Is Your Year Half Full or Half Empty?

7 Tips to Make 2009 Your Best Year Yet

We just passed the half-way point of 2009 and are half-way closer to 2010, summer is upon us and for most of us that is a pleasant, out door, carefree time, even if we aren't going anywhere on vacation. Traditionally this is a time to slack off a little, give ourselves a breather so to speak. Taking care of yourself and relaxing and rejuvenating is extremely important if you are on a path to success but to get the most out of your vacation keep in mind the following tips...

1. How much vacation time do I have?
2. When specifically does my vacation start and end? This is epecially important if you are self-employeed or own your own business.
3. Realistically what can I and do I want to get done before my vacation starts? If possible put together a REALISTIC and ATTAINABLE checklist of things to be done before you go on vacation.
4. How am I doing in relation to my yearly intentions or goals? What is working, what isn't and why? If you did not set any NOW is a great time to start. If you reflect on this before your vacation you plant the seed so that new ideas and motivation can grow.
5. Is 2009, half full or half empty? What would it take to make it half full if it isn't already? Remeber the glass of water half-full or half-empty? A change in perspective may be your answer.
6. How can I make 2009 my BEST YEAR YET?
7. What is holding me back? What do I need to give up, change or strengthen?

Have an amazing guilt free vacation.

If you would like to see how working with a coach can make you more effective and more efficient, reaching your goals faster and making 2009 your best year yet email Marianne Emma Jeff coach@motivatmyself.com to set up your complimentary 30 minute strategy session.

Death of The Self

I recently read a, very short, account of Buckminster Fuller and his pondering of life that really made me think. This extraordinary man, whom I am now on a pursuit to find our much more about, spent a couple of hours contemplating suicide one night. At the end of his contemplation he decided instead to live from that day forward "as if" he had killed himself that night. What did he mean by that? He decided to give up his agenda, taking things personally (he was dead, no person left to take, right) and to instead see what needed to be done and to do it as a servant of the universe. As I am contemplating the zen of red wine this really resonated with me as at the beginning of my quest for Zenness I also contemplated and acted upon suicidal tendencies, obviously it didn't pan out or I would not be writing this post right now. On my journey of consciousness I have come to the end of red wine and am now faced with "wherever you go, there you are" although many, many years ago, my dance with death is unfinished, or rather unconfronted. My lack of consciousness lay a blanket over it covering it loosely so that once I opened up my consciousness again it lies there under the first layer in need of resolution, needing to be laid to rest.

Don't get me wrong, I am not proclaiming the age old question "to be or not to be" I am firmly rooted in "to be" but the state of mind, unmet needs or whatever stirred up the "not to be" like Hamlets dead father needs to be acknowledged and laid to rest. Many, many years later I feel a deep connection to Buckminster Fullers moment of Zen as he moved past self into oneness with the universe. So it seems on my journey for the Zen of red wine I have come full circle. I now stand facing my demons, my attachment to self and I wonder what if that part of me were to die but the rest of me were "to be". What would it mean to be stripped of that part of my self, to lay it to rest and to move forward. Just the thought of it gives me a lightness, a release. However in order to lay it to rest I first need to find those parts of me, to give them the contemplation they deserve and then to dissect them like trimming the fat from a piece of meat. I wonder will the baby weight I am carry around come off then? alas that sounds like my self talking! The journey continues...

Waiting For the Mail

What is it that gives mail such lure? I remember waiting for the postman (I'm English) with such excitement and anticipation now the snail mail has been replaced by e-mail. Now instead of one delivery a day we can have as many deliveries as we want simply by sending the send/receive button. Each time we sit watching it process, sometimes I even hit it twice one after the other, I cannot tell you why. It's almost as if I feel like it needs double the push to get through a really big piece of mail or something. I have noticed that Monday and Tuesday are prime e-mails days with Wednesday following behind. Thursday is slow and Friday, Saturday and Sunday are usually nothing more than e-zines and daily subscriptions. Now don't get me wrong I'm not talking about all the junk and requested for info etc, I'm talking about those pearls we are waiting for those e-mails gems in amongst the rocks.

What are we all waiting for?

