Committed to Your Success Coaching & Consulting

A recent client of mine was feeling very down during one of our coaching sessions.  My client had a goal she had set but was not taking action.  In probing, she felt discouraged because action she had taken in the past did not work and she was feeling that she was not going to be successful this time.  The client was still living in the past, which dooms her future.  This woman was not giving herself a chance to even know if she would complete her action steps and reach her goal.  How unfair she was being to herself!  Does this sound like you???  I think we all have done this at one time or another, but it is very destructive as this can prevent us from moving forward in our lives and our relationships.  It keeps us in the past and our past actions or outcomes.  What we don’t realize is that we don’t know if we would be successful or not, so the only thing to do is to take action.  If we keep our thoughts focused on a positive outcome, as opposed to a negative one, we will be able to take action and achieve the goal we want.  This is how the Law of Attraction works - attracting what you want in your life.  I had my client try this exercise - write her intention for her goal and visualize herself completing it.  In a few weeks, she found she did complete this goal and felt more positive about herself and more excited for her next goals.  It is important to understand that it takes practice and time to overcome years of negativity but it definitely is worth it.  You will be able to take set higher goals, have better relationships, take more action, feel better about yourself and others, and be more successful.  Take the time now to invest in yourself and follow the steps I mentioned. Of course, there are others.  Feel free to visit my other articles for information.  Call now if you want more individual coaching as I’d love to help you move forward and reach your peak success!

We hear so much today about health and well-being and the importance of keeping ourselves well.  When the word health comes up, it often evokes images of our physical health, such as preventing certain diseases or weight control.  But, health also involves our emotional well-being, which definitely impacts our physical health.  It’s like a circle, with a never-ending point; you can’t have one without it impacting the other. Often, I have seen people with emotional problems that have not addressed it, which has led to stress, anxiety, depression,  which led to health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease or obesity. 

A root-cause for health problems is negative thinking.  How, you might ask, does this affect either our mental or emotional health?  Well, negative thinking drags us down.  It does “funky” things with our psyche, our motivation, our drive.  It prevents us from competing tasks or goals and it prevents us from moving forward.  Negatuve thinking can make you feel bad about yourself and it can “tell” you that you that you can’t do whatever it is you want to do.  Have you ever tried to lose weight and got off  your diet after you had a bad day or fought with your spouse or kids? What happens - you are mad, and you keep replaying the incident over and over again in your mind, creating a negative thought, which leads you to eating in an effort to comfort yourself. However, this only leads to you beating yourself up over breaking your diet.  So the negativity perpetuates itself and the cycle continues. All of this can eventually affect both your mental and physical health.

So, if this sounds like you, there is hope. Your negative thoughts do not define you and you do not have to keep them with you.  You can turn these negatives into positive thoughts, which lead to positive actions and behaviors.  The key, first off, is making the decision that you want to be more positive.  If you attract positives into your life, you will be more positive and you will have positive situations come to you, as opposed to being negative and feeling as if the world is against you.  You need to do things for yourself to become more positive, such as being more aware of positive thoughts or events that have come in to your life; record these postives, such as in a journal, for a week so you can become more aware.  We often overlook positive events, we take them for granted. But being more aware of the good things in our lives will lead to more positive thoughts, which then will affect our mood and, ultimately, our behavior. How will you choose to live your life?

One way an organization can engage, and retain, their employees is by offering them career management opportunties.  This can come in several forms but the overall goal is to provide them opportunities that will help them fulfill career needs, while providing the organization more productivity and loyalty.  All employees have some type of career aspirations or else they would not be working.  These aspirations vary for each individual and from generation to generation.  Organizations would be wise to understand these differences and the various needs across the employee-base and structure both formal, and informal, programming to meet these needs. 

