means something. It’s important. You’re important.

How do you find that secret purpose that’s been encoded within you? You get in touch with your excitement in life and you follow it. That sense of passion, the lighting up of something within you, is the code that unlocks the path to you becoming that purposeful version, and with it comes a whole load of joy and learning and growth. This is your Spark.

But don’t be fooled – our small, fearful human minds can sometimes confuse fear and anxiety with excitement. It can lure us down false paths with things that we think are our excitement, but are actually anything but. Discerning the difference is a skill that, if practiced, will become second nature.

Energy + Action, not just Action

Right about now you’re probably thinking, “Great, yes I can follow my passion and purpose in the world, but that’s not going to make a massive difference is it? I’m no Nobel Peace Prize winner, or world leader, or tech entrepreneur!”

You know what? Thank goodness. We’ve got loads of those already. What we don’t have is one of you. A you that is completely aligned with your authentic, true self – the self you came here to be – living a life of joy and purpose, and having a brilliant (and yes, sometimes challenging) experience of life, and growing through the process.

Because the point is this: it’s not just about action.

Let me say that again. It’s not just about action. It’s not just about the stuff we do in life, it’s about the energy behind it. Someone can become a world leader and have a profoundly positive impact on the world because they are in alignment with the highest version of themselves, connected to their inner Spark and leading with integrity and compassion. Or they can be completely out of alignment, operating from ego, unconsciously acting out their fears and causing mayhem. We’ve got plenty of examples of those leaders right now!

When we get in touch with who we really are, at our core, the part of us that exists beyond our fears, negative beliefs, and conditioned ways of thinking and behaving, when we allow ourselves to be the unique piece of the puzzle that we truly are, we bring a different energy to what we do in the world. Maybe you will start an incredible nonprofit, or a business, or a campaign to change things, because that’s your passion. Maybe you’ll just bring this beautiful, aligned energy into your everyday life, energetically impacting upon every single person you meet, whether you’re consciously aware of it, or not.

Your unique energy, put into action – whether big or small – is what the world needs.

When the Spark becomes a fire

Seeing the impact of those horrendous fires in the Los Angeles area this month made my heart hurt. I can’t begin to think about the devastation and loss that people have experienced – loss of lives, of homes, livelihoods and of the beautiful natural world.

Fire is such a primal force, something that cannot be contained, and as I watched what was happening on the other side of the world, I couldn’t help but feel that it was an analogy of our times. Things feel as though they’re burning down, being destroyed, and that’s scary. But fire is also transformative.

In our own lives, the analogy of fire is akin to alchemy, shifting us from one state of being into another, clearing the old to make room for the new. Sometimes the touchpaper that lights the fire in our own lives is something scary that shocks us awake, like an illness or a relationship breakdown or the loss of a job. Sometimes we light that touchpaper positively, by shifting into a state of possibility, finding that little spark of passion in our bellies and acting on it.

What’s clear is that bad things will continue to happen in our world. There will be more climate disasters, more questionable leaders elected, more conflict, at least for now. What we don’t need is more despair, more hand-wringing and passive complaining on social media. Those things just fan the flames, rather than alchemising into something that is truly powerful and positively unstoppable.

So, I’m foregoing the soft landing this January. I’m doubling down on my commitment to myself, to my inner Spark and the setting aside of my fears to allow passion to take centre-stage. I’m going to give that fire a chance to grow and catch on and spread. Will you?