Opportunities, clients or in my husbands case perhaps a job offer. Some people wait for new friends on face book or for someone to write on their wall or maybe even a new follower on Twitter. It seems there is a whole lot of waiting going on and now summer time has hit the e-mail machine has powered down even more; It is like watching paint dry.

I hate the power of waiting. It doesn't matter how much activity I do and as al lot of you know, I do a lot of activity (calling, emailing, responding, newsletters, events...) it never seems to balance out. The responses just come when they come there is no pattern or calculation to understand or anticipate them.

So how do we take away it's power?
By taking action, unrelated action, weeding the garden, going for a walk, a day at the beach, organizing clients files or writing a book. Action is the antidote for lots of things and it comes with lots of extra benefits like fulfilment and fun and relaxation.

We cannot and I suspect do not want to eliminate summertime or Thursday through Sunday but we can choose our reaction and instead respond.

5 Ways to Stop Waiting

1. Create a list of actions you can or would like to do and review it every time you catch yourself waiting.
2. If you are self-employed create summer hours. You will most likely find that you get just as much done in less time and don't have to feel guilty about having fun.
3. If everybody is at the beach maybe that is where the opportunities are too, get out there and meet people, mingle. It takes 3 - 4,000 people to know what you do for you to have a steady stream of opportunities.
4. Turn off your computer and go take action instead at certain times every day.
5. Work somewhere there is no reception of wireless for a few hours every week.

Bonus: Get ready for the end of summer and be ahead of the game. Set up email campaigns and newsletters for the rest of the year, write marketing for the holidays or organize your receipts and set up a system for you finances so tax season is a breeze.

Wherever You Go...There You Are

Hmmm. As the honeymoon of conscious living wears off, forced to examine my needs, wants and desires I am left contemplating...

Wherever I go, there I am.

It's been about four weeks since my moment of revelation when I decided that red wine was no longer a part of my Zen of life. As ordinary living creeps and blends with conscious living I began to feel a wave of boredom coming over me. Not the kind of wave that engulfs you or crashes down on you soaking you to the skin, but almost a mist just landing, barely noticeable if you weren't paying attention, if you weren't conscious. At first sensing something missing I simply tried to fill the hole with another glass of fizzy water or a single dark piece of chocolate. Then with still heightened awareness I notice the hole was still there. An interesting conundrum materialized, how to fill the hole to feel whole.

Parallel to this discovery I am also piecing together my one person show - The Zen of Red Wine. The show is sewn from the fabric of my life and exploring my journey from these two perspectives simultaneously is insightful to say the least. Roll into this life purpose and vision for my business's and you have quite the stew. Exhausting to say the least. Last night exhausted from my quest for the holy grail of completeness I picked up a meditation book desperate AGAIN for answers and there it was in bold print...wherever you go, there you are. Comforting and disturbing all in one perfect little dose. So I suppose it's back to me, back to my needs, my values and my core looking for answers from the evidence and recognizing the unfinished business of my journey so far. So I suppose it is now time to visit the source, the beginning of the Zen of red wine and to walk the path again. This time clear headed and conscious, aware of the wind changes and the gaps. It's time to build bridges, seek the truth and take a good honest look. And I thought the journey was over!

The Solid Beat of Consistency

Just like the beat of a drum consistency keeps the beat of life, work, balance and the success we so desire. The heart of what I do as a coach is to beat the drum of consistency for my clients. Just like my clients I get lost in the music of life; lost in the new rhythm, the different voices and lyrics that grab my attention and before I know it my hand hangs still over the drum, the beat lost. I went to a drum circle on Saturday, what fun to beat on a drum with a group of people. I don't know about you but my rhythm is AWFUL! Some people have natural rhythm and some of us... well, we have to work at it. Life is no different. In the end it doesn't matter so much what you do as it does that you are consistent with it; Whether it is writing on face book, networking, marketing, working on exploding the myths that are holding you back in your life or rehearsing your scales consistency will bring you progress.

Evolving Self

Moving from pain to power!

Last weekend I was feeling under the weather, whatever that really means - but I digress, and so I urged my family to go away for the weekend to visit family alone and I stayed home binging on...

BOOKS!

