wings4youcoaching

Cultivating Your Inner Landscape

Summer in New England is such a grand time a year,  a reward for making it through a long, cold and dreary winter. One of the biggest treats for me - a transplanted New Yorker (I grew up and spent most of my life in a suburb outside of Manhattan) - is to drive along the local roads and see farms being worked.  I watch from spring through the end of autumn as the farmers till, plant and cultivate their land.  Now that it's mid-July, the well tended rows of vegetables and flowers look lush and green, and the farmers bring their crops to markets that seem to overspill with the colorful bounty of their harvests.

Tending your Soul-Garden

Just as farmers cultivate their land and tend their crops, we too can cultivate our inner landscape.  With some reflection and thought, we can focus in on the things in our lives that are calling out to be nurtured and then devote our attention to them.  Perhaps there is an aspect of your self or world you wish to develop or improve.  Meditate on what conditions and practices will best  promote your personal growth and development, and then till your fields and plant your seeds. Check in frequently to see how your crops are doing, adjusting your care and attention as conditions change. Tend your soul-garden with love and care.

Organic Gardening

Insist on yourself; never imitate.  Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think of yourself as an organic farmer, working with your personal nature and the elements that surround you in order to create the best and most natural outcome. Whatever it is you wish to cultivate - a talent, a relationship, a new skill, a fresh attitude - be sure to put forth the energy and  create the environment that will yield a harvest that is truly in harmony with who you are and what you believe in.

Share

What would you like to cultivate in your life?  What are you cultivating in your life?  What are your practices for reflection and growth?  Share your thoughts in whatever form you like...

• SoulCollage®
  
• Art
  
• Poetry
  
• Writing
  
• Anything that expresses who you are!  

When you're ready to share, post your static link in the comments section so we can visit your blog and see what you've created.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. - Joseph Campbell

Namaste,

Weekly Wings Challenge 16 - Coach Thyself

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Weekly Wings... a weekly coaching challenge to motivate and inspire you to realize your dreams and achieve success! Join in the journey, and if you wish to share your work, post it on your blog, and then leave a static link to the exact page in the comments section.

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Who's Your Biggest Critic?

Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves - Germaine Greer

Big dreams are the fuel of personal growth and progress.  Yet so many people choose to think within the box - a limited space that's been created either by their fears or by their belief that it isn't possible to be live their lives bigger or better.  The result?  Instead of embracing the energy of change, they resign themselves to the frustration that comes with stagnation.

Often what keeps us in our place is that inner voice that becomes louder and more insistent in proportion to the grandeur of our dreams. Although this voice goes by many names - The Saboteur, The Gremlin, The Inner Critic, The Judge, and so on - it is always ready to dish out judgment, rules, and limiting beliefs just as we are about to step out and take a personal risk to achieve change and fulfillment.  The voice usually says things like...

You can't...
You should...
You shouldn't...
You're too.....
It's too late...
You don't have the time...
Maybe someday....

...and as we listen, our confidence and resolve begins to disappear.  Then, instead of designing and manifesting the life we want, we retreat, never to know the joy that comes from following our bliss. 

Giving Voice to your Destiny

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. - Patrick Overton

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the power of words and the importance of replacing negative messages with positive affirmations.  Your challenge this week is to continue that process by identifying and neutralizing the inner voice (which I will refer to as the saboteur) that holds you back whenever you want to step out and think big.

• The first step in this neutralization process is to simply be aware and notice when your saboteur starts to speak.  What is the situation?  Is there a pattern to its appearances?

• Once you've developed an awareness of your saboteur's patterns, give it an identity.  Have fun with this - give it a name and a personality, and create a visual image of it.  By bringing your saboteur out of hiding and giving it an identity, it begins to lose its power to cause you fear and stall your actions.  The more vivid and humorous your image is, the more easily you will be able to deal with what your saboteur says.

• Understand that your saboteur's motives are to protect you from pain and disappointment, but it's only one part of your being that is playing the role of the over-protective parent.  Tune into the other voices that are speaking and hear what they say, always making sure you listen for messages that are aligned with your personal core values.