Assessment is the first step in the process, with the organization finding out what employees want regarding their career path.  Also, it’s important to also understand the differing developomental phases and those needs.  For instance, the needs of younger workers will differ greatly than older workers; the career needs of newer workers will be different than those who have tenure.  Once this information is known, then organizations can begin to develop programs geared toward these needs.  This can come in the form of training programs, job shadowing or job rotation, holding career fairs, and mentoring or apprentice programs.  Doing so will be a win-win for both sides, with employees working toward their career goals and organizations developing their most valuable commodity - their employees.

I get calls from clients frequently,  who are in the mid-transitional years, looking for coaching  to help them find a new career path.  However, a good many of them feel they will never be able to transition into a new job path due to their age; they feel that employers will not look favorably on them due to being over 40.  My question is, “does age really matter in one’s job search”?  The answer is not always yes.  In fact, due to the impending mass exodus of the baby boomers, age will not be a consideration in the hiring process.  Employers will not have enough younger workers to fill these positions and older workers will help fill the bill, so to speak.  (However, this will not be true for all industries).  But, as the number of boomers start exiting the workforce, employers will be forced to look at their value and work to retain them.  But, just as employers will have to change their mindset about older workers, the same can be true for these older workers.  They also need to change their mindset from looking negatively upon themselves, due to age, and see the value and skill-set they bring to the workforce.  Older workers need to think and feel differently and go from a victim mentality to one of a confident, experienced and value-added employee.  When older workers change their views, employers will do the same.

It seems that the ‘buzz’ around the coaching world is the power of attraction and setting your intention(s).  This basically says that when you set your intention or goal(s), and focus on them, you will attract them to you.  Writing down and visualizing these intentions will bring them closer to you.  It all goes back to the power of the mind.  Well, I decided to write my intentions and really focus on them and, to my amazement, I attracted what I wanted almost immediately.  It had to do with finding more people who needed getting more clarification and focus in their lives and I had 5 inquiries within a day.  I am now a firm believer in the power of intention and invite you all to state your intention by writing them down.  Use the power of mental imagery - visualize in your mind- what you want to happen.  See yourself doing the thing you want.  I’d like to hear if you have attracted your intentions - write me at barbara@cyscoaching.com.  To Your Success!

I listened tonight to a teleconference call with Richard German about the Art of Attraction.  He discussed using some tools, such as gratitude journal, meditation, and setting forth intentions of what you want.  This is based on the Law of Attraction, where you declare your intentions to get what you want.  It’s about attaining the goals you want to achieve in your life.  But, why is it that some people don’t move forward, or can’t move forward on their goals?  It is estimated that 97% of the population does not even set goals, which is either because of fear - fear of failure, fear of success, or a number of other fears people have, or because of negative experiences that either we or someone else has experienced.  If we want to move forward, there are some steps you can take:

1.  Make sure your goals are SMART ones - specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, time-limited.  If goals are too big, or too small, you can get frustrated, lose motivation and give up.

2.  State your intention that you want to move forward and accomplish your goals.  Sometimes we stand in the way or try to force the process.  Let go.

3.  Think positively about your goals.  Think that they will happen, rather than focusing on the negatives.

4.  State you goal and action in the here-and-now.  Phrase the goal and action in the present tense rather than in the potential or want, such as “I am ……ing…….”.

5.  Keep your goal visual - write it down, put it on a white board, poster board, vision board or anything that will keep you goal in your sight.  As the law of attraction premises, when your goals are visual you think, act and do them. 

So, take the time to do the steps listed above and you will be on your way to goal achievement!

