Author Archives: Amy Beilharz

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

How many times were you asked this as a young child? As an adult you may have actually wondered if you would every really grow up and know what you really wanted to be?

While no one really cared how you answered this question when you were little, as you got older you were given an idea from subtle and no so subtle suggestions that you must choose one goal or “purpose.”

The irony of this cultural pressure is that I have yet to meet anyone who truly has had one destiny or purpose. In fact, what makes people interesting is their multifaceted past. What creates genius is your ability to see things from various perspectives to find the keys to a new solution–something that comes with a varied experience.

How many people can you name who are still doing what they studied in college?

Sometimes doing what you love changes. You change. Circumstances change. Technology inserts new ways of doing things. Opportunities arise that if you are wise you capture–not because it was your goal since you were five and people asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up or it was your college major–but because the opportunity ignites your imagination and enthusiasm.

We have traveled down the road of specializing to such a degree that it is hard to change paths once you have invested so much energy in one direction. We have forgotten how important it is to be able to have a general perspective before you can drill deep. Henry Ford is often quoted as saying he did not need to know everything because he could hire people who specialized in those areas. Similarly, Andrew Carnegie, at one time the richest man in the world, surrounded himself by people who understood the steel industry much better than he did–even though he made his fortune in steel.

The people at the top of any field are not experts in everything needed for their success.

  • The orchestra conductor cannot play every instrument in the symphony.
  • The CEO is not an expert at marketing, manufacturing and finance.
  • The school principal is not an expert in each subject taught at her school.
  • The heart surgeon does not administer the anesthesia.

Maybe when our life expectancy was around 30 years of age it made sense to do one thing and do it well. But you will most likely live three times that age, so why limit yourself to doing the same thing your whole life through?

If you are a person who has many interests, rather than let culture pressure make you feel flighty and ungrounded, remind yourself that you are actually ahead of the rest of society who painfully try to find things that will inspire them. Many people in life have dulled their curiosity and ability to explore new things. If you have changed courses multiple times than you have probably honed and cultivated a spirit of learning that will serve you throughout life. Other skills you have gained are:

  • Comfort in uncertainty.
  • Skills that transfer across sectors like being able to inspire others, organization, or others.
  • Seeing multiple perspectives, creating solutions otherwise missed.
  • Ability to learn new things.
  • Adaptability which is key in our rapidly changing world.

The next time someone belittles your changing careers or ending one passion for another, remember…

By feeding your curiosity and willingness to change you are building your genius and becoming the person you were meant to be–when you grow up!

 

How Can You Become More Lucky?

Do you look at people who are lucky and wonder what they do or have that you do not?

According to James Austin, chance combined with creativity is the equation you need in order to fill your life with more serendipitous events. This equation does not necessarily give you enough information on how to create more serendipitous events in your life.

Chance or luck definitely plays a part in creating these moments of pure genius. However, luck alone would leave your to very minimal odds of getting that stroke of luck you desire. And because serendipity requires a bit of trust in life and going with what is presented, it can make you feel a little out of control–which few of us like to feel.

Are there specific things you can do to increase the serendipity and luck in your life?

The good news is, yes, you can influence how “lucky” you are. Here are some of the key things I have found impact your ability to create a charmed life.

  • Listen! Everyone gets those nudges, hunches, and ideas; but do you follow them? Instead, you probably let your rational mind convince you the idea is silly or unrealistic. The people who tend to be lucky more of the time, listen to these crazy nudges.
  • Connect, connect, connect! The more people you meet the more opportunities you will find. It is really a matter of numbers. Put yourself in situations more often where you might meet the right person or learn something that puts your dreams in motion.
  • Share and be vulnerable! If you are like most people, you hold your ideas close to your heart and rarely let others know what you are dreaming. This can be useful to avoid ridicule from friends or family who might belittle your aspirations; but if you do not share your passion with others you cannot find the people who will help you turn your dreams into reality. Take a risk!
  • Keep learning! The more you invest in learning about your interest the more likely you will learn about the key people and things that can move you forward.
  • Believe your idea will take flight! The last, but perhaps most important element of creating serendipity in you life is believing what you desire to happen will in fact happen. Imagine it is like knowing a certain show is on TV but you do not know which station, or a specific movie is in theaters but you don’t know which one. You would never question the existence of the television show or the movie; you would just search until you found it. Having that kind of belief in your own dreams allows you to be open to the flow of magic called serendipity. When you are trying to force things or doubting they will happen you will miss the cues from life that tell you which channel to tune into.

