Grow From The Confidence You Gain From Love

“To live you have to experiment, to have the ability to experiment you have to have confidence, to have confidence you have to be loved, to be loved you have to love”
Author Unknown

Life is too short to NOT give yourself time to be and time to find out and face why you are doing what you are doing each and every day. That's what weekends are for.

Look on this weekend as an opportunity to experiment - experiment in your life, exploring who you are and what you want from it.

I have learned many hard lessons in my life - many I continue to learn each day. Some I wish I didn't have to learn. But life teaches us the things that we must learn in order to become who we want to be.

Look at your life and find your love. Find your passion. Find that someone or something that loves you back - fills your passion so that your heart stays full and can explore and experiment without fear.

Take some time today and / or tomorrow. Listen to yourself, your heart, and to the words you hear around you. Seek out the love that encourages you to grow and seek out new things, find new paths and want more.

Ask yourself if you are being filled with the love that gives you the confidence to pursue and experiment in life.

Ask yourself if you feel like you are so grounded and rooted in love, that you can, like a tree, reach up to the sky with your branches, and become all that you can become.

Do this for yourself. Do this for those that love you. Do this and live.

Face Your Past As It Was, Your Present As It Is, And Your Future As It Will Be

I often tell my clients that I am the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future all rolled into one person for them. I make them see their past as it was, face their present as it truly is, and given the current course of life, show them the brutal facts of where they are headed to in the future.

Although it's not Christmas time, I wanted to share this story because Spring is the season of change. And I thought "A Christmas Carol" has as much relevance today as it does in the middle of the Winter.

To me, the old story of Charles Dickens isn't about Christmas or the "Greed" of Ebenezer Scrooge, it is a story about "letting life" get in the way of what you want to be become - of who you really are.

In his present life, Scrooge lost his way. He became obsessed with money and ignored everything else in his life - but more than that, he lost his "vision". He had become so focused on satisfying his immediate needs to forgot to focus on what he really wanted from life - he forgot what was most important to him - what he was about.

How many of us has a dream when we were younger - a dream of who we would become or how our life would end up? And how many of us are living that life right now? Or are even on the course to live it?

If you are, that is wonderful. But if not, why not? Why aren't you doing what you always wanted to do with you life?

Are you waiting for "some day"? I've got news for you. . . it never arrives.

Are you hoping that your "Fairy Godmother" is going to come in and change your life automatically for you into what you've always wanted it to be? Again, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Fairy Godmother was killed in Shrek 2.

Stop waiting for tomorrow, or the next day, or something magical to happen to give you a sign to start living your dream. It ain't coming. But, I do have some great news for you. The same news that the Ghost of Marley told Scrooge - it's not too late to change who you are and therefor change who you can become.

Think about it. What would the Ghost of Christmas Past show you? What did you dream about growing up? Where did you see yourself in the Spring of 2009? Where did you see yourself in Spring of 2019 for that matter?

Then look at where you are today - how does this compare to what you dreamed of? Did you give up, or did life just get in the way, as it did with Scrooge? Were you just too naive to think that dreams could come true when you were younger, or are you too hardened now to still believe?

Your life probably doesn't compare to that of Scrooge - forgetting everything that mattered to you, but how much is gone. When was the last time you listened to the voice of your inner child?

And then stop and think. If I don't change the way I think, where will I be in 10, 20, or even 30 years? Who will come to my funeral? Will I be alone at the end? Will I look back and smile at every dream that I fulfilled, or will I die with regret?

These are all hard questions, but ones that you should sit down and ask yourself regularly - even though you may not like the answers. The good news is that if Scrooge could turn around his life just from finding the answers to these questions, imagine what you can do.

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.

William Arthur Ward

Reach For Your Goals And Celebrate The Process Every Day

I harp a lot on "Goal-Setting". I help my each of clients set goals so that they are defining their future, instead of letting it happen to them. However, it takes more than just goals to help you get through the everyday - it also requires creating a process to reach that goal that you LOVE - that inspires you to get up every day and live each day like it will be your last.

The truth is "results" don't just happen - like they are the product of some magical beans thrown into the garden. They don't show up on your doorstep or in your mailbox, just because you wished for them. And frankly, they rarely come if that's all you focus on. Sure you need to keep your goals in mind to keep "moving forward", but in order to live a life of happiness and truly create the world that you want, you have to celebrate the process, each and everyday. Because if you don't, you, most likely, will not have the fortitude to stick to it when things get tough.

And believe me, the one thing that I have found that you can count on is that things WILL get tough.

I don't care if you WANT to run a marathon with all the desire in the world more than anything else you've ever wanted in your life. If you don't celebrate the process of running daily, there is only a slim chance that you'll ever run in one. It's just too hard and takes WAY too much time and effort.

First you have to learn how to run 1 mile, then 2 miles, and eventually then 3 miles. But the numbers don't keep going up every day. Most trainers will have you run 3 miles for a couple weeks, adding in a 4th mile occasionally, as you build strength and stamina. Eventually, you find your way to 5 miles, 6 miles and even all the way to 10 miles.

Frankly, it's a slow and arduous process that you have to endure if you want to run a marathon. And you have to decide that running is something that you like and / or want to to do - nearly every day, or you aren't going to make it.

