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Happy Valentine’s Day! Everyone has love on the brain this week. Who are you loving this Valentine’s Day?

For many, V-Day is another holiday to wince and cringe at. No love life going on, therefore no loving going on. In my opinion this is one of the biggest traps of fear going.  As cliché as it may sound there is some very serious truth to that old adage “you got to love yourself first”. For those of you who struggle with this idea, here are some tips to get you thinking about love in a new way this February 14.

Love Yourself First Tips:

Let Go. Keep that voice in your head in check. Notice your internal dialogue and let negative thoughts go. Negative thoughts do not serve you. Notice them, and let them go. This is a life-long practice with love.

Offer it to yourself first. Practice small acts of love towards yourself everyday. Splurge on the avocado, make yourself a foot bath, snuggle with the cat.

Validate that you are loving. Notice the acts of love that you do perform every day. If they are hard to find, then I urge you to dig deeper into the tip above.

Enjoy the love of others. Notice when you are with people that seem to love easily. Spend more time with these people. Allow them to demonstrate to you the small ways that they are being loving. Model these things for yourself.

Love starts & ends with you. It is a circle that never ends. If you are stuck and feeling no love this Valentine’s Day, please take action with some of these tips. You are SO worth loving.

Over the years, many clients have mentioned to me that they thought long and hard before reaching out to a Life Coach.  Although it has become a little more mainstream over the past few years, many people are still very unclear on exactly what life coaching is.

To me, Life Coaching is the answer to “so now what?”  It’s a tool to help with that feeling of being stuck and unable to live within the confines of whatever is making you feel that way.  Many people have tried traditional counseling and therapy, and from that feel they have an understanding of what’s “wrong” with them or where their “issues” came from. Understanding this is important of course, but it’s only 1 piece of the puzzle. That understanding does not mean you have a solution. Many people may have some awareness, but are still unable to release themselves from the patterns that got them stuck in the first place. The longer you feel ‘stuck’, the bigger the challenge it is to get unstuck. When you are stuck, everything else around you seems to get sucked down into the muck too, and the fear of being unable to get all systems firing again paralyses people even further. Time goes by and the status quo remains.

A Life Coach helps you identify the pieces you need to get moving again in order to get unstuck.  A really good friend can help you do that, and you may in fact be really clear about what those pieces are. But life coaching takes things further. Together you and your coach will go the extra mile to gain perspective on what those individual pieces mean, and clarify what, out of all of those pieces, are your real priorities. A life coach listens to what you are REALLY saying, and helps you take actions that support what you say vs. contradict it. Saying and Doing are not the same thing.

The other key thing life coaching can do is help you become accountable to the things you say are your priorities. We still don’t stop there…and this is my favourite part…while you are out in the world doing the things you say you want to be doing, your coach will help you pay attention to yourself and really bear witness to what’s happening. It is at this point that you will really experience the power of working with an expert Life Coach – the personal understanding of how you trip yourself up. Working with a coach, enlightens you to the subtle and insidious ways that fear can get in the way of what you really want.

Life Coaching is for you when you decide are ready to dip your toe into a different perspective. It is work, but I firmly believe the energy it takes is no different than that energy you put into being stuck. Wherever you are right now, is the perfect place to start.

Fearless Living is about embracing your human potential. Certified Fearless Living coaches are at the top of the rapidly expanding Life Coach industry. They have been through an intensive 18 month training program and not only coach Fearless Living, they live it.

I have been a certified Fearless Living coach since 2005. I have had the great pleasure of supporting hundreds of clients on their fearless living journey and would love to chat with you about how coaching may be able to help move you closer to where you want to be. Contact me today for your free, absolutely no obligation chat. What have you got to lose?

If you read my last article and were kind enough to yourself to ease your way into the new year, then good for you!  The next step now is to work with the intention you created for yourself for 2012.  We used kindness as the first step in moving ourselves into action, and now it’s that time, taking action!

Recently, I worked with a client that reminded me of something I think is key to  making your resolutions real, and that is having the discipline to take action.

