Archive for September, 2011

I’ve been in fast motion my entire life. I wanted everything to happen now and not a second later.


If it happened fast, it was certain. Then I could relax and feel good. (Or so I thought).


I avoided the present moment of uncertainty because it seemed scary. The not knowing created lots of anxiety. So if I could just make it happen I could be in the future where I deemed everything to be okay.


Sounds stressful? Well it was.


Pushing forward in fast motion is never comfortable. And it doesn’t get you the change you really want.


The real kind of soul shaking, life-altering change happens over a period time. It’s made up of lots of small steps along the way. It’s filled with long pauses and lots of patience.


Your purpose often happens in a whisper and if you’re too busy trying really hard to change your life and escape your “miserable job”, you might not hear it.


It’s a culmination of your experience, desires, and dreams.


It’s who you’ve always been, but are still discovering.


It’s you at your core.


So slow down, just listen, you might be surprised at what you find.


Need to know how to get started?


Here are 5 simple ways to start slowing down:


1. Don’t check your e-mail immediately upon waking up.
2. Go to bed 30 minutes before sleeping without technology or TV
3. Eat your lunch slowly and actually enjoy it
4. Do something each day to meet your goal but don’t expect to do everything in a day
5. Find one thing about you to love each day


Slowing down is a process, I’d love to hear about yours!


P.S. If you want to join of group of wonderful people who are slowing it down and forming healthier relationships with their jobs and their dreams, click here.

I hate to say it but my husband was right. We were choosing a movie last Saturday night and I off course wanted to watch something deep. I choose the “Conspirator”, a film about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. My husband’s first response was “I want to watch something fun, why do all of your movies have to be so serious?” Though my “I was in a film major in college” wanted to jump and defend my excellent choice in films, on a very simple level I knew he was right.


When I was in a job I disliked I spent a lot of time focusing on the job. How was I going to leave? What else was I going to do? I spent very little time on fun because I was so busy figuring out my how. It left very little time for fun. Then I realized it was fun that was the key to figuring out what I really wanted to do. So I explored with anything that seemed fun. No outcome, no how. Just plain simple that looks fun to me. I just did it. And if it was no longer fun or didn’t feel right, I just stopped doing it. No judgment, I just moved on.


In the first few months after leaving my job and starting my own business I fell back into the serious mode. I thought I had to get really serious and work a lot to create what I wanted. The more I did that the more things didn’t work. I felt exhausted, overwhelmed and fearful. As soon as I allowed myself to do whatever I wanted to do in a way that felt good to me, everything felt easy again. And my business picked up immediately.


I can’t tell you how many of my clients are speechless when I ask them what they do for fun. They have valid complaints about their jobs, but their focus is so slanted towards what is wrong, that their bodies are reacting as well. From headaches to stomachaches to illnesses they can’t shake, it all comes down to holding such a heavy weight of pressure in their bodies. Once they start allowing some fun, their bodies begin to respond. They feel lighter and have more energy. This lighter feeling draws more happiness and fun, which allows their mind to relax. Then they actually begin to think differently. What seemed impossible now seems doable. They give themselves the freedom they need and their exterior begins to change.


I know what it feels like to be in a job where you are trapped at a desk and feel like you have very little freedom. But what I learned is that you can create the fun wherever you are in little ways. Surround your desk or work area with things that feel good to you like pictures or plants. At lunch, bring a book that you love and take a few minutes to read it. A friend of mine, who is a high level director by day and a writer by night, will spend her lunch break working on her novel. If you are not sure what you love, just make sure you do something to break the routine. Go for a short coffee break or walk. Whatever little bit of freedom you have at work use it as a time to incorporate who you are.


These suggestions may seem minor at first, but they make a big difference in changing your focus and helping your body to relax. In the long term they move you from the mind rut and towards a new way of being/thinking. Having fun really is the key to success.


P.S. And just because I love to tie everything up in a neat little bow (my former perfectionist still comes out, so I let her play), my hubby and I wound up watching a really funny movie in which we laughed and relaxed. It had been a hard week and stepping away from seriousness for a few hours was exactly the right thing to do. If it’s been a hard day or week, try going for something light, it makes a huge difference.


I’d love to hear about the ways you are adding fun in your life, feel free to share:)

Next month marks two years since I left my safe, secure, and tenured job. I had spent 11 long years in a job that drained me mentally and physically. To say it was not the best use of my talents is an understatement. I always knew I wanted to do something else, but I had a hard time figuring out exactly what the “else” was. I was very driven and motivated, which made it all the more difficult because I had nowhere to place the motivation. Leaving me feeling stuck externally, but with the internal adrenaline to push forward like a horse out of the gate.


I think that internal drive is what separated me from my co-workers. I always remained highly professional and never partook in the “I hate this job” conversations. Though I may have felt that, it didn’t feel like a good use of my energy to sit around talking about it for an entire lunch. I knew the job wasn’t meant for me and I knew I would be the one to actually leave. I knew there was something stirring inside of me that would emerge one day and put me on the path to my next step.


I realize now the problem I was experiencing in the first several years of my career was my focus was seriously misplaced. I spent a lot of my time focusing on how I didn’t want to be in that career. I focused on all the things that irritated me about the job. This hyper focus on what I didn’t want stripped me of the energy and enthusiasm to focus on what I did want.


That’s the thing about focus: what you focus on expands. When I was focusing on my resistance to my current situation my unhappiness expanded. With that expansion there was little time for growth and exploration.


Around year 8 I started noticing changes within my self. I began to explore the world outside of my job. I did whatever I was drawn to. I let myself just play and see what things felt good. I took different kinds of classes and tried out different social groups. I stuck with some and let the others go. I had no attachment; it was all just for fun.


For the first time in my career life I was no longer focusing on the woes of my daily 9 to 5. It made going to work everyday so much easier. My focus was no longer on resisting the present moment.


With the resistance gone, the clarity I had been searching for many years slowly began to form. It wasn’t an overnight change, but when the concrete idea popped into my mind I knew it was right. I could feel it with every bone in my body.


I worked for another 2 years after gaining the clarity about the change I wanted to make. It  was the easiest two years of my career. I no longer resented going to work every day. I no longer felt stuck. I realized I was making a choice to stay and at some point I could make another choice. I also stopped identifying my self-worth with my job. I realized I had the power to define my happiness and myself. I could create what I wanted no matter where I was.


And you have the same power… look at what you’re focusing on. Is it working for you? Spend a little time with that question and then take the time to choose your focus.


If you’d like to find more ways to make peace between your job and your dreams, I’m offering a free teleclass on September 20th. You can register by clicking here.

I hear way too many of my clients berating themselves about the career they’ve chosen. It doesn’t seem to matter whether they’re making six figures or that they’re making a huge contribution to someone’s life. All they feel is crappy about it, all the time.


It may sound a little odd at first. Their jobs often fit their need for security, salary, and sick benefits. For some, it even fits the big S need: status. Basically their jobs give them what they “need”, so “why should I be complaining” many of them say.


That’s easy… because they’re not living their dreams.


They think that they have to choose between their job and their dream.


They feel that somehow, somewhere, they have done something very wrong. They believe that must be true or they wouldn’t be so unhappy in such a “practical” situation.


Nothing could be further from the truth.


The fact is many of us choose jobs or careers from the person we are at that point in our lives. You could be 22 with tons of student loans and feel that you need to take something reasonable that paid a decent salary right away. You may be born and breed to work for your family business so it seemed liked the most logical choice. You could have been young, carefree, and full of life, but with absolutely no clue of what to do. So you took a job to quiet your own insecurity and the loud voices of family members and friends.


No matter what you decided to do, there never was a wrong decision. You did what felt right at the time for what you needed at the time.


Maya Angelou once said “You did then what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better.”


Blaming and criticizing yourself about choices from your past will get you nowhere when it comes to living in your dream. In fact, it will block you from even seeing where that dream can happen in your life.


Your dream requires you to be present, right now.


The way you can introduce your dream back into your life is through awareness and acceptance. Becoming aware of where your patterns come from and how they affect both mind and body can help you release the resistance you’ve created between your job and your dream. When you clear out the accumulated stress your body goes back to the way it was supposed to function and your mind is clear.


Accepting the choices you’ve made (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and loving yourself anyway brings your dream that much closer.


It’s not your job or your dream. You can have both. Maybe not this second, but the opportunity is always there to get started. It’s about re-learning how to be who you are in your current job and building a bridge to who you want to become. Once the path is cleared, you’ll move forward step by step by step.


Want to learn more about making peace between your job and your dreams? Join me for a free teleclass with tips and tools for creating a healthier relationship with your job. Click here to learn more.