Your attitude determines your results
Most people seem to think that their problems are someone else’s fault and that creating the life they want for themselves is dependent on other people (or other situations) being different than they are. Such thinking is simply wrong, false, faulty, and disempowering. What we experience in our life is of our own creation. Even when other people are involved, what is created could not come into existence without our involvement.
As a coach, I have the privilege of helping my clients turn around situations they dislike, improve relationships that have weighed them down, and make changes to enhance their lives in numerous ways. One of the first places I start with nearly all of my clients is their mindset, attitude, or outlook. Most people are unaware of the power of their thoughts and the way they talk about the world around them. Somehow, even in this modern day and age, many seem surprised to learn that the results they get in life start out as thoughts, beliefs, and ideas we hold in our mind.
When my clients start using their mental capacity in a more conscious, intentional way, there are miraculous changes that begin taking place (dramatic increases in financial wealth; significant decreases in stress, worry, and physical woes; greater happiness and deeper connections with loved ones; strengthened self-esteem and self-confidence; the list goes on).
Three simple ways to coach yourself to greatness in life
- Observe your thoughts. Listen to your words. Pay attention to your reactions to events and people around you.
- Replace ANY thought, word, or attitude that weighs you down with a thought, word, or attitude that frees you up.
- Tell the truth, yet do so in a way that inspires you (and those around you).
It’s as simple as that to plant the seeds of success. When you change what you plant–your thoughts, beliefs, and attitude–what you grow changes too.
Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.
~ Buddha
What has happened for you when you’ve shifted your mindset or altered your attitude?
Bye, bye busy — find more time for what matters
“There’s this perception that if you worry a lot and if you look really busy and stressed out then you’ll be more successful. You talk about how little sleep you get and how tensed you are and how you’re not getting the appreciation you deserve and how hard you’re working. You think this is somehow feeding into your success and your career, and that’s just not true. Any success that you have in your career is despite your being all bothered and annoyed and stressed out - not because of it.”
~ Nancy Mayer
Busyness is a common ailment of many of my clients (and friends and family and even something that afflicts me from time to time). In fact, many people experience busyness as a chronic condition. This busyness in turn contributes to other dis-eases:
- stress
- lack of self-awareness
- disconnection from what is personally meaningful
- less than optimal relationships
- poor physical health
How to make time for what matters most to you
If you’re truly ready to give up the frantic rush and create a life where you have more “free” time, you must determine why you like being busy. Yes, you’re busy because you like it, no matter what you say to the contrary. If you weren’t getting some payoff from the busyness, you wouldn’t choose to be busy. So the first step in becoming less busy is to identify why you’re busy now–in other words, find the source(s) of your busyness.
Below are ten common reasons people are living busy lives (personalized so you can read them and see if they ring true for you). Look through the list and identify the top 2-3 sources of your hurry scurry life. Then, start taking steps to eliminate those busyness-inducing-factors from your life (If you need help, consider hiring me as your coach.)
- I have difficulty saying no.
- I have good reasons for not delegating or sharing certain tasks.
- I procrastinate.
- I take on a lot of responsibility.
- I easily get distracted from the task at hand.
- I’m avoiding something/someone by keeping busy.
- I tend to underestimate how much time or effort a project might need.
- I really do function best under pressure.
- I’m an idea person/creative-type/entrepreneur.
- I lack structure or organization.
“I think God’s going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding.”
~ Steven Wright
What’s the number one reason that you’re so busy? Are you ready to start pursuing a less busy life?
Celebrate Independence Day with More Personal Freedom
“Freedom is actually a bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control. Freedom is about what you can unleash.”
~ Harriet Rubin
As we celebrate Independence Day in the United States (July 4), we talk much about our freedoms and the colonists who fought to secure our liberty over 200 years ago. While we are blessed to live in a country without much constraint or imposition on our personal freedom, I believe, nonetheless that many Americans (and many of our brothers and sisters living elsewhere) are less free than they can be.
What is freedom?
For many people, freedom is something they yearn for, expect, and champion as a basic human right. Yet frequently, people abdicate their own power and wait for outside forces or other people to free them. In my book, Live the Life You’ve Imagined, I devote an entire chapter–”Experience More Personal Freedom”–to the subject of how to free oneself and live in a liberated, joyful, powerful way. Last year, I wrote a blog post using material from this chapter.
Experience More Personal Freedom
- Freedom is when we make conscious choices rather than running on autopilot.
- Freedom is being fully responsible for all our choices and the victim of no one and nothing.
- Freedom is choosing our mindset as much as our actions.