In our exchange, she gave me a new favourite word, “Blissipline”.

We were strategizing ways to embrace and practice using discipline to empower her to take action on the goals that she had for herself.  She understood that having an intention was the pathway for her to realize her dreams.  Her stumbling block however, was actually getting to it.

I understand this very well.  For some people discipline is a natural.  For others it feels like a constant struggle.  For the people who struggle with discipline, I believe it is useful to think of it as a skill.  Like any skill, you need to practice and diligently work on it.  Figuring out how to do this in your own authentic way is something a lifecoach can help you sort out.

My client shared that she thought disipline was a yucky word that she didn’t want to like.  She liked being free, disipline was a downer!  I asked her to consider another perspective and think about discipline as a great tool to handle the many pressures in life. This is particularly true for entrepreneurial personalities who can have 10 good ideas  a day and easily get distracted.  These are the people with too many things going on at once – they eventually end up overwhelmed.  When overwhelmed, you become ineffective, which leads to beating yourself up because you never accomplish anything.  This is a vicious cycle that many smart, capable people find themselves in. Eventually you may even subconsciously stop trusting yourself, and your confidence erodes.

The truth is that following your bliss takes discipline.  Bliss isn’t really about doing anything you want when you want to.  Real bliss is following your dreams, feeling accomplished, and creating and nurturing that thing which you hold dear.

Pretty hard to live your bliss with eroded confidence and a constant feeling of overwhelm.

We all have enough life experience to know that confidence increases after completing things.  Think of your top 5 most confident moments in life.  I am willing to bet that most of those five are related to finishing something. Completing that which you set out to do.  Knowing that when it comes down to it, you have the discipline to get the task at hand done.

Remember and remind yourself:

Following my bliss takes discipline.  Bliss isn’t really about doing anything I want when I want to.  Real bliss is following my dreams, feeling accomplished, and creating and nurturing the intention that I hold.

Get beyond the illusion that bliss just shows up.  Go out there and make it happen for yourself.  Use discipline as your means of getting it. Embrace discipline, and true bliss can be yours.

COACH TIP: How are you willing to embrace being more disciplined?  Here are three techniques that I recommend using daily to keep yourself on track, on course, and committed to your  intention.

1)If your current to do list, (either written, or being carried around in your head) is longer than 12 things, get a pad of paper and write down the three most important tasks you can complete today.  These will be more minor tasks, or parts of larger projects that you can tackle and complete in one day.  If you are working on a big project, break it down into tasks, and focus on 3 things in a day.

2)Tell a family member or friend what you are working on. Saying something out loud helps you to become more accountable to it.

3)Ask yourself… “if not now, when?”. Get clear about when you can do something, and schedule it in.  Putting things off with out getting clear of of when you will get back to it, is a trick of procrastination.

You did it! You made it through Christmas! Welcome to the other side! 2012 has arrived!

There is a lot of chatter going on right now about New Year’s Resolutions. Everything from resolving to spend more time with your kids, to shedding 40lbs, to saving your finances by buying an RRSP before the deadline! TV right now is all about buying fitness equipment and boxes of cleansing herbs and potions, and to do away with all our old habits.

 Yep, here we go, hurling ourselves into yet another year!

If you really want your new year to be about a new you, why not try something a little different this year? Decide that this year is actually going to be different because you are going to ease into the new year. What if this year, you started the year out by being kind? Kind to the person that means the most to you – yourself.

Generally I know that I am going to get better results if I treat myself with the utmost kindness. So, when thinking about the new year I am going to take time to truly reflect and get clear about what I want this next precious year of my life to be about.

Knowing exactly what I want on the stroke of midnight seems like a set up to me. I have been busy enjoying the fullness that is the month of December. I haven’t had the time to reflect on how my year has ended. That is what I think January is for. Time, space and quiet to reflect.

Hurling yourself into the new year with a list of terms and conditions that you are going to suddenly abide by sets you up for certain failure, let down and disappointment. All or nothing, cold turkey doesn’t usually work. That’s not to say that it CAN’T work, some people are really good goal setters and achievers. But, for the rest of us, all or nothing often doesn’t work.

