career

My a-ha moment and why bother doing scary things

Overcoming fear and life coaching for busy, bored moms

I used to worry. A lot. As a kid, I was scared to say the wrong thing, scared to make someone mad, scared of water, bugs, or walking down the street at night. When I became a Mom, this fear just expanded: scared of something bad happening, scared of running out of money, all sorts of things. It’s easy to be fearful in our culture. The media perpetuates it and I’ve worked hard to overcome it. Now I seek out doing new and scary things. Why? What’s the point of doing things that scare you when the world has enough fear already?

The answer came to me in one, clear “a-ha moment”.

I had just finished a life coach training course with my teacher, Brooke Castillo, and she took us to a ropes course in Lake Tahoe. I’m sitting on a 8 inch square platform, 100 ft above the ground with tears rolling down my face. I’m tied to another coach who is behind me, struggling, scared, I didn’t really know, because I was above her and if I looked down to see her, we would both fall. My heart was racing, my breath was short from the effort of the climb, or from the altitude, or the fear, who knows. There was nothing to do but sit and wait for my companion to be coached into climbing up to join me. I was SOBBING crying, and I didn’t know why.

As I sat and got curious about what my tears were all about it, it hit me. I had spent so much time afraid…. of nothing. Here I was sitting high above the ground, scared out of my mind, and it was actually kind of FUN!  I felt exhilarated! Fully alive! It was a beautiful day. I’m surrounded by beautiful scenery. I enjoyed pushing myself and climbing up so high.

Could it be true that REAL, GENUINE FEAR IS ACTUALLY KIND OF FUN?

All those years I spent in “fake fear” were such a waste!

This started my journey pushing myself outside my comfort zone. Looking for opportunities to grow and challenges to take on, what a better way to go through life!  The way I lived my life constantly worrying, left me drained. Now, with my self-imposed, “bring-on-the-fear attitude”, I can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning.

Do you ever feel like your life has become too routine?

If you feel stuck, like you are just going through the motions, busy, but not inspired, then it’s time to shake things up! These feelings happen when we stop growing.

The world we live in doesn’t offer us a lot of REAL LIFE fearful situations. We use TV shows and the news to create scary situations in our minds, but these stop us from taking action. We have to do hard and scary things outside of our comfort zone in order to evolve ourselves as humans.

Don’t let your kids be the only ones who embrace challenge and grow.

Do you have a dream but you are scared to action? Are you so stuck in care-taking that you forgot how to dream for yourself? It’s hard to do scary things without help.

Go to www.LifeCoachingforParents.com/work-with-me to schedule your free life coaching session and start having more fun.

We aren’t meant to be passengers in this life. I believe we are meant to be creators of our future. The reason I believe it is because I’ve done both and living with genuine, deliberate, fun fear, feels SO MUCH BETTER!

 

What’s your vision for your future?

Do you have a vision for your future after kids?

If you’ve got teens or tweens, now is a great time to create a vision for your future that you are excited about. As your kids start to pull away and create a life separate from you, it helps A LOT if you are eager to do the same.

My son is moving to another state this week to start his university career. This is a time I imagined I would be so sad to say goodbye, not just to him, but to my role. I loved being Mommy. Driving him around, witnessing his firsts and his successes, being involved in his sports, it’s been a great ride.  Instead of being sad like I thought I’d be, I could not be more excited. 

This time last year, I had an “Empty-Nest-Mom-Fest” (so much fun!)

I invited a group of moms over who had just sent their kids to university. I realized, after hearing their advice and wisdom, that I did not have a vision for this next stage of MY life that excited me. I was VERY excited for my son to move away from home, meet new people and have new adventures. I was excited to tour schools, visit other states, and see where he’d end up.

The vision I had for myself, once my kid left for college, was boring and sad. It suddenly hit me that unless I deliberately changed my vision, I would just stay home, pay the bills, miss him and wait for him to visit me during school breaks. 

 

I didn’t want my kid being the only one to have adventures! I wanted to have adventures, too!

So I set the intention to create a new vision for my future that I was excited about.