Who Can You Be Today?

What is the greatest ideal expression of myself I can be today?

This simple question has the potential to move you from guilt and blame over the past or anxiety and doubt about the future.

Imagine waking each day without care about the mistakes you made yesterday or worry about your ability to reach your goals in the future–solely focused on what is the best you can bring to today!

I didn’t make this question up; some wise person I don’t recall gave it to me. The question gave me pause, made me consider, and helped me put things in perspective. Then, like so many of us, I let this wise teaching slip into the background. However, I was smart enough to send myself a note that would arrive months later to remind me of the question again today.

Now re-reading it with new eyes I am committed to asking myself this question every morning for the rest of my life. I posted it on my bathroom mirror to remind me each morning when I wake and each evening when I retire that the only think required of me is to bring my best to the day at hand.

And now I ask you. What is the greatest ideal expression of yourself you can bring to your life, today?

Your Oscar Winning Performance

You might wonder what the Oscars and your success have in common?

Oscar night always generates so much excitement–even for people like me who don’t see most of the movies nominated, it is still fun to watch the show or read the headlines of who won. Whether it is the glamour, the fantasy, or the fame, acting and those who do it well seem to grab our attention.

The skill of the best actresses (or actors) and their directors is to make us believe something is real, even when it isn’t, and–believe it or not–it is the same skill that determines whether affirmations work for you. Yep, the thing missing from your happiness is probably your inability to pretend things that haven’t come to fruition yet–are real!

You may have tried affirmations and given up on them because they didn’t work–writing them off as one more failed technique. But the harsh reality is affirmation do work, if you can convince yourself to believe they are true.

You probably deliver affirmations with an internal critic adding, “Yeah, right!” or “Here are all the facts that show this isn’t true.” The inner voice is more believable than the affirmation, and so it wins the Oscar award for your life.

A few years ago one of my mentors, Bob Proctor, gave me a book called The Art of Acting by Stella Adler. It seemed a strange book to give a businesswoman and spiritual seeker who had no interest in acting. Yet, a short way into the book I recognized it was my missing ingredient in making affirmations work for me. Stella taught her acting students, like Marlon Brando, how to make their characters come to life by having them study the intricate details that make up a scene and rarely focused on delivering lines. These are the same details that help you convince yourself that your affirmations are real, which is the key to affirmations working.

Based on Stella’s teachings, here are a four ways you can become the Best Actress in your own life and start to create the movie you choose to live rather than the one you don’t.

  1. Acting is doing. Stella never let actors rely on the lines, she told them their actions should come before the lines and make the lines believable. What would someone do if your affirmation were true? How would they walk? Sit? What would they be carrying? Fill your imagination with action that would arise from your affirmation being real.
  2. Imagine your affirmed circumstance in detail. Stella told students they couldn’t have dinner on a stage. They had to transform the stage into the circumstance of having dinner in their mind even if the props and circumstances were not on the stage. She would have her students first imagine the details of the dinner. Is it in a home or a restaurant? Notice the placement and type of silverware, plates, and water glasses. Is wine served? Are there candles? What food is being served? Be very specific. Only when you have filled in all the details of this dinner or anything else in your mind, including whom else is there, can you affirm it with conviction.
  3. Study others who do or have what you want. Actors do not always have the life experience of the people they are portraying, so they study people who do to learn the nuances that make up that type of person. If you want to affirm you are wealthy, go where wealthy people are and watch them. Shop at stores they shop at and observe them while there. If you want to be in love, remember times you were in love and how it affected your body, your walk, your tone of voice and go watch couples interact. Then when you affirm these things you will be affirming them with the energy and details that make them feel real to your subconscious rather than as an idle wish. Stella said actors are undercover agents who must constantly spy on others!
  4. Know your justification for what you are affirming. An interesting exercise Stella made students do was to justify their actions. If they were drinking a glass of water on stage they needed an internal reason for it, even if it is not stated outright to the audience–reasons like taking vitamins, getting a bad taste out of their mouth, or gargling. But she would not accept the justification of “I’m thirsty.” Why? Because it was too obvious. If you want to affirm being wealthy your justification needs to extend well beyond because you want to be able to buy things–what kind of things, what will wealth change in your life, specifically.

