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“So are you, like, a life coach?”

I get this question all the time.  And my answer is no.  Who even knows what that means?  It’s a term that has been really diluted over the past years and I don’t think it accurately describes what the profession does.   I have the certification and I took the training, but I choose not to use that label.

The pure definition of a coach is to get you from where you are to where you want to be. This is true for athletes, busiensses, and people.  Coaches have tools, knowledge, and experience to help someone fulfill their potential.  A good coach will not allow their client to have excuses for why they don’t have the results they want.  A good coach will keep their client accountable in many ways to that client’s own vision and dreams.

So, then, what am I?

I am a guide to help you, the parent, fall in love with yourself.  Of course, along the way you get to figure out what you want your life to be like – but without that crucial component of self love you will continue to struggle. 

I have three things that I require my clients to do:

1. Take ownership and 100 % responsibility for their life – without judgment.  This has nothing to do with good/bad/fault/blame and it has everything to do with understanding that you have created your life up until now through all the experiences, decisions, beliefs, and actions you’ve taken and that you have the power to change your life by changing your decisions, beliefs, actions and inactions from now on.
2. Let go of the need to hold on to your problems and negative emotions.  Allow me to help you clear those out because all they do is cloud your energy, your judgement, and what you really want.
3. Dare to be bigger than you’ve ever been in your life.  When I ask you, “what do you want?” don’st automatically go to “I don’t know.”  You do know – deep inside you you do know.  You’ve just never allowed yourself to define it or to go after it because you’ve focused on what you think you can do.  Allow yourself to become a bigger version of you – and trust me, the universe will respond and support you.

I do a very different type of alternative therapy…a different type of coaching if you want to call it that.  I focus on your results. It’s not that I don’t care about your problems – I am a caring person.  But I care more about your solutions and I believe you’ve lived with your problems long enough and there is no need to focus on them any longer.  I also believe that change doesn’t have to be difficult or take long.  In fact, in a one day session I can guide you to clear out your emotional and mental baggage, figure out what you want, and help you set up a strategy to get there. 

The only way you’re going to empower and motivate your kids to live their best life is if you lead by example.

Are you ready to rewrite the story you’ve been telling yourself and finally be the parent and person you were meant to be?  What will it take for you to be ready for that?

Don’t think of a frog prince!
 
Oops!
 
You did, didn’t you?
 
It’s ok, you’re not alone.  There are many parents who tend to think about the stuff they don’t want more than the stuff they
want.  And this is what their kids end up learning to think too – and they all get more of what they don’t want. 
 
I’m sure you’re wondering why that is… simply put it’s because your unconscious (aka the subconscious) mind doesn’t process
negatives. 
 
Wha??? 
 
That’s right.  The subconscious is very literal and has no judgment on the instructions you give it.  So, it follows orders literally
and doesn’t understand what NOT is. 
 
For example, a bunch of insurance companies back in the 1990s did a study of hotels and found that 90% of all slip and fall accidents happen in front of the yellow cones that are placed wherever the floor is slippery.  The cones state “Don’t Slip” and have a picture of a stick figure falling on his/her behind.  So not only are these cones telling you what not to do in words, they are giving you a picture to focus on too!  As you’re walking by, the picture in your subconscious is “slip” and before you can focus on something different (ie, not slipping) you tend fulfill that original picture.
 
So what does this mean for you and the kids learning from you?  You gotta say it how you want it!
 
Do you find yourself always saying or thinking “I don’t want to be so tired!” or “I don’t want to yell all the time?” etc?
 
What your unconscious mind is focusing on is “I want to be so tired” and “I want to yell all the time” and, since it follows
directions literally, it focuses your behaviours, efforts, and attention on being tired or yelling. 
 
This is why all the gurus say it’s important to think positive or say it how you want it.  I can already hear you saying it “Oh
great! More positive thinking! That stuff doesn’t work!”
 
Yes, it does, actually.  But if you have a ton of negative emotions and other gunk in your subconscious you need to clear that out first before you will find it easy to think about what you want.   Think of it like cleaning out a garage of all the junk before you can park your new car in there.  You can do it all at once if you want, or you can do it a little at a time.  The point is to start so that eventually you will be able to park that new car there – aka think differently than you are now.
 
Once you do the clean up it’s easier to focus on what you want and to keep your language clean saying what you do want:
 
“I am vibrant and awake.”

