A Mid-Year Check in

photo by picjumbo.com

 

As we are almost to the halfway point of the year, I am spending time in reflection about the way I’ve been operating in life and in business so far. I use a combination of journaling, looking back over my plan for the year, and brainstorming what I’m feeling is missing or needs to be eliminated.

 

I also take time to celebrate where I am at this mid-point. That’s important to me, as I am naturally inclined to seeing what I haven’t done with a critical eye, rather than embracing the successes I have achieved.

Among other things I’ve done this year, I’m celebrating my steps forward in achieving my next level of coach credentialing. I’ve really taken the main focus off of acquiring more clients and have shined a light on technique and coaching competency. It’s uncomfortable at times and my inner critic has spoken up more often than I would like. But it’s been a huge learning process that I haven’t undertaken for many years, and it feels satisfying.

 

I’m celebrating another successful half year as an entrepreneur. Building a coaching business takes time and I can honestly say that I am looking at sustainability, continued growth and refinement. What else am I longing to do?

One of them is writing and blogging. I find that these are often the first things to get pushed out when I am “busy.” I have at least 5 book ideas in my head, but so far, I’m not coming to writing from a place of choice as I prioritize my time for writing and creating each day.

I also find that I sometimes avoid social media because it can be a depressing place to be. Yet, I want to create an uplifting corner for followers here on the blog and on my other social media sites.

I see so many “ads” and posts from other coaches about how they “leveraged Facebook to create a six figure income.” And, of course, how they help other coaches to do the same for a mere $10,000. How about the untapped power of Instagram? When I do pop in, I am bombarded with offers of free books about blogging or IGTV to make me rich. Rich enough to be able to afford their exclusive VIP program.

Honestly, that isn’t the way I want to be in my business relationships with clients. I want my connections to be authentic and meaningful, as I continue to move forward as a coach and as a business owner. I want a personal relationship, not an online conversation in a Facebook group or a series of pre-recorded training videos. In fact, I also need to stop signing up for these things or looking outside of myself for resources to succeed. I don’t need a program created by anyone else. I know what I need to do to attract new business and sustain the amazing clients I already have.And in order to do that, I need to open myself up to more conversations with people I want to work with and who want to work with me. So how do I want to approach this?

I want to give content and tools, rather than taking names and emails to filter through a squeeze page of just “one more bonus offer if you sign up today” or “click here to get this amazing offer that will skyrocket you into six figures.”

I want people to want to work with me because they had an experience of me in some way. And they believe that when we partner together, we will both benefit exponentially in ways that go beyond money or followers.

What does that look like? Maybe monthly or quarterly free events as I used to do years ago. Possibly live chats on YouTube where we talk about whatever is important to each individual that is watching. Trainings on the 4 Elements for Success – a deep dive into each one.

So, as you look at this past six months, what is it that you are celebrating so far this year?

What else are you longing to do?

What might you want to avoid or get rid of?

What will Enliven you as you step forward into the Summer Solstice?

What blooms most vibrantly for you right now?

 

As we approach the longest day of the year, may you find the time to shine a light on what’s most important in your life and work.

When someone changes your life, you honor them.

Years ago, a girl who worked with me introduced me to the work of a woman named Louise Hay. Linda was leaving our company and I remember going to Barnes and Noble to buy her a going away gift of some of Louise’s books, because she often talked about how much her work had helped her. Even after that endorsement, I wouldn’t take a real look at anything Louise had written for years.

I can’t exactly recall how it happened, but I was reminded of her again just before or just after I discovered the idea that coaching might be a way for me to move forward after Katrina.  First, someone else I knew said, “Have you read anything by Louise Hay?” And then a few weeks later, my first coach quoted Louise in a session. She then told me that Louise had an online radio station called Hay House Radio and it featured a coach whose work I also admired, Cheryl Richardson, and a guy whose work I had discovered in college named Wayne Dyer. She said, “If you’re willing to take a look at this, let’s talk about it next week and how it might speak to your current dissatisfaction with what you’re doing.”

To say I looked is an understatement. I devoured Hay House Radio and ordered one of her books. I downloaded podcasts featuring all of them and listened whenever I was in the car. They all said things I had no doubt heard before, but that at a time that I wasn’t really listening the way I was then. I was ready. It was time to change my thoughts and to change my life.

