Tag Archives: achieve your dreams

Words of Wisdom For Instant Happiness

Today, I received an email from a friend and colleague who I admire, Natalie Ledwell, quoting one of the women I admire most, Marianne Williamson. The quotes are pointers to how I choose to live. I think you will enjoy them so I have reprinted Natalie’s email below.

If you don’t know about Natalie’s work with Mind Movies, you will want to look into them. Mind Movies allow you to program your mind to the things you want, overriding all the programming you take in unintentionally–and you actually get to create your personalized version!

One of the reasons I love Natalie’s work is that she and I both are passionate to help people learn how to succeed, without the struggle and heartache most people stay stuck in. Both Natalie and I have been in the trenches and are teaching what worked for us, not some theory about what we heard works, but real life-tested ideas.

My success in various businesses would be fleeting and meaningless if it were not for teachers along the way that helped me create fulfillment not just bank balances, and purpose not report cards and titles. Marianne Williamson was one of those teachers. I first stumbled on to her work over 20 years ago and have been enjoying her wisdom and turning to her guidance ever since.

In Natalie’s words:

If you haven’t come into contact with this woman’s extraordinary work, you’re really missing out!

I’m talking about Marianne Williamson who, besides being a NY Times best-selling author and lecturer, has been a spiritual friend and counselor to Oprah! YES – Oprah!

If you’d like to be enlightened by her wisdom, read below for seven of her best lessons for instant happiness:

1- Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.

2- Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.

3- We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?

4- Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.

5- The new midlife is where you realize that even your failures make you more beautiful and are turned spiritually into success if you became a better person because of them. You became a more humble person. You became a more merciful and compassionate person.

6- The key to abundance is meeting limited circumstances with unlimited thoughts.

7- Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.

Enjoy!
Natalie ~ Mind Movies

Create Your Own Blue Zone Routines

August is often the start of hectic activities to resume our regular routines. Here is why, and how creating your own Blue Zone routine is important.

Whether you are getting ready to send your children back to school, or you are just starting back into a more regular work week as employees, you and your customers are all back from vacations — the end of summer schedules is near.

As you begin to ramp back up into your regular routine I suggest you think about creating routines that better align with your desires and your health — rather than doing what you have always done.

I often talk about how creating a life you love will feed your soul and your pocketbook. And it is true. Plus, creating routines that feed your inspiration actually improve your health and life span!

In his book, The Blue Zones, Dan Buettner describes nine key lessons he discovered while researching the places around the world where people live longer than average. He looked at places where people lived to over 100 healthy at rates significantly higher than average — blue zones. Many things he found also match what I have learned about success.

Here are key points you will want include in your routine this fall:

Regular physical exercise — preferably outside rather than in a gym helps your body be strong and reduces stress.
- Walking five miles a day or more every day seems common in blue zones.
- Gardening is another great form of exercise that uses a wide range of motions and gives you a source of fresh vegetables.
Choose work you love, rather than work to later do what you love.
Find purpose in your life so you wake up enthusiastic for your day.
Take time for family — many blue zones have strong family time in their lives. In fact, they put family first.
- Develop and cherish a strong social network; family and friends who will have your back and you will have theirs emotionally, financially and physically. Make sure the people you spend the most time with honor the same values and goals you do.
Take time daily to admire what is beautiful in your world. Stop and enjoy it.
If your routine does not include much laughter, start new ones that allow for more joy in your daily life.
Keep learning. Look for ways to expand your mind regularly.

Here is to your happy, healthy, Blue Zone routines. Do you have one to add?

Patience is my Challenge

I am not by nature a patient person.

After my second child was born, I remember visiting my high school best friend with my five- and one-year old. As we were saying goodbye after a fun day together for the first time in years, she leaned over and said, “You have really changed. I do not remember you being this patient!”

Having children taught me many things; patience one of them. It’s always a choice: I could be rushed & frustrated or patient & happy. I choose patience with my kids.

Yet, I still feel impatient in many facets of my life. I want my big ideas to take flight immediately. I want my employees to take on new tasks with speed and enthusiasm. I want each goal in my life to manifest as soon as I set it.

Bob Proctor sends out daily quotes, and I enjoy reading them in my inbox each day. They give me pause to ponder ideas from great minds. This one really got me agitated.

“Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience”. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

After reading this quote, I recognize my impatience may be one of my biggest stumbling blocks to realizing my dreams to their fullest. Even though my commitment and enthusiasm around my goals are important, my impatience is actually blocking the good I desire, and I never quite saw it before.

Although I coach women on business, much of what sets the groundwork for anyone’s success is a sizzling goal and belief you can achieve it — even if you do not know how.

Without that in place all my help with the how is like chasing your tail — lots of energy spent and motion happening but little to show for it.

Today, I got the ah-ha that when I set my goals, yet am impatient for their achievement. I am actually putting out energy that I don’t really believe they will happen — at least not as fast as I desire. That is inadvertently sabotaging my affirmations just like a lack of belief in myself or in my goal would do. It is a subtle sabotage but a sabotage just the same.

In fact, most of the ways we derail our dreams are not obvious. If they were, it would be so much easier for us to correct our mistakes. But they disguise themselves in things like enthusiasm and commitment, when they are actually impatience.

Are you patient like nature? It’s what grows towering redwoods and magestic cypress trees over hundreds of years. I choose to develop patience to a new level of calm, enthusiastic belief. I will let you know how I do.

With the Right Mentality, Your Obstacles Will Give Way

Recently, I have been plagued with a number of set backs in a project of mine. The setbacks were tied to government agencies, so the solutions were slow and laborious. It has been hard to not focus on the problems. These are the moments when affirmations and pretending things are OK fail most of us, and they were failing me. All I could see was the obstacle.

So I used an exercise to help me focus on the outcome I want (and not feel like I am just lying to myself).

First, I wrote down everything that was going wrong. I included my judgment about the people involved, the unjustness of the situation, and how it makes me feel. Then, I noticed some repetitive patterns in my outlook similar to other situations, so I kept writing — things like how it seems I often make great efforts and then something “always” happens to get me off track — or how things are so hard. I wrote until I had completely exhausted all the ways this situation and similar ones frustrate me.

You know you’re on to something important when what you write makes you think, “Yep, that is exactly how it is.”

It could be how you have been trying to improve your relationship for some time, but your partner is unwilling to put the effort into changing. Or maybe it is that you do a great job at work and your boss dismisses your efforts and praises other people who didn’t work near as hard as you.

After I felt complete with this part, I began writing what it would look and feel like if I was experiencing the exact opposite of this situation.

Because what I wrote was the polar opposite of what I had been experiencing it was really powerful. I could actually FEEL what it would feel like to have it be like I wanted. The difference is that it wasn’t a band-aid affirmation — it was the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I had written –line by line.

Because I was already emotionally involved in my view of what was wrong, it was equally easy to pin point the exact things that would feel right. I think that is the key to exercises like this. You need to use them in the moment, not just as a theoretical exercise.

Now, I am ready each morning and rewriting each night (focusing on the things I wrote about what I do want to experience). And it’s working!

I will leave you with a quote from Napoleon, who was known for being single-minded in his thinking.

I see only the objective; the obstacles must give way!

You might want to try this exercise, too, join me in overcoming negative thought patterns! And, please let me know how it goes.

Are You Planning for the Worst?

I have spent years avoiding what I do not want. Avoiding the bad. Do you know that feeling?

I scan my environment continually. I notice other people’s moods, find ways to improve them, review business results, quickly change any headed the wrong way, assess my calendar and adjust to ensure there are no conflicts with important people and events. I am good at anticipating other people’s needs or problems before they articulate them, short circuiting problems before they arise with my family, employees, and friends.

In some ways, it looks like I am extremely effective because of this knack at having a keen radar for my world and its direction. If you have this tendency to be exo-centric (a new word I made up in contrast to eco-centric) then you understand what I mean. Don’t get me wrong, my basic ability to be empathetic and inspire people around me is great (as is my ability to turn around businesses and keep a packed calendar that still works). This gets me a lot of kuddos in the world.

But it is exhausting AND keeps me focused on what can go wrong! The underlying motivating force has my world on tilt and not near as fun as it could be.

What I am noticing is the energy behind this “strength” of mine is a fear that something is about to go wrong and that I need to ensure it doesn’t.

Ouch! That is not the mental attitude I want to live my life from. And with all the positive reinforcement I get from family, friends and co-workers for keeping life smooth for them and me, no wonder it took me so long to notice this.