Our brains like to solve puzzles so asking a good question will give it something productive to do. Last year, I had no idea what my new adventure would be but I trusted my brain to answer the question, “What would be fun for me?” This year, I am so excited about my future that I can’t wait for my kid to go off to school!

To figure out what your higher self wants next out of your life:

Pay attention to what feels good to you. I noticed I was watching lots of “International House Hunters” on HGTV. So when the opportunity came to apply for citizenship in Luxembourg, I jumped on it. I don’t know if I’ll ever move to Europe, but the idea sounded adventurous and I knew I was looking for adventure. I didn’t expect to fall in love with Costa Rica in July, but now I can’t wait for my daughter to graduate high school so I can live down there, for at least part of the year.

Another way to listen to what your higher self wants next, is to notice what bugs you and where you get jealous. I had been listening to A LOT of podcasts for the last two years. Some really good ones but some really annoying ones, too! I tried, but I couldn’t find, any parenting ones liked. I felt like I could do so much better! Pet peeves & jealousy, are signs from our higher selves to pay attention.

I’m turning my son’s bedroom into my podcasting studio as soon as he leaves!

(What podcasts do you listen to that you like? I’d love to know!) 

I had a client with two kids in college, looking for what was next for her. She felt bored and directionless, doing the things she thought would fulfill her. She missed her days of mothering and didn’t have anything equally exciting to replace them with.

After my 12 week Supermom is Getting Tired coaching program, she had a whole new life! My client didn’t realize that her higher self was communicating to her through her discontent. She had a very strong calling that she had ignored and resisted and it was not going to let go of her until she accepted her new adventure!

She sent me this email while her kids were home for winter break:

“I’m so excited at how much has changed since we’ve been working together. I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I secretly can’t wait for my kids to go back to school so I can get back to my new life and my new project!”

If you get sad when you think about your baby moving out of the house, create a vision for your future that feels fun and exciting. If you want help figuring out what adventure is waiting for you, schedule a free life coaching call today. 

 

 

New Year, New You

Let’s make 2018 your best year yet!

You’ve been pretty growth oriented up until now. All through childhood and your twenties, you learned A LOT, you grew mentally, emotionally and physically. You took risks, tried new things, created, accomplished and focused on creating an exciting future. 

Now your life is very full. Raising kids is exciting, stimulating and constantly changing. 

It’s common for overwhelmed parents to slow down their own growth and enjoy living through their kids. As kids grow into teens, and then out of the house, many parents can find themselves with low-grade dissatisfaction. 

Some Moms and Dads feel guilty because they have the life they wanted, but still feel like something is missing. They didn’t realize that their brain is wired to seek comfort and familiarity, and this habit is an obstacle to creating an exciting and inspiring life.

Life coaching, self reflection, planning and deliberate actions will release the guilt, override the brain’s natural habit, and create the life you are meant to have. 

Doing a year-in-review can help you reflect on what’s working, what isn’t, and what actions steps to take towards building a new comfort zone that serves your goals.

Let’s take a look back to see what 2017 has to teach you.

Grab a journal and write down your answers to the following questions:

 1. What did you create in 2017?  Either by default or on purpose, what were the results of your actions or non-actions when in comes to your health, career, family, community, spiritual life, home, financial, etc. 

2. What accomplishments are you most proud of? 

3. What thoughts did you think in order to make these successes possible? 

4. What areas of your life are running smoothly and easily? 

5. What hard times did you have to go through in order to enjoy these areas of your life?  

6.  What areas of your life aren’t working for you and need to change?

7. Have you tried to accomplish this goal in the past but didn’t get the result you wanted?

 

8. What is different this year, that you are ready to commit to? 

9. How have you grown or evolved as a person in the last year? 

10. Who has helped you and supported you the most in this last year?

11. Which relationships would you like to strengthen and build this year? 

12. What is the biggest, most amazing dream you can imagine for yourself in 2018?  When you think about this dream, what emotions can you feel? What is one small baby step you can take towards that goal and feeling those positive emotions. 

You don’t have to have an exhilarating, exciting life. Nor do you need to have a perfectly balanced and beautiful life. You just need to have a life that is 100% authentically YOU. 