Where I am today in my work and in my beliefs about myself are like night and day. My thoughts aren’t perfectly positive every day – in fact, far from it! I’m just more aware of them most days. Some days are still crumple and cry days for sure. But I’m always moving forward…always equipped with this one key to success. Thoughts are things. What you think about comes about. Because when you change your thoughts, you change the way you feel. And when you change the way you feel, your level of self love, happiness, presence, and belief and hope changes the way everything else unfolds for you.

I’d heard these concepts in church when I was a child, but the way these teachers described these concepts made it all connect for me. It wasn’t woo woo or metaphysical to me, but a practical application of the same principles that had been written and practiced by thought leaders, disciples, priests and kings.

I began gratitude journaling daily. I repeated daily affirmations as a way of taking what I used to think of as prayer into a whole new level. I learned that believing something could happen was the first step, followed by actions, and then miracles would follow. And they have.

Wayne died two years ago yesterday, leaving behind a legacy of written and spoken words.

Louise died yesterday at the age of 90. Exactly two years to the day after we lost Wayne. They were colleagues, friends, and faithful supporters of each other’s work. I can’t imagine their joy at being reunited again.

If you’ve never picked up one of Louise’s books (or Wayne’s)  or listened to one of her audio or video presentations, I encourage you to do so. Her life story is incredible to hear.

But today, I just want to take a moment to use my words to honor a woman I never met and to be grateful for all that she was to me. To say that she changed my life is also an understatement. My 4 Elements for Success are based on these principles that I learned and used to create my business. I wouldn’t be where I am today, sitting on my couch in a home that is perfect for me doing work that I love more than anything I’ve ever done, without the wisdom this woman shared with me and with the world.

 

Fill yourself up before the orange, beeping light comes on.

The best metaphors come out of coaching conversations. This is something I experience a LOT and it never ceases to amaze me.

So a couple of days ago, I was coaching someone on personal capacity issues, otherwise known as “how many to-dos are too many to-dos for one work day for me right now the way I am currently feeling?” I phrase it this way because the nebulous WORK LIFE BALANCE (said in a loud, echoey voice to add drama and proper reverence) changes every single day. You could get sick. Daylight Savings Time kicks in. Stuff happens. That’s why is shouldn’t be called balance at all. But that’s another subject to keep diving into another day.

The point I’m getting at today is how do you know how much is too much and how much is just enough, especially if you are transitioning into something new, experiencing a health issue, or just plain saying yes too many times? If personal capacity shifts sometimes just because it’s bound to shift?

My client was describing how she just bought a new car and her gauge tells her how many miles she should expect to be able to drive before she runs out of gas.  She suddenly cries, “I wish there was a gauge for my personal energy that would measure how many clients I can serve before I’m just worn out and unable to give anything else.”

Wouldn’t that make life so much easier? A way of measuring how many more tasks or clients or reports we can complete before we are energetically and physically spent? It would make planning our day, our month and our YEAR so much easier! We wouldn’t overschedule or take on more volunteer activities than we can handle. We would only say yes to what we absolutely know we can accomplish. We would delegate the rest or just easily say, “No. I’ll be on empty if I take that on. You’ll have to find someone else. Or wait till I am able to fill up again. I’ll get back to you next week.”

My personal awareness around this issue is that I actually TURN OFF the feature that tells me how many miles I have till empty in favor of the feature that tells me how many miles per gallon I am achieving. I ignore capacity in favor of a performance measurement.  I’m that girl that thinks an A- just isn’t good enough. The word productivity comes up in my daily self talk. A LOT.

But wait – it gets better. In my car, I have this gas gauge constantly in view that shows me in bars how much gas I currently have.  I can’t turn this one off. So 10 bars is full and 1 bar is almost empty, right? So I get in the car a lot, only to discover I have like 2 bars. My brain registers that I have 2 bars till empty and I make a mental note, “You must get gas soon.” But inevitably, I am driving along at some point hours or days later and I hear the familiar BEEP and I see the final bar is glowing orange. This means, “GET GAS NOW!!!” It’s almost gone! All of it! The anxious search begins for gas and I tell myself I won’t be able to get the most reasonable price now because I don’t have the option of shopping around. I’ve got to gas up now. Even though I took the time earlier to register that I was almost on empty, I pushed myself because I thought I had more time. I thought I’d get gas when it was the right place and the right price. I put off taking care of the inevitable.

Are you running on 3 bars? 7 bars? Or is your orange, beeping light already on? 

