Welcome!
You’re in the midst of something big. Or you want to be. You crave changes in your lifestyle or your career – maybe both. You’re looking at what’s next. And whether you’re ready. And how you’re going to get there.
My passion is partnering with people like you to design their lifestyle and work life (it all works together, right?) in a balanced, vibrant and intentional way, a way that gives you more of what really matters to you.
As a lifestyle and career coach and personal strategist, I work with you to reinvent reality so that you’re living and working in a way that matches your values, strengths and priorities.
The lifestyle and work life that you want — and the time to enjoy it. Really. That is possible.
If this sounds like what you need, there are 2 things you can do.
First, enter your name and email in the header to receive a free kick start to get you moving (with tools my individual clients love). Second, let’s talk about what you really, really want. Book yourself on my calendar for a free consult. I bet I can help.
Cheers,
Taking care of yourself IS taking care of business
Have you ever had one of those weeks? The kind where everything is happening all at once, and then you get sick and then a colleague needs you to fill in where you hadn’t planned to be.
The kind of week where “taking care of yourself” seems like a cruel joke fabricated by people who seem to have endless free time and clearly have never experienced what it’s like to be in your life?
Yeah, me too. And after years and years (and even more years) of resisting the whole idea, I decided to just do it.
I embraced taking care of myself as a “must-have” not a “nice to have”. Not once have I ever looked back.
And when a week like that happens? As it did to a client of mine just last week, and to me, too. Well, then it’s time to double the efforts.
As we approach a three-day weekend, I invite you to think about how you’re recharging or “pre-charging.”
Is it time to trash your “to-do” list?
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, nearly everybody’s had them at some point. Especially in our fast-paced culture, “to-do” lists have become part of everyday life.
And everyone relates to them differently.
Some people are list people. Lists work for them. They’re tools that make sure all the i’s get dotted and the t’s get crossed, the phone calls get returned, the dry cleaning is picked up and the right work gets done at the right time.
Some people are list slaves. Their lists are a mile and a half long on a good day. And they easily fall into the pattern of identifying themselves (and their worth) with what did or didn’t get done that day. (Tip: if the list is so long that no one’s ever going to cram it all in to one day– or one week– this is not helping you.)
Some people fear lists, or they just plain hate them. Maybe this works for them. Maybe they’re hopelessly disorganized and dropping important balls. Maybe both, depending on the week.
Some people, like the client who asked for help with this topic last week, have bought into the idea (and an idea is all that it is) that she should be accomplishing a big fat list of tasks every single day. Some of which are not tasks at all, but full-blown projects with 16 steps.
But who’s running this show? You? Or your to-do list?
Paying attention, getting clear
By ignoring information in your environment, you miss important cues that are key to solving problems.
- Tina Seelig, InGenius
Right now, I’m taking Tina’s online Crash Course in Creativity through Stanford’s online Venture Lab. “Attention” is the topic of the week — and it’s a good one.
When we’re observant, we see things that would be easy to miss. Paying attention to the world around us can help us see new solutions to old problems and uncover ideas we hadn’t thought before. It can surprise us. (One of the ways I “see” is to carry a camera with me. On my recent vacation, it was looking through my lens that helped me spot this guy on my way to dinner one evening, instead of walking right past.)
It’s all true in our inner world, too.
Earlier this month, I completed a two-day training on mindfulness and psychology with teacher and author Jack Kornfield here in Portland, picking up some new tools to work with where our attention goes and how we can focus it in directions we want to go.
You might say I am paying a lot of attention lately.
When things go sideways
You’re living your life intention
ally. You know where you’re headed and what really matters to you. You’re actively cultivating what you’re best at. You’re developing a strong personal foundation to support you in work and life.
Life is rocking along…
But that doesn’t mean you won’t encounter bumps in the road.
It doesn’t mean that we are immune to the world around us.
As a Massachusetts native and former Boston resident, like many around the country, I felt emotionally thrown off course by the Patriots Day bombing. There were friends and family members I wanted to know were safe. On TV, I watched war-like scenes in “my” Back Bay. It didn’t seem real.
