Successful change emanates from the heart, not the head.  In order to be successful, to stay motivated we need to let go of ego and embrace possibility.

Ego is engaged when we have to be right, need to look good, are afraid to fail.

When we are in the realm of possibility, we are open, curious, calm.

I had a client, Donna, who wanted to lose 10 pounds… you know, that last 10 pounds you want to lose for years?  I asked her what she had tried before and she gave me a list of diet programs she had tried to follow.  She said they didn’t work because she felt deprived, had to think really hard about what foods to eat and what not to and, in the end, when she wasn’t successful, she beat herself up, told herself she was bad and wrong… and, or course, ate to sooth her feelings.  In a word, Donna stayed stuck.

I suggested that she forget about the weight loss goal for a moment and to just imagine what was possible for her if she was at her goal weight… forget how you might do it or whether you should or shouldn’t… just feel what opportunity is available to you if you are at your idea of an ideal weight.  She lit up, she was inspired. She saw herself feeling light and energetic and active and strong.  She saw herself feeling fit and positive… She was inspired by the possibility of being that fit, energetic person.  With that inspiration and vision in mind, we set out to create a plan for her to lose the 10 pounds… driven from the heart, not the ego.

I had another client,  Jane who wanted to get back into an exercise routine but couldn’t find the time and get into the habit.  Again, I asked her to think about what was possible for her if she were exercising?  She created a compelling vision of herself strong and fit and energetic.  With that as a backdrop… we began to work on the how.  Along the way, each time she found herself resisting going to the gym or working out, I asked her to notice what was running the show… her head full of ‘shoulds’ and reasons why not, or possibility, overflowing with energy and inspiration?  So, I suggested that she NOT check in with her head on the matter of whether she was going to go to the gym and just make a conscious choice to check in with her source of inspiration, her heart.  Her first response when I suggested that was, “oh, that will never work for me,”  a comment coming from the head, by the way.  So, I pressed on and asked, are you willing to consider the possibility that it might work?    She agreed and sure enough, she found herself getting exercise regularly, enjoying it and miraculously, other things got done too.

The show stoppers tend to be things coming from your head.  When you go back to your heart, you get moving.

As Peter Drucker said, “The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Create it.”  And, the best way to create it is to imagine and be open to all of the possibilities, rather than drawing on all of the history, memories, fears.

How many times have you heard this in answer to your question, “How do I…”  It doesn’t matter what you are trying to do… look younger—it’s easy.  All you have to do is use this cream every day for the next 3 months;  make a million dollars—it’s easy.  All you have to do is have an idea, create some content about it–write a book or ebook, develop a webinar, speak about it, offer seminars on the subject, sell the products on the web and count your money when you wake up in the morning.  Or maybe you want to be happier – easy.  All you have to do is notice the positive things in your life and express gratitude for them and bingo… life is good.

Well, if it were REALLY that easy, if you could have health, wealth, happiness and fulfillment by just doing a few things differently, why isn’t the planet overrun with wealthy, joyful, richly related, fit, satisfied people?

Because while the mechanics of life are simple, and any of us can learn them, our inner world isn’t so clear cut.  Feelings and emotions are messy.  The scripts we’ve developed, the beliefs we hold dear, the assumptions we make, the fears we harbor come into play and get in the way of our ‘just doing…” They make what others say is easy, really, really hard.  In fact, it is our internal processes that create our most challenging roadblocks.

In order to be successful, we need to understand our values, our feelings and our fears and make some shifts from the inside out.

When you find yourself stuck, unable to ‘just do…”  ask yourself, “What is in the way of my doing this?”  Listen carefully to the voice in your head or the movie that is playing there.  Do you hear someone saying, “who do you think you are thinking you can do this?”  Or do you see a loved one criticizing or disapproving?”  Do you jump to an internal dialog that sounds something like, “What if this doesn’t work out?”

Pay attention to how your body feels.  When you first think about moving toward your idea or dream do you feel excited, only to have that followed by a different sensation, perhaps one of fear or overwhelm?  Can you feel heaviness in your body or a lump in your throat?

Your thoughts and feelings have real power over you.  In order to keep moving forward toward your goals, you have to pay attention to your whole body in order to know how to re-empower your deflated sense of excitement.

You have to reprogram yourself to catch yourself when your inner voice and inner movie projector throw up road blocks.

