MaXIMIze - The Power of Words

As we approach the season of Lent - beginning on Wednesday, February 18th this year - it is important that we remember the power of words.

Words have power, mighty power, whether they are written, spoken, or thought. Words are also a conduit for energy in our lives - positive energy and negative energy.

Albert Einstein said, "Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another."

This flows along with the Special Feature I posted last year about a pastor who suggested to his flock that they focus on giving up bad behaviors that bring negative energy into their lives rather than the usual things they forgo during Lent - things like chocolate, alcohol, dessert, etc.

Also, near the beginning of last year, I posted about Personal Prose and showed the difference between power words and poison words. I provided a list of power words to replace the poison ones with in that post.

My goal during this year's season of Lent is to post daily inspirational snippets to encourage the transformation of negatives into positives in your life so you can live your best life now!

Here are some examples of what I'll be posting, with thoughts and examples for each:

Change "I'd love to…" into "I'm going to…"

Transform drama into action.

Move from lack to abundance.

Transmute denial into acceptance.

If you would like to contribute to these, feel free to share your thoughts with me either via email or by commenting on this post.

Change your language, change your life!

Until next time, Namaste!

MaXIMIze - Bringing in the Harvest - Letting Go of Ghosts and Goblins

In order to move forward, we need to let go of the past - the ghosts in our lives. We may also need to let go of goblins - those things in our present that are inhibiting our ability to move forward. Goblins can be beliefs, habits, personal prose, and even people in our lives who are holding us back from living our best lives now.

This gets back to earlier posts on identifying roadblocks, assessing them, and working through them.

Cutting ties to these ghosts and goblins will help us with the seasonal cleaning we all need to do from time to time in order to recalibrate and get back into balance in all areas of our lives.

Fall is a great time for reflecting on this year's harvest, sweeping away the ghosts of the past, dealing with the goblins of the present, and planning for next year's harvest before we get wrapped up in the upcoming holiday season of thanksgiving and celebration.

So, shine your light to dispel the ghosts of the past and ward off the goblins of the present as you plan for the harvest of the future - the harvest of Living Your Best Life Now.

Next week starts a new month - one in which we enter the season of gratitude - and that will be our theme for the month. Some of the items we'll be discussing in future posts include Preparing for the Holidays, Share Thy Bounty, and Making a Board of Thanksgiving.

As always, if there is a specific topic you would like to see addressed in this blog that fits the theme of Living Your Best Life Now, please let me know.

Until next time, Namaste!

MaXIMIze - SPECIAL FEATURE - The Power of Prose - Hope versus Faith

I don't rightly remember if this is something I read on the Internet or something I gleaned from a TED talk, but either way, it was one of those AH HA moments.

Working for the military, I've often heard the phrase, "Hope is not a plan," usually in response to someone saying something along the lines of, "Well we hope..." this will happen or this group of people will come through or ...you get the idea.

Hope is passive. When we hope for something, we sit by and wait for things to happen.

Faith, on the other hand, is active. When we have faith, we move forward as if things are happening to bring about a certain outcome, that people will come through on their word.

We've all heard that things in motion tend to stay in motion. Faith is the catalyst, the energy source of that motion.

It has been said that faith can move mountains. What mountains are your faith moving today?

Namaste!

MaXIMIze - Finances - Recap

This month we discussed examining our relationship with money - are we coming from a place of abundance or a place of lack in this area of our lives? Do we think money is a dirty word? We also discussed finances, like charity, begin at home - covering the basic needs first before going after the nice-to-haves. Finally, we discussed setting and achieving financial goals, touching on our previous discussions on commitment and follow through, Personal Prose, Values, Goal Setting, and the Five Whys, the Manifestation Board exercise, identifying and assessing roadblocks, and looking at what you want to harvest in the future.

Take-aways include:

Always come from a place of abundance.

Money - More Opulent Natural Energy, Yeah!

We have to take care of ourselves financially. If you need help in this area, get it!

Money is a tool, not a true goal.

Bless those who have wealth rather than cursing them; for in cursing those who are blessed, you curse yourself. ~ Financial Karma

Know the difference between want and need. Pare back to what you really need and then you'll be able to get what you really want.

It took time to get where we're at, so it stands to reason that it'll take time to get where we really want to be. By being diligent, persistent, and patient, we will get where we need to be in life.

By setting SMART goals and working diligently, persistently, and patiently toward them, we will make great strides down the path of MaXIMIzing this area of our lives!

Next week begins a new month and a new area of our lives to discuss - Physical Health.

As always, feel free to let me know what you think of this blog.

Until next time, namaste!

MaXIMIze - Setting and Achieving Financial Goals

Setting and achieving goals in the financial area of our lives is the same as setting and achieving them in the rest of the areas of our lives.

If faced with a mountain of debt, paying that debt down, let alone off completely, can seem overwhelming. It can be done though, one step, one payment, at a time, particularly if you've done the work I've challenged us with in the last two blog posts.

You may look at that mountain of debt and say, "I can't."

One of my mother's favorite phrases when I was growing up was, "Can't never did nothing."

I'm here to tell you Yes You Can!

It took time to get where you are financially, therefore it will take time to recover and get to where you want to be financially. If you are willing to truly commit and follow through, you can achieve financial stability and freedom.

Remember our discussion on Personal Prose?  How are you talking to yourself about money and how you deal with your finances? Is it positive self talk or are you letting your inner critic run the show and shower you with negativity? Are you using your power words when you think about or talk about your financial situation?

Remember our discussion on Values, Goal Setting, and the Five Whys? Did you do the exercise of determining your core values and principles? How does the way you currently deal with your finances align with those values and principles? If the alignment is not there, what needs to be done in order to get in alignment with those values and principles in this area of your life?

Have you set SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) goals in this area of your life, and if so, are you working diligently and persistently toward those goals? And - are you being patient in and celebrating the small victories along the way to reaching those goals?

If you did the Manifestation Board exercise, are your financial goals envisioned there? Can you clearly see where it is you want to be to attain a satisfaction rating of 8 or more in this area of your life?

Have you identified and assessed the roadblocks that may lie in your way to achieving your goals in this area? This includes the fears that you may have regarding this area - remember, we need to bring our fears out into the light and shake hands with them. By recognizing and acknowledging them, we can work through them and move toward MaXIMIzing our lives in all areas, not just this one.

And last but not least, what are you sowing in your financial garden right now? What do you want to harvest here in the future?

By really looking at and working through all these questions and developing and working toward SMART goals, you can move down the path toward MaXIMIzing this area in your life.

Next week, we'll recap what we've discussed in this area and look at the topics for next month's discussion - until then, namaste!

MaXIMIze - Falling Off the Wagon - Getting Back on with a Minimum of Bumps and Bruises

We all fall off the wagon from time to time - the trick is getting back on again quickly, without falling down any number of rabbit holes. Those rabbit holes are dug by things such as guilt, fear, regret and other such negative emotions, and we can get lost in the underground warrens if we don't know how not to slide down the rabbit holes in the first place.

How we defend against the negative emotions and self-talk is key to getting back up and running quickly. When we slipped and fell as children, did we stay down and refuse to even try to walk, run, ride a bike, climb a tree, roller skate, or anything else we were trying out for the first time? No, we did not. We got back up, dusted ourselves off and tried again until we succeeded!

Over the years since childhood, we collected guilt, fear, regret, and other negative emotions from being told "Can't," "Shouldn't," "Don't," "Not Good Enough," and a whole host of direct and not-so-direct negative messages. We internalized all that negative input, and it became our Inner Critic and our own worst enemy.

Remember our discussion on Personal Prose? When you fall off the wagon, rather than focusing on the negative thoughts and feelings, focus instead on the power words that support and nurture your goals. Remind yourself of the five whys, the deepest reasons for achieving your goals, then get up, dust yourself off, and get back on the wagon that will take you down the path of your best life!

MaXIMIze - From Cocoon to Chrysalis - Assessing the True Risks/Roadblocks to Achieving Your Goals

Last week we learned about the roadblocks we are likely to run into when working to achieve our goals, mainly the internal ones.

This week, we are going to discuss how we can assess these roadblocks - how we can bring them out into the light and show them for the pebbles that they really are so we can kick them aside as we travel down the path to achieving our goals.

In business, when we are going through the process of studying the potentials of a new project, we create something called a Risk Register. Basically, we determine/define the following:

A description of the risk/roadblock.

The impact should this event/item actually occur.

The actual probability of its occurrence.

We then give each impact and each probability a ranking from Low to High on a 1-3 or a 1-5 scale, Low being 1 and High being 3 or 5 - the rankings are either Low, Medium, High or Low, Somewhat Low, Medium, Somewhat Medium, High.

