Sometimes I feel the pull as soon as I open my eyes. If the previous day's problems don't get resolved, the weight can often feel heavy in the fog of early morning. Even after a cup of coffee, I find myself wrestling with my thoughts. Managing our brains around both big and little problems isn't always easy, but it is necessary. That's why one of the most important ways to live refreshed is to choose the best thoughts for ourselves, around EVERYTHING. It's natural for our thinking to default to the worst case scenario. It's our way of preparing for potential risks and danger because our brains are designed to expect the worst. It's a protection mechanism, and although we need this to keep ourselves safe from real danger, it can also become a barrier to simply enjoying each day apart Continue Reading
8 Powerful Words to Shift Your Day
The alarm drums loudly and I awaken immediately to feel a sense of dread bubbling up in my spirit. With my first awareness of breath, I let out a heavy sigh and roll over for another 10 minutes. The cycle is the same each and every week as if I'm living the line from one of my favorite movies (Kate & Leopold), "I don't want it to be Sunday...Sunday is the day before the day I work, so it gets poisoned. Sunday's have a sort of heaviness to them. For me, they signal an end to losing track of time and living the weekend on a whim. As much as I love my job, it's difficult to not let Monday creep into Sunday. Maybe you feel the same. It's no fun to let tomorrow rob us of all that's waiting for us to experience today. A few years ago I decided I didn't want to keep feeling this way. I Continue Reading
10 Ways to Inspire Hope with Mini-Habits
“It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It's what we do consistently.” ― Anthony Robbins” Quite a few years ago, before becoming a certified life coach, I became enamored with the idea of incorporating small, deliberate, and consistent baby steps in my daily life instead of surges of energetic momentum to accomplish my goals. Why? Because the joy and motivation I experienced during my surges rarely lasted as the work of meeting goals became more grueling, and I found myself depleted, defeated, and unable to find the momentum to keep going. It's discouraging to be stuck with no real progress to show for it. In the coaching world, we call these Mini Habits. Mini-habits are small, positive steps (routines or rituals) that only take a few minutes out of each Continue Reading