 

So not only do we face these capacity issues in life and in work all the time, we often ignore the signs and signals that we are running toward empty. We think we can do more, should do more, MUST do more. “I’ve pushed this before and survived. I’ll just carry on.”

We know that things like meditating for a few moments or taking a walk in the middle of the day would help our brains become more functional or help us think more creatively. But we end up working through lunch because there’s a deadline or we have to develop this one new thing before the day is through. Or maybe someone calls and says, “Hey can you take on this _______?” And we say, “Sure!” Not really stopping to consider how many bars we have till the orange light pops on and the anxiety begins. We run out of capacity because we push ourselves to the limit, more often than not.

So here’s a thought – what if you agreed to get gas as soon as you’re on 2 bars? Every time, no matter what? What if 2 bars was your personal orange, beeping light?

Or what if you just stopped to consider how you feel when you are metaphorically starting to run on empty? What are the signs for you?

For me, it looks like:

Anxiety
Rapid Heartbeat
Feeling of Overwhelm
Self talk phrases “Why do I always do this to myself? “Why do I always wait till the last minute? Why didn’t I say No!?!
Forgetfulness
Constant feeling of forgetfulness
Dread
Panic
Anger
Ache in the back of neck and shoulder area
Inability to focus or attend to things I normally do to relax
Distractionary tactics

There are probably others, but you get the picture, right? Sound all too familiar?

Filling up before you get to empty starts with recognizing what running on empty looks like. Deciding how many ______ = capacity starts with recognizing or remembering what too many looks like.  Your internal gauge is giving you a clear visual or emotional measurement – you just need to put it into view. Honor it.

It’s simple. Fill yourself up before the orange, beeping light comes on.

Just Five Minutes – Explore Podcasts

Today’s Just Five Minutes is all about the value of Podcasts. As you can see from this video, there are a LOT of them to choose from. You can be entertained, educated and enthralled by Podcasts that are archived or added every day.

Just Five Minutes – Explore Podcasts

In the video, I mentioned one of my favorites as the Women’s Entrepreneur Association, but it’s actually the Female Entrepreneur Association Podcasts by Carrie Green.

Also, the Podcast Serial on This American Life can be found here:

Another favorite of mine is Harper Collins Presents. This link is to the iTunes subscription, but if you don’t have iTunes, I’m sure you can subscribe in another way. I’m currently obsessed with the audio retelling of After the Funeral, by Agatha Christie. It’s delivered in parts and I feel like I understand what it must have been like for my parents to listen to a radio program once a week and have to wait for the next installment.

Hope you enjoy a podcast or two. And as always, let me know what love to listen to.

That’s your Just Five Minutes for today. I’m off to find out what happened to the Abernathy family After the Funeral or to Bowe Bergdahl in the second season of Serial.

 

 

Book Review – Five Good Minutes at Work

Five Good Minutes at Work

Title: Five good Minutes At Work

Authors: Jeffrey Brantley, MD & Wendy Millstine

ISBN: 978-1-60671-240-5 (Note – this cover image  is from a different version than the one I am providing detail for here.)

Published 2007 MJF Books in arrangement with New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

(previous edition published in paperback.)

Rating: 

As promised, I am providing a review of this book. The authors have several Five Good Minutes books for you to check out if you’re interested.

I first became aware of their work when I received Five Good Minutes in the Morning as a gift one Christmas. Several years ago, I left a rather difficult team meeting, browsed in Barnes and Noble’s bargain section and found the work version. I definitely needed it.

The writers bill the book as “100 mindful practices to help you relieve stress and bring your best to work.” There’s a Foundation chapter, followed by the Practices, which helps to introduce you to the benefits of mindfulness, breathing, listening and being present. The rest of the short practices are divided into these sections:

  • Doing Your Work More Effectively
  • Reducing Stress at Work
  • Working More Intelligently and Compassionately With Others
  • Travel, Deadlines, Frustrations and Other Opportunities

As a coach, I really see the value in these practices and can say, first-hand, that I benefitted greatly from them as I struggled to stay engaged with a dysfunctional team for several months before leaving that position. Yes, there are a lot of practices that deal with working with others. But that isn’t the main focus here. Many of them help you deal with crisis, overwhelm, setting yourself up for a productive day and more.

