For the past few weeks we’ve explored designing your New Year and Holiday Season. Now it’s time for the icing on the cake - to design the thoughts and ideas that uplift your vision. It’s important to choose and create your mantras for the year. I’m a firm believer that what you think and believe is what you live and experience. If you believe you’re a failure then you will succeed at failing in things in your life. If you believe you are strong, powerful, beautiful and intelligent then you will experience evidence of this across the spectrum of your life. It’s fairly easy to identify the positive mantras or statements you choose to say to yourself because they give you strength and courage. The next step is to go fishing inside your mind for the negative or disserving comments that dominate your conscious and subconscious mind. One way to look for the thoughts that disserve your dreams for 2014 is to look over your vision board or goals you’ve created for the year and listen to the automatic echo in your mind. For example, if your goal is to fall in love, a disserving thought may be “you’re not worthy of love” or if your goal is to find your calling or new career your inner voice may tell you “you’re not good at anything.” Sometimes the voice makes a loud raucous and you can hear it loud and clear. Sometimes it’s a soft and corrupting whisper. I want you to bring your awareness to which thoughts you allow to rent space in your head. You have the power to choose what you think. It may not feel so immediately upon attempting this practice. As you hear or catch a disserving thought, immediately counter it with a positive one. (Some thought leaders suggest it takes almost three positive thoughts to counter one negative thought.) Just be sure to refute the negative thought swiftly. Over the next few days reflect on the positive thoughts that enable the vision you hold for 2014 and let go of the thoughts that derail you or drain you of your innate power. Here are a few steps to assessing thoughts that seems to be in your best interest, but when you really listen to yourself closely you realize it’s a derailing thought or false protection. When you examine your thoughts:
If your muscles tight and contracted (e.g., your shoulders, hands, stomach or face) that’s a clue the thought at hand is a negative derailed. If your body is relaxed and/or your breathing is slowed that’s a clue the thought is supporting your vision or goals. Whatever process you use to vet your thoughts be sure you do something. Choose the thoughts the serve your life, create new ones that give you power. This is what creates a Happy New Year. I look forward to dreaming, discovering, and designing an amazing 2014! Whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Kwanzaa, or both this week can be the culmination of ultimate stress and financial frenzy and at the same time profound love and joy. As we enter the last full week of the year, design your holiday season with the save fervor you start of the New Year – tapping into your creativity, excitement and passion. Just as you set resolutions for the year, resolve to design how you will experience Christmas Day or even the seven days of Kwanzaa. Think about your ideal day. Are you spending it with family, friends, loved ones, or spending time alone? What do you want to experience this holiday in particular? Here are few steps to designing your holiday celebration with passion and excitement: 1. Close your eyes and imagine it’s the end of the Holiday. In your ideal vision what happened during the holiday? Who did you spend time with? What did you do? What do you want to tell others about that day? Envision all the elements, music, food, and ambiance that make the holiday special to you. Now write them all down. 2. Prioritize your top 5 moments. Once you have an idea of the things, experiences, and people that you want to be part of your Holiday celebration, then pick your top 5 must-haves. Those moments can be to text, Skype, or visit a specific person, bake your first Holiday pie, volunteer your time or donate a toy for kids, or simply tell someone you love them – I mean actually say the words! Armed with your top 5 Holiday priorities, anything that doesn’t go as perfect as planned is OK, because you are living your most meaningful moments that make the Holiday special to you. 3. Involve others in executing your plan. An erroneous mistake I often make is playing “Superwoman” trying to do all and be all, and THAT is where the weight of stress breaks the bridge to a happy and successful Holiday celebration. I have learned – and often find myself relearning – the lesson that asking for help is not a sign of weakness or an opportunity for others to take over your plans. It is a great way to involve people in a way that shares your heart and reminds them what makes this Holiday meaningful to you. Sharing that love is the essence of what this season is all about. Similar to my coaching methodology, the process of dreaming, designing, and discovering who you are and your intent for this Holiday can empower you to create and fully experience one of the best Holiday’s yet! This week I hosted a wonderful party in celebration of Design You Coaching. The theme was to honor the birth of my company and surround it with love and positive energy. Some guests asked me why I opted to have a small intimate party in lieu of a massive marketing launch event and my response is that when you are giving birth to your baby – whom would you want around? Who do you invite to the baby shower or request to be at your side when your baby finally arrives? You invite the people you love and whom you know will love and support the fruits of your labor too. Whether you are pregnant with a baby or working to give birth to your business, new career, financial resurgance, or to reinvigorate your love life it’s important