“I am communicating clearly and meaningfully.”
 
So when you want to teach your kids to get what they want out of life, make sure you’re using the cleanest and most positive
language with everything they do.  Make sure the words you say are putting pictures in their heads of what they want instead of what they don’t want. 
 
Instead of “don’t spill the milk” say “keep all the milk in the cup,” or instead of “don’t run because you’ll fall” say “make sure you stay up on your feet.”  This will teach your kids to use language that’s positive too.  (Of course accidents may still happen, but less often.)
 
This goes for you, the parent, too.  The next time you set a goal and find yourself not achieving it because you keep focusing on all the ways in which you are not achieving it, switch to focusing on all the ways in which you are achieving it.  This is what’s going to get you the results you want in your life and your kids lives.

In the “good old days” you went to school, then either to college or a trade school (usually following your father’s footsteps) and then you got a j.o.b. where you stayed until they gave you a gold watch on the date of your retirement. 

This rigid way of doing things is outdated now.  I love to learn things and I agree that knowledge is power.  But I don’t necessarily think that college, trade school, or even following in our parent’s footsteps is a one size fits all strategy.  The way we learn and the way we work has changed.  So why is it that, as parents, we still have that Gold Watch mentality about “how things should work“?

And why do we keep passing the Gold Watch to our kids?

We’re currently surrounded by news about the economy, how hard it is to make money, keep a job, buy stuff because prices are going up, etc, etc, etc.  Organizations, schools, and families get stuck in this hamster wheel of ”times are tough and we have no money so we can’t do anything.”  This mindset is not healthy because it keeps us stuck repeating old patterns and it teaches our kids all sorts of limiting beliefs about money, flexibility, and their ability to solve problems!

I heard a story once about a village in Brazil where a wooden bridge had been washed away in a storm.  The people didn’t know what to do about it because a new bridge mean they needed engineers, materials, time, labour, Mo-ney!  As they stood around commiserating about their misfortune, a young girl spoke up and said “My dad is an engineer, maybe he could help design a new bridge?”

Her simple statement led to a breakthrough!  A few other villagers began offering up some wood that they had laying around, someone else offered up their time and labour, and before you know it, the new bridge was built!  The people had come together and thought outside of the box and found the resources that they already had to rebuild a bridge.

Children are born without limits.  They find creative solutions because their creativity and ability are not contingent upon needing resources before having a solution.  They have an idea of what they want as their end result and then they figure out how to make it happen.  Children are taught how to accept limits by loving, well meaning parents and guardians who learned those things from their loving and well meaning parents and guardians. 

As an adult, how can you begin to think outside the box to accomplish your goals and create what you want?  As a parent, how can you reinforce and treasure your kids’ creativity and inner wisdom to follow their passions and be all they can be? 

1. Begin by pretending that you have all the resources and you design a solution.  Or,

2. Imagine your most ideal solution and what resources you already have to begin moving towards it. 

Resolving a problem or making a change doesn’t mean you have to have the whole thing figured out. You only need to know what you want and then take the most logical step towards it.  The villagers wanted a bridge – the logical first step was an engineer who already lived in the village.  They only needed to realize that they had the resources already and it took a child to point it out to them. 

Think from the perspective of a child – you can even ask your children for help.  And put aside all judgment about the ideas that begin to take shape.  They are not good or bad – they just are.  Again, it’s not about knowing the whole “how,” it’s about being creative and doing something different.  Because the Gold Watch rigidness of a comfort zone creates frustration and keeps us stuck. 

By tapping into your own creativity you will model flexibility, problem solving, and rising up to challenges for your kids way better than they could ever learn anywhere else.

I’ve had a book called The One Minute Millionaire on my book shelf for at least 4 years. It’s written by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G Allen. I picked it up last week and in the first few pages I read something so profound that it’s taken me a few days to process it. It’s one of those pieces of information that I was aware of and had heard before but I just wasn’t ready to understand yet.

This time I was ready.

It said “To become a millionaire you first have to decide to be one.”

This struck me as so profound because I realized that that’s the first step to achieving anything! Deciding to do it! And of course I’ve made decisions in the past and achieved things, but there have been a few things in my life that have so disorganized that they seemed unreachable.