The first step is awareness.  Get to know your body’s signals.  What messages are you sending yourself?  What do they mean?  What is going on in your mind and your body that is causing you to be stopped?  Where do these messages come from?  How can you counter them?

Disempower your negative thoughts. If you notice that you are having negative thoughts like, “I can’t”, “it won’t work out”, “I shouldn’t…”, ask yourself,  “Is this true?”  By true I don’t mean is it possible that it might happen.  I mean, is this absolutely, irrefutably true?  If it is not true, ask yourself, “What is the truth in this situation?” If it is true, ask yourself, “So what?  What is the worst thing that could happen if that outcome occurred?” Let’s say you can hear your best friend’s voice saying, “Remember the last time you did…? It was a complete disaster.  What makes you think this will be any different?”  You automatically start thinking, “She’s right.  I could never do this.”  Is it true that you failed before?  Maybe it is.  Is it absolutely true that you will fail again?  No.  And even if you do fail again, what’s the worst thing that can happen?  You are guaranteed not to succeed if you don’t try.  Would you rather go down swinging or on a called strike?  And, finally, consider what you can do to minimize your risk.

Acknowledge, understand  and work through your feelings. For many people, feelings get in the way of showcasing their true greatness.  The feelings may show up as embarrassment, overwhelm, feeling stupid.  Underneath those feelings is fear.  Fear of losing face, fear of failure, fear of asking for help and looking stupid, fear of upsetting others or the status quo.  When we dig deep to discover the basis of our feelings, we can pinpoint what we need to do to move through them.  Feelings should not be ignored. They convey important information and it is important to understand them, heed their messages and learn from them.  One of my clients was really excited about a possible new job opportunity.  She loved everything about it except that it would require that she be out at events several evenings a month.  This didn’t bother her but she was afraid it would upset her husband and put her marriage at risk.  That thought was so scary to her, she decided not to pursue the opportunity.  When I asked her if she had asked her husband about it, she said, “no”.  She just assumed it would be a problem, feared the impact and acted on that fear.  Identifying the fear and understanding it’s source, gave her the direction she needed to take some effective action.  She spoke to her husband about it and learned that while it wouldn’t be his first choice to have her out a lot, he was excited about this opportunity for her and would be willing to make it work.

It may not be as easy as 1-2-3, but you can overcome your fears and allow your true greatness to shine!

Happy New Year!    It has been a long time since I’ve posted here.  I’ve thought about it.   Even sat down and gotten started.  And then I’ve gotten ‘busy’ with other, more time sensitive things.  Not blogging has been a bit of an albatross around my neck; a dark cloud following me, weighing me down.  I’ve had a dialog with myself over and over again about how I should be writing; I’m bad because I haven’t consistently written.  I’ve even tossed and turned at night and lost sleep over it.  But I’ve learned a few things along the way and, in my mind, nothing is a failure if there is learning that comes of it.  So, here’s what I learned.

1. Like any commitment you make, you have to have a strategy and it has to be written down   (I resist writing things down because then it’s real and I might fail.)
2. You have to go public with your strategy.  It helps you be accountable. (See parenthesis in #1… failure is even worse when it’s public.)
3. Blog posts don’t have to be perfect.  (There is no such thing so good luck with that, anyway.)
4. Every blog post won’t resonate with every reader.  That’s OK.
5. Get your priorities straight!  I realized I was spending a tremendous amount of time doing work that, while high paying, didn’t make my heart sing and, in fact, took me away from the work I truly love and can make a good living at.

So, it’s time for a change…

This year I will:

• blog at least twice a week, every week.
• be sure all of my blog posts are useful, informative and/or inspiring but not perfect.
• reach 3 times as many readers as I do now.
• efficiently link all of my social media platforms together.
• check in with my heart regularly to be sure what I am working on is aligned with my life purpose and my soul’s work.
• surround myself with upbeat, supportive people
• ask for help when I get stuck
• be of service.

How about you?  What are you up to for 2012?