And from Texas to Washington to China, it seemed the whole week was filled with challenge and difficulty, political bickering and catastrophe.
It’s times like this when our self-care feels important. When we need those inner foundations we’ve built to keep us strong. When we hug the people close to us and also the ones we have never even met.
Short-term fixes won’t work (and what to do instead)
Why is that, when you stop looking for the quick fix, the real solution materializes?
Just. Like. That.
Not immediately, but nearly always “out of the blue”. It seems to “just happen”.
When you’re not sitting at the computer, pleading for the good ideas to come, inspiration strikes.
When you’re not looking for love, you meet your partner.
When you stop obsessing about the extra pounds, your pants start fitting just fine.
This isn’t theoretical. It happens. (I’ve experienced all of it.)
So, of course, this has me taking notice. And as a longtime practitioner of mindfulness, the first thing that pops up for me is this: “when you’re not so attached to the outcome, the outcome has room to show up.”
What does it mean to be successful?
Many years ago, I worked in a busy and fast-growing consulting firm. By all accounts, I was doing well— I was getting the recognition, the new projects, the “growth opportunities,” the salary increases, the ownership opportunities that defined success. I was good at my work. I genuinely liked my colleagues.
On an average day, I commuted 90 minutes to work, worked a long day and commuted 90 minutes back home, listening to books on tape and energizing music to switch gears.
I’d come in the door, figure out some kind of dinner while talking about work, have a glass of wine, sort of watch TV while reading a book. I’d fall asleep. At 5 a.m., it was time to do it all over again.
On Fridays, I’d arrive home with my computer and a bit of work to “catch up on over the weekend”. The weekend that was supposed to be personal time, family time, social time, creative writing time, gardening time, fixing up my new house time.
When the impossible becomes possible
If there’s one thing I know to be true, it’s that when you set an intention and spend time on a vision of what you want, things happen.
Of course, intending and visioning aren’t magical.
We all need to add some good old-fashioned action into the mix when we’re working towards achieving a goal.
But action is just so much harder when we haven’t done the first things first.
In business, successful companies act with strategy and vision. They have a sense of where they are headed before they head there. And somehow, what seems like common business sense can get lost in translation when we look at our own individual lives.
Top athletes over time have turned to visualization to reach seemingly impossible goals. We hear them say this, and yet we dismiss its relevance for ourselves. Continue reading
Are you addicted to busy?
More and more, people tell me they’re busy. Busy is taking over their life.
Not just normal, run-of-the-mill life busy-ness, but the kind of frantic running from one task and obligation to the next, never-catch-up kind of adrenaline routine that leaves them feeling depleted.
These are the people who are using their phones to answer work email in bed late at night or returning phone calls in the bathtub and in the car on the way to work. Veteran multitaskers who are always connected, always running late, always trying to squeeze one more thing onto that calendar.
I’ve been one of them. And it’s no fun. It’s exhausting.
Say yes to your success
Today, it seems as though we’re b
ombarded from all sides with so-called recipes for success. Images of what success looks like. Tactics to make us more successful. Warnings that what we’re doing right now might be sabotaging our success.
The implicit understanding being that we’ll do this thing, this way if we want to be successful. And we won’t do any more of that thing.
All of this exists for a simple reason. We want to feel successful. Successful feels good. Successful is what we are supposed to want to be, right?
The vision that pulls you forward
Several years ago, on the advice of my own coach, I wrote out a vision for where my life was headed. Not one of those business-y “vision statements,” but a full-on, juicy, detailed, essay about the life I wanted to be living.
It was three typed pages long.
And it didn’t bear a whole lot of resemblance to how I was living right then.
At the time, my personal life was in a major upheaval. I’d lost my home in a fire. And although I loved my job, I was feeling the stress effects of being short-staffed and knowing that this role was no longer meeting my fast-changing needs.
So the idea of writing a vision was more than a simple exercise in getting clear (though that alone is worth the time spent on writing it down). It was empowering. I saw it as a chance to get out in front of this runaway train and start intending something different for myself. To start calling more shots. That comforted me. The act of doing the writing—and a vision board— also stirred my creative energy.
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