Many people dream of becoming a millionaire, including me. And what was even more profound is the shift that I felt when I decided to be one instead of just dreaming about it. Holy moly! I felt charged up, energized, and even more on purpose. I anchored that feeling right away.

The book went on to describe that you can make your million the slow way (saving a bit every month in a high interest account) or the fast way (in real estate, business, etc). And what’s more, is you can work on both ways at the same time!

This floored me. Positively just stopped me in my tracks. Of course you can do it both ways at once!

I immediately thought how can I apply this new way of thinking to other areas in my life? I don’t know why I had pigeon holed myself into thinking that there is only one right way to do something – whether it’s in a career, a relationship, or in health. For some reason I had decided that I couldn’t work on a goal or a vision in more than one way. That once you choose a way you stick to it until you think it’s time to change and then you choose a new way. That’s silly!

Now as I’ve processed these amazing insights life got a whole lot easier. Combined with my new understanding of what a vision is…I can achieve whatever I want! And I’ve always known that, of course, but it seems like now the HOW just became clearer.

I want to have a certain relationship with my husband, my kids, my friends; I want to have my finances a certain way; I want my business to be a certain way…and NOW I can see more than ONE WAY to get there!! Doesn’t that take the pressure off?

As I sit here writing I am still processing how groundbreaking this was for me. I would love to know if this has changed your approach to your goals in any way? Please comment and share.

Paralysis by analysis.  This is a great technical term that we underwriters used in the insurance industry – it meas you analyze something so much that you can’t move forward with a decision because you feel that you never know enough.   Well, it’s a trap that people who aren’t underwriters (or don’t even know what an underwriter is) also fall into.

How?  By becoming overwhelmed by obstacles, choices, fear, anxiety, guilt, ambivalence, and whatever else that we tend to feel when we don’t know what it is we want.  We get so wrapped up in focusing on what we don’t want that it takes over the majority of our energy.  We may not even realize that there is more to life than this and we keep feeling stuck and going in circles.  Or we may just not know how to help ourselves take that first step to unparalyze ourselves so we keep doing more of the same, or more nothing, getting us more of the same – or more nothing.

I’ve been stuck here more than once – and not just in a career sense.  I’ve felt stuck like that as a parent, a spouse, and a friend.  Even just as a human being.  Now I do a lot of work on myself because I don’t like being stuck.  What drove me nuts, was why I kept returning to this paralyzed state even after seemingly figuring things out and getting back on my path.  Then one day I got it!

I was chatting with a dear friend who I’ve chatted with every Tuesday night for the past two years.  We don’t even live in the same country but we have formed this amazing bond of mutual growth, sharing, and learning/teaching.  She has a strong HR and croporate background and we were talking about our goals for this year.  She asked me what my vision was for my business…hmmm.  Good question.

I told her I didn’t know what a vision was really…I gave her a list of goals.  She explained to me that a vision is like a bird’s eye view of what I want to accomplish through my business.  If I were to look at the entirety of my work in the world from 20,000 feet up in the air, what would be the main theme?  DING!!!! The lightbulb had been turned on.  The bell was rining loud and clear!

In that moment I understood why I had often become paralyzed by overanalyzing stuff about my business and my life.  I knew what my “Big Why” was in my work… but I had never, for some strange reason, connected the dots between that and all the actions I was taking.  Sure I had goals…but if the goals got too big or too tall…I would freak out.  I would begin to analyze.  I would…you know the rest…get paralyzed and do nothing…then feel bad, etc. 

The huge dot that I connected during this chat was that as long as all my steps, big or small, were moving me closer to my Big Why – to my vision, then I couldn’t go wrong.  All of a sudden it seemed easy to make choices without analysis.  I realized that even the big, tall goals would fit and get accomplished – one step at a time.   I no longer felt like I was floundering about, swimming in the dark. 

So now I’ve stepped back and taken a good look at my life from space.  I decided that a vision is a smart thing to have in every area of my life, beginning with my relationship with my children.  Having these dots connected has just shifted everything into focus for me.  It’s been enlightening beyond words.  As long as I have that vision in front of me, I know that I can make the right choices and take the right steps. 

So, if you find yourself paralyzed because you don’t know which way to go right now…get yourself out of the weeds.  Figure out what is your highest intention for your relationship, your career, your business, your spirituality, or whatever area you feel you’re stuck in.  Then use that bird’s eye view perspective to find a path for yourself; find the next logical or feel good choice and take it. 

Have any of you been paralyzed by analysis?  How did you move through it?

Honesty is the best policy, right? We were taught this as kids and we teach it to our children. Why is it then, that we sometimes lie to ourselves? Where do these lies come from?

Dr Bruce Lipton, author of Biology of Belief, offers an explanation. He states that our behavior is based on our perception of our environment. And our perception is based on our beliefs. Our beliefs form through all our life experiences and the people who have influence over us, especially when we’re young.

When we’re born we have a fresh mind and as we grow, our mind is imprinted by people and events we experience. As children and later as adults we decide how the world works. We form beliefs about the world and we behave according to what we believe.

The struggle happens when we want to change our behaviors or achievements. If our behaviors are dictated by our beliefs – whether true or not, in order to change our behaviors we would have to change our beliefs.

Imagine living your life with one of these seven statements.

1. I’ll never amount to anything

2. I’m worthless

3. I’m not smart enough

4. No matter how hard I try, it’s never good enough

5. Money is hard to come by and hard to keep

6. I don’t deserve to succeed

7. No one will ever love me

None of them are true and yet something caused you to adopt them as your own. If you believe in #7, you will struggle with relationships. If you believe in #5, chances are you will struggle with having enough money in your life. The examples are endless.

There could be any number of experiences or people who influenced you to adopt one of these statements in your life. The reason, however, is truly irrelevant. If you’re experiencing struggle in an area of your life then likely you’re telling yourself one of those 7 lies. At some point you decided that one of those things was true for you and so it is true for you.

In order to eliminate the struggle and easily succeed in all areas of your life it’s important to identify and eliminate these lies. It doesn’t matter where they come from, it only matters that you stop telling them to yourself.

Imagine, if everyone believed in these 7 statements instead:

1. I can accomplish anything I choose

2. I am a worthy and valuable person

3. I am intelligent and capable

4. I do my best and my best is good enough

5. I easily attract money into my life and use it wisely

6. I deserve happiness and success in my life

7. I love myself and I am loved by others

 Dr. Lipton’s research and writings on beliefs point to the fact that we are in control of our own change in life. Of course there are factors outside us that we have to take into account, however, much of the struggle could be eliminated if we looked inside ourselves first and cleaned up our own mindset. Dr Wayne Dyer states that we see the world as we are. Figure out how you view the world in those areas where you are struggling…then figure out how you can view it differently to achieve what you want.

Excerpt From the Fresh Perspective Mindset Home Study System:

There are three prevalent communication styles that exist.  Knowing the differences between them and what to look for will help you communicate more effectively with your family, your friends and everyone you come into contact with.  Although most people do use more than one style at a time, everyone has a preference.  Knowing which style you prefer will help you become more flexible with your communication and allow others to understand you better.

1. Visual Communicators tend to speak quickly and sit and stand with their head and body erect and with their eyes up.  They breathe from the top of their lungs and often sit forward in their chair.  They memorize by seeing pictures and their thoughts can tend to wander which means they may have trouble remembering verbal instructions.  A visual person is interested in how something looks and tends to use words and phrases that reflect the visual modality.  Here are a few examples:

“I see what you mean”

“That’s very clear to me”

“I can visualise that”

“I can envision that”

1. Auditory Communicators tend to breathe from the middle of their lungs and often move their eyes sideways.  They can be easily distracted by noise.  They are able to easily repeat things back to you, learn by listening, and like music and talking on the phone.  They memorize by steps and sequences.  They like to be told how they are doing and are interested in how something sounds.  They will use language that reflects the auditory modality, saying things such as:

“Listen up”

“I hear what you’re saying”

“That’s music to my ears”

“Clear as a bell”

1. Kinaesthetic Communicators speak slowly and breathes deeply and from their belly.  They tend to look down and may also stand closer to people than the other communicator styles.  They memorize by doing or walking through something and are interested in what feels right.  Their language will reflect kinaesthetic words and phrases.  For example:

“Are you picking up on that?”

“Can you grasp this?”

“I have a handle on this”

“I feel you”

By listening attentively and paying attention to a person’s physiology and body language you can determine how they best like to communicate.  You can then build rapport with this person more easily by using some of the words and phrases that they use so that they will hear and understand you better.  It helps to know what type of communication style your family members have so that you can easily convey information to them in the way they like to receive information.  They are more likely to understand and remember what you said to them.

Watching your language is very important when you’re asking someone to do something, especially your kids. This has been a continuous learning process for me. I can hear Kasia in my head, telling me to be careful how I ask for something. Especially when I’m speaking to my kids – I am getting better at catching myself.

I have caught myself on many occasions using a comment like “Please don’t sit like that at the dinner table” or “Please don’t throw your clothes on the floor.” Well, guess what folks, our unbconscious minds (aka subconscious) DO NOT process negatives. So in reality what I have been saying to my kids is “Please sit like that at the dinner table” and “Please throw your clothes on the floor.”

It is no wonder on those days I am saying to myself “Why won’t they listen to me?” They are actually listening to what I say, only I forgot to use the correct language.

I am now more conscious of my language before the question comes out of my mouth.  I phrase my questions and requests in the positive.  I say it how I want it rather than how I do not. 

We talk in detail about how language affects our lives on our free CD so if you do not have it and you would like to know more, go ahead and sign up.  Kasia also writes about this in her book “Keys For Moms” which will be available on Amazon.com beginning on February 1, 2011.

Have New Years Resolutions become cliches? For some people Resolutions represent a goal that is set but never achieved. Some people set a Resolution because it’s tradition, even if they don’t end up achieving it. And some people don’t make any Resolutions because they just assume they won’t reach them anyway. Some people, however, do set Resolutions and achieve them – what is their secret?

A Resolution is a different label for a goal or an end result. Successful people set goals and then take action to achieving those goals. And achieving goals has nothing to do with having the whole route figured out and planned in detail. In fact, that’s where a lot of people go wrong and end up giving up on their goals.

Why are goals important? Because they help you figure out that you’ve arrived at the place where you wanted to be. Below are some secrets that I’ve learned about getting what you want in life. If you’ve heard these secrets before and are tempted to discount them because they haven’t worked in the past, consider this: have these strategies not worked because this is all rubbish? Or have these strategies not worked because you haven’t implemented them?

Secret 1: A good goal has a well defined end result. If you don’t know what you really want to achieve then how will you know when you have achieved it? If you don’t know, you will end up meandering and wandering around, creating more of the same in your life. Without knowing what specific results you want to have, you will just get vague results.

Secret 2: The goal must be meaningful to you and ecological for you, your family, your community, and the planet. This means that you set goals because you want to and not because someone else wants you to. When we try to do something to make someone else happy, we invariably fail. This doesn’t mean you don’t take others into account when setting your end result. It’s imperative to consider others and how they will be affected by your achievement of a certain goal.

Secret 3: Taking action. If you sit on your sofa and visualize all day how wonderful it will be when you achieve your goal, you will not achieve it. We live in a physical world and we must put in energy to get something in return. We must take action in order to manifest our end results. This doesn’t mean having everything figured out in detail. It simply means that we take action based on the steps we feel are the best steps to take towards our goal and then we tweak as we go.

Secret 4: Celebrating obstacles. Yes, celebrating them, not bemoaning them. If you did sit on your sofa and just visualize all day you would never reach an obstacle. Consider obstacles to be like mile markers telling you that you are getting closer to your end result. Obstacles are also opportunities for you to course correct and evaluate your progress.

How do you set goals properly? The good news is, there is no proper way. The even better news is that there are some easy guidelines you can follow:

1. Know your end result and be specific.

2. State your end result in positive language and as if you’ve already achieved it: “I have meaningful, clear, and respectful communication with my family” instead of “I don’t want to fight with my family”

3. Let go of whatever is standing in your way of achieving your desired end result.

4. Take action in the general direction of your goal, tweak or readjust your course as needed, and do something every day to move you closer to your goal.

5. Celebrate your obstacles and also your achievements.

No matter what you want to call it: a New Years Resolution, a Goal, or an End Result, it makes sense to define what you want to achieve. This way you will know you have succeeded in your life the way you want to instead of just meandering, hoping for the best.

What are you willing to do differently next year to make sure you’re in the place you want to be in December 2011?

I recently had the opportunity to share some bits of wisdom on communication on Breakfast Television.  Here is the link to the video. 

http://video.citytv.com/video/detail/711822041001.000000/holiday-family-communication/

- Avoid the My Stress Is Bigger Than Your Stress game

- Make the time to connect

- Watch your language