Tag Archives: inspiration

How Do You Feel About How You Spend Your Time Each Day?

The last few days I have squandered my time answering emails, doing small tasks, and basically avoiding some hard work that I don’t enjoy. How do I feel tonight? Tired, uninspired, and not much further along on those tasks I was avoiding.

Most days when I am working on things I love, my days end with a sense of purpose, accomplishment and enthusiasm.

This difference is important. You probably overlook it as you trudge through your obligations and to-to lists. Yet, what I realized tonight, is that how I feel about how I spend my time matters. Because I didn’t want to do what I was aimed at doing, I made the project take longer, depleted my energy available for other things, and wasted much of my day. Yet, when I am excited about what I am doing I get ten or even a hundred times more done than I did the last few days.

Do you experience this same time warp when you are doing things you love verses doing what you loath?

I think we all do. And if this is universally true, than how we feel about how we spend our days matters more than we realize. Maybe you should be placing a great deal more attention on ensuring you spend your days in ways that energize you. With energy, you can accomplish much and without it you accomplish almost nothing.

Am I saying just don’t do things you don’t like? Well, as appealing as that might be—no that is not what I am saying. What I do suggest is that you start your day in ways that invigorate you and keep the things that pull you down to a minimum or at least scheduled for later in the day. That way you keep your day at high energy and can tackle the thing you don’t like with the vitality you created, rather than letting the action you dislike diminish your energy so you cannot complete most of the simplest tasks you had planned.

How do you feel about how you spend your time most days?

If your answer is not positive, then take time this weekend to create a new plan for how you spend each day this coming week. Add in more of what inspires you. Find creative ways to accomplish the things needed that you don’t enjoy.

  • Is there someone you know who does enjoy those things you can get to help you?
  • Maybe you can use the money you currently spend on vanilla lattes to pay someone once a week to do it?
  • Can you hire a neighbor’s teenager to help?
  • Maybe you could create a learning experience for a local college intern and get the job done for free?

Think outside the box, rather than stay boxed in a life of drudgery. 

Regrets Keep You at the Train Wreck

Sometimes I find myself wishing I made other decisions or took other paths along the way to now. Do you have regrets, too?

Invariably this type of thinking strikes me when something has not gone as I had hoped–my marriage of 29 years falls apart, my mom gets diagnosed with cancer, I get sick from too much stress. And even the not so big moments of disappointment can hurl me into the endless loop of “What should I have done differently?” if I let them.

Although I know it is essential to evaluate our choices so we make better ones in the future, I usually am much more likely on a spiral of regret and discouragement when I find these voices taking the stage of my mind.

The question is not whether you will have thoughts of regret, you will. The solution is not to avoid disappointment, it comes–bidden or not. The answer lies in the path forward.

How do you navigate away from falling into an abyss of despair and personal condemnation when big things go wrong?

Common advice like “You have to recognize that it is all for the better,” or “You created it, so you can now create something better” all lack the needed understanding for how I feel in that moment. I may be able to see the truth in these attitudes later, but in the moment they dig me deeper into my dungeon of self-loathing for mistakes made.

What does work for me is making plans and taking action. Even when looking forward to the future seemed dismal because my family was “broken apart,” making plans that moved me out of limbo did help me stop the emotional bleeding. Sometimes that is the most important thing in a crisis; stop the hemorrhaging.

It’s better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.

~ Jacki Joyner-Kersee – Athlete

It’s a bit like being on a train going someplace when the conductor stops the train and tells you the train is no longer going to your destination. It really does not matter if the engine failed or it was a full on train wreck. You are in the station, your bags all around you, trying to make sense of your plans which have been irrevocably changed. That train is not moving, you are not getting a refund and there is no way to magically start over back at the beginning.

You can sit down and lament the situation. But until you get up and assess your options, buy another form of transportation, and start moving–you’re stuck. As soon as you start making plans your focus changes from the plans no longer happening to something new. It may not completely remove the sting of not getting to your original destination; however, it starts the process of healing.

This past December I moved across the country to start a new chapter of my life. I have been divorced for 5 years and it took me that long to get out of the train station with my bags all around me. Maybe I could not have done it sooner, maybe I could. But the movement has opened my energy and my possibilities.

