photo credit: daedalust via flickr

Vacation Planning

I love planning for vacations.  This year I’m heading to Seattle, Michigan and possibly Ohio to visit family.

My sister and I talk about getting the “vacation feeling.”  You know what that is.  It’s the butterflies in your stomach when you think about your vacation.   As much as I love to dream about vacation, there comes a time when you have to commit.  Booking the flight can paralyze me.

The Doubts and Shoulds

As soon as I sit at my computer, all the “shoulds” come up.  I should take care of this and that before I go.  I should only go for 4 days because I have so much work to do.  Should I plan to go in the spring or fall?  What if I can’t get a good price, should I wait?  Should I take my computer and work or not?

The decision becomes even more complicated when the “doubts” show up to keep the “shoulds” company.  Can I afford it?  What will happen to the business when I’m gone?  I can’t go now, how about after that big project.  The internal dialogue is exhausting.

This can happen in your business as well.

Ever been faced with a great business opportunity or a breakthrough idea?  It meant taking the leap of faith, but it would be huge for your business.  Then the debate begins.

They’re Back.

Doubts and shoulds start to confuse the situation.  When the opportunity presented itself, you felt excited.  After a few moments with Doubt and Should, you’re not so sure.  Where do these guys come from?

They stem from your logical brain trying to make sense of the unknown.  Just like planning for vacation, your logical brain wants to fill in the gaps.  It wants black and white answers to the questions.  It doesn’t do well with grey.

One Step At A Time

There’s a lot of wisdom in that saying.  When you take things one step at a time, one day at a time, one decision at a time, you can move toward the business opportunity.  When you focus on all the stuff that has to happen, could go wrong, people who need to be involved, you’ll end up like me frozen staring at my computer trying to pick a flight for my next vacation.

Taking one step at a time allows you to keep the end result in mind.  It actually helps if you do.  But instead of getting overwhelmed, it keeps you focused.

Louise Hay author and founder of Hay House Publishing talks about her journey to creating Hay House.  It’s started with an idea for a small pamphlet to sell to metaphysical churches.  In her movie, You Can Heal Your Life she tells the story of how her and her 90 year old mother would do what was in front of them every day.  In time those small steps led to an international publishing company, internet radio station and the Hay Foundation.  If back in 1984, Louise tried to focus on all of this, I’m sure Doubt and Should would have created chaos.

Dream Big.  Act Today.

So dream big.  Whether it’s your next business move or vacation, think about the end result.  Then focus on just want you can get done today.  Focus on what’s in front of you, what’s presented to you.

Do any of you have a story when this worked for you?  Go ahead and share below.

photo credit: 21560098@N06 via flickr

What do you love?

Not what are you supposed to love, what the media says to love, but really what warms the cockles of your heart?

For me it’s writing, reading, baking, cooking scrumptious things, tapping into my intuition for my business, helping clients achieve their goals, a quiet walk in the woods, the ocean, the mountains, speaking to groups, teaching, and so much more.

I’m focusing a lot on these this year.  As I set my goals and focus on my dreams, I want them aligned with what I love.  Originally, that’s why I started Life Simplified.  I wanted to do work that meant something to me personally, not what a corporate office dictated.

It can be harder than you think.

It’s harder than you think to first identify what you love, then integrate it into your daily live and work.

Life Simplified will be 5 years old in 2012.  When I look over the last 5 years there have been times when I definitely focused on what I loved to do.  Then there were times I didn’t.

The difference was when I focused on what I loved to do, the customers came willingly.  I didn’t have to do much and they were knocking on my door.  When I forced something I really didn’t want to do, not only did it feel yucky, but I never felt I did my best work.

Oh yeah, those were also the times I financially struggled.  I had to “convince” people to work with me.  As a small business person you always have to market yourself, but when you start to feel like a used car sales person, it’s time to re-evaluate.

My shift

Last year I started to make the shift.  Sometimes it was profitable.  Other times, I think I lost my confidence and the profits dried up.

This year, although I doubted a bit during December, I’m back to fully believing I can integrate what I love to do into my business.  One of the things I love is intuitive coaching sessions.

