3 Ways to Stay Motivated - Part 1: Take Control of One Thing at a Time

3 Ways to Stay Motivated - Part 1: Take Control of One Thing at a Time

So, you have decided to restore your health, find love, build a more successful business, or change your life. Awesome! You do research, come up with a plan, get all jazzed up and get going. It all goes great for a little while, until you hit a bump in the road - maybe a life emergency comes screaming in, maybe you get sicker, maybe you just aren’t seeing the results you were hoping for from your efforts.

And that is where you hit the wall - the motivation goes out the window, and you fall right back into your old ways. 

So, how can you avoid this fate? How do you take it all in stride for the long haul so that you can have the success story you dream of? 

Here are 3 ways to make sure that you keep moving forward so that you can succeed!

1. Take control of one thing at a time.

Believe me, I know -  when you want to change your life, suddenly everything seems like a critical issue. “I want to lose 40 pounds, improve my relationships, heal the low back pain, reduce my stress, and make a million dollars!” you say to yourself. Then you add, “And I want it now!” 

Nice idea, sure, but trying to change too much at once is definitely the number one motivation-killer I see. Why? Because it is overwhelming, unrealistic, and frankly, exhausting. 

In order to change everything in the list above, you would have to develop a super-human plan, which would likely include a daily regimen of working out, reading and following life improvement and success programs, taking supplements, going to healers or doctors, meditation, and much more. With only 24 hours in the day, you will have to keep a crazy schedule to get to all of it (not to mention keep up with all your normal responsibilities!). 

You might be able to stick to it for a few days, but one day, it will happen: you’ll slip up. It might even be just a little slip-up - missing just one thing out of your enormous list - but it’s a slip-up nonetheless. 

What happens then?

You get angry with yourself. You may even tell yourself that you are a failure, that you will never succeed at anything, and that it’s better to just give up. And, if you are like most of us, you DO give up. 

Clearly, trying to do too much at once just sets you up for failure - the more you try to do, the more likely it is that you will suffer this fate.

Instead, what I suggest to my clients is to choose just one area to focus on at a time. Not only is this manageable, but I find that positive change in one part of your life starts a “domino effect” where you begin to see positive changes in other areas of your life. 

So, what area do I suggest you focus on of your list of things you want to change? 

The biggest, most irritating, most critical (and maybe even the scariest) issue. 

Why the biggest issue and not the easiest-to-solve issue? Because when you go after the easiest issue first, the dark shadow of the BIG issue looms over you and grows, so even if you do succeed at changing the easiest issue, you don’t really feel any better. Of course, this cycle often perpetuates as many more easy issues will beg your attention, and wanting to avoid the big issue (because it is scary or hard), you tackle those. In the end, you never solve big issue, leaving you feeling like you haven’t moved forward significantly and without a true sense of accomplishment. 

But - by tackling the biggest or scariest issue first - you’ll see the biggest changes in your life, AND you will feel a true sense of pride and relief, all of which will motivate you to tackle the next big issue. 

Remember, when you try to change too many things all at once, it is like throwing a handful of arrows at a target while blindfolded - it is pretty unlikely that you will hit the target at all. 

However, by focusing on changing just one thing at a time and putting all your energy there, it is like using the best bow in the world to shoot one arrow at a target right in front of you.

ACTION TO TAKE NOW: 

What is your “big issue”? Identify it, then put down 3 things you can do tomorrow to begin to work towards solving it - and changing your life! 

Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow!

3 Steps to Dealing with Anger—Before It Creates Emotional, Mental, and Physical Issues

Someone betrays your trust. A jerk cuts you off on the road. Your child disobeys you and breaks your “house rules." A business partner cheats you. A friend says something behind your back that is hurtful. A co-worker takes credit for your work. A boss puts you down or takes away hard-earned benefits.

Obviously, the reasons why you might become angry are many. In fact, there are likely hundreds of reasons—big and small—why you might become hot under the collar during a single day. That said, the issue is not if you will become upset—but how you will deal with it when you do, and the impact it will have if you don't deal with it effectively.

In my work, I have a front row seat on the impact of long-held anger on a person’s emotional, mental, and physical state, and it isn't pretty. 

Truthfully, when a person comes to me and finally admits—perhaps for the first time—that she has held on to anger for years and years—never dealing with it, never expressing it, and, in many cases, never even acknowledging it—I know that there's going to be physical manifestation of this unexpressed emotion. Whether it shows up as high blood pressure, pain in the shoulders, breast cancer, or some other ailment, built-up resentment, hurt, and rage is at the foundation.