The best way to become an amazing actress is to practice and study and the same is true for your affirmations to become believable so that they manifest.

Many people who teach affirmations tell you to aim big, and I agree.

But to learn the technique of belief and faith you need to practice from where you are to quiet the internal critic. Stella told her students they could not play a part bigger than them and their experiences. She sent them out to increase their experiences so they could increase the size of the parts they could play.

That is what I recommend you do. Affirm something small and study the intricacies of what it would look like to realize it. Then affirm it to yourself, looking in the mirror, while driving, before bed. Pick small things until you grow you muscle of imagination and detailed observation.

If you are depressed, affirming you are joyful may be beyond your ability to imagine.

But you could imagine and affirm that today is going to be better than yesterday. And then start to create how that scene would look. What small improvements could you believe? Once you get these bit parts right, you will be on your way to the Oscars!

Amy

Auto-pilot or Authentic?

How much of your day do you go through on auto-pilot?

We live in such a fast-paced, action-driven culture that few of us actually review our days to see how much of them are by choice.

It is a daunting reality when you realize very little of your life is your current choice.

This is why we crave new experiences–restaurants, vacations, lovers–in an endless attempt to feel alive.

What if we started to create newness in our life as a daily choice?  It requires being wide-eyed awake in daily life to start choosing rather than being a robot. Tama Kieves, author of a great book —This Time I Dance, recently wrote in Huff Post, “The rat will always push the lever where the pellets are.” Have you become a well trained rat?

Ugh! No one wants to admit this. But most of us have.

Try for the next 24 hours to ask yourself, before you do anything, “Is this what I choose to do, or am I fulfilling a role, meeting someone else’s expectations, or maybe just doing what I always do?”

Then make a choice. You will be surprised how much of your day is filled with things you do on auto-pilot and how few people will care when you actually stop.

What will happen next?

You will start living a life on purpose and perhaps to your surprise, each day will start to feel more alive, unexpected things will flow into the space you have opened that make your days feel more magical, and you will again be living!

Over 50 & Fabulous?

Are you over 50 (or heading towards it) and maybe fallen prey to our culture’s infatuation with youth? Do you believe the best of your life is behind you? Are you looking for and buying more and more “anti-aging” products–hoping for a miracle that will help you feel youthful again?

If any of that rings true then seeing what 60-year old Cindy Joseph is doing may surprise you!

Cindy just recently became a high paid fashion model. In fact, the surprise offer came the day she cut the last of her dyed hair off and became her natural silver-haired self! Her message is inspiring and I encourage you to read what she is doing and watch this video of her.  Even though the video is ultimately aimed at selling you her new makeup line, it is worth the watch as she discusses an attitude that can change your view of aging.

What’s her secrets?

  • Use less makeup, not more.
  • Let your hair go natural.
  • See yourself as beautiful, because you are.
  • Recreate yourself, rather than accept the cultural stereotype of getting old.

 

What Pain Are You Willing to Sustain?

We often ask, “What do I want,” but we rarely ask “What sacrifice am I willing to make,” or worse, “What pain do I want in my life?”

This last question posed by Mark Manson in his article in Quartz, really got me thinking.  We all sustain pain of various types when we have an important goal at stake. These can range from bodily aches as we train for a marathon, restraining our spending to save money to start a business, to emotional pain as we struggle to make a marriage work.

Mark’s question is important because you probably often say you want something, but are not committed to the struggle that is often required to get it. I know my list of wants will be whittled down using this question.

You can sift the chaff from the wheat pretty quickly if you stop agonizing over wishing for things you really aren’t willing to suffer to get.

Does this mean everything you want requires pain and suffering? Yes and no. Everything worth having will inspire you to heights you otherwise would not climb for other goals; yet, good things often come merely by believing you deserve them and being open to receiving.

There is another aspect of this question equally important to uncover–especially for women. Are there areas of your life in which you are repeatedly suffering, not for the good you hope to gain, but because you have grown numb to your suffering?

