MaXIMIze - Extreme Self Care Are You Living Your Best Life Now?

The only one who is going to take care of you is You. The only one who is going to achieve your goals is You.

What is it that you feel the call to do but are not doing?

Why aren't you doing what you are called to do?

Fear?

What are you afraid of?

Failure?

The only failure is not getting back up and starting again.

Judgement of or losing others?

This is your life, no one else's. What other people think of you is none of your business. If you lose them, you never really had them anyway. If you are living your best life now, you have the best people in your life - the people who are truly meant to be there.

You determine your path - no one else. If the path you are on does not have heart, move to another path.

If you are not living your best life now, if you cannot honestly shout from the rooftops, "Life is Grand!", why not?

CALL TO ACTION: Identify five roadblocks to living your best life now. Figure out what you need to do to get beyond those roadblocks. Take one step every day to getting past those roadblocks and on to living your best life now.

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 - Overall Well-Being - Coming From a Place of Abundance

We started the year by looking at our Circle of Perception and the six segments that make up the circle.

Over the last few months, we've focused on our financial segment (April), our physical health segment (May), our spiritual health segment (June), our career segment (July), and our relationships segment (August).

Now we've come to the last segment of the circle - our overall well-being.

Over the course of the year so far, we've gone deep into ourselves to understand where our actions and reactions - or responses - come from in each of those areas. Now we bring that all together in order to look at and address our overall well-being.

Back in January, we talked about our core values and principles, and vetting our goals against them to make sure our actions were in alignment with those values and principles.

In February, we discussed identifying and assessing the roadblocks to our success, and increasing our awareness by moving from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence.

In March, we talked about getting back up when we fall off the wagon, developing our follow-through, working through fear, and doing the spring cleaning necessary so that we can grow our best lives now.

One of the ways we can aid the growth of our best life now is by coming from a place of abundance. I touched on that theme in all of our discussions, and the post that most sticks in my mind and reinforces this is the one from May on Self-Image!

Positivity is a conscious act, and one that must be practiced on a daily basis.

I'm sure many of you have seen, and may even have been tagged for, the exercise of coming up with three positive things in your life right now every day for the next seven days. If you are not already doing this, I challenge you to do so for the next week. You don't have to share and tag others to keep the exercise going, though...

What we focus on is what we bring into our lives.

What are you focusing on - the actual abundance already present in your life right here, right now, or the perceived lack in it?

Over the next few weeks, we will discuss Journaling, Balance, and Harmony & Sync.

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 - Increasing Awareness - Moving from Unconscious Incompetence to Unconscious Competence

I think I have mentioned Entheos before in this forum, perhaps in my previous blog posts. Brian Johnson, the CEO of the Entheos Academy, has a series called Philosopher's Notes, where he synopsizes books by various philosophers and such, capturing the Big Ideas encapsulated in them and showing how these ideas are very relevant to us living our best lives now. Recently, I was listening to his talk on Flow, a book by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi, and Brian introduced a quad principle of moving from unconscious incompetence through conscious incompetence to conscious competence and finally to unconscious competence.

Serendipitously, I recent bought and read a book titled Reinventing Yourself by Mario Alonso Puig. In Chapter 11, titled "Hope for Victory and You'll be Victorious," I was introduced to these ideas again, as well as the story of the man - Matthias Alexander - who, as a way to overcome a physical difficulty that threatened his very livelihood, discovered this method to work through roadblocks very successfully.

Let's tackle the four parts of this principle one at a time.

Unconscious Incompetence - the state of being where one does not know how to do something and is not even aware that he/she does not know how to do something or the value of doing so - deal with personal finances for example.

Conscious Incompetence - the state of being where one knows he/she does not know how to do something and that something is a valuable skill to learn - balancing accounts, saving appropriately, not buying on impulse, paying bills on time, etc.

Conscious Competence - the state of being where one has learned the new skill and is consciously working to apply it consistently - taking the time to think about need versus want when making a purchase.

Unconscious Competence - the state of being where the skill has become so ingrained in one's psyche that it is an automatic response - saving 10% of one's income.

To understand and remedy an issue, one has to realize he/she has an issue. So, in the case of personal finances, if we are having difficulty getting to our personal goals in that area, whether it be as simple as buying a new outfit or as complex as saving for one's retirement or a child's college costs, we need to first realize we have an issue. Then we need to work to remedy the issue by learning and applying the appropriate skill-set needed. And, as we continue to learn and apply those skills, we can see the progression from conscious incompetence to unconscious competence.

This falls right in line with our discussions on goal-setting and identifying and dealing with roadblocks in relation to achieving our goals.

What steps are you going to take today to move from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence in your life?

Next week, we will address falling off the wagon - and how we go about getting back on without too many bumps and bruises.

Until then, namaste!

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 - Spinning Your Cocoon - Identifying Roadblocks

Last week we discussed manifesting your goals. This week we are going to learn how to identify the roadblocks we may face in reaching the goals we are manifesting in our lives. And yes, I'll explain the title of this post as well. For now - think butterflies...

Before we get into the meat of the post though...once again - DISCLAIMER: This blog is about coaching - NOT counseling. I am not here to fix the ills of your past. I AM here to help you focus on your future and gain knowledge, skills, and abilities to set, pursue and gain the goals to make your life better - something you can rate all around at 8 or above. If the ills of your past are something we identify as a roadblock to that success, you will need to pursue counseling with a trained professional to deal with those issues. I am NOT such a trained professional.

Now, on with the show...

"My life is full of misfortunes, many of which never took place." Rene Descartes

Do you know what your personal roadblocks to achieving the goals you set are? If not, it is time to take a good hard look at those things - both internal and external - which can hinder your progress. And yes, I said internal - many people focus on the perceived external roadblocks and don't realize those are but pebbles in the road, easily kicked out of the way. The boulders that truly impede our progress are the ones we place in our own paths. Boulders with names such as "Can't," "Because," "Yes, but," etc.

We need to examine our self-dialogue to identify these boulders. If this sounds familiar, it is. Many of the items I discussed in my previous post on Personal Prose apply here as well.

The biggest roadblock we have, whether we se it or not, is fear. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that the greatest thing we have to fear is fear itself, and he was right. Fear is the most paralyzing force known to man. And it, too, can be divided and conquered. In fact it must be in order for us to live our best life now.

So, ask yourself this question: What are you catering to in your life right now - your dreams/goals or your fears?

Identify those fears that are boulders in your path, and bring them into the light one by one.

Apply the five Whys discussed in previous posts to get to the root of each fear and see it for the tiny naked thing that it is.

Then thank it for the role it once had in your life - yes, the fears we have are ours for a reason - kiss it, and set it free.

Fear is what keeps us in our comfort zone, and the degree to which we are not living our dreams or achieving our goals, our comfort zone, by use of those fears, has more control of us than we have of ourselves.

Now back to the title of this post - Spinning Your Cocoon. For a caterpillar to become a butterfly, it must first spin the cocoon that becomes the chrysalis - the place of change, of transformation - from which the butterfly emerges.

Your cocoon is the place where you identify your fears, bring them out into the light, and face them down one by one - where you smash boulders into pebbles or, better yet, into dust. As you face your fears and put them to rest, your cocoon will turn into the chrysalis and the beautiful butterfly that is your best life will emerge and fly!

Next week we will address how to assess the true risks to achieving your goals as part of moving from the cocoon to the chrysalis.