In order to squeeze ourselves into a life that isn’t quite right for us, we do things like over-eat, over-drink, over-work, over-exercise, binge watch netflix, worry, complain, ruminate, etc.  We have to come up with elaborate ways to avoid ourselves. 

If you want to change a habit, get to the root cause, and build positive momentum towards being more authentically, joyfully yourself, schedule a free life coaching session today.

Schedule your free coaching call

 

 

Discover your purpose

Are you too busy taking care of the kids to discover your purpose?

I want to tell you a story about an amazing woman I’ll call Sara. She has poured everything into her role as Mom. She volunteers for the PTA, hosts amazing birthday parties for her kids, makes cupcakes for the soccer team, drives a minivan and loves it. Sara is ALL IN on this Mommy thing. But at night, when the kids go to bed, she drinks a little too much wine and eats a little too many brownie bites. She’s happy with her life, but she knows something is missing. There is a nagging voice inside her head that knows she’s meant for more. Although Sara craves more purpose and meaning, every time she tries to figure out what to do, she gets confused, overwhelmed and filled with doubt. She doesn’t like feeling this way, so she fills her life with more distraction. “Let’s sign Kylie up for basketball and maybe being scout leader won’t be so bad.” The busier she is, the less she has to face this void that seems to be getting louder, despite the wine, kids and carpools.

Parenting our kids can be a really convenient, socially respectable way of avoiding our own calling. What Sara doesn’t realize is that this void, this nagging yearning for more, is her ticket to a really wonderful and exciting life! What keeps her stuck, is she doesn’t have the tools to walk through the doubt, the fears and the confusion. Here’s a typical conversation I have with my life coaching clients.

Client – “I have no idea what I want to do with my life.”

Me – “Ok, well, let’s pretend for a minute that you did know. What do you think it might be if you DID know what you want?”

Client – “Well, this would never happen of course, but if I could do anything, I always thought it would be fun to be a ______________.” (real estate investor, writer, event planner, firefighter, stay-home Mom, travel blogger, photographer, life coach, interior designer, nurse, etc.)

The client already knows what they want, or if they don’t have an exact job title, they can clearly describe exactly what they want. But discovering your calling and admitting it out loud can stir up a lot of fear. Fear of failure, fear of being who you are, fear of what other people will think, just fear. So instead, she talks herself out of it and gets back to focusing on the kids.

Parenting is a convenient decoy because it’s honorable, wonderful, difficult and very consuming. It’s only in those quiet moments, late at night, when we face ourselves, that we know we are hiding from our greatness.

What Sara doesn’t know, is hiding from her true calling, has a cost.  Overtime, she will start to become more negative and cranky. She’ll get frustrated with herself & her family, embarrassed that she can’t stop eating brownies or be happy with her current role. She might even focus in on or create another problem (health, weight, money, relationships, kids) all to avoid dealing with something that would be a such a wonderful part of her if she could allow it in!

If you relate to Sara and countless other Moms who yearn for more than just motherhood, take 10 minutes of quiet time, pull out a journal and ask yourself these questions:

  1. What do I really, really, really, really want?
  2. What is the feeling I’m trying not to feel?
  3. What’s the worst thing that could happen if I followed my dream?
  4. What would I dream if I knew I could not fail?
  5. What would I do if I could not care what people think?

These questions will get you started. But it really does help to have some outside perspective to help you see where you are blocking yourself from your own happiness and success.

Don’t waste time, schedule your free discovery call today. www.LifeCoachingforParents.com/work-with-me

What’s your currency?

I was reading Amy Poehler’s biography, “Yes, Please!” and she talked about a moment of awareness in middle school that I loved and have been sharing with my summer camp girls. I’m roughly paraphrasing, but it was something like, “I realized I was never going to be the girl who turned heads, the girl all the boys wanted to be with, the most popular, the most athletic, or the smartest. But I was funny. So I decided my sense of humor would be my currency and I focused on building that.”

Middle school is the time kids start turning to the world around them and noticing what’s in, what’s out, how to blend in and not get made fun of. Kids 11-14 are trying to figure out who they are and who they are “supposed” to be and they look to peers and media for the answers. This often creates a perfectionistic image of the ideal look (height, weight, hair, skin, clothes, etc.) to the ideal friendships (outgoing & extroverted but a deep connection with a best friend, constant fun activities surrounded by friends, published on social media) to the perfect intelligence (smart but not too smart, confident but humble, get good grades but don’t work too hard). Yuck!