When I start a new business I never know if it will succeed–whether my efforts will result in the end goal I am aiming. Yet, I believe it is possible and also probable which is why I continue. When my children were young I agreed to emotional pain in my marriage because I believed our family was worth the struggle; I believed my then husband and I would work through our challenges and our relationship would be stronger for it.

At some point in my marriage I no longer believed things would ever be any different; but I stayed anyway. This is when my willingness to suffer became habitual, not something helping me achieve my goal but a pattern that actually held me from the happiness I desired.

You, too, might be suffering from a lack of discernment in your life between sacrifice that spawns fulfillment and the kind that thwarts your ability to succeed.

When you are stuck in the latter, less dynamic form of pain, you will actually be diminishing your success in all aspects of your life–not just the one where the suffering occurs.

Where and why do we suffer uselessly?

You might find this pattern of prolonged, fruitless suffering in a career that has long past made you enthusiastic to go to work, a relationship that holds on without bringing you joy, or even a home that does not feel rejuvenating. It could show up in endless dieting without ever feeling good in your body or endless budgeting that never improves your finances.

What causes us to maintain these states of pain beyond their usefulness? Primarily the fear of change. The problems we know are often more desirable the the unknown because at least we have a level of comfort in predictability. Yet those are the types of thoughts that make your life feel like the you are part of the walking dead.

Moving forward…

Once you identify any people, places, or circumstances in your life where you have allowed yourself to become numb to your suffering, then it is time to take action. Any action to challenge your deep seated patterns will inevitably bring up fear.  Yes, when you make the needed change it will create pain–the type of sacrifice required to create a life worth living!

You will feel the difference because this suffering will be in your face–not a dull ache you can ignore. It will be scary and exhilarating maybe all at the same time or you might experience massive  pendulum swings occurring every few days or even swinging wildly back and forth minute to minute. You may have to take risks and temporarily sacrifice things you enjoy to make the change.

Will you make the move?

That depends on your answer to the first question I started with, “What pain do you want in your life?” Do you want to live with the deadening pain you now know? Or, do you have a dream of something bigger, better and more fulfilling that allows you to actually want the pain you might encounter if its necessary to achieve your dream?

 

What Are You Feeling?

Most people try to hide their feelings and the result is that the emotions come out sideways in their relationships and work.

Matt Lieberman, a neuroscientist from UCLA, says that by labeling our emotions we diffuse their power over us and they can become informative instead. Labeling works because it gets us out of our reptilian brain and back to the reasoning part of our brain.

You might have learned this in a parenting class–instead of trying to appease an upset child your best strategy is to help them identify (label) what they are feeling. This allows them to process it and rise above the feeling, rather than be engulfed by the feeling.

Well, the same is true for you and I. Although you may have been taught that you are too emotional and should get a handle on your emotions, that type of conditioning only makes you more likely to explode or react from an emotional space. It does not actually make you more rationale.

Emotions are indicators that can help us navigate our environment and make choices that will lead to our happiness.

They should not be stifled. Neither do we want to become victims of our own emotions to the point they have shut down parts of our brain and put us into ‘fight or flight’ mode.

When you feel angry and acknowledge it then you can look at the circumstance and make choices to ask for changes or remove yourself from situations that aren’t in your best interest. If you try to hold in your anger you are likely to stop listening to the mild messages until they become an explosion.

My experience with my own pent up anger is it always comes out destructive and it never gets me what I actually want.

Cultivate Curiosity

So in order to make sure I hear my anger, or any other emotion, while remaining in the driver’s seat of my life–I am learning to label how I feel and start to become a curious investigator of my emotions.

The more I listen to and ask questions about how I am feeling the more I am starting to make choices I like. By labeling how I am feeling it keeps me from diving deep into the feeling. On those deep dives I rarely learn anything that helps me react to my world in a productive way.

Labeling your emotions is a great tool. Try it next time life sends you spinning. Cultivate curiosity for how you are feeling and it can become a wonderful guide. Life is too short to spend it pretending we are happy when we are not.  The easiest way to make a life where you are happy is to notice what makes you feel good and what doesn’t. Then do more of what does.

 

 

 

Four Questions About Love

Valentine’s Day can bring up a lot of emotions, especially for women. Did your significant other show you the affection you hoped for? Did the day go the way you wished? Or, maybe this year you do not have a significant other to celebrate a relationship with.

