MaXIMIze - Planning for Success

Many of you have heard me refer to TED Talks and TEDx. There is an awesome TEDx talk from 2014 titled Getting in Control and Creating Space by David Allen, who is a management consultant and executive coach with over 20 years experience in his field.

His message here is that we already have a natural planning model, that our brain has used since we were six months old, that works to bring our desire into reality.

It flows something like this:

1. Identify your desired outcome. What is the main reason/purpose for having this event, getting that item, accomplishing that goal?

2. Create a vision for the successful accomplishment of your desire. What does success in this particular endeavor look like as you move from here to there?

3. Generating ideas. The tension between where we are now and where we want to be causes ideas to be generated - also knowing as brainstorming. What needs to be done in order move from where we are now to where we want to be?

4. Structure - also known as outline or schedule. This is laying out the most viable, workable ideas in a logical sequence to accomplish the desired outcome.

5. Taking the next action. Identifying and then taking the very next action needed to make progress toward the desired outcome.

He also contrasted this against two more "normal" processes we very often see in the business world.

The first supposedly "normal" process he described is where we seem to jump in the middle - generating ideas - without first identifying what the desired outcome is and what that outcome looks like.

The second supposedly "normal" process he described is where we start taking action first, and then maybe work backwards through the process.  This way of working the process is actually the more common of the supposedly "normal" processes we see in the business world today.

My question to you this week is two-fold:

1. Which process do you use to take a project to fruition, either on your own or in a group?

2. Which process actually makes more sense to use to take a project to fruition?

My challenge to you for the next few months is this:

For each of the areas we will be discussing - finances, relationships, physical health, spiritual health, career, and overall well-being - use the natural process of identifying the desire/purpose/goal, creating the vision, generating ideas, laying out those ideas in a logical sequence or structure, and then finally taking the next action to achieve the desire/purpose/goal in living your best life now.

With April comes tax time and a focus on finances.I'll be sharing insights I've gleaned from Suze Orman and other sources to help all of us live our best financial lives now.

Until next time, Namaste!

MaXIMIze - Moving Toward Your Vision

This week I've been reading Julia Cameron's book The Right to Write, and many of her exercises resonate with the subject of this post.

One of them in particular, in her chapter on Integrating, is taking 15 minutes to write out a 25-item wish list.

Another one is in her chapter on Connection and it entails taking 30 minutes and letting your "…Younger Self speak to you of its wishes, hopes, thoughts, concerns, and dreams."

And the final one I'll touch on for this post is from her chapter on Valuing Our Experience, which is listing 50 things you are proud of - nothing is too small or too large for this list.

Doing exercises like these can help clarify what is important in your life.

As the saying goes, "the unexamined life is not worth living."

If you are a long-time follower of my blogging efforts, you know this is a theme I touch on again and again. In 2013, I focused it on finding your passion. In 2014, we started with looking at the various parts of life and asking specific questions.

As you gain clarity of vision through this process, I recommend you create a Manifestation Board.

As I explain in a post from February 2014, there is a vast difference between the word "vision" and the word "manifest."

Vision - envision; to picture to oneself

Manifest - to make certain by showing or displaying

So, once you've done all this introspective work, it's time to get extrospective and manifest your clarity by finding things - pictures, words, objects - to use as icons to represent what achieving your goals and dreams will look like in your life.

If you keep your vision, your path, in front of you in a concrete manner, you are more likely to achieve your dreams and live your best life now!

If you have a Manifestation Board you'd like to share, please post photos to my Facebook page.

Next week, I'll share a TEDx talk on planning and riff on that.

Next month, we'll discuss the financial room of our house, based in part on pieces of wisdom from Suze Orman.

Until next time, focus on Manifesting your best life now, and Namaste!

MaXIMIze - The Seeds We Sow

As Spring approaches, it is time to think about what we truly want to harvest this year - "as ye sow, so shall ye reap" comes to mind.

What are you planting in your garden today?

Are you allowing weeds to come up by letting negative thoughts and habits take root in your life? Or are you encouraging those things you want to grow in your life by focusing on bringing positive thoughts, habits, and energy into it instead?