you immerse and infuse that baby with love. The people who you surround yourself with will ultimately influence your thinking and belief system. If you are constantly around people who don’t believe in your baby, don’t believe in your greatness or the possibility of changing your life, you are setting yourself up for failure. It takes a lot of hard work to block out other people’s noise, fears, and disbelief. The best approach is to put on some noise-cancelling headphones, stay focused, and love them from afar. Your mission is to nourish your life, your baby, your dreams. Throughout this month I encourage you to map out your dreams for 2014 and consider what new and exciting things you will give birth to in the next year. Who in your community will support, encourage, and help you ignite your personal aspirations? Be sure to vet the people in your life who will help move your dreams forward and list all the ways you can encircle your dreams with love. Here are a few examples of ways you can immerse your dreams with love:
I share with you the picture above, which is one side of my Design You Coaching vision board. I have a vision board for my personal life and for this year in particular I’ve created a company vision board too! There is so much love to infuse in this baby it needed its own platform. I now have a visual connection to remind me of the love, energy, and support Design You Coaching has received since its inception. How will you infuse love in your baby or goals this coming year? I'm delayed with this week's blog because I knew I'd want to share my profound and awesome experience in seeing the music artist P!nk's concert live this weekend. Central to my own life goals for 2014 I want to live life as animated, energized, and loving as P!nk. Just as she courageously twists, twirls, and trapezes thousands of feet in the air I want to show up just as brave and bold in the things most important to me - my career, my love, my spirituality, my finances and of course raising my wonderful son. And who better to draw inspiration from than a woman who sings about feminine power and demonstrates it not only in her music and how she shows up as an entertainer - but the sheer boldness and unapologetic TRUTH about who she is. What a great reminder that we all must stand in the truth of who we are and what we want. As I engage my own DESIGN YOUR YEAR program I not only reflect on this year's triumphs and setbacks, I create goals that harness the essence of what I really need in order to have what I really want. I encourage you to attract the lessons and tools you need to have the things you want. You may seek prosperity, strength, wisdom, love, or the courage you need to help your dreams take shape. So as you set your resolutions and goals for the new year ask yourself, what is the essence of what you need in order to create the things and experiences you seek. For me, I want to expand my coaching practice and that requires me to bravely try new things and risk potential failure, and for me that's scary. The good news is I know the secret is to focus on just showing up brave and taking new and exciting steps in my career I will inevitably move toward my dream. What dreams are you creating for the new year? Who's inspiring you and helping push your forward? Share your plans and pursue your dreams with proven techniques and from Design You Coaching! It’s been a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday weekend full of love, family, and of course great food. There are so many blogs, poems, and works of literature that remind us to be grateful for all that we have. This reminder is so true and important to do. So as I write this blog, I consider what I would like to add to this conversation. My contribution is to encourage you to also be thankful for what you can give. The best thing you can give to the world is your talent and your talent can be a gift to everyone you come in contact with. Your talent may be a gift of music, writing, or some other form of entertainment. Your gift may also be an empathic ear, an ability to charm others and lift their spirits, an ability to heal or inspire, or the ability to direct and lead others to help keep them on track. If you really work hard and hone your gift, your reach in offering your talent grows exponentially. Your gift impacts the lives of others beyond your immediate reach, outside your conscious knowing. I believe sharing your talent is also an intimate expression of love. For me, helping people design their life – their career, their family relationships is a great gift I can give others. I get to use my talents in research, analysis, creativity, designing, writing, authoring, and even music – in a space that empowers others. For me it all comes together! It’s in the giving that you too will find personal joy and fulfillment. This is your destiny, or for some your divine purpose. To share your talent or talents to enhance the life of others and in so doing expand your own life experience. What talents are you thankfully giving to others? Is it your ability to lead a team at work or your family at home? Is it the gift of simply seeking more, inspiring others to search with you? Whatever your gift, my wish is that you offer it thankfully, appreciating all the benefits that you reap too. If you’re not sure what gifts you offer the world or how to develop your talents reach out to Design You Coaching. My coaching practice centers on self-awareness, self-development, and self-reliance. If you’re ready to design your talents, this is the right practice for you. |
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Lessons LearnedThe life we experience is designed to help us grow. My wish is that you learn from me as much as I learn from you. Share your life lessons and let's build together. Archives
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