Whatever the underlying cause, your sense of love and being loved can be triggered around this holiday regardless of how you intellectually claim otherwise.

While the emotions are still in sight and have not become a distant memory tucked neatly away, take 30 minutes today to go somewhere private—a walk in the woods or the bathtub will work. Ask yourself these 4 questions.

  1. Do I feel loved?
  2. What would have made me feel more loved, if anything, this past Valentine’s Day?
  3. How much of my self-worth comes from the love I receive from other people or one other person?
  4. What situations make me feel the most loved?

You might want to journal your answers and really own how you feel. Once you take stock of your current situation, I challenge you to spend the next 30 days loving yourself.

What would that look like?

How could you take better care of you, be kinder to yourself, love yourself—right now, as you are?

Are there things in your answers to the four questions above that you might be able to do for yourself, rather than wait for someone else to do?

Years ago a mentor of mine told me to go home and tell myself “I love you,” while looking myself in the mirror over and over again—until I felt it. Really felt it. I thought it a silly exercise, until I tried to do it. As I repeated the phrase over and over, I began to cry because I realized how little I really did love myself—without someone else validating I was worthy of love.

Make a commitment to find out what will help you feel worthy of love and to do those things for yourself.

  • Are there things you have always wanted to do, but have held back from doing in order to support others that you could now do—a class, a trip, a commitment to a new routine?
  • Do you love flowers, but never buy them for yourself?
  • Do you enjoy alone time but never carve time out of your other commitments?
  • Are there friends you want to spend time who you could set a monthly or weekly date with?

Find the keys that will tell yourself—through action—that you are loved and lovable. By growing your self-love you will not only be happier, you will also be helping those around you love you more because you will be radiating that you are worthy of love and attracting love because your heart will be full of love to give.

Amy

Walking the Tightrope of Caring While Having No Attachments

Many spiritual teachings tell us to have no attachments in order to find happiness; while success guru’s teach us to have strong dreams, build vision boards, and think about our goals regularly. How do you navigate these seemingly conflicting instructions?

You don’t have to choose one or the other–happiness or success. In fact, following both the instruction to build a strong vision of where you are going AND remaining detached will help you achieve both.

How?

The key is to have a goal, but not be so attached to it in the form you have in mind that you are closed to other possibilities. You want to build a picture in your mind that becomes so real you can actually feel the emotions you would feel if it were real right now. And at the same time you hold a relaxed view that if this did not happen it would be to make way for something even better.

Without a dream or vision you have no direction; but with attachment you are trying to force things and are not in the state of allowing–where the real magic happens.

You have to care–but not that much.

To do this you have to cultivate a few beliefs:

  1. You must believe in your ability to achieve what you are after and be able to stay focused on your desired outcome, even when events and circumstances have not yet lined up.
  2. You need resilience; knowing if it does not work out you will recover and find something else.
  3. You want faith in the goodness of the universe that when things sometimes don’t go as you plan that something even better is on its way and this was not the best thing for you.

The live by these beliefs, not merely state them, is hard work but the strength and confidence required to do so can be cultivated. It requires more than anything else self-control–control of your thoughts. Each time doubt arises you have to actively say “No” to that thought and return to ones that reflect the three beliefs you want.

When you hear, “This isn’t meant to be; nothing is going right and it’s not happening fast enough,” you must quickly replace those thoughts with, “I don’t know how this is going to come together but I know it is.” Then ask yourself what is the one thing you can do or learn to help you achieve your goal–right now, today. By moving back into action, you not only prevent those negative thoughts from gaining momentum; you also move closer towards your goal.

Each time you find yourself anxious you have to toss it aside with unabashed confidence knowing this goal is not the only thing you can go after. Remind yourself how capable you are–no matter what happens–to create something you love.

Then when occasionally something happens that makes you decide to let go of a particular dream it is critical you keep your thoughts on the idea that somehow that vision wasn’t the right one to bring you your highest happiness. It is hard in the moment to believe that; but if you think back on other losses and times things did not work out, you almost always can see that you are better off now because of it. Use those memories to keep yourself positive when it is happening in the current moment.

Walking the tightrope of strong dreams and detachment takes practice. The results are the ability to create the life you desire easily and effortlessly!