Posts Tagged ‘self-help’

Are You Ready for 2010?

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Have you reviewed and completed 2009 yet?  Or have you just let the year end without checking in on how you’ve done?   Here are some great questions to ask yourself  about 2009:

1.  What did you accomplish in 2009?

2.  What did you learn in 2009?

3.  What is finished?

4.  What is left to be done?

5.  What will you take with you into 2010?

Once you complete this review,  you will be in great shape to start 2010.  You can think about what you want to do and create some solid goals and plans for achieving them.

Next week, we’ll talk about business planning for 2010.  Once you review 2009, be thinking about where you want to be at the end of 2010.

Happy New Year!!

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Time Management 101

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Here’s a good starting point on time management:

1)  Know what you’re goals are.  It’s very difficult to prioritize your time  when you don’t know what you want.

2)  Make a list of everything you want to get done.  This is your master to-do list

3)  On a daily basis, identify 4 – 6 things that you can do either in the morning or the night before to move you towards your goals.  Do or schedule those things first, before doing anything else in your day.  Don’t try and do more than 6 things in a day.  That will just set you up for failure and frustration. We all have a limited amount of time.  The key is to be as effective as you can with the time you do have.

4)  Review your master list on a regular basis (weekly or monthly).   Delegate anything you can to others and  dump tasks you don’t really need to do.  Add any new tasks that came up during the week or month.

5)  Learn to say no to things that won’t move you ahead in your goals.

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Commitments – An exercise

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Here’s a good exercise to help you focus on aligning your life with your goals and aspirations.

  1. List your top 5 commitments in life.  An example would be 1 – self-care, 2 – spouse, 3 – work, 4 – family, 5 – friends.
  2. Now track where you spend your time for a full week?
  3. Does your time reflect your commitments?  If someone else looked at how you spend your time, what would they say you were committed to?

For most of us it won’t.  For example when I look at actual time spent over the last week, it would look like I was committed to eating lots of carbohydrates, or being exhausted and fussy.

Now here’s the big step – 4.  What actions will you take on in the next week to align your life with your commitments?

Respond here and let us know.

I won’t be eating bread for the next week.  Pretty cool that it’s Passover anyway.

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Stuck

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

Do you feel unappreciated or unrecognized for the job you do?  Do you have more responsibility without the title and compensation to go with it?  Do you feel like there’s no communication at your company?    Feel like you’re at a dead-end?  And things are not going to get any better at the company you’re at, but you’re afraid of ending up in exactly the same situation if you change jobs?  Are you really frustrated, stressed out and angry?  And no one can help you?

If you feel this way, you’re probably right.  No one can help you.  You built the box you’re in, and only you can get yourself out of it.  The only way out is to realize that the box isn’t really there.   You created it the minute you started looking for something to blame and being right was more important than anything else.

The great news is that there is a way out – and there is help.  The minute you accept responsibility for creating your experience, the box will disappear.  You will see that you have options and choices about what you do and lots of people to available to support you in whatever you choose.   Your options may be developing the skills you need to thrive in the new environment, evaluating the situation against your values and priorities and choosing something different,  just being happy and unstressed by the situation -  and so on.  The options are endless once you choose to be responsible for your experience.  You have reclaimed your power and are now unstuck.

Choose to be responsible!

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Fear

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

Where does fear show up for you?

It showed up in full force for me last Saturday night.  My husband and I attended a mixer for a new young adult group starting at our temple.  Besides being overjoyed that I still qualified as a young adult for a few more months,  I was terrified.   I didn’t expect to know more than one or two people there.   As we walked in,  I immediately went back to being the 7 year old kid on her first day at a new school (again) who didn’t know anyone and felt like a real outsider.   It didn’t matter that I’m  a long way from being 7, a successful business owner, professional coach and public speaker.  Reality had nothing to do with this situation.   The story was all in my head and a very familiar one at that.

We all have those stories that happen in our childhood and make such an impression on us that we re-create them throughout our lives.   It’s normal.   The stories and the events that trigger them are different for everyone, but in one respect they are all the same.  They are all fears that we have not moved past yet.  We will continue to re-create them until we do.

The key is in recognizing the story and choosing how you will respond.   You have the power to make that choice.   You can respond the same way you always do that started when you were 7, and probably isn’t doing you any good now – or you can do something different.  You can notice it, embrace it and have compassion for the 7-year old that is still feeling the pain.  You can look at the facts of the situation and separate them from the story in your head.   Then you can create actions that will do you good, instead of holding you back.   If you can master this,  fear will never be able to stop you again.

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