What one action towards your desired outcome can you make this week?

Consider that by me spending just one hour per week, consistently, taking that one little action step weekly, created an outcome beyond what I’d imagined! That was, one hour a week looking for a real estate project (which I’d THOUGHT was to be a duplex) is now a wonderful Cottage Subdivision!!!  Hawthornbeach.com

Because we don’t want to get caught up in living in the future at the expense of now, what action can you also make this week, just for yourself because you love the idea? So to ask again, what one action will you do this week, that looking back from the end of this week to now, will make this an amazing week!!!?

Yes, that would be 2 action steps:
1. an action to honour your goal choice
2. an action to honour something that you love to do
So, for those who haven’t yet sent your Goal Action Step for this week, you may go ahead and do that now!
What 2 actions will you make this week to create an amazing week?  Cheers!

If you are not happy with what you have now, if you cannot see the abundance of what you have now, you will not see it when you have more. With limited thinking operating your life, you will not be happy with more either, because you will still be thinking and experiencing lack. Thus you will always have lack and always want more. It is a cycle that never wins, never stops, and is a trap of thinking “I’ll be happy when…”. This is a habit of scarcity thinking.

What you focus on expands. If you see the glass half empty, there is a limiting belief to examine. If you believe in lack, you will create lack. If you believe in scarcity, you will create scarcity. If you believe in abundance, you will experience abundance.

It is like the people who have scarcity thinking before they win the lottery or inheritance, and very quickly the money is gone, and they have recreated their scarcity in no time again. What the thinker thinks, he creates as his reality.

So what do you want? What will having more give you that you don’t have now? And ask it again, get your higher value, what will having that give you? What is it you really want?

It is actually a feeling that you really want. Is it love? Security? Freedom? It is not more money, more stuff – that will only keep the hamster wheel trap going round and round. What you really want, chunked higher up, is a particular feeling.

I know a couple who went bankrupt and are living on a low income. However, they are happier now than when they had more money. They decided to slow down and really enjoy each other, and they are grateful for and appreciate what they do have. They have health, family, comfort and feel they are happier than before when they had more stuff and status. It is possible to be happy with less; it is a state of mind of what you choose to focus upon.

With coaching, we work with a Daily Success journal. At the end of each day, acknowledge three successes for this day and write them in the journal. What you focus on consistently expands into your experience. By looking for 3 successes each day, you will begin to create a powerful habit of experiencing daily success and abundance.

It reminds me of the all too common feeling of “I’ll be happy when… I have no more stress, or the kids are on their own, or I’m financially free, or I feel ready enough, or I get my business going, or I lose weight, or when… then…”

This is a trap. We almost guarantee our unhappiness when we think we need to have everything we desire now in order to be happy.

What if we were to realize that we attract the issues and bring on the situations? We create these situations, especially the really hard ones, because there is a very important lesson we must yet learn. And we’ll repeat the pattern until we get the lesson. If we had nothing to learn from it, we would not be IN the issue, don’t you think?

Know that you are playing a role, and the bigger the challenge, the bigger the gift of a lesson. Instead of wishing and wanting to have no problems, expect them as a natural evolving of life. As you grow and experience life more authentically, you will develop more courage to step up and take on bigger parts of yourself. Guess what? That means you will encounter new issues.

So what really is an issue? It is an opportunity to grow into your larger self! If you weren’t growing, if you weren’t becoming more authentic, more empowered, this would not be an issue!

In my experience, when I have resisted challenges, I stay stuck. And the good news is that when I’ve looked them in the face, that’s when the situation begins to shift.

So when you face a challenge, take a pause, accept it is here for a reason, and ask that uncomfortable feeling, “What are you here to teach me? Let me get this lesson, and let it be as gentle as possible!”

Welcome this as an opportunity, and even though it may include a hard decision, it is a beautiful opportunity just around the corner. So embrace the learnings, and with the courage to live your truth, celebrate you’re on the right path to creating a more amazing life!

Excerpted from a conversation and printed here with permission. Thank you for allowing me to share.

That reminds me of what I several years ago. I went through a massive inner shift, and absolutely uprooted everything familiar – my career, my relationship, my friends… whoa… that was not a good plan to throw everything into chaos at once. At the time, I’d figured if I’m going through discomfort then let me do it all at once, and get it done with. Yeahhhhhh… no. I’ve since learned, for me anyway, that change and growth can be better managed in planned incremental action steps. So after I finish writing this, I will stand back at the door of my office and decide how I want to rearrange my office to better suit me. Then I begin to change that tomorrow morning.

I’m sharing this with you as well as for me, because I need to hear this myself right now. As I decided I wanted to live in the now, I had an epiphany that I had to create the now that I WANT to be present to! And so I now regularly assess my values, my criteria in the areas of my life pie, what I’m tolerating, what to release, goals and actions, etc. So I consistently strive to create the desired present. Since I work with a coach buddy, we do this on a quarterly basis. And I still find it takes a conscious effort to bring myself back to the present in a typical day. Remembering to remember to be grateful helps!

Like the portraits I love to paint, my life is a work of art in progress that evolves as I do. As my inner artist grows, it reflects how much better the paintings become. So long as we’re learning and growing, there will always be an evolving inside, that reflects in our outer world. It is that growth and evolving that makes us realize we CAN have more of what we want!!! We’re all a great work of art – in progress! Give yourself permission for you and your life to be a great work of art, knowing that great art happens one stroke at a time. Complete? Oh I hope not – there are just too many fascinating people to paint!

Will the test result be positive? Why didn’t she call? Will he get better and heal with a full recovery? Did I get the deal?

A situation halted, locked in time before the answers are revealed. The mind hates not knowing. It’s better to know the worst case answer, than be left playing out the possibilities in my mind over and over. It wants everything packaged in neat little answers. A mind set at ease.

But life’s mystery sometimes holds us at bay in the unknown abyss. Hours on hold like forever. Here life proves time is relatively too long whenever an anxiety producing unknown lays unanswered before us. The stage is set and the play has performed, but the curtain froze right before the climactic finale.

What sustains us through these trials? What inner strength can we raise to walk with us through the darkness?

As I have moved through uncertainties of relationships, illness , and other times of waiting for important answers, it is a foundation of positive beliefs that gets me through. If what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, then I’ve survived many deaths. It’s calling on the lessons of past experience; that increases my inner strength of beliefs to support me.

Beliefs such as: It is what it is, and I know things will happen for the highest good. The answer is out of my control, so I trust it will happen the way it is supposed to. I wish for you what you wish for you, so I accept whatever you decide. I can handle whatever comes my way. This too shall pass.

Will the test result be positive? Maybe the waiting of this outcome, is to teach an important lesson, that we would only get by having to wait out this discomfort. Perhaps this discomfort, in our need to make sense of things, forces us to discover an inner strength we didn’t know we had. Or it reveals what our true priorities really are, and so we make life changes for the better.

Why didn’t she call? Maybe as we wonder why they didn’t call, we learn that because we cannot control another, we trust if it is meant to be, it will be. And I remember to wish for her what she wishes for her, trusting she is doing or not doing what she thinks is best. I know I care, and I care enough to let her go if that is what she wants. 

Will he get better and heal with a full recovery? I can only offer my advice and unconditional support, but the rest is out of my hands. I can only control my actions and my reactions. I trust he is doing his best to take care, and it will be what is supposed to be. Maybe this is upon him because this is his opportunity to learn about himself and make life changes to aid his recovery and quality of life.

Perhaps this is our opportunity to discover how attached we are to a certain outcome. Expectation of a certain outcome, that we cannot control, is a sure recipe for anxiety and unhappiness.

I am leaving out of town today for a 10 day Master NLP and Coaching training in Vegas. I am travelling alone and I land there late tonight. Much is unknown to me right now – who I will train with, will this training be worth my time and money, how big is this sin city of lights and gambling and can I take in any shows, and will I be able to sightsee safely? I have certain ideas of what it’ll be like, and what I’d like to do there, but I really have no idea of what to expect. Perhaps that is best, because by dropping expectations, I am now open to possibilities better than I could even imagine.

When we hold a tight frame around our desired outcome, we actually limit it. When I was looking to buy a car, I had a very specific model in mind. However, this model is in high demand thus limiting my options. I had certain criteria about the car I wanted, but after a few weeks of finding nothing to fit, I chose to look at other models. After a month and by opening my options, I found my car, a sportier 2 door coupe and a year newer. I love my car and it’s better than what I had originally imagined.

So when you find yourself stuck in the unknown waiting room, recount the beliefs that will support your wait. Acknowledge what you really want and then put it into a balloon in your mind.  Release it into the sky and let go of the attachment. When the result is out of your control, trust it will be what is meant to be, and be open to an ultimately better possibility.

Extraneous everyday tedium falls away from importance and urgency, giving way to the importance of embracing and celebrating love.

At the end of the day, what really matters is the loving warmth, connection, and belonging within the circle of family and friends.

I had to write her obituary today, which gave me pause to acknowledge what she meant to me, and what I learned from her.

She lived her life as a beautiful example of unconditionally giving her love. She did this by always being there for me and my family, never judging, but always giving unconditional acceptance no matter what. She was the most unconditionally giving person I know – who was always there for me.  I can only hope in her latter years, when I could be there for her, that she felt I gave back to her in the same way.

Today I pause to recall how important it is to live life how we want to be remembered.

What is one small change you can make to create an amazing life?

     slowly dying

              to ignite expression

                         but the words pale me.

Drop dead rock bottom

     volcanic center of thoughts

            like a pregnancy in the womb

                   of my soul in labour.

Longing to celebrate a birth

     to embrace your core

          and move a mountain of hearts,

                   tetonic shift.

But these deep inspired thoughts lazily

    loiter in the alleys of my mind,

           carving shadows on the walls,

                   damn graffiti.

Like a flurry of little moths

     caught in a lampshade of silence,

            fluttering around desperate to break out

                  but the words pale me.

Where is the exit out of this place,

     what door will unleash me

          it needs a good kick wide-eyed open.

                   But who will come hear.

Got to clean out this place

       light the dinner candles

             put out my best china

                   and if no one shows,

Let me dine alone with grace.