• Finally, develop an inner coach to dialogue with the saboteur.  Take a piece of paper, fold it in half lengthwise, and on the left side make a list of the most common statements your saboteur makes whenever you decide to try something new.  Then, for each negative statement, write a response that comes from your other, positive voices.  Give these affirmative statements to your inner coach to use whenever your saboteur shows up with negative messages.  Your coach will speak  powerfully from the authority of your values and counter the nay-saying of your inner critic.

Wrapping it Up

If you can dream it, you can do it. ~Walt Disney

Learning to recognize your saboteur and developing a strategy to enlist the support of your inner coach is an important tool for your personal growth. Once you understand that you can choose your thoughts, you can start to think big and take action on those thoughts.  You can look at your dreams and have the confidence to follow them.

Namaste,

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I am pleased to announce that my website, Wings 4 You Coaching is up and running!  Please visit to learn about my individual and group coaching programs as well as upcoming group coaching workshops.

If you would like to be listed as a Weekly Wings participant, please leave your link information in the comments section below. Indicate as well, if you wish to be included on my mailing list. Thank you!

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Weekly Wings Challenge 5 - Take Courage!

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Weekly Wings... a weekly coaching challenge to motivate and inspire you to realize your dreams and achieve success! Join in the journey, and if you wish to share your work, post it on your blog, and then leave a static link to the exact page in the comments section.

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Beyond Your Comfort Zone

What would it take for you to live a more expansive life, a life that was full of joy and meaning?  Anais Nin aptly wrote that "life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage,"  and this week's challenge is all about taking the courage to step out of your comfort zone to live your life more expansively.

Comfort zone is a deceptively benign term. Although it can mean the place or state of being where you are at peace and happy, humming along at just the right speed, it can also mean a place where discomfort has become a familiar, but safe feeling.  Henry David Thoreau said that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," and perhaps part of that comes from cowering unaware within one's comfort zone.

How many of us stay in situations that seem comfortable, simply because we can easily predict what each day will bring? And how often is this comfortable place really a place of stagnation and resignation where complacency becomes the prevalent emotion? This complacency keeps us from moving forward and living more exciting lives, and even worse, can keep us in bad relationships, unsatisfying occupations, and unhealthy behaviors.  Remaining within that protected circle of your comfort zone may seem safe, but in fact, you are in danger of sacrificing your spirit and your goals as you are constantly reacting to relationships and situations the prevent you from honoring your values.

Working Through Fear

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. - Ambrose Redmoon

It takes courage to create the life you want, to step out of a well-delineated circle of security and predictability - your comfort zone - into unknown territories. Staying within your safe comfort zone, ignoring the inner voices whispering that you should take a risk, is really living a life controlled by fears that have become entities unto themselves. 

Courage isn't fearlessness; it is moving forward despite fear.  What would it mean to muster up the courage to step out of that familiar place and try something you've always wanted to do, but have avoided out of fear? At first it might feel very uncomfortable, because usually there's some kind of risk involved, but the payoff is well worth the initial discomfort.  Courage is deciding that your goals are compelling enough for you to face down your fears, whatever they may be.

Step 1 - Listen to your Voice

• Your inner voice speaks from your heart and soul, without fear.  It speaks the truth to you, so it's the best guide to lead your life's journey. Tune into what your inner voice may be whispering indistinctly and really listen to what it's saying.  Hear what it tells you about relationships, situations, any aspects of your life that have become uncomfortable for you, and write it all down just as your hear it. This may be very difficult, but it's an important first step.

• Now look over what you've written and try to define an action your voice is suggesting you take for your areas of discomfort.  Some of these actions may be big things - leave that bad relationship, move to a different place, change jobs - or they might be smaller - call the friend you've lost touch with, start an exercise program, be more outgoing.

Step Two - Define your Fears

• Take a look at the items you listed in the above step and choose just one of the smaller, less "scary" items on your list.  Brainstorm all the fears you have that are associated with this particular action.  The fears will probably appear in the form of imagined consequences and negative scenarios.

• Now respond to those fears with a matching list of positive outcomes and scenarios. 

• Finally, write how you would feel if you never explored the possibility of taking action.

Step 3 - Do One Courageous Thing

• You don't have to put on your armor and confront all your fears at once!  Start small, experience success, and strengthen your courage.  Choose one courageous action - it could be the one you worked on in Step 2 - to take this week and do it! Focus on the positive outcomes you will achieve as a result of taking action and remind yourself of how you will feel if you don't do it.
  