By multiplying the impact by its probability, we come up with its Occurrence Risk Score, which shows us where we should focus our attention.

We then determine the planned response should the event/item actually occur and the mitigation - the actions we can take in advance to reduce the probability and/or impact of the risk/roadblock.

To see an example of how this lays out, please see this Wikipedia article on planning a birthday party.

Basically we are taking the time to determine the following:

What's the worst that can happen?

What's the best that can happen?

What's most likely to happen?

Why or why not?

Okay, so X happens - what do you do, how do you move forward?

Then, we make the plan, work the plan, and adjust the plan as we work toward our goals.

As the soft cocoon becomes a hardened chrysalis from which emerges a beautiful butterfly, these methods will help you move your dreams through goals into reality.

So, over the last seven weeks, we have covered a lot of material, focusing mainly on the internal items we all need to deal with in order to move forward to achieving our goals. We've discussed reseting, whether at the beginning of a new year, a new season, or a new chapter of life. We've also discussed personal prose and the importance of paying attention to how we address ourselves. We talked about the Circle of Perception and worked through looking at the six areas of our lives. We worked through determining our central values, talked about aligning our goals with these values, and working through the process of asking the five whys to get to our core values. We discovered the power in Manifesting our goals instead of just Visioning them. And most recently, we've discussed how to identify and assess the potential risks and roadblocks to achieving our goals.

As of the time of this post, I haven't determined the topic of next week's entry. If you have any topics you would like to see covered in this blog - remembering that the purpose to to MaxIMIze ourselves and MaXIMIze our lives - please let me know.

A couple of the topics I will be covering in future posts (just not scheduled yet) are:

Checking on your progress toward your goals - and perhaps realigning/readjusting the path.

What to do when you fall off the wagon (something we all do...).

I know others will come...and I'd love your feedback and input!

Until next, week - Namaste!

MaXIMIze - Personal Prose

Before I jump into this week's blog, need to take care of some administrative business. Since this is where I have my coaching business e-mail address - maximize.beth@gmail.com - I figured 2014 was the year to move my blog over as well. So, for the previous blog posts, click here.

Now on to today's post...

Everyone has their personal prose - their way of communicating not only with others, but with themselves as well. By identifying our personal prose, we can work to change it and by doing so bring more of what we desire and deserve into our lives.

Here are some points to ponder:

Do you tend to want to move toward something or away from something? Moving toward something or looking forward to experiencing it is positive prose, and that's where we want to focus.

Do you want to have things or do you want to feel things? Goals that come from the inside, that make you feel good about what you do and who you are, goals that are important to you, the individual, are positive - and that's where we want to focus.

How concise are you when communicating? Do you tend to maybe make mountains out of molehills, as the saying goes? Instead try making molehills out of mountains by looking at where the action or event fits in the big picture, in the long-term view, rather than the short-term, small view.

So, when you catch your inner critic castigating you about something, answer back with, "yes, and next time I'll do ________ instead."

Remember, the space between action and reaction gives you time to frame your response, and thereby take responsibility for your reaction.

Are you garnering power or poison? What words and phrases you consistently tell not only others, but more importantly yourself, have a huge impact on how you view life and how well you attain your goals. Poison words and phrases include but, can't, could have, should have, would have, if only, maybe, might, someday, sometime, try, what if. I'm sure there are others you can identify as well.

One of my mother's favorite phrases was, "Woulda, coulda, shoulda, but didn't."

And of course there is now the famous Yodaism, "There is no try, only do."

Here is a list of power words to ponder and incorporate into your daily dialogues with others and your inner critic: abundance, accomplish, achieve, among, attract, aware(ness), because, becoming, before, beyond, causes, claim, clarity, comfortably, confident, content, create, delight, discover, during, easily, energized, enhanced, enjoying, exceeds, expanding, experience, flourish, flows, generate, giving, grace, harmonious, imagine, immediate, impact, increasingly, infinite, inspired, limitless, meaningful, naturally, now, passion, perfect, possibilities, purpose, radiates, realizing, receiving, results, success, thriving, transformed, transitioning, wonderfully. I'm sure there are others you can identify and use as well.

So rather than drinking the poison, feed yourself power by using and being these words instead.

Next week, we will work on our circle of perception, an exercise I use in my coaching practice and also use myself at least annually to gain perspective on the various areas in my life.

Until then, namaste!