Tag: Personal growth

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Live From Your Strengths

“The good life consists in deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component: using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power or goodness.” ~ Martin Seligman

Stuck!

When Shannon (*) and I met for our first coaching session, she was frustrated, stuck in place and spinning her wheels. When she was in college, she planned for a career with a non-profit organization, preferably one that worked with children. Now in the work force, Shannon worked as a clerk in a retail store. “I’m not doing the job I worked toward for years,” she told me. “I am doing something I don’t enjoy just to pay the bills. I’m just going through the motions and I am not making any real difference. I want to explore what I need to do to maybe find a different job.” Continue reading “Live From Your Strengths”

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A PLACE For Everything

“. . . most clutter enters our lives through the ‘more is better’ door. It comes from the disease of materialism, of looking for inner fulfillment in outer possessions.” ~ Joe Dominquez

Gazingus Pins

In the book Your Money Or Your Life, Joe Dominguez introduces the concept of the “gazingus pin”. A gazingus pin is that thing you can’t pass by in a store without buying. It can be anything, “from pocket calculators and tiny screwdrivers to shoes, pens and chocolate kisses”. [Robin & Dominguez, p. 25]

When you see your gazingus pin, your eyes glaze over, your mind goes on auto pilot, and you forget that you already have 10 or 100 or 1000 gazingus pins at home that you never use. All your attention is focused on this fresh, clean, lovely, new and improved gazingus pin. And “before you know it, an alien arm (attached to your body) has reached out and picked up the gazingus pin, and off you go to the checkout, still functioning like a windup zombie.” [Robin & Dominguez, 25 – 26] When you finally come to your senses, you find yourself adding a new gazingus pin to your drawer that is already full of other gazingus pins.

Continue reading “A PLACE For Everything”
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Get Unstuck!

“Status quo, you know, is Latin for ‘the mess we’re in’.” ~ Ronald Reagan

The Way Things Were

Do you know where the term “status quo” comes from? It’s from the Latin phrase, “status quo ante bellum”, or “the state before the war”. This refers to the borders, property boundaries, and other evidence of ownership used to reinstate land when a nation was defeated in war. At times, we can feel defeated, overwhelmed by too much to do or entrenched in negative habits and thought patterns, beaten down by indecision or faced with changes that we feel have been thrust on us. Continue reading “Get Unstuck!”

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5 Ways To Get More Done

“You often see people who appear to be busy all day long but seem to accomplish very little. This is almost always because they are busy working on tasks that are of low value while they are procrastinating on the one or two activities that could make a real difference to their companies and to their careers.” ~ Brian Tracy

You Can’t Do It All

You have more to do than you can get done. The pace of life is increasing and the demands on your time and energy are growing. Reports to write. E-mails to respond to. Groceries to buy. An exercise regimen to follow. Clients to call. Dishes to wash. Books to read. Children to care for. Phone calls to return. Customer complaints to address. A spouse to spend time with. Oh, and selfies to upload and Facebook posts to like and comment on. Continue reading “5 Ways To Get More Done”

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Step Out Of The Pit

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

Each of us has Teachers that come into our lives at various times. Each of these Teachers brings an important lesson. Until you learn the lesson, that Teacher comes back again and again. Until you learn the lesson, you can’t move on.

The Farmer and the Donkey

I once heard a story about an old donkey who had outlived it’s usefulness. It was too old to work any more. The farmer who owned the donkey thought about having it put down, but just couldn’t bring himself to do so. However, one day the donkey fell into a deep pit and couldn’t get out. “Well,” thought the farmer, “this is the end. I’ll just fill in the pit with dirt and bury this poor old donkey.” Continue reading “Step Out Of The Pit”

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What To Do Before Breakfast

 

“There’s something magical about repeating the same positive habits every single day.” ~ SJ Scott

The “Magic Hours”

What do you do before breakfast? Hyrum Smith calls the early morning hours the “magic hours”, a block of uninterrupted time when you can concentrate on things beyond the normal urgency and routine of the day. Brian Tracy refers to this time as the Golden Hours — the first hours of the day which set the tone for the rest of the day. Continue reading “What To Do Before Breakfast”

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Effort or Results?

“The amateur focuses on outcomes and expects immediate results. The professional plays the long game and prioritizes the process, perfecting it for years with no immediate payoff.” ~ Ozan Varol

The Process

“We decided to use the approach that we’re not going to focus on the outcome. We were just going to focus on the process of what it took to play the best football you could play, which was to focus on that particular play as if it had a history and life of its own. Don’t look at the scoreboard, don’t look at any external factors, just all your focus and all your concentration, all your effort, all your toughness, all your discipline to execute went into that particular play. Regardless of what happened on that play, success or failure, you would move on to the next play and have the same focus to do that on the next play, and you’d then do that for 60 minutes in a game and then you’d be able to live with the results regardless of what those results were.” ~ Nick Saban [Elmasry]

Nick Saban is considered by many people to be the most successful coach in college football. He has a lifetime record of 218 wins, 62 losses (and 1 tie). He is tied with the legendary Paul “Bear” Bryant for most NCAA championships. [Wikipedia] Saban credits much of his success to the fact that he and his teams follow what he calls “The Process.” Continue reading “Effort or Results?”

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Capacities Clamoring To Be Used

“The muscular person likes to use his muscles, indeed, has to use them in order to self-actualize, and to achieve the subjective feeling of harmonious, uninhibited, satisfying functioning which is so important an aspect of psychological health. People with intelligence must use their intelligence, people with eyes must use their eyes, people with the capacity to love have the impulse to love and the need to love in order to feel healthy. Capacities clamor to be used, and cease their clamor only when they are used sufficiently.” ~ Abraham Maslow  Toward a Psychology of Being

Capacities clamor to be used.

I read this quote from Abraham Maslow’s book in a recent +1 note from Brian Johnson. The capacities that “clamor to be used” remind me of the VIA Character strengths.

Continue reading “Capacities Clamoring To Be Used”

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Move!

“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” ~ Jim Rohn

Choose to be active.

Researchers tell us that there are certain actions we can take to increase feelings of happiness and well-being. One way you can increase positive affect is to take care of your body by engaging in physical activity. Continue reading “Move!”

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Make a Commitment

“The most meaningful thing you can do is make a promise to yourself and keep it. You start to feel like you can trust yourself and rely on yourself.” ~ Phil Stutz

The path to Lifetime growth.

Do you want to build your self-discipline? Do you want to build trust in yourself and your ability to do what you say you will do? Do you want to practice the virtue of Integrity?  These are valuable steps on the path to lifetime growth.

One way to practice these steps is to instill a daily habit. Make it something that is good for you and makes you feel good about yourself. And once you start, do it every day until it becomes second nature. Discipline improves with practice. Continue reading “Make a Commitment”