• Journal your experience, and if you wish, share it with us on your blog.

Step 4 - Get Support

• Living courageously becomes easier when you have support.  There are different kinds of support that are beneficial depending on the areas you wish to improve - informal support from a friend, group support, and professional support from a nutritionist, a financial adviser, a fitness trainer, or a life coach - to name just a few.  Look at the different areas in which you want to take action and enlist kind of support that will keep you focused and strong on your journey.

Wrapping it Up

Courage is both a value and a skill.  It takes conscious energy to live courageously by willingly committing yourself to honest exploration of your life.  You need to define the areas of change, and face your fears with clear intention.  Start small and build your your skills, enlisting support in the process.  Try taking one courageous action each week, re-framing your fears as you move forward to the expansive life of your choosing!

Favor!

I have a favor to ask of you.  I am in the process of putting together  tele-workshops for the late summer/early fall.  I would love to know what kinds of issues you would be interested in working on if you were to take a workshop. Leave a comment below or send me an email.  Thanks!

Namaste,

 

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If you would like to be listed as a Weekly Wings participant, please leave your link information in the comments section below. Indicate as well, if you wish to be included on my mailing list. Thank you!

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Weekly Wings Challenge 4 - You're on a Mission!

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Weekly Wings... a weekly coaching challenge to motivate and inspire you to realize your dreams and achieve success! Join in the journey, and if you wish to share your work, post it on your blog, and then leave a static link to the exact page in the comments section.

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This week's challenge is deceptively simple - simple, because you've already done most of the work, but demanding because you will now cut to the essence of the work you've done to create a powerful Personal Mission Statement.

You, Inc.

Most organizations have a Mission Statement -  a cogent statement of values, purpose and goals.  I want you to think of yourself as an organization with four departments - Intellect, Emotions, Body, and Spirit.  Ideally, these departments should work together harmoniously to move your "organization" forward by making your daily life more efficient, more productive, more profitable – in a joyfully and personally fulfilling way.

Your Mission Statement is a description of how you manifest your personal vision in your daily life; it encompasses who you are, who you want to become, and what you want to accomplish over the next three to five years.  It resonates your uniqueness, celebrating both the person you are and the person you are becoming. The business metaphor is a good way to frame your approach to creating a mission statement, as it acknowledges the different aspects of the whole you and the importance of bringing them together in a united process with common values, purpose, and goals.   Having a Mission Statement  will help you channel your energy to focus your actions, behaviors, and decisions in the direction of the things that are most important to you.

The Formula

Values + Purpose + Goals + Manifestation = Mission Statement.  It's a simple formula, but allows plenty of space to reflect your individuality.  Use your Journey-Journal to do the following exercises.  You may notice that you've already done a great deal of the groundwork necessary to complete these exercise.

Step 1- Identify Core Values

Last week's challenge  was all about discovering your core values.  Revisit your values strings and pick out the your most essential guiding values.  As an alternative, you can choose values from a list as long as they are authentic representations of your present self and not a "wish-list."  Refine your list to your top  3 - 5 values.

Step 2 - Identify Life Purpose

Both Your Esteemed Self and Weekly Wings Challenge 2 - Your Zen Suitcase™ provide detailed exercises that can help you respond to the following prompts.

• Define your life roles – in your family, in your job,  in your community, in the world – and describe how you would like to be perceived in each of these areas. 

• Identify your contributions in the same areas, focusing on the present as well as on ways in which you can make a difference in the future.

• Is there a common theme or themes running through these roles?  Write them down.

Step 3 - Identify Goals

• Spend some time thinking about your priorities in life and the goals you have for yourself.  Make a list of your short and long-term personal goals, looking first at one year, three years, and then five years down the road.

• Now ask yourself what it is you will have wanted to accomplish by the end of your life.  Write this down.

Step 4 - Action & Manifestation

• Look back at what you wrote for Step 3 and brainstorm the specific actions you are taking and need to take to accomplish your short and long-term goals. 

• Refine your list to the most important actions that manifest your goals.

Step 5 - Put it in Writing!

• Look back at your responses to the first four exercises and find the most powerful and comprehensive information from each category.  Then, for each category, write a sentence or two that summarizes its most essential concepts.