Intuitive coaching sessions are focused on the person’s needs, but I tap into the thoughts and insights that come to me during the session.  There isn’t a system or process we follow.  Instead we move organically through the process.  The results with these clients have been amazing.  They’ve opened up channels that never existed or completed things they never thought would happen.

How can you integrate what you love into what you do every day?

Even if you don’t have a business, you can still integrate what you love into what you do every day.  Here are a few tips to get started:

• Know what you love.  Sounds simple, but I’ll be this takes a while.  Take some time and make a list of 100 things, the smaller the better, you love.
• Integrate one thing at a time.  It’s human nature to want the whole list at once.  Instead chose one small thing you love.  Integrate it into your schedule next week.  Make a commitment to making it happen.  Continue to integrate items from your list.
• Notice which make you the happiest.  You’ll find some make you happier than others.  Start to make those things regular parts of your schedule, job or business.
• Journal.  I think there’s nothing more powerful than a daily journal.   Journal throughout this year to discover things you love you may have forgotten about.

From my last post, I need to continue to believe I am an intuitive advisor, writer, speaker and teacher so I can become more of one this year.

What is one thing you want to do this year that totally taps into what you love and your natural strengths.  Share here and we’ll start supporting each other.

photo credit: anne-catherine_nyberg via flickr

Over New Years I watched Julie and Julia for the third or fourth time.  I love that movie.

Staying True To Your Vision

The conviction of Julie and Julia to their visions inspires me.  You feel their struggle before they both start.  You feel their struggle in the process.  Both, however, stuck to their visions and achieved success beyond their original vision.

This time around it was Julie Powell’s story that resonated with me.  At the beginning of the movie she feels lost, uninspired and lacking life energy.  Even though she’s written a book, it’s been rejected so she doesn’t consider herself a writer.

You Are Who You Believe Yourself To Be

The lesson I’ve learned is we are who we believe ourselves to be.  All choices are available to us.  It’s up to us if we want to be stuck in an office job we hate or become a national best selling author.

Julie gave up on her vision of becoming a writer and settled into the desk job option.  This is what dragged down her life. When she began to blog, she began the journey of accepting she was a writer.  To date she’s written at least two books, her blog and obviously influenced the move with her writing.

My Year of Achieving My Dreams

I’m holding onto this picture because you can see it from beginning to end now that her dream has been realized.  When you’re in the middle of re-creating your life, it’s hard to see how all the pieces fit together.  If you stay dedicated to your vision, work at it, you’re reality changes.  “What you think about, you bring about” as a friend reminded me on Facebook yesterday.

I too have dreams I want to achieve, writing being one of them.  I too do not consider myself a writer all the time because it’s a hobby, not a career.  I see that changing in 2012 because I’ve set it in my mind this time around.  I am a writer.  I am a writer.  I am a writer.

Each of us is standing right smack in the middle of every dream we every wanted to achieve.  Now it’s time to believe.

photo credit: Life Simplified

A Simply Abundant New Year

I’ve been tossing this around for a while.  Many of you know I quote Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance (affiliate link) frequently.  For the past 15 years or so, I’ve been using Sarah’s guidance to make big changes in my life, starting Life Simplified being one.

The first year I went through her entire year of daily meditations, I felt transformed.  Therefore every other year or so I do the same.  Some years more successfully than others.  Each time, I discover a revelation that moves me onto the next phase in my life.

My Simple Abundance Commitment – 365 blogs

This year, I want to make dramatic shifts in my life.  Over on the Life Simplified blog I’ve talked about my three words of focus this year; Own, Inspire and Grow.  I want to make Simple Abundance part of that journey.

It’s going to take a lot of commitment.  365 days of blogging, yikes!  I think I’m ready.

So here we go.  Check in as often as you’d like.

Learning to Live Into Your Dreams

For January 1 – Sarah talks about writing down your dreams then through the year, day by day you’ll learn to live them.  I firmly believe that.  My dreams for this upcoming year are:

Growing Life Simplified into a business that inspires and enlightens people to their own power, creativity and uniqueness.  I want to write a book that conveys those thoughts and I want to help over 100 people this year move in the direction of their dreams.