The authors stress setting a daily intention, which, in my experience, is absolutely a habit that will bring you into more of an awareness of your purpose for the day and feeling as though you achieved it. There is a time during each piece for breath and affirmations like “Whoops! I’m human. I’m fallible. I make mistakes just like everyone else. I accept this inevitability.” You know I believe in positive affirmations, and I think getting in touch with this reality is a very positive thing. We set ourselves up for failure when we set ourselves up for perfection. A potential downside is that some of the affirmations or meditations can seem a bit repetitive. For some folks, this may be helpful as this makes it easy to practice and remember what to say each day. For others, it may be more redundant than you’d like.

I have a lot of daily meditation type books that I love. But sometimes, reading one every day is overwhelming too. This book isn’t 365 days worth of practices – just whenever I decide to pick it up will do. Personally, I generally pick it up when I’m NOT having five good minutes. But maybe that’s when I need it the most.

Just Five Minutes – Launch

Hey there! Today’s post is a video telling you about a new series I am launching here on the blog and on YouTube called Just Fie Minutes. It’s inspired by a couple of books I picked up a long time ago called Five Good Minutes and Five Good Minutes at Work by Dr. Jeffrey Brantley and Wendy Millstine. While these books generally discuss mindfulness and intentional actions for the day, my Just Five Minutes series will focus on specific things you could do in five minutes each morning or each week to move you forward.

Here’s the video launch. I hope you’ll stay tuned for Just Five minutes. BTW – You can subscribe to my YouTube Channel and get all the videos over and over right here.

Just Five Minutes – Launch

Creating Some Daily Habits

Habits Quote

Looking for inspirational quotes can also be a daily habit!

 

One of the best things about becoming a coach was the training I received from Coach University. There were a variety of courses offered in both of the programs I completed, but one of the first courses I took was Personal Foundation.

Now I could write a book about what I learned in that class, but there is one available. (Warning –  it’s pretty pricey. You can find it on Amazon right here.) One of the best tools I received, and one I share with my clients frequently, was the idea of creating ten daily habits that would keep me grounded and ensure I had enough reserves to get through each day. It’s one of the best ways I keep my work and life in good balance. When I was caregiving for my mom, I often got so stressed that I would let my daily habits fall by the wayside. This resulted in anxiety and a feeling that everything was out of control. That experience taught me that making sure I practice my ten daily habits when I am stressed is critical to keeping that stress under control.

When we’re in crisis or depleted of energy from our “busyness”, we tend to be reactive rather than responsive. When we create personal energetic reserves, they help us feel as though we are connected to a place of balance and control.

Your daily habits can be whatever you want them to be and you don’t absolutely have to do each one every day. In fact, at first, it may be hard to fit them all in. And these habits don’t have to be time consuming. On my current list, there are three things I can do in the space of 20 minutes that help me to ensure that my day starts off in a way that is optimum for me.  For example, you might decide you need daily exercise, some motivation from a favorite podcast and adequate amounts of water during the day. Three habits can be accomplished all at one time if you bring your phone, earbuds and a water bottle on a morning walk.

Here’s a list of my 10 daily habits:

1)   Inspiration and Visualization (can be my music playlist or time spent visualizing what my success really looks like.)

2)   Move my body in some way every day (usually means morning yoga, but can be a walk around the block or doing a happy dance while listening to music playlists.)

3)   Morning pages/gratitude journaling. (three long-hand pages every morning thanks to a practice I learned from Julia Cameron over ten years ago)

4)   Read something every day (could be as simple as a blog post or article online or just might be the books I am currently reading.)

5)   Grounding and centering (I set a daily intention just after yoga while I am still on the mat)

6)   Meditation or quiet time (still on the yoga mat)

7)   Karma notes or calls (a practice I learned from Veronika Noize as a part of her marketing class. Just reaching out to someone every day and exchanging a positive thought or a thank-you for something)

8)   Water (I don’t feel as well as I want to feel if I stop drinking water.)

9)   Declutter – spaces, thoughts or inbox. (A little decluttering each day goes a long way toward keeping me from being anxious and unproductive)

10)  Create at least one new thing (I might draw, paint or write. Just one little creative thing daily keeps me happy.)

Get the idea? I keep my list of 10 Daily Habits taped on one of the cabinets next to my desk so that I am constantly checking in to them, refining and refreshing the list as needed. When you first start, it helps to keep them handy and nearby.

Ready to create your 10 daily habits? Here’s a Ten Daily Habits Template to help you get started!