Here are some questions I've posed before, ones that are good to ask ourselves from time to time to ensure we are sowing the right seeds and encouraging the right growth in our lives:

1. What are the three  most important things in your life right now?

2. What are your three main goals in life?

3. If you only had six months to live, what would you do differently?

4. If you came into a lot of money, what would you do differently?

5. What have you always wanted to do but were afraid to try?

6. What activities give you a sense of importance and/or a sense of joy?

7. If there were no boundaries, what would you want to achieve, do, and/or have?

Take the time necessary to contemplate each question and answer it as thoroughly and authentically as possible. Consider your answers and how you can reach the path they are directing you towards.

And from a post this time last year, more questions to consider:

What are you harvesting right now? What is showing up in your life right now?

What do you want to harvest in the future? What do you want to show up in your life from now on?

Are you planting the right seeds in the right soil to be able to harvest what you want to in the future instead of growing weeds?

As I said then, the parable of the mustard seed illustrates that last question very well. The seeds sown in the well-prepared soil and tended appropriately grew and provided a bountiful harvest. The seeds sown in barren soil with no preparation or tending did not even germinate to be able to die on the vine.

So, are we willing to do the work to ensure that what we are sowing now is really what we want to harvest in the future? Are we willing to till the field, remove the rocks and cobbles, plant the seeds, water the field, and pull the weeds while the seeds we planted grow into a bountiful harvest?

I know that I want to sow positive energy that comes back to me in ripples, rapids and tidal waves - how awesome what that be to have all the goodness coming my way? Totally awesome!

We also have to work on ourselves in order to be open to receiving all that awesome goodness that we are sowing in the world today.

So my last two questions for this post to you are:

What do you choose to plant today?

Are you truly ready to harvest awesome goodness in your life now?

Over the next couple of weeks, we will discuss planning, visualizing, and manifesting our best lives now - until next time, Namaste!

MaXIMIze - the Midas Touch - the Law of Unintended Consequences

For those who don't know the story, Midas was the king of Phrygia in Asia Minor to whom the god Dionysus granted one wish after Midas had provided for the safe return of Dionysus' foster father, the satyr Silenus. Midas wished everything he touched would turn to gold. In a version of the myth well-told during Aristotle's time, Midas starved to death due to his food and wine turning into inedible gold thanks to this gift. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1852 version of the myth, Midas turns his daughter - Zoe - into a golden statue with his embrace. In several versions, Midas, after experiencing these unintended consequences, asks Dionysus to release him from this gift turned curse. Dionysus tells Midas to wash in the river Pactolus, and that once Midas has done so, anything he put into the waters of the river would be reversed of the golden touch as well.

The moral of this story is, of course, be careful what you wish for.

So, when you are thinking the grass is greener somewhere else, go through the Five Whys and other soul-searching methods to determine what it is you truly seek. Then, determine what that really means if you implement the changes needed to gain that which you seek by running through some if/then scenarios - if I do this, then that happens - to at least the depth of the Five Whys. Be as brutally honest as possible when going through these scenarios; see the best and worst outcomes possible in order to get to the most realistic ones.

By doing this in-depth work, you will be better able to determine what it is you truly seek and if you are really prepared to pay the potential price for pursuing that which you seek. Your eyes will be more open to the possible consequences of your actions by taking the time to think things through in this manner.

Next week we begin to move into Spring, and our topic will be the Seeds We Sow - until then, Namaste!

MaXIMIze - Motivation

What is your motivation for the progress you make in life?

Is it an external motivation or an internal motivation?

Are you focused on the goal or on the journey?

Are you waiting and hoping for something to happen or are you moving forward in faith that something will happen?

Are you motivated by Light or by Shadow?

That last question harkens back to a post I wrote in July 2012 about insecurities.

C.G. Jung said, "If the shadow is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected, and it can burst forth at any time."

What Shadow motivators are lurking in your psyche that need to be brought into the Light?

Another quote I love is:

Your thoughts have little legs that go out and create what you think about. ~ P. Hayes

What takes up your thoughts?

Where are those thoughts coming from?

You can determine this by following the Five Whys method described in a previous post.

Following your thoughts back to their Source will show you what your current motivation is and may show you why your progress in a certain area of life is stymied.

Once you identify the roadblocks to your success - and focusing on external motivations rather than internal ones is a roadblock - you can work to either remove the roadblocks from your path or find a way around them in order to continue on your way to living your best life now.

So my challenge to you this week is to follow your thoughts back to their Source.

Next week, we'll discuss The Midas Touch - the law of unintended consequences.

Until then, Namaste!