- Freedom is being attached to nothing (no result, no person) even though we might fully hope to have/achieve that thing.
As I wrote in Live the Life You’ve Imagined, freedom is our choice, our individual decision. People in deplorable and inhumane situations have shown us this. Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor, psychotherapist, and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, and Nelson Mandela, South African civil rights leader, former president and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, both demonstrated this fact when they chose to be spiritually and mentally liberated despite being physically imprisoned (Frankl in Nazi concentration camps and Mandela in apartheid-era South African prisons).
“Deciding to focus on our own freedom isn’t selfish; it is the greatest gift we can give to humanity.”
~ Don Miguel Ruiz
Whether or not July 4 is officially “independence day” for you or not, I urge you to take a stand for your personal freedom on that day. Then continue your choice to be free every day thereafter.
If you’d like to share stories of your own liberations or challenges with choosing to be free, please drop a comment in below.
Multitasking destroys more than it accomplishes
“We can do fifty things at once and ’save time,’ but is multitasking mania really an effective long-term survival response? As I stand in my kitchen in the midst of chaos, can I hear the fear in my mother’s voice when she expresses concerns about paying for her heating bill? Can I read my client’s e-mail well enough to recognize the faulty logic he’s applied to the new project? Can I sense my teenager’s anxiety about going to a late-night party where peer pressure is dangerously intense? I can see what I’ve accomplished on my to-do-list, but can I see what I’m missing in my overstimulated state?
~Mary LoVerde, in I Used to Have a Handle on Life But It Broke
I am confident in my belief that most of us will multitask some, no matter how many times we’re told it’s not good or effective. We’ve conditioned ourselves–or we’ve been culturally conditioned–to think that doing just one thing at a time is old-fashioned and unproductive. However, I am simultaneously hopeful that many of us will also take significant steps to rein in our habits of doing many things at once because it’s not what creates the quality of life for which most of us yearn.
Multitasking robs us of the precious moments of our lives because we’re not present in the moment when we’re doing more than one thing at a time. No one ever thinks to themselves, “Man, I bet I would enjoy love-making more if I could watch my favorite TV show at the same time,” or “It would be much more rewarding to pay bills while eating dinner with my kids.” The reason we don’t say those things is because we know that multitasking keeps us from truly experiencing the moment we’re in. . .and that it prevents us from truly connecting with those sharing the moments with us.
“Conducting a symphony while using a Blackberry will result in doing both poorly. Nothing worthwhile can be done well while simultaneously conducting another task. Thus, whenever we multitask, we are choosing to be mediocre.”
~ Lance Secretan, Multitasking and the Decline of Brilliance
So, I encourage you–and remind myself–to get off the multitasking mule train and reclaim your power to be deliberate and focused. Be proud of your ability to do one thing at a time with love, attention, intention, and steadfastness. You’ll still get plenty done. . .and you’ll notice plenty of payoffs that multitaskers only dream of.
Do you help, fix, or serve?
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time. If you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
~ Lilla Watson, an Aboriginal Australian
If you’re like me, you have a noble picture of the “helping professions”–medicine, education, social services, mental health, non-profit or government aid. Selfless individuals who are there to help people in times of need. And, while I still have great admiration for people in these roles, I now see a difference in how these care givers behave. The ones whom I most respect are those who act out of service.
The differences between helping, fixing, and serving
While distinguishing between “serving” and “helping” might seem inconsequential on the surface, the effects each produce are often quite dissimilar as can be understood in a writing from author Rachel Naomi Remen, called, “In the Service of Life” (PDF). Below is a quote from Ms. Remen’s piece that eloquently speaks to how unique helping, fixing, and serving really are.
“Serving is different from helping. Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals. When you help you use your own strength to help those of lesser strength. Serving is also different from fixing. When I fix a person, I perceive them as broken, and their brokenness requires me to act. The bottom line, of course, is that we can fix without serving. And we can help without serving. And we can serve without fixing or helping. I think that I would go so far as to say that fixing and helping may often be the work of the ego and service the work of the soul. These things may look similar if you’re watching from the outside, but the inner experience is different. The outcome is often different too.”
~ Rachel Naomi Remen
My personal experience
I know that at times my actions are not inspired by selfless service. The desires of my ego sometimes motivate my actions. For instance, in my delusions of omnipotence I think I know what someone else needs or what will make their situation better. When I come from these underlying beliefs, I see an unequal relationship–I am powerful, the other person is disempowered. Such judgment is neither good for me and the person I’m seeking to work with, nor is it effective as they don’t gain a true sense of their own power and I overestimate my own.