When kids buy in to this perfectionistic ideal they spend all their time and energy striving towards something impossible and exhausting.

This is why I loved the idea that kids could just chose their currency. Choose ONE THING they are going to focus on, expand on, and take pride in. Instead of trying to be perfect in every area, kids could decide they are already good at this one thing, and not worry about everything else.

What I found at my Launching Girl Leaders camps is that this was a really hard thing for the girls to reflect on. It was SO EASY for ME to identify their special skills, gifts and talents but it was hard for them to see in themselves. 

Here’s an example of some “currencies” these girls came up with

  • I’m really good at telling stories.
  • I like to ask questions and answer questions and am the first to volunteer, this seems to put other people at ease and helps them feel comfortable.
  • I’m really good at trying new things and physically pushing myself to the limit.
  • I love children and think I’m good with them.
  • I’m super determined. When I decide I want something, nothing will get in my way.
  • I really love animals and am inspiring my family to eat less meat.
  • I’m a good listener. People like to open up to me.
  • I’m nice to everybody. When someone’s friends are being mean, they know they can always sit with me at lunch.
  • I love playing games: board games, sports, video games. If I turn homework into a game, it makes it so much more fun.

Here’s your homework Mamas: I want you to help your sons and daughters, identify their currency. Give them some suggestions and ask them, “Which of your personality traits are you most proud of?” “How does this trait benefit others around you?” “Which of your talents would you like to focus on this year?” 

Then identify your own currency. I know that you have lots of traits that make you amazing. Pick one that comes so naturally to you, it’s like breathing. Think about what your friends and family praise you for. How does it feel to focus on this one thing that you already good at, instead of any shortcomings? Remember that without even trying, you are already good enough.

Would you like a career that is more in line with your natural currency? Schedule a free discovery call and lets talk about some new possibilities for you.

Helping kids set goals

and goal setting for parents, too!

Last month I got to spend 10 days traveling around England with my teenage son. It was so great to have that one on one time with him, exploring castles and cathedrals, seeing historical sights and beautiful architecture, and visiting wonderful friends. This trip was my son’s dream come true and I’m going to use it as an example of how to turn a dream into an accomplishment.

Before you start helping your kids’ accomplish their goals, make sure you are a living example. Do you give yourself permission dream? Are you setting goals that inspire you? When we become parents, sometimes our kids’ dreams become our own. Children need to see us creating lives that inspire us, not just living our lives through them.

Whether it’s your dreams, or your kid’s, follow these 6 steps to setting and achieving your goals.

  1. Make sure it’s YOUR goal, aligned with soul’s calling. If your kid sets a goal to get straight A’s, but he’s doing it for you or for his teacher’s approval, it’s not the right goal. If your kid wants to “be rich”, she’ll need to be more specific about when, why and how much. One way to tell if the goal is coming from your essence and not your ego is to ask yourself, “If nobody knew I accomplished this goal, would I still want it?”
  2. Make sure the goal scares you a little. We have an innate drive to grow and expand who we are. Setting and accomplishing goals are important because it helps us become a different, more expanded version of ourselves through the process. When I first suggested to my son that he start saving up to travel to England, he was full of doubts. “It’s too expensive” “I don’t have enough money”, “My volleyball team needs me”, “Dad and sister don’t like museums or historical tours, they’d rather go to a beach resort.” The doubts are a good sign! It means you have to grow! Write down all of them and question their validity. Are they really true? How could you solve these problems? It is a hugely valuable life lesson to learn that just because you think it, doesn’t make it true.
  3. Believe in your ability to accomplish your goal. In my son’s case, family members started giving him travel books, maps of England, advice on where to stay. They asked him when he was going, encouraged him. I bought him England T-shirts and watched travel shows and documentaries with him. He was so surrounded by positive peer pressure that it became hard for him to believe this goal would not happen.
  4. Get specific. What’s the difference between a dream and a goal? NUMBERS. Put a date on the calendar. Find out how much you’ll need to save. (My son paid for his own plane ticket and some spending money). This will trigger more negative thinking, “I’ll wait” “I don’t know” “Maybe I should save for college instead”. Write down your doubts, notice how it detracts you from your goal, and recommit. Accomplishing goals is about commitment, focus and belief. Instead of wavering, start using the word HOW. How can I make more money before June? How can travel during off season without missing school?
  5. Go to your future self for advice. Imagine you have already accomplished your goal. You are yourself a year into the future and you did it! Ask your future self, “how did you make it happen?” “What steps did you take?” “What did you do when you got side-tracked and lost focus?” Have your future self write your action plan for you. What research do you need to do? How much money do you need to make? Who is a good person to share this goal with and who isn’t?
  6. Stretch yourself. Setting goals helps us discover new things about ourselves and benefit from “strategic byproducts” that we couldn’t have imagined before. Your goal might be to lose weight but in the process you find out you are allergic to dairy and you love doing yoga. I had a client “hire me to help with her career, but ended up saving her marriage.” When we do things outside our comfort zone, that feel aligned with who we are meant to be, all sorts of good things can happen. As little sister watched big brother accomplish his goal, now she is saving up to visit her friend and travel through Costa Rica.