Life is no different. There are no short cuts - it's all about the day-to-day process. I don't care who you are. If you don't live in the moment, enjoying the process then the reward will never be enough to pull you there.

"Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans."
John Lennon

In life, as in the marathon example I use, you can do the things that you don't like to do for a couple weeks - and maybe even a couple months. But if you can't find joy in every day life somehow - if you can't find a way to enjoy the process of living every day - then you will either live a life without joy (which, in my opinion, isn't living at all) or you will give up on the process. Either way, you won't be happy.

"Retirement" seems to be the panacea for many every-day Americans, around which they plan their whole life. They endure what they hate today, so they can save and live for "someday". It is the "ultimate goal in life" for people all over our country - because they don't believe they can enjoy the process. And they believe that they only thing they can do is live for the tomorrow.

But look around, there are no guarantees in the future. How many people were living the last 40 years, saving everything they had, to live for right now - only to arrive in the here and now with nothing left? And that's assuming that you even have your health when you get to that stage of your life and can even enjoy the fruits of your labor.

About a week ago, I wrote an article about Passion, "Being Great in Life is about Pursuing Your Passion", in the hopes of inspiring people to pursue what matters and excites them. Now, I'm suggesting the same thing, but with a slightly different spin.

Living your passion isn't just about being great, it's also about living the life that you were meant to live. Life is not something to be endured, struggled through or hated. It is a gift - like no other. Each second you have on this earth is a blessing that should be cherished.

So as you set your goals and make plans for your future, recognize this. You might endure a little pain now and again, doing things that you know you must do, are afraid to do, or don't know how to do, BUT, if you don't find a way to make the process fun, to invoke your passion in the process, there is a finite limit to how long you can endure that pain. You will either quit it because it's too painful or you will sabotage your efforts, preventing any kind of happiness you were trying to achieve in the first place.

To achieve real success in life,
you must always be striving to reach your goals,
but celebrate the process!

Being Great In Life Is About Pursuing Your Passion

What is "Passion"?

My favorite definition is "boundless enthusiasm".

My own passion is personal and professional growth and leadership. And for those of you that don't know me personally, believe me when I say that I live, breath, eat, and often sleep thinking about them - often at cost of other things in my life.

It was and still is my passion for these things that drove me to become a coach - to give up what most would call a great occupation, a good life, a secure job, making good money and in the name of trying to do what I knew I was called to do - to help others pursue their passion and make it a reality.

So, do you have a "passion" in your life? For your job? For anything that you do?

When you are gone, are people going to look at you and say, "He pursued his dreams" or "He gave the world his best and he lived a Great Life. He may not have created exactly what he wanted, but he had passion and he did every thing he could to make his dreams come true."

Or are they going to say, "He worked hard and had a good life."

'Good' is a product of doing what you are supposed to. But 'Great' is a when you harness your passion to create something special - something that no one else can do as well as you.

We are all good at something - many of us are good at many things. And most of us live very content lives being good at what we do. But I'm not here to be good - I wasn't given the most precious gift that anyone could receive - LIFE - just to live a good life. And neither were you.

We were put here to pursue perfection - and doing anything less, is, in my humble opinion, not appreciating the gift we were given.

One of the greatest gifts that I got in my Junior High years came from my Seventh Grade Social Studies Teacher, Mr Crismond. Believe it or not, it was a homework assignment to read a book - that at the time, I thought sounded very childish. But nothing could be further from the truth. It is a book that walks you through the life of a creature that decided to leave the ordinary to pursue perfection - TO BE GREAT. That book was Jonathon Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach.

If you haven't read it, your missing out.

If you have, I recommend reading it again. It's that powerful.

Jonathon was a seagull that dared to pursue something out of the ordinary - he dared to learn how to fly faster and higher than any other seagull had dared before. And it was his pursuit of these lofty goals - his vision - that is the story.

Are you living a good life? Is that all that you want? If you continue down the path that you are currently on, and you look back on your life, how are you going to feel? How do you want to feel? Are you going to be happy that your life was "good", but that maybe you could have been something more?

In the book, it's not the achievement of perfection that separated Jonathon from the rest of the seagulls - it was his desire to pursue it.

So, take some time out of your busy weekend - in between running the kids to sports games and sleep overs - and ask yourself, are you living a good life or are you chasing your passion and doing your best to live a Great Life.

Do You Love What You Do?

People always ask me "Why do you do what you do?" The answer's easy - and it's not because of the money (although I do believe the money will come). I do what I do, because making a difference in someone's life by teaching and empowering them to reach their full potential is my passion - it is my dream.

How about you? Are you pursuing your dream - your passion? Or are you just putting in time at a job that pays the bills?

Do you think that chasing your dreams is just fanciful idealogy? Do you think "It'll have to wait for the next time around?"

I've got some bad news - there may not be another "time around". This may be all you get. And its a tough reality to face - but it may not last as long as you wished hope it would.

So you have a choice. You can either, live your life, content with having a good life, where you go to a job you don't hate, and pay your bills on time - knowing someday you'll get to retire. Or you could take a chance and commit making your dream a reality - making it happen, while risking the chance of completely failing - and maybe losing everything you currently have.

The choice is obvious to me. Greatness is born from risk not safety. Take a chance and go for "Great".