Ease your way into 2012, by taking some time this month to consider your goals in the broader context of your life. Remember every year in December that feeling of “where has the year gone?!” Years go by quick. Think about your goals in the broader context of life and use that as a way to create intentions for the year ahead. Intentional living creates way more results then throwing sweeping declarations out that create expectations that end up setting us up to feel negatively about ourselves.

Intentional living gives you the guide to live by when the inevitable ups and down of life happen. You can decide how to measure your response to most things, and this helps you to be consistent. Consistency and commitment are key. Taking the time to get this part right is crucial in making your resolutions real this year.

Slow and steady does win the race!

If you would like to ease on down the road with me this 2012, I invite you join me at my Beyond Goals workshop on January 11. If you are not in the Kelowna area I welcome your comments and thoughts, questions and challenges!  I am looking forward to constructing an amazing year with you. 

Thanks for reading!

Christmas is good for business! You may expect that January with all its resolutions, aspirations and goal setting would be a Life Coach’s busiest time of year. While I certainly see an increase in new clients in January, it pales in comparison to the first three weeks of December.

The truth is Christmas is HARD for many people. What I have learned in my six years as a Life Coach is just how much of a challenge this time of year is for so many people. Some clients get caught up in the stress of the season(financial stress & in-laws) and others have much deeper wounds from Christmas’s of the past. Did you know that there is a higher rate of suicide in December then any other time of the year? It is astounding to me how many people I work have been impacted by suicide and the effect of that event on the Holiday Season.

In general the response to these things is to shut down, turn inward and spend Christmas alone. My feeling about this is simple…No wonder Christmas is hard! If you read my last blog post, you would have noted that I identified what I believe is the number one truth about Christmas…it comes along EVERY SINGLE year. Why not work on ways to face this “wonderful” time of year head on, instead of the work and emotional toll it takes to avoid it.

Avoiding the festive season means refusing to face whatever it is that troubles you most this time of year. Resistance means you don’t give yourself the opportunity to let go of the baggage from the past. When you carry that around you don’t give yourself the ultimate gift – the gift of starting anew.

It is not true that a Merry Christmas is just for some people. Christmas is here for everyone to embrace and enjoy. Be willing to take 3 small steps this year that will set you up for years to come:

Step #1
Make your I HATE Christmas list. Sit down with a blank page and write down all of the things that you hate about Christmas. Even if it seems petty and trivial write down all the things you hate about this time of year – spending too much money, overindulging, being alone, happy people on the street, fake festive carolers at the mall, missing your Dad, having to spend time with your Mom etc. etc. Push yourself to make a BIG list – don’t let yourself off the hook until you have 20 or more niggling things that you hate about Christmas.

Now that you have the big list, give yourself the gift of humour. Pick 5-8 things that are actually kind of funny when you think about it. Being able to laugh at the resistance that has built up over the years is a really good step in the direction of letting go and moving on. You might not immediately feel like laughing at the things on your list, but urge yourself to do so. Seeing how you have built up a wall against things like “stupid elves” can actually be kind of funny when you stop and think about it.

Step #2
Look at the list you’ve created and identify 3 things that no matter what are always going to be a challenge, for example facing the holidays without Dad. Now ask yourself, what you can do for yourself to honour and support that challenge. If you can’t think of anything try asking yourself “If I had a magic wand, what would I do to improve this situation?” Resist the trap of getting caught in the past here, you can’t bring Dad back, or transform your mother in law, but what can you do today that would impact your tomorrow?

Step #3
Decide this year to work on seeing Christmas differently. Eliminate the words that keep you stuck. Things like, “I hate Christmas”, or “Christmas is hard”. Work on framing things so they feel more doable. Instead say, “Christmas is a challenge, I am working on letting festive into my life, I am willing to see all the reason that people love Christmas this year.”

There really is no time like right now to work on transforming your “I hate Christmas” attitude. As your Life Coach I cannot change events of years gone by, but I can support you as you take action this year to shift yourself into a place appreciation for the Christmas season.