Now I know you were expecting me to say Red Wine and there was a fair amount of that being prescribed as well, it's an excellent medication, but the binge was primarily on books. On Friday I consumed "Tribes", "The Art of Possibility" and "Rich Dad Poor Dad". Saturday I finished up "Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway" and then moved on to "Flow". On Sunday morning I dragged all my books upstairs to my green couch and surrounded myself with them like one of the forty thieves admiring his jewels. Looking at all the books, in the midst of the addiction I somehow stepped away from myself and observed the frenzied seeker on the couch. It was a first for me and the moment I looked at the situation from this perspective the penny dropped.

There is no answer!

I'm sure all of you reading this came to this conclusion I long time ago, but for me this was quite the revelation. All the craving of the next book, the sifting through, the seeking I was doing I now realized was because I was looking for THE answer. Every book offers up at least one solution, some of them are well thought out and insightful but they never satiated the seeker. I now realized that if I wrote down all the answers that these books provided and broke them down to their core everything came back to - being present. Working with hundreds of clients and their goals, challenges and intentions I had long ago realized that it always came down to being present. If you are lacking confidence, it is because you are in your head listening to your gremlins, the answer is to be present and the same applies to almost every challenge in your life. I knew this, yet I was still looking for THE answer, or perhaps a quicker easier answer or something perhaps more tangible like eating cabbage or giving up coffee. I then saw that a much better thing to ponder is...

What the hell is the damn question!

I sat for a moment allowing this to resonate surveying the books around me. I still saw them as wonderful resource but the heroin had been extracted and now my lust had turned more into appreciation. My eye caught Gary Zukav's book "Seat of the Soul". I glanced through the index and noticed a chapter on addiction which grabbed my attention. As I read that chapter, for the first time, I saw addiction from a completely different perspective. As a highly functioning alcoholic for many years I had been carrying a lot of guilt and fear around. The more I thought about it I realized I had created a myth, that I was very attached to, that sober people were losers, didn't have fun and all they thought about was being sober. This chapter turned that assumption on it's head. Gary speaks of coming from a place of power, of choice and moving towards enlightenment when you choose to be conscious rather than unconscious. Now instead of thinking of being sober and seeing all the things I would have to give up I saw all the possibilities and the power of remaining conscious. Therefore by not drinking I wasn't depriving myself I was opening myself up, now that sounded a lot more attractive to me.

So I am evolving as you see, before your eyes. It has been 6 days since I took back my power and choose to live consciously. I feel like a butterfly slowly emerging from my cocoon, testing the water and making sure that I am in a safe place, getting ready to spread my vibrant wings and fly. Not as dramatic as my usual ejaculations but I think that is a good sign I am on the right path or to be precise forging the right path.

The "Wanter's" and the "Doer's"

Over the years and hundreds of introductory calls I have noticed that there seem to be two categories; the wanters and the doers. The wanters hang up with me after a complimentary session professing how much they would like to work with me and the doers say "yes" lets do this. For a long time I did not see this distinction, it was fogged up with the oh so well intentioned words of the "wanters". They even follow up with emails to "their next coach" and for a while they check-in to repeat their proclamation that we will work together soon. Now I don't think you are destined to either group for the rest of your life. Perhaps at different stages and in different situations we must switch membership to protect ourselves, I'm not sure. What I do know is that it is very hard to hang on to a want and it is much easier to stay focused when you are active and moving forward. After a while the inspiration, the lust, the spark of that first complimentary session wears off and is forgotten. Without the consistency it is easy to slip back into old habits and routines or perhaps even worse a new lust, a new shiny metal object. In the latter case you live jumping from shiny object to shiny object without ever landing anywhere. In life it is important to stand and take stock periodically, to stick with something to give it a chance and to have measurable standards so that you can learn what works and what doesn't and shift your strategy accordingly.

My clients, "the doers", amaze me with their progress, they stride forward and shift habits that have controlled them for years without even noticing. That's when I get to do one of my very important jobs, to applaud them, to send them off on a victory lap before they jump back into the race. The "wanters" tug at my heart strings. I bump into them and their intentions and they assure me that once they get this duck in line, or finish this project that they will be ready to work with me. I smile and hope that this is true, but as you have heard me say before hope is not an effective strategy for success. Life is about doing, if you are sitting in the stands with well intentions you are not in the game. I encourage you to, jump in the game, it's a lot of fun.