So, I do my best to keep Remen’s words in mind, both as a coach and as a person, reminding myself that my highest intention is to serve. I intend to be a partner with others, walking side by side, offering my gifts in a natural way, seeking to play my part in creating a journey that uplifts us both and enables us to grow in whatever ways we were meant to grow. When I am guided by service, the results–for me, the other person, and even the wider world–astound and humble me.
Reality check: Are you generally helping, fixing, or serving? What happens when you focus on being of service?
Five steps to simple, sustainable change
To change one’s life:
- Start immediately
- Do it flamboyantly
- No exceptions.
~ William James
I appreciate the simplicity of William James’ quote. Over 5 years of professional coaching, I’ve found that people seem to make change more complex than it really is.
Here’s a quick, simple process for initiating change in your life. All you need for success is to be diligent in following the steps.
- Identify what you want to change. Notice I didn’t write what you “should,” “have to,” or “need” to change. If you don’t want to do it, you won’t.
- Be specific about the new result you want to achieve. “I want to have 3 ideal clients by May 31, 2007,” is specific. “I want some more clients,” isn’t definitive enough.
- Choose bite-sized actions that will move you closer to your goal. These are four bite-size action steps: I will review my list of ideal client qualities daily. I will attend at least 1 networking event weekly. I will draft a letter/email to all my current clients inviting referrals. I will send the letter/email to all my current clients.
- Have fun and celebrate your successes. If your journey to change feels like a huge chore, chances are you’ll stop doing it at some point. Do things to pat yourself on the back for each action you take and make the process as enjoyable as reaching the final destination.
- Evaluate your progress. Be truthful AND patient in this process. Sometimes we stop taking action if we cannot see immediate results, yet the results are coming. At the same time, if an action you’ve taken doesn’t produce the results you had envisioned, see what happened, and make an adjustment for “next time.”
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change
them yourself.~ Andy Warhol
The courage of mothers
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
~Ambrose Redmoon
Though Mother’s Day is now controlled by Hallmark and many of us think of this holiday as the time we give thanks to the mothers in our lives, Mother’s Day has an origin much different than most of us know. The video below explains the original Mother’s Day celebration and gives us an opportunity to join in the traditional aim of the mothers who founded the day.
May we each find the courage of the women who first celebrated Mother’s Day. May we answer the calls of our hearts as these women did, following our own unique path through life. May we take time to create peace within ourselves and on our planet. May we give thanks to the mothers who helped us become who we are today.
Accomplish your biggest dreams. . .starting now
I have an irrepressible desire to live till I can be assured that the world is a little better for my having lived in it.
~Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. president
What’s the song that plays in your heart that you’re afraid to sing out loud?
What dreams from your youth tug at the sleeve of your soul?
What visions dance in your mind until you remember you’re
too busy, too old, or too settled to pursue them?
We all have contributions to make to our world. In large and small ways, we are here to share our gifts. Many of us, however, substitute trivial ambitions for meaningful desires, not because we don’t have passion, but because we listen to that little voice in our heads that says we’re not “enough” to give ourselves to following such calls.
Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing but acorns and that our greatest happiness will be to become bigger, fatter, shinier acorns; but that is of interest only to pigs. Our faith gives us knowledge of something better: that we can become oak trees.
~E.F. Schumacher
The world needs your biggest game!
I believe we’re at a crucial time when it’s no longer enough to sit on the sidelines, play the small parts, or delay the pursuit of our dreams until everything is “just right.” Right now, all the forces of the universe are waiting for you to stand up and give the best you can offer. There is no better time–in fact, there is no other moment than this present instant, to commit yourself to giving all that you’ve got. This may be your last opportunity. . .start making your visions into reality, take your dreams out of the closet, and let loose that song in your heart.
Always remember this. . .
- Though you may still doubt yourself from time to time. . .
- Though you may occasionally feel discouraged, confused, or disillusioned. . .
- Though you may sometimes believe you’re all alone. . .
There is someone/thing that remains in constant connection with you, knowing your true heart, your deepest dreams, and your greatest gifts. This spirit has a message for you. A message for you to remember for all those times when you lose hope that your biggest dreams can come true. This spirit gives voice through the gifts of Nick Arandes, and his song (or spirit’s song with Nick’s voice), I Believe In You (listen/watch below).
Thank you Nick, for this powerful, evocative reminder that there is always faith in us, even when we’ve forgotten to have that faith in ourselves.
Oh, the worst of all tragedies is not to die young, but to live until I am seventy five and yet not ever truly to have lived.
~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