If you have found yourself talking too often–to others or yourself–about what didn’t turn out the way you planned I recommend you change your focus to what steps you can take, make plans, and start moving.

You don’t have to make plans for what to do with the rest of your life. That may have been what kept me from moving forward–I thought I needed an answer for the long-term. You just need plans for what to do next. Then begin your new journey with that first step.

You will be glad you did.

 

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

A little help from my friends

Sometimes staying positive and upbeat gets difficult and there are days it can feel downright impossible. That’s when you turn to inspiration.  You can boost your seratonin, your mood, and your energy by feeding your brain and your environment with things that make you feel good. Maybe for you it is:

  • Talking with good friends
  • A long, bubble bath
  • Going for a hike, or
  • Reading a good book

Three things that are scientifically proven to help our state of being are:

  1. Getting out into nature; especially long walks with your gaze far in the distance.

  2. Hugs and human contact.

  3. Reading or listening to inspiring books or talks.

The latter can be found in your bookstore, on podcasts, or books on tape, as well as recordings of great seminars. Find a few favorites to use over and over again, as well as look for new information. Repition can ingrain the important ideas into your way of thinking that a fast, once-over reading can never do. And let’s face it, all of us have plenty of negative self-talk rattling around in our brain that can use replacing.

This fall the Texas Women’s Conference was again a powerhouse of ideas and inspiration. All the sessions are available by podcast, and there are still some free trainings that some of the speakers are providing.

Have fun listening to these and exploring the things that inspire you.

 

What are you passionate about?

What things get your juices flowing?  Are there topics you find yourself talking about socially that you could go on and on about?

It is important to know what really makes you excited, and then make sure you are including those things in a big way in your life.

Enthusiasm is contagious.  It makes life lighter. It fuels your energy tank in ways that nothing else can.

So why is it that so many women live lives that lack pizzaz?  Do any of these hold you in a place of hum-drum daily existance?

  • Prior commitments.
  • Responsibilities.
  • Bills need to be paid.
  • No time for anything else.
  • Don’t want to hurt anyone.

Too often, women assume that their needs have to be met AFTER everyone and everything else is taken care of.  This tactic results in slow simmering anger and resentment or subtly growing depression for many.  How do you avoid this slippery slope?

You must make it a priority to feed your soul. This is not another to-do to add to your already overflowing list of obligations.  Rather, this is what will give you the energy to complete those things with a smile on your face.

I help women find their passion and incorporate it fully into their professional life, usually by creating a company that embodies their values, has a mission they are passionate about, and surrounds them with people and events that they would enjoy–whether it was work or not. You can learn more about my Wealth Development Program here.

Having your work life BE your passion is one way to ensure you include what you are enthusiastic about in your daily world.  But their are other ways, too. Here are just a few:

  • Volunteer with an organization that is doing what you believe in. By actively helping in an area you care about you will start to feed your belief you can make a difference.
  • Dedicate Saturday mornings doing something you love (painting, dancing, kayaking…) before you venture into chores or other activities. If Saturday mornings don’t work, find a day you can commit to. Time spent cultivating enjoyment will help you re-ignite your life and your belief things can be fun.
  • Spend time regularly with someone who is doing what they are passionate about and support their efforts. As you see how someone else incorporates their passion into their life; you will begin to see opportunities for your own life to change.
  • Regularly go outside your comfort zone.  Too often, the biggest challenge to improving your life is your habits–the way you always do things. If you want things to change you are going to have to change things in your life.  If you want more of the same, continue doing what you always do.

Don’t let your life and the weight of it control you.  You control your life.  Most women avoid this because they think it means throwing away their career, their marraige, or some other important element of their current life.  Maybe it does.  But most likely, once you embark on waking up your passion the changes will look much different than they do today.

Take a small step. Today. And then another step, tomorrow. Move in the direction of living fully. You will be amazed at the joy you bring back into ALL aspects of your life as YOU become more fully alive.

 

Mentors, role-models and inspiration

Did you know that some people’s mentors are not even alive, yet influence their success immensely?

It’s true. You can be led and guided just by learning about someone you respect and see as having reached greater success than you.  