I am working to turn my dream into a goal. Saying it out loud was scary at first (another good sign!) but here it is. My goal is to live in Lake Tahoe for a month next summer. If you know anyone who needs a house sitter, let them know I’m flexible on dates!

Want help setting goals turning your dreams into reality? Schedule a free discovery call at www.lifecoachingforparents.com/work-with-me

Overcoming the fear of being your authentic self

Okay so I’m freaking out a little bit. Safeway just asked me to advertise my life coaching business on their shopping carts. Me? With my PHOTO!?!? Me? The girl who always sat in the back of the room and never raised her hand. The girl who HATED Halloween because people look at you (no matter what you wear, people still look, it’s a lose-lose!). I made sure I was never too smart or too dumb, too fast or too slow, too shy or too friendly. I found safety in blending in and I LIKED it that way.

But here’s the thing….staying small and invisible started to become boring. I became irritable, restless, itching for something new. We aren’t here to live a comfortable, easy life that looks the same as everyone else. We are here to GROW and growing requires us to overcome our fears, and I had a lot.

A friend of mine came to my “Talking to Kids about Sex” parent ed night last week. (The next Time for The Talk class starts Jan. 21, sign up with your kid today!). She had such a great time she told everyone she knew about it. As a naturally gregarious person with a career in sales, people can’t help but become enthusiastic whenever she talks. HOWEVER, as soon as she started talking about HER business, HER passion, she got quiet. She belongs to a travel club that she loves and wants to get more of her friends to join, but when I ask her about it, she deflects, “Oh, well, it’s just a hobby I do on the side.” I convinced her to give me her pitch me on joining her travel club and she stiffens up and switches to a more formal, less passionate presentation. I ask “Why did you tell more people about MY business this week than YOUR business? Her answer is simple, FEAR.-Do one thing every day that scares you.-

Fear of rejection. Fear of people thinking I’m pushy. Fear of people not liking me. Fear of being different. Fear of being seen for who you really are. When you are trying to be authentically you, you are going to separate yourself from the pack. We are social animals so this fear is natural, but rarely helpful. She could talk about my business because it wasn’t personal or important to her. Overcoming these fears gets easier the more you do it.

The first time I admitted that I “sorta, kinda, wanna be a life coach”, I started crying. I nearly had a panic attack writing my “about me” page on my website and could barely breathe the first few times I pushed “publish” on my blog. I’m so used to fear now it’s turned from a scary lion about to attack to an annoying house cat that pounces on your head once in awhile. When we do things that scare us, we don’t just accomplish our goal, we build a meta-skill that we can use every time fear shows up.

I no longer think putting my face on a shopping cart will endanger my life (I seriously believed it could). I’m sure someone will draw a mustache and boogers on my face but I think I can handle it now. I can’t say I will ever be able to shop with my face staring back at me from my cart, or even shop at that particular Safeway, but overcoming one fear at a time is enough for me.

The best books I have read about overcoming fear are…

Playing Big by Tara Mohr

The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers