Category: positive change

Ride Your Power Wave

Surfers ride waves made by the oceans around the world.  To harness the energy of a wave depends not on the water, instead, on the surfer.  It is not easy to move from a prone to standing position on a curved board.  Add to the problem that the board is swaying, and stability is a problem for the surfer.   It is a very daunting action to master.

The surfers can ride the wave by believing they can. Good surfers must practice often and have absolute faith in themselves and their abilities.  It is the skill learned in practice that allows surfers to grow the confidence needed to succeed.  Surfers succeed because they ‘will’ themselves to do so and then practice being better.

The same goes for those pursuing their dreams in other venues of life. First, you need desire.  You need to know what it is you want to do.  And then you need to learn everything you can about the subject.  The more you know on a particular topic, the better you will become in the field. You also have to practice whatever it is as often as you can.

We do not live and work in a vacuum, cut off from others.  Therefore, you must find and exchange knowledge with others who are pursuing the same goals you are.  The first-hand experience you both gain through these meetings helps to spur both of you, and anyone else there, to targets of greater magnitude.

The more you practice, exchange information and ideas, and learn through working to your goals, the more prolific you will become.  You will find yourself riding your wave.  The wave will not be one of water; rather, it will be a power wave created by your work and belief in yourself and those around you.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again soon.

Be Ready

Life is going to throw some good things your way. Unfortunately, you are also going to have some undesired items thrown your way too. You are, though, going to need to know what you really want out of life, so you can react in the right direction towards both the good and the bad.

You are going to need to know what your plans are so that you can react expeditiously. Life will not stick around and wait for you to make a decision. Time is moving forward no matter what you do, and you should be able to react in your best interests. So, the next question I’m sure you’re asking is, “How do I do this?”

You do your best at any point in your life. Know yourself. Know what you like, what you do not, and why.  Know what you have a passion for and what it would take to be good at it.  Good enough to make a living and enjoy the work.  The world will not take time for anyone who is ‘hemming and hawing.’  You need to get out there and do the job.

You can start at any time.  Shirley Temple was an actress as a tot and an ambassador in her latter years.  Grandma Moses was not even discovered for her paintings until she was in her sixties.  Betty White is in her nineties and still going strong.  Their Secret? They did not go home and just sit on the front porch.  They got and stayed active.

If you have given up, you still have two choices you can make right now.  You need to get active, or you need to plan what others might do if you are not around.  At least, that is what the statistics say.  Wonder why women live longer? More action and work in their lives overall.

Not sure where to start?  Talk to a life coach.  Find one you like and will work with you, asking the questions that make you think.  Life coaches do not have you dwelling on your past or crying over what could have been.  They work with you to understand where you are and what you could do if you wanted to.

Life coaches help you understand that limiting beliefs are usually only in your head. You can really do anything you want if you are willing to put the work into getting the results you want. A life coach cannot do it for you, yet, they can be a guide that helps you to get rid of the negatives that stand in your way and help you to reach out to the goals you really desire.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

 

Do not Dwell

Today we honor our past leaders.  Those who stood tall to shape our country and our society.  Whether good or bad, the presidents were there and tried.  They served in an office with such problems and pitfalls that most people, for many reasons, would never want to hold.

It is important to remember and honor our past.  Our past, good or bad, is what has made us.  We cannot go back and change it.  We can take the lessons learned from that past and strive to create a better future for ourselves.  This does come with a warning of actions that we can all be susceptible to.  Look but don’t Dwell.

Understanding our past helps us to know where the hidden traps are. The snags that can drop us into deep holes or ruts where we cannot find our way out.  To avoid those, we need to keep looking to where we are going, not where we have been.

If you are driving somewhere, you keep your eyes looking out the front window, more than the rear view mirror.  It seems to be safer that way unless you are backing up.  Life does not have a reverse on the stick shift, so, eyes forward.

Wherever you are right now, you have learned knowledge from your past and hopefully developed future plans.  Keep your eye on the future, and you will probably get there.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Do Not Talk Yourself Down

Do Not Talk Yourself Down

This week we are looking at the two opposing forces that are inside ourselves and everyone else.  We hold the ability to do many beautiful things. And yet, we also have a strong ability to talk down to ourselves about our good deeds and errors of whatever we did.

I am talking about the ‘would of, could have, and should have’s.’  They are often backed up with phraseology such as ‘if only,’ and the devastating ‘who said you could.’  These phrases can snatch defeat right out of the jaws of victory.

The problem with all of these phrases is that they are beating you up over something you no longer have control over.  You cannot go back in time and change anything.  It happened, and now it is history.  Whatever happened, we have to accept it and take the lessons learned to do something different and possibly better next time the same set of circumstances present themselves.

One of the critical actions in doing this is to change your attitude and vocabulary.  ‘Woulda, shoulda, coulda,’ has got to go.  In its place, we need to install new words. They may include: ‘I will do this the next time that happens,’ ‘I can handle the situation this way,’ I shall not be _______ next time.’

We cannot change the past.  Also, we cannot predict the future.  All we can do is learn positive actions from past scenarios and remember them as we move towards the future.  Look to the future, not the past.  After all, we cannot go back, only forward.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Are You Positive?

This week I would like to talk to you about good and evil. Many people call it the light or the dark side. When you walk in the sun, you sometimes feel you are walking in goodness. When you step on the dark side, it is often a feeling of evil. Actually, the light of day and the darkness of night are always the same.  So, I would like to put it in the connotation of positive and negative.

You should look at it as walking with positive intentions and thoughts or walking and working in negativity. We have actually both within us. And, we could be pulled either way. We can work well together, working in the light of positivity, or we can fall into the depths of despair and live our lives in negativity.

So the question becomes which side has done more for you? What has done you more good, the times you stay positive, or the times you fall into negativity? We have both within us. We have probably been on both sides, sometimes positive and sometimes negative. And we have a choice.

Do you feel better about yourself when you’re positive or when you’re negative? Do you get more done when you’re positive or when you’re negative? Do things work out better when you’re positive or negative? Think about it.

If being positive did better for you in the past, you can get back there.  All you need is to find one positive thing.  Someone said hello, or the sun was out. I found a penny on the sidewalk.  Maybe something else you find favorable. Write it down.  Then remember the next good thing that happens to you and write it down when you have a chance.  By the end of the week, you could have a whole list of good things you can look at whenever negativity comes calling.  It does make a difference, a positive one.

Thank you for being with me today.  I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

Take a Positive Step

By now, I guess it’s no secret I am opening up my own life coaching office. Just like everyone else, life coaches have highs and lows. And being an entrepreneur, those highs and lows seem to come very frequently.

I learned something important, though, this weekend. Everyone has highs and lows. What matters is how you handle the roller coaster of emotion. Because you can control it and succeed, or you can let it control you and really give it license to make you miserable. What I’m talking about here is whether you worry, or get incredibly anxious over what is going on around you.

When you worry, you understand that there is something that may cause you a problem. You gather the facts and make a plan. You may need to rehearse, devise a checklist to use, pack early so you can get to the train station on time. You plan and do everything to be prepared.

Anxiety is a little different. When you’re anxious, you just worry at an exponential and uncontrollable rate. You’re actually afraid of what might happen, and you believe so many things could happen that are rarely believable options. The next thing you know, you can’t do your work, and everything else you wanted to do is taken over and consumed by this anxiety.

Usually, anxiety will go away as the event that started it winds down and it and is over. Unfortunately, some people just transfer their fear to the next concern and the future. They seem to live in an almost constant turmoil.

The secret to breaking the chain, in part, is to work out planning. Take the things you are concerned about and make a plan.  If you are afraid that you will say something wrong, practice what to say that would be good.  If you feel someone will think less of you, study the things they are interested in or know about.  If you are worried about other things, ask yourself how realistic that scenario would be, and take steps to understand and diminish the chances of that happening.

The positive thing is that you are actually in control of yourself, and you have the power to change what is not helping.

Like everything, small steps are best.  They can lead to significant improvements when they add up.

Thank you for being with me today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

What Have You Done for #21 Lately?

We do a lot of things for many people.  The higher we grow, the more we do.  If we do our job well, we often find ourselves with more and more people attaching their projects to our time and less time for us to have to ourselves. It is all right to do well for others as long as you take care of #21. I have to ask you today, are you taking care of #21?

Granted, #21 is not at the front of the pack. Usually doesn’t get all the limelight deserved. And can often get lost in the stampede to get things done. Yet, the team would not be a whole one without this valuable player.

When you’re checking your roster of contributors and lineup of required actions, be sure to look out for the little guy. Ensure that even #21 is given a calculated blend of playing time, training time, and time for recuperation. The balance is essential because without the correct balance you will not get your best performance.

Thank you for being here with me and allowing me a little play on words. This blog contains a puzzle, and in solving it, please tell me a little bit more about #21 in the comments section. I’m not sure where everybody is reading this from. I do know where #21 lives.  #21 lives within our hearts.

I hope to be with you again soon, in the meantime don’t forget to take care of #21.

Powering Through

Sometimes in our lives, things do not always go as expected. Sometimes we have to accept detours, hardships, and pain. To keep going, we have to find alternatives along the way. The truth you have to understand is that you are more significant than anything trying to block you from your goals.

Sometimes you can use a superhighway to go directly to your final destination. Although, sometimes you have to find your way around obstacles. Yet, you never let those obstacles stop you from getting back on your track or cause you to throw your hands in the air, give up, and walk away.

Sometimes when you’re on the road toward success, you get hit with a deluge of bills or other costs that were not expected. This does not give you permission to quit. You need to take a step back, figure out a better budget that you can stick to, and look for other ways you can do things that are either free or less expensive.

You may not have ever experienced an avalanche of health concerns, yet I assure you they do exist. You don’t want to give up with that avalanche on top of you. You grab the shovel of determination, and you dig yourself out. You talk with the professionals, and you figure out what will keep the problem from slowing you down. You design your plan of what you have to do so this does not slow you down in the future. You take care of yourself, your body and your mind because they’re the only ones you’re getting. And you move on, to get back on that highway to wherever your goals in life take you.

I have seen people in pain. Hurt with migraines, broken bones, traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, and more surgical scars than you can imagine. These people do not quit. They power through the pain and learn new ways to cope because they understand they cannot reach their goals this side of the mountain. To succeed, they have to move over, around or through that pain to reach and achieve their goal.

I have seen this my whole life. What I’ve learned from this is to never bet against anyone. Some of the direst cases will come back to surprise you. They will not quit, and that is what allows them to obtain their goals.

If you hit obstacles on your way to your goals and are not sure of what to do, the answer is easy. Don’t quit…  Get the right information and power through.

Take care of yourself and thank you for being with us today. I hope to be with you again tomorrow.

 

 

Change Happens

We do not live in a stagnant world. Change is a continuous part of everything that happens. You cannot run away from change, and you cannot hide. The best we can do is to acknowledge new differences and face them without fear.

Change comes in many forms. Our needs and wants will change. The way we share information and learn new things will change. The way we shop will change. The way we are entertained will change. And as we move on, we will find out that we change. I have realized this and begun to hope to change for the better.

We have two ways to handle this. Either we accept the fact that change happens, and we keep up with the changes, or we ignore or fight change in which case we actually find others bypassing us as we strive to keep up. It is better to keep up with change and understand how it will best benefit you, instead of fighting change and finding that you are left out of many of the good things in life.

I am not up on the latest and greatest of everything, although, I do try to stay involved in what is new now, and what will help me both now and in the future. I find this keeps me a little more agile and the mind nimble. Staying involved helps to cut down on the cranky days were nothing moves right not even the brain.

I prefer not to coast along. As you saw on one of my blogs last week, coasting usually represents a downhill movement.

One of the famous sayings related to older people is, ‘Things are changing and none of it for the better.’ As I hit my retirement years I’d like to change the phrase a little:

Things are changing, thank goodness!

 

 

Getting to Where You Need to Be

The question we look at often is why. Why this? Why me? Why now? Yet, many times the why is just superfluous.

If you have a situation going on, something out of the regular routine of your life, the real questions are what and how. What do I do about this? And, how do I do it?

You can spend days and weeks going over the why. As an after action report the why becomes essential because you have a chance to not get in the same problem area again. Until then, you need to improve the situation.

There are two ways to map your path out of any situation. You can start mapping where you are and plan towards where you want to be. Or, you can reach out ahead of yourself and figure out where you want to be, and then map backward to where you are. Here is a sample of each.

Mapping Forward

This is the situation I am in now (write it out). To get to where I want to go, I have to do A (write out whatever step A is.) Then I have to do B (write out whatever step B is.) And finally, I have to do C, and of course, you write out whatever that is also.

map a
map a

 

Mapping Backwards

Sometimes, mapping backward is more straightforward. You know where you need to be, so you start by listing that. Then you start working back. Before I can get to my destination, I am must do C, (write out whatever it is you need to do at step C.) Before I can get to step C, I must do step B. Don’t forget to record step B. The action between where I am now and step B looks like it may be too much of a stretch. I better put in a step A. We better record that one also.

 

map B

These are just Two of the avenues to get to where you want to be.  Wherever you are going, Have a good and a safe trip.