I think I have spent most of my life avoiding “catastrophe.” I don’t think it would be useful to just affirm I am not going to do it anymore starting today, but I do want to change it.

So my plan is to actively notice what is going well. It may not immediately stop these other thoughts, but over time with practice I will be training my mind to build on the good instead of avoid the bad.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this? Are you an avoid-er of problems? What will you do to move your radar detection mechanism away from this tendency?

Are you focused?

What would it take to actually achieve those goals you set at the beginning of the year?

Are you focused; or are you plagued with guilt over still carrying those extra pounds or not maintaining the original vigor you had to accomplish a specific career or relationship goal?

In a previous blog, I talked about how our subconscious mind has a set point, that brings us back to a pre-programmed belief about ourselves (whether it is in our weight, work or our relationships).

For most of us, those unconscious beliefs keep us stuck where we don’t want to be instead of heading where we’ve stated we want to go.

But there are ways to use this same mechanism to get what we do want, too.

The four steps for moving from a negative set point to a positive one are:

Move your attention from what you do not want to what you do.
Start to see yourself as having what you do want.
Expect the good you want; not the bad you do not.
Look for what is already good and be grateful for it.

I remember a friend telling a story about his first motorcycle ride in the Colorado mountains. Although an experienced rider, he said he was overly nervous and driving slower than the friend he was riding with. Finally, his friend pulled off the road at a overlook to talk. When they had both pulled over his friend looked him in the eye and said, “You will go off the edge if you keep looking at it. You have to look at where you want to go. It is the only way to drive these mountains safely.”

It is the same lesson in life as on that mountain road — if you keep looking where you don’t want to go, that is where you will end up. I notice it in every aspect of my life.

I remember hearing about this same concept in parenting classes years ago. My kids would promise to help with dishes or do some chore. I would notice that they didn’t do it. We would fight. They would do it reluctantly and then the cycle would start all over again. But when I would follow the recommendations to notice and thank them when they did do what I wanted, rather than focus on when they did not, I truly got more and more of what I wanted.

So whatever the goal — no matter how guilty you feel that you haven’t yet achieved it — start training your mind to look at the goal, not your current lack of it.

It really is simply a habit, the way we look at things. Like any habit, they become habits through repetition. So to change it we need to repeatedly change our view. I have been doing this for a year and by repeatedly moving my attention to my goal, and off my current results, I have noticed I am changing my set point. My rebound to old patterns is happening less and less.

It took years to set these old patterns of noticing what is wrong, so be persistent at reinforcing the new place you want to be.

I like to write my goal each morning as if it has already occurred. You might prefer recording yours, so you can listen to yourself saying it while driving. Either way, find ways to remind yourself to visualize your goal. And then when you notice you are thinking about your current result, remember the mountain road and readjust where you are looking!

Pick one or two things you have been trying to change and make a conscious effort to feed your mind the positive pictures and feelings of having already achieved it.

Moving your dream forward starts the moment you wake up

I love the hibernation energy of winter—hot teas, glowing fires, the urge to curl up with a good book and inspiration to move your dreams into action.

Slowing down is part of our natural biological clock at this time of year, and Mother Nature often forces the decision—even if we do not heed the call. Even though cold weather may be blustering outside in the Northern Hemisphere, it does not have to slow your movement towards your dreams. At the same time, pursuing your dreams does not require you to be overactive and miss out on the sweetness of renewing yourself.

One thing that probably keeps you from moving forward on your dream is the mountain of tasks you wake to each day—just to keep your existing life in motion. When I start my day trying to whittle down my to-do list, I rarely get to my main goals, and when I do, my creative juices are slow as molasses.

I have a trick that can keep your sights on the prize—while you enjoy steaming soups and fireside chats. (Even those of you basking in warmth down south can enjoy this trick to prosperity.) My trick?

I always start my day doing something towards my big goal.

Whether you invest 30 minutes or work until noon on your dreams before you start on the to-do’s, you will be amazed at the massive progress you will make.

What if you don’t do this? Well, I will be writing to you next year at this time, and you will be in about the same place as today; your dreams still unrealized.

Go ahead, give it a try. A year of 30 minutes is a whole lot of movement forward. You won’t miss the 30 minutes if you do it; but you will deeply miss your dreams if you don’t.

PART OF INFLUENTIAL WOMEN, INC.

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