A lot of people see me as someone who is pretty brave.  I’m fairly independent and self-sufficient.  I run my own business. I’m always busy with one thing or another.  I, however, don’t see myself as particularly bold.  I have been stopped by my fears a million times.  When it happens, it feels like coming to the end of a short tether.  I’m charging headlong into a project or the execution of an idea and, boom, I run out of rope and I am abruptly pulled up short.  I get virtual whiplash. Take for example, the time I was going to pitch myself as a speaker at a major women’s conference.  I was really excited.  I could see myself standing in front of a room full of women.  I made some notes about what I would propose and then, suddenly, I slammed on the brakes.  The force of my self doubt and inner fears about not being good enough stopped me in my tracks. I buried that dream and moved on.  That’s just one example.  I’ve been living that way for a long time.  When I was a senior in high school, I was supposed to spend six months living with a family and studying in France, but I chickened out and stayed home in my small suburban town instead.  I’m still regretting that one, almost 40 years later.   Each time I start something and don’t carry it out because of fear, I regret it.

So, sometime last spring, I decided it was time to put an end to that.  I thought that going skydiving might be just the thing to do to push me past my debilitating fear.  Up until that moment, skydiving was something I thought I wouldn’t do in a million years.  Now, I was thinking it was the answer to my challenges.  In a conversation with one of my clients, she told me of the many situations in which fear had kept her from doing things she’d wanted to do and I shared my idea about skydiving with her.  She was intrigued.  Two days later, we each got a Groupon in our inboxes for half off skydiving and we knew it was meant to be.  I asked others if they wanted to go and got a variety of responses ranging from ‘are you crazy?’to ‘I’d never do that but you go girl’ to my dear 75 year old friend saying, “I’m in!”

So last week, the three of us headed off to Sky Dive Pepperell, filled with excitement and trepidation, open to whatever our adventure would reveal to us.

And an adventure it was!  Sheer exhilaration and joy!  Not even a fraction as frightening as I had anticipated.

Here are some of my ‘ahas’ and take-aways:

1. Things are rarely as scary as you imagine they will be.
2. Thorough preparation helps allay fears and minimize danger. (Sky Dive Pepperell did an amazing job preparing us for our mission.)
3. Having an abundance of support is essential (We had each other and a competent crew at Sky Dive Pepperell)
4. Fear is heavy and burdensome.  Today I feel light and energized.
5. It’s important not to let other people’s opinions sway you from your own truth.  (I had many people question my sanity and try to talk me out of going.)
6. This feeling I have of not being afraid is how a lot of people who I admire live their lives.   Thing just don’t seem like such a big deal when you aren’t run by fear.

What life goals are you not reaching?  What are the fears that are stopping you?  What big bold move can you take to overcome them?

That’s what one of my clients said to me last week.  Who among us hasn’t had that thought?  Most of us grew up fueled by a dream of living happily ever after with prince charming and having a life of joy and abundance.  We never imagined the various challenges we would have tossed in our path.  We didn’t expect terrorism, recession, environmental threats, high unemployment, difficult marriages,  poor health or any of the other monkey wrenches we have encountered on the way to old age.  And we are unprepared to deal with the unexpected twists and turns of life.  We hang onto our idealized expectations and feel cheated and wronged that it didn’t turn out as we’d hoped.  Whether it is fair or not, we are where we are.  The best way to stay stuck is to tighten our grip on the perceived injustice of that.  If we want to break out of the place we’re in, we need to change our mindset.

1. Determine what’s really important to you. Sometimes we hang on to old dreams that are no longer relevant.  Reassess what you truly value and want and let go of the shoulds.
2. Focus on what you do have that makes you happy and find ways to get more of those things. What we think about expands, if we focus our attention on the positives, we will see and get more of them.
3. Let go of concerns about what others will think. Don’t let what you think others will think keep you stuck.  You might be surprised to learn that others admire your courage when you take a bold step to change.
4. Reach out to others. You’ll be amazed to find out how many others share you feelings and frustrations.  Instead of commiserating with each other, commit to taking action to change your circumstances and support and hold each other accountable.
5. Consult with experts. Learn effective ways to change your situation.  If you are in debt, talk to a financial professional.  If you have health issues, see a medical or wellness professional, etc.  What you know now is what got you to where you are now.  You need new information and insight in order to move beyond it.  Often the solution isn’t as daunting as you thought it would be.
6. Take action. Stop whining and worrying and begin to do something.  Take one small action every day that will move you closer to your dreams.
7. Be patient. You didn’t get to where you are in your life overnight and you won’t get out of it in a blink either.  Each small step will empower you, give you a sense of control and move you closer to your desired outcome.

So go ahead… Use the wisdom you have amassed over the years,  set new expectations and  live into those new hopes and dreams.  It’s not too late.