That is why so many successful people read biographies of famous people–to learn their secrets as best they can. In Napoleon Hill’s work he talks about convening regular meetings with people long dead to review his problems from each of their perspectives, as best he could imagine having studied them.

Who might you convene, if you could, to help you find creative solutions to your own problems? Here are a few ideas to get your creativity going.

  • Mother Teresa
  • Oprah Winfrey
  • Marianne Williamson
  • Queen Elizabeth I
  • Eleanor Rosevelt
  • Golda Meir
  • Margarent Thatcher
  • Marie Curie
  • Margaret Mead
  • Indira Ghandi
  • Sandra Day O’Conner
  • Rosa Parks
  • Gloria Steinem

The list of powerful women is endless. Find those that you admire, respect, or even those with a certain quality you lack and would like to cultivate–even if you do not like the person’s views.

For this same reason, I bring to you each month my Interviews with Influential Women.  In each interview you get a glipse of what each of these women did to achieve their success, the stuggles they surmounted, and their views on issues facing women, like you, today.

To read this month’s interview, and any of the prior ones, click here.

My Mother & Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou has been one of my all time heroes!  She always inspires me and this beautiful video with Oprah is one of those brilliant moments.  Maya reminds me of my beautiful mother, who would have been 91 today and is another of my heroes.  Mom was always grateful for her health and vitality and was spunky right up until the day she died at 87.  I miss her deeply and am so grateful I was able to enjoy her joie de vivre for so many years!

 

How Do You Make Tough Choices?

Each one of us are faced with tough choices at various times in our life.  Most of us come up against the dilemma at least once, wondering whether to take a leap of faith into something that inspires us or play it safe where we are.

When those times happen, what do you do?  How do you make the tough choices in your life? Do you ask people you trust for advice?  Maybe you weigh the risks and try to analyze the potential for success or failure?  Some people make a pro’s and con’s list and evaluate their options that way.

I have learned that I can argue pretty much both sides of everything, so staying in any process that uses my mind as the deciding force leaves me anguished and often paralyzed.  Yet, when I get quiet and turn to my heart, I can FEEL my way to the choices that will best feed my soul and bring me the most happiness.  Any time I have made choices based on this inner guidance, I have found the universe conspiring to make it work out.  When I have made other choices because I “thought they were right”, I was often left struggling to make them work.

I love the way CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien spoke of her keynote address at the recent Texas Women’s Conference.  She encourages us to look beyond next year to a 10-year horizon.  Then she asks, “What do you want to be?  What impact do you want to have? …What do you want to be remembered for?”

Soledad even puts risk in a new perspective as she points out that when you look at your life decisions from the contribution you can make, they no longer appear risky–options like your career moves seem almost incidental to the potential difference you can make on the world, community or even your family.

I encourage you to be bold in your life, think BIG when you dream and really feel into what choices will give you the most joy in their unfoldment.  If you are not stretching, you are probably also not feeling alive.  So stretch a little.  No, stretch a lot!  You will look back and be so glad you did.

In life — Eat one bite at a time!

“The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult.”
Madame Marie du Deffand

I love this quote!  It reminds me of wisdom I have had to learn over and over again.  That wisdom is: It is not essential to know all the steps of how to accomplish a big goal.  What is essential is taking the next step.

So often we become paralyzed by the scope of our goal or the number of things looming over us needing to be done and we fail to move forward at all.  Each step, no matter how small, will move you closer.

When I hit this place it appears every aspect of my goal is tied to the next and will create a domino affect if I make the wrong move, or miss the magic answer.  If the project feels like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro sometimes I spin in circles trying to put all the pieces into some systematic order that will make the job come together.  From this place decisions are impossible and forward motion ceases.

Yet, truly all that is needed is for me to take the next step.  And with each step the next one becomes more obvious.  Each step simplifies the path and brings the end goal closer.  And my taking action not only moves me closer to the goal, it also reduces my anxiety and clarifies my thoughts.  This simple solution has solved more problems for me than almost anything else.

Do you sometimes get paralyzed by decisions that feel too huge, or a project that feels overwhelming?  Try this next time.  Take just the very next step.  Decisions become easier and mountains of tasks slowly shrink to a manageable size.