With a large number of boomers who will be retiring in mass exodus in a few years, it seems imperative that organizations assist with this transition out of the workforce.  However, few organizations truly have any type of retirement transitional program in place to start to prepare older workers in this transition.  It is more than just handing them a gold watch or a packet that has some paperwork for them to fill out.  It is about helping employees learn about the world of retirement and to assist them in good decision-making about their ‘next life’.  To assist these exiting employees, there are several things that an organization can do to keep this level of worker engaged and productive, while giving them the tools and resources they need for the “after-life.”  Some examples include: career coaching; training/education on issues such as the world of retirement, the impact on family and personal life, change and loss, financial planning, housing (i.e. reverse mortgages, etc.); volunteer opportunities; mentoring; and other career options, such as consulting or entrepreneurship.   This preparation would be beneficial in the 5 years before retirement and could be offered as a voluntary program.  Doing so would be beneficial for older workers, to help them feel more valued by the company,  and also beneficial for the organization to assist with HR planning, keeping employees loyal and engaged which ultimately impacts the bottom-line and reputation.  Sounds like a win-win situation to me. Unfortunately, the majority of companies do not follow this model, which is unfortunate.  However, this way of thinking will have to change as the number of older workers are going to be looking to transition into the world of retirement.  Organizations are finally going to have to look at their moral and ethical responsibility to their workers, who will be made up mostly of older adults, and realize that it is not only good for their image and bottom-line, but also for their most precious commodity, the employees.

One technique I recommend to clients to help them move forward in both their personal and their business life is the use of visualization.  This technique is beneficial when one is having difficulty in decision-making or in moving forward in their life.  Visualizations can help to make these decisions clearer, as you are the “star” of your own movie.  Using this technique can put you in the driver seat and help you to play out whatever it is you are wrestling with.  For instance, if you are buying a car, and trying to decide between a Lexus or a BMW, picture yourself as if you own either one.  Watch as you open the door, turn on the ignition, and start to drive; can you see yourself driving down the highway? Can you smell the leather interior or hear the radio as you drive to your destination? If one feels more comfortable, or more vivid than the other, then that will lead you to make a decision to the car that you picture yourself in more clearly.  If you are trying to decide on a career path, visualize yourself in that career, actually working in that job you want.  It has been known that our brains will act on what we tell it to do.  If you put your goal in front of it, with pictures, your brain will sort and store this information and will lead you toward the goal you have set out to accomplish.  We actually have the information needed to accomplish our goals, but we need to give it a “nudge” so it can retrieve the information it has stored, along with the necessary resources that will get us closer to the goal.  The use of visualizations will help this process along faster than if we just think about our goals.  It’s the Law of Attraction - put your dreams and goals visually in front of you - it will help you to think it, believe and act it - and you can achieve whatever you want.  It does take practice but the time and investment you make will be worth it!

It’s a known fact that we set and move forward on goals everyday of our lives, even thought we don’t often realize it.  But, why is it that some of us are not able to do so?  Well, it’s a combination of mind-power and motivation, which is different for everyone.  Our minds are made up of thoughts and beliefs that may not always be steeped in reality but it seems that we think and do them anyway.   When we experience a negative event or thought, we usually wind up repeating it over and over again as we try to make sense of it. However, all this does is keep the thought with it so that the next time we experience an event, we will automatically go back to a previous negative one. We forecast that the new event will be like the old one so we disband it.  But, it it possible to create new ways of thinking - we can teach our brain new tricks! If we experience a positive event, and keep repeating that  over and over, our brain will create a new neural pathway which will override the negative feelings we might have and keep the positve thought more often. When we set a goal, keep it visual, and write it, it will continue to be brought to the front of our mind.  This will help us move forward on our goals and reach the aim we want to achieve and become as successful as want to be.

I may be in the moral minority, but I’m feeling lost without the Olympics. I cannot ever remember when I can say that I watched nothing but Olympics for the two weeks was on, often staying up into the morning hours to watch athletes compete. I was especially take with them this year as the event was held in China - I had the privlege of visiting China last year so it became a revisit of places, and the culture, I had remembered.  I think I enjoyed them more this time as I was very interested in the motivation and drive that kept theses athletes competing in their quest for their goals and the gold.  Hearing them all say,”I had a dream and I wanted to achieve it,” was heartfelt as I focus on helping people to make their dreams reality.   It is truly inspirational to see the dedication and commitment the athletes had and the pride they felt being there, whether they won or lost.   Individuals that aspire to set and achieve goals should all take a lesson from the games to think bigger and whatever it takes to reach your goals.  I’m sad that they’re over but now I can focus on a goal I’ve been wanting to accomplish - sleep!