Traveling.  It’s been a while since I’ve traveled.  I’m overdue for a trip to Seattle.  Besides that I want to explore my own backyard.  There’s so much you miss everyday.  I want to explore these.

Growing myself.  There’s nothing more satisfying than learning something new about myself and putting it to work.

Writing.  I can’t keep it inside any more.  I want to write a lot this year.  Not just blogs but a book (or two!).

Building new relationships.  I love meeting new people and this year I want to bring new relationships into my life.

When I look back on these, they seem very simple.  Re-reading them, however, gives me butterflies!  Isn’t that what life is all about?

What is one dream you have for the year? 

As Sarah says:

Take a leap of faith and begin this wondrous new year by believing.  Believe in yourself.  And believe that there is a loving Source – a Sower of Dreams – just waiting to be asked to help you make your dreams come true.

The passionate pursuit of dreams sets your soul soaring; expectations that measure the dream’s success tie stones around your soul.  Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance

 

 

 

As a lover of history, I’m always inspired by the passion and drive of our founding fathers.  Take a few simple men, mix in passion and voila you have a new country.  It’s really crazy when you think of it.

Or is it?

When’s Your Independence Day?

When you reflect on your life, I’m sure you have your own “independence day(s).”  What fueled your drive?  What helped you flow gracefully (or not so gracefully in my case) over obstacles?  Can you relate to the passion the founding fathers had when you look back at your own independence day?

We need to celebrate our own victories on a more regular basis like we do the Fourth of July.  Celebrations are the sparks of your next inspiration.

The Downer, Expectations

What weighs you down are your expectations.  When you think back to your victory, did you have expectations around every milestone, or did you see the finish line and you worked toward that.

Expectations cause you to evaluate your progress against some arbitrary vision of where you think you should be.  When you peel back the layers of that onion, guaranteed you’ll find those expectations rooted in long held beliefs that may not be true for you today.

Start a Revolution

As we approach the Fourth of July, I encourage you to start your own revolution.  Ditch the expectations you have around your dreams, goals or visions.  Then “move confidently in the direction of your dreams” as Thoreau reminds us.

Our fore fathers and mothers who founded our country had to give up a lot of expectations along the way.  If they can do it, I know you can.

What expectations will you be giving up this Fourth of July?

Whispers Of The Heart

“Listen to the whispers of your heart.”  Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance

Our heart is always there telling us what is true.

When we listen, we feel joy and fulfillment.  When we don’t we feel frustrated, lost and anxious.  But the message is hard to hear (that’s why it’s called a whisper) so we must train ourselves to listen intently.

Can you hear the whispers of your heart?  If not, it may be time for a little bit of quiet reflection.

From my heart to yours,
Jen

January Dream Garden

The new year energizes me.  Last night I went to bed feeling like a painter who couldn’t capture all she saw.  I had visions of canvases strewn around the room, paint splattered everywhere and this fantastic creative energy coming through my brush.

January is the beginning of our creative spring.  Seeds of hopes and dreams are planted this month.  This year let’s not let them wither away because we neglect them.

I invite you to join me daily as I tend to our dream garden.  This year let’s complete the cycle together from waiting to see the small signs of growth to harvesting the fruits of our labors.

What seeds are you planting?

Photo: Thoughtful, she said. by ot, Oliver Thereaux – Flickr

Under: Creative Commons License

My Goal: To Become A Writer

I’m attending a week long series of workshops and teleseminars about reaching your dream.  All of the presenters have been fantastic, but one message has resonated with me.

Our initial exercise was to write out our dream and post it to the community.  Then we have to choose an action per week that moves us closer to the dream.  Sounds simple right?!?

My dream is to become a national best selling author who does speaking engagements and helps people all over the world. What I realized is that to make this dream come true, I need to get serious with my writing.  You can’t be a national best seller if you haven’t written any content.

So here’s my first step.  I committed to blogging everyday for a minimum of 7 days straight. After the 7 days, I’ll review my progress and revise my goal.  I’ll be blogging here, at Life Simplified and Life Simplified for Business. I’ll post daily here, but will space out my posts on the other two site.  This way not only will I get in the habit of writing everyday, I’ll also get future content for my blog.

I’m off to pursue my dream.  Wish me luck!