Believe to achieve

Everywhere we go we have a bodyguard and a mindguard.  These two entities are trying to protect us from _____________  (you fill in the blank).    

The bodyguard is intensely interested, passionately involved in trying to keep you safe, physically safe.   The bodyguard is the voice that says, “No, better not do that” and you don’t.   You listen to your bodyguard in the hopes that your bodyguard will keep you safe.  Most of the time the bodyguard keeps you safe and sometimes your life will be devoid of risk, the kind of risk that is valuable for growth.

The mindguard has a different purpose, to protect you from living as you would want to.  The mindguard plants seeds of doubt and fear and hopes to hold you back from life.   We will do all kinds of things to protect our mind from the outside.   We will withdraw, we will sulk, we will become a victim, and we will do just about anything to keep the mindguard happy even if it means losing a part of our life.

Worry, doubt, fear, anxiety, control, impatience, perfectionism, and the list could go on are things the mindguard uses to control you.  

The mindguard and bodyguard are habits, controlling habits that prevent you from being all that you can be.  These guards control you rather than you controlling the guards.

What controls do you have in place that are protecting you from living a full life?

First you have to evaluate the guards and see if they are fit to be the guards of your mind and body.

What are the guards?

What are they protecting?

What are they inhibiting you from?

Now the guards aren’t going to like their territory invaded, so you must be careful. 

Believe that you can do better than you are doing.   Believe in yourself.

Identify your core values, those things you believe in deeply and know which values are the most important.   Know why your values are important, why are those important to you?

After you identify your values, determine which ones you are living by, and honoring.   What does honoring your values look like?    Create a plan to live out your values and spend some time each day working on that plan.

You have to believe in order to achieve.

  As soon as you accept the idea that you are in control of your thoughts you will be able to create your own happiness.
Lucy MacDonald

face fear

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

 

-          What fears have you faced and overcome?

-          What have you learned when you confronted your fears?

-          What can you do the next time you face a fear?

Get on board! Get on Board!

Get on board!  Get on board!

 

Get on board!  Get on board the train that no one wants to ride on ,

Get on board the train to joy,

Get on board the train to happiness,

Get on board the train to peace,

Get on board the train to freedom,

Get on board the train to beauty,

Get on board the train to truth,

Get on board the train to love,

Get on board the train to life,

Get on board, Get on board, the ticket is free, get on board.

All you have to do is leave behind,

Fear,

Hate,

Greed,

Injustice,

Anger,

Malice,

Destruction,

Cowardice,

Death!

Get on board! Get on board!  The ticket has been paid for.  Get on board!

What are you waiting for?

Frenetic activity

This past week has seen the axis of the world tip.  Financial markets are acting without the rational restraint that is needed to stabilize and slow the relentless activity of selling.  Fear is driving people to make irrational decisions and as that cycle grows the market on which we rely implodes. 

The cycle feeds itself and the vortex shrinks ever tighter expelling rationality all together. 

People are making decisions on the spur of the moment hoping to save what little  they have in a system that has been gratified by greed. 

To break the cycle may be to sit back and not do a thing, just allow the swirling to slow and the debris to settle.   Some will pick through the rubble and begin to rebuild, others will not.  

Our financial markets are not unlike the great storms that pound the shores of this great land.  Some people will choose to rebuild and others will not. 

Often to regain a rational perspective we need to work with someone else.  Working independently is one way to allow the fear to invade the consciousness which can result in a decision being made that is not going to be the best for the long run.

The cycle of relentless intensity suggests that when more is demanded of us that we increase our velocity (activity) and some of that activity will be a reaction to the demand without the requisite understanding of what really needs to be done.  As the pace increases we falter, just as a runner will when running a race without the training to run at the front.   Our minds begin to panic when we realize that we can’t keep the pace and chaos inserts fear into our minds.   With fear, action, any action seems like the right thing to do and the cycle repeats itself.  

What can be done to break the cycle?  What are you doing to break the cycle in your life?

What do you value?  What is important to you today?  

 

 

Find encouraging words

The brief words posted below from Marianne Williamson ask some great questions.  What do you think?

“We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.
And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.“
-Marianne Williamson, “Return to Love”

Seek beauty

“Imagine living your life without being afraid to take a risk and to explore life. You are not afraid to lose anything. You are not afraid to be alive in the world, and you are not afraid to die.” Don Miguel Ruiz

What would make today scream WOW?

What gets you out of bed?

Will today be a WOW day?

What would make it a WOW day?

What areas of your life don’t say WOW?

What excites you? What revs up your engine? What makes you want to say – “This is what I am going to do.”

Have you thought of celebrating something, anything without a special reason to do so?

What stops us in our tracks?

Dennis Waitley writes from his book “Safari to the Soul”, that there are three core ingredients that stop us from making a change in our lives.

1. Fear of rejection, which is being made a fool or failure in the sight or presence of others.

2. Fear of change, which is charting unknown waters being a pioneer, breaking tradition and sacrificing external security.

3. Fear of success, which is an expression of inadequacy in feeling we perhaps don’t deserve to achieve, combined with emotions of guilt when we do better than expected.

What is stopping you? Is it one of those three things?

The great explorers Lewis and Clark traveled together for a reason and that was to overcome those three things, fear of rejection, fear of change and fear of success. Having someone share the burden lightens the personal load and makes the journey easier.

In our personal journeys who do we take along to help us lighten the burden or who do we confide in to find our true north? Who holds us accountable? Who is there to help us celebrate the risk that we just took?

“The acorn transcends its shell to become an oak.” Robert E. Quinn

It does take courage – to change

“Courage is simply the willingness to be afraid and act anyway.”

Robert Anthony

Think about the courage it takes to try something new. Have you said, “I’m going to do it”, and then have failed to take that first step. What stopped you? Was it the lack of courage to make the leap?

Often we are stuck in the patterns of the past. We have tried something that involved risk and failed. That failure is like a tattoo that reminds us over and over again that we failed. Others may remind us that we failed once or twice perhaps more and that it is of no use to chase our dreams.

It is the stories we tell ourselves that holds us back. We repeat over and over and over again that we aren’t up to the challenge and as a result we step back from the edge. When we do that a bit of joy is taken from us. That is the price we pay for not taking that step, a bit of joy is drained from us.

The first thing to do is to rewrite the script that plays over and over in your mind that you can’t possibly realize your dreams. It is possible to realize your dreams. The plans and the methods may have to change to reach that goal and that is where coaching can play a part. A coach helps you see potentials that may have not been visible to you. It is an approach called “a new way”. Sounds so simple, “a new way”, but that is the key to the next level. The old way won’t do it, it hasn’t in the past and replaying that script again and again won’t change the outcome.

What will you do today to start doing things in “a new way”?

Relationships, Coaching & Leading

66. Lead by Following

The river carves out the valley by flowing beneath it.
Thereby the river is the master of the valley.

In order to master people
One must speak as their servant;
In order to lead people
One must follow them.

So when the sage rises above the people,
They do not feel oppressed;
And when the sage stands before the people,
They do not feel hindered.

So the popularity of the sage does not fail,
He does not contend, and no one contends against him.

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement and at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. Madame Marie Curie

Each of these quotes help us realize the value of coaching, relationships and leadership. The great leader acts as a coach helping people realize their full potential.

Galieo said, “You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover within himself.”

Before someone can be coached there must be some form of a relationship and a desire to discover himself/herself. What do you think?