Is Coping with the Status Quo Enough?

 “Life is difficult,” and personal growth is a "complex, arduous and lifelong task."  These thoughts open Scott Peck’s famous book, The Road Less Traveled. For most of us the busy-ness of daily life consumes our time and attention, leaving personal development on the shelf until a crisis hits and we have to make changes. We cope with how things are – not too bad, not exactly the level of success we may dream of someday.  We are doing OK.

What if OK isn’t enough anymore? You may know what to do to improve the results you’re getting, and you may even know how to do it. And yet you stay in the same rut, blaming yourself and settling for disappointing results.

Maybe it’s about comfort – coping with the current situation is about what you’ve always done, and it’s relatively comfortable. You can cope with how things are. But coping with the status quo is trading comfort for results. And the truth is that making some changes through personal development doesn't have to be difficult. 

Here are some simple changes that can get you started.

1. Read or listen to inspiring or motivational teachers for 30 minutes a day. There is a list of resources on my website.
2. Take a walk every day. Notice everything around you – what you see, hear, feel – and turn off the worry-mind.
3. Hang out with positive, growing, successful people and let their wisdom rub off on you.

You can begin to move from coping and just OK, to wide-awake creating whatever you can dream for your life. I’m here to help get you started.

Take Charge - Get Moving!  
 

Love and light,
Diane

WHY?

Here's a question that can be answered on several levels: "Why do you do what you do?" There are so many things we do without really thinking about anything at all, especially "why" we are doing them. Here are some of my answers.

1.  It’s a habit. Brushing my teeth, my daily routines are habits that are performed without any thought at all.

2.  It has to be done. Paying the bills and maintaining the car are not optional in my world.

3.  I made a promise to someone else and my integrity is at stake.

4.  It is the “normal” thing to do or say.

5.  It is something I enjoy doing.

6.  It is something that will take too much effort right now so I can put it off, I Procrastinate.

When it comes to your business life, a meaningful answer to the question, "Why do you do what you do?", can make a significant impact on your success. The highest level of success comes to those who know their answer, and that motivates themselves and others.
Want to know more? Contact me - why not?

Take Charge - Get Moving!  
Love and light,
Diane

Start with Lucky

Living the long-time dream of standing on top of Machu Picchu, August 15,2013. How did I get so lucky?

Louis Pastuer said it like this: "Fortune favors the prepared mind." And as I observed in my travels across the Peruvian high plains, being prepared is just a start - it doesn't hurt to be born in the USA. 

 

Here are the gifts I brought back from my 8 day journey in Peru.

 

1. People are the same in more ways than we are different. We all value family and loved ones, we need to have adequate work for housing and food, and we enjoy smiles and laughter. Our group was served dinner in the home of a village taxi driver. The house was built by the grandmother's father - stone walls, dirt floor, cooking fire in the corner, one weak light bulb, and a table long enough to seat 12 filled the room. We ate lavishly their typical celebration foods: corn and potato in several forms, stuffed peppers, quinoa, and cuy/guinea pig. There was such a warmth and hospitality as the 18 year old son spoke with us about their family life.

2. The foreign country I've seen in books and video is so much more than flat images and simplified stereotypical ideas. The air, the mountains, the earth; the people, animals, and plants; the history, culture, and political landscape are more complex and fascinating than I could have imagined. Travel reminds me that every country is more than a different color area on the map - countries are alive. Knowing that fact intellectually is one thing, being there is quite another.

3. Comparing my worst day living as an American with the best day of a Peruvian farmer or moto-taxi driver, I am incredibly blessed. It is more than I can describe here, but it includes peace and safety, healthcare and abundance of life's basic needs, clean air, good transportation, running water and flush toilets, and an incredible amount of independence, interdependence, and opportunity for anyone willing to go for it. And social caring and awareness for those unable to do it alone.

Again I ask myself, how did I get so lucky? 

 

No excuses for me. Take Charge -- Get Moving! Anything is possible.

Love and light,

Diane

Motivational Direction - Part 2

In the last post, I listed the principle of direction in how we motivate ourselves. You may have wondered how to know your built-in direction. Think about an unpleasant task - mowing an overgrown lawn or washing a week's worth of dirty dishes by hand - put yourself into the scene as vividly as possible in the moment just before you get started on the task. What thought and feeling do you have in that moment? Do you feel so uncomfortable that you just say something like "let me get this over with," or is it a sense of how good it will look and you will feel when the lawn or kitchen are shining back in their glory? Do this quickly without pondering and you may recognize your pattern.

Example
For Sales Pros: Away from pattern gets moving when the discomfort of NOT making quota becomes strong enough - so rev up that feeling right away to get moving. Toward pattern sees the prize and feels that feeling of achievement right away and motivation is easy. Here's a word of advice for the Away from pattern people - it's easy to lose motivation when you've made a little progress and your discomfort is lessened unless you turn to the Toward pattern's process to keep you moving forward.

For Fitness: Pay attention to your motivational direction and use the same process listed above. 

Making significant change in your life can be much easier when you look at your internal programming and work with it to Take Charge -- Get Moving!

Want to know more about how this works? Contact me for a free coaching session.
Love and light,
Diane

"If you keep on doing what you've always done ... Part 1

... You'll keep on getting what you've always got." And yet, how many of us actually CHANGE what we're doing, even when we know the change that could make a difference? Whether the topic is health, wealth, relationship, or business, there is plenty of information telling us how to achieve any objective. So there must be something besides Knowing that keeps us stuck in the status quo. Most people call it "Motivation".

Over my 60+ years I have been a teacher, trainer, consultant, sales pro, and for the last 15 years a coach helping people make changes in their life and career. I have studied the works of personal development gurus for most of my life: Jim Rohn, John C Maxwell, Stephen Covey, Kenneth Blanchard, Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer, and Dr. Phil to name a few. There is a wealth of information about how to motivate ourselves to change what's not working.

There are two key principles that have worked for me and for my clients. 
1) Motivation is based on what we value most. If we value comfort (freedom from discomfort), change will seem very difficult. If we value safety/security (the known vs. the unknown), we will see change as very risky. The potential rewards will seem impossible and dangerous. 
2) Each of us is "wired" to motivate ourselves from one of two directions: Toward what we do want, or Away From what we don't want. Knowing which direction is our natural perspective can be very powerful in getting through the inertia associated with making a major change.

In my next blog entry, I'll say more about how to work with the two motivational principles so you have a choice about making change.

Meanwhile, Take Charge -- Get Moving!
Love and light,
Diane

Playing to Win

How do you succeed in anything - career, sport, relationships, life in general? Why do some people seem to move more quickly toward their goals and higher accomplishments?

A key factor is knowing the rules of the game AND the strategies that others have used to achieve success. Let's take chess. When I was in grade school, my older brother taught me how to play. I learned what each piece could do and the objectives of the game. I tried very hard to make "smart moves" with that information. But alas, he always won! What he omitted from his instruction was strategy, or what constituted a plan of action and truly smart moves. He liked to win.

I see people in great jobs in different industries playing the game of work with the same level of "not knowing what they don't know" doing their job very well, but without much attention to the bigger picture strategy of that game. And I completely understand that the last five years have continued to demand more production from smaller numbers of workers on the team. People get burned out just doing what has to be done, let alone manage their career strategically.

It's important to clarify what you want out of work - a job to get done, or a career with progressively more responsibility and superior rewards. If the latter is the goal, you may benefit from the objective support of a professional career coach. Someone who can see your game of work from a meta level and support strategic behaviors and opportunities. 
Checkmate! Now that's a lot more fun!
Let's Take Charge ... Get Moving
Love and light,
Diane