• Use those summaries and the formula – Values + Purpose + Goals + Manifestation – to guide you as you create your Mission Statement. Your statement should be concise - no more than a few sentences - and written in the present tense.

• When you're finished, let it rest a while before re-reading it.  Does it sound authentic?  Does it inspire you?  Do you feel empowered? Remember, your Mission Statement is about you and for you, and should genuinely reflect who you are and who you are becoming.  The more connected you are to your statement, the more effective it will be as an inspirational tool.

Bonus Challenge

Make a Personal Logo to go with your Mission Statement.  Like your statement, it should be a reflection of who you are and what you stand for, communicated through visual imagery.  Combine your logo with your mission statement on a small card that you can carry with you as instant inspiration!

Wrapping it Up

According to Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, creating a Personal Mission Statement is "like deciding first which wall you want to lean your ladder of life against, and then beginning to climb... it will be a compass - a strong source of guidance amid the stormy seas and pressing, pulling currents of your life.”  Your Mission Statement will propel you forward in all the areas of your life, keeping you focused on the actions and decisions you take in harmony with your values and life-purpose as you manifest your goals and vision.

Namaste,

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If you would like to be listed as a Weekly Wings participant, please leave your link information in the comments section below. Indicate as well, if you wish to be included on my mailing list. Thank you!

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Weekly Wings Challenge 3 - Finding Your Core

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Weekly Wings... a weekly coaching challenge to motivate and inspire you to realize your dreams and achieve success! Join in the journey, and if you wish to share your work, post it on your blog, and then leave a static link to the exact page in the comments section.

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Last week, you acknowledged your strengths and accomplishments by writing them as affirmations.  This is an important step on your journey - using an asset-based approach to lay the foundation for continued and expanded success. This week, you will continue to build upon your self-discovery as well as move towards clarifying your dreams and goals.

Core Values

We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it's all about. - Joseph Campbell

When you are fulfilled in your life, you feel alive and purposeful.  You are living in harmony with who you are as a person, at your very core.  Fulfillment in these terms doesn't meaning having more stuff or more status; it means feeling the joy and satisfaction of living in a way that is aligned with your core values. So, while exploring what's good in the present and using that as a starting point for crystallizing a vision of the future, awareness and clarity around your values is essential.

There are many ways to identify what your core values are, but the most important "rule" of any values exercise is to be completely honest with yourself.  If you look at a list of values, be sure to discard any notions of what you think you should value, or what you would like to value, and tune into your inner voice to hear what it is that you really do value. 

The following exercises are a series of tools you can use to arrive at a list of core values.  The first four are part of the values discovery process.  The last exercise - the Values String is where you put it all together.  Do these in your Journey-Journal, and remember - there are no "right" answers except those that feel right to you.

Peak Moment

• Describe a high point or peak moment/experience in your life or work up to now.
• What was happening at the moment?
• What does this experience say about you?
• What values were being honored in that moment?
• What do these values mean to you? 
• How can you elaborate on your description of these values?

Suppressed Values

• Describe a moment/experience in your life or work up to now in which you felt frustrated, angry, or upset.
• What emotions were you experiencing?
• Why did you feel that way?
• What values were suppressed or violated in this situation?

Must-Haves

• Beyond your basic survival and community needs, what must you have in your life in order to be fulfilled? 
• What qualities are essential to the life of your spirit?

In-the Moment

• What gives energy to you now?
• What do you most value about yourself, your relationships, and the nature of your work?
• What 1 or 2 things do you want more of or different?

Values String

• Revisit what you wrote in response to the above exercises, and pull out what you consider the most important values and concepts that have emerged.
• Using each value as the beginning of a string, write a series of several related words separated by a slash.  For example: Integrity/Honesty/Role-Model
• When you have finished, number the strings in the order of those which you feel are the most essential to your living a fulfilled, harmonious life. The first 3 -5 are your core personal values.

Wrapping it Up

Values are not about what you think we should be or what you would like to be; they are your own unique essence, who you are.  Aligning your vision with your values will lead you to a life of wholeness and fulfillment. Your values show you how to be true to yourself, and thus are essential signposts to follow on your journey. Learning to read your values will help you choose the best destination and navigate the terrain along the way.

Namaste,

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If you would like to be listed as a Weekly Wings participant, please leave your link information in the comments section below. Indicate as well, if you wish to be included on my mailing list. Thank you!

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