Rather than allowing an illness to force you to deal with the anger you are feeling, a much better approach is to learn to manage difficult emotions at the time that you are feeling them and then to use these emotions to move you forward in life. 

Do yourself a favor and try these three steps to creating a positive experience with anger (or any difficult emotions), and save yourself pain and irritation in the short and long run: 

Step 1: Recognize the emotion. 

Now, this may seem simple enough, but the truth is that most of us go through life in a state of denial that we are feeling anything deemed “negative” at all. Instead of denying it, choose instead to bring your awareness to how you are feeling throughout your day. 

When you body begins to tell you that you are feeling any difficult emotion—anger or any other—take the time to acknowledge how you are feeling.

Step 2: Express the emotion in a positive way. 

Most of us have been taught that some emotions are “good” and some are “bad.” 

For instance, most people I work with feel that happiness, love, hope, and faith are good, while anger, jealousy, hate, sadness, and grief are bad. However, being taught that this is the case causes us to try to block, deny, hold in, or repress “negative” emotions, which makes us sick mentally, emotionally, and physically. 

Emotions are just emotions—they aren’t good or bad, they are human. It is how we express them that can be good or bad. 

So, once you recognize that you are experiencing anger—or any other difficult emotion—find a way to express it positively. 

In other words, simply look for ways to release the anger without hurting anyone else. If you feel anger, a great way to get it out is to go to a kick-boxing class or to pound pillows in your bedroom until you feel worn out, or lock yourself in your car with your windows up and scream at the top of your lungs. 

Whatever it is, just do it until you feel  like you have released the emotion.

Step 3: Make a positive decision based on how you are feeling. 

Now that you have released the frustration, you can deal with what to do next with a much clearer head. 

Take a second and try to recognize the lesson within the issue. What are you meant to learn here? What might the anger be telling you in terms of changes that you need to make in your life? 

For example, let’s say that you find yourself seething with anger over dealing with a serious bully of a boss. You’ve been putting up with it for a while, but for whatever reason, this time you are so beside yourself with fury that you leave the office in a huff. 

As you sit and contemplate why this particular event—one of many similar ones—caused you to be so angry, you see that what your body is really trying to tell you is that this workplace is terribly unhealthy for you. Much like the old saying “the one that broke the camel’s back,” this is simply the final straw of load after load of dealing with a horrible boss who is reducing your quality of life and your sense of joy. 

What this particular anger at this particular moment in time is also giving you a warning that if you don't make the decision to leave this job, it will end up taking a terrible toll on your health (lots of people have heart attacks and strokes caused by dealing with awful bosses or overly demanding workplaces). 

As you sit and ponder all that this anger right now is telling you, you see that it's time to make an important change and put in your two week notice. 

As you can see, THAT would be a positive thing to come out of the anger! Imagine how much happier you would be out of that awful work environment! 

In your own life, the same will be true. Real anger is always a warning flag that something in your life is not right and you are ready to—or at the very least, seriously needing to—make a change. 

Listen to its wisdom, and make a positive decision that will lead you to a happier life. 

Have you ever changed your life by listening to anger? Or, have you been angry for a long time, and need some help figuring out the lesson in the emotion? Comment below! 

7 Signs that You are an Empath: Common Empath Traits and How They Manifest

It took me a long time to figure out that I'm an Empath. I'd like to save you some of the pain and exhaustion I went through! 

How do you know for sure you are an Empath? Here are 7 Empath traits:

Empath Trait #1: You feel pain and suffering deeply. 

I can't watch war movies. Or violent movies. Or the news. 

It's not that I'm in denial of the bad stuff that goes on in the world; far from it. The problem is that when I see this kind of stuff, I feel it in my body like it's happening to me. 

Afterwards, I feel sadness or pain about it for days on end. For instance, a few years ago, I saw a goose that had been seriously injured by a car. All the other geese were gathering around their fallen friend. Cars were still coming at all the geese. I stopped, went to the middle of the road, and began waving cars around the geese while calling wildlife rescue. I did everything I could for the geese, but the image of that poor injured goose and his loyal friends made me cry for days. 

That's the kind of "deep feeling of pain and suffering" I am talking about. Upon seeing or hearing about any kind of pain or suffering, you will be deeply affected by it, taking it on personally. People will tell you to "just let it go," but you can't. You might be called a "crybaby," "treehugger," or "overly emotional." I'm sure you've been made to feel bad about your sensitivity. 

If you've ever been around someone in pain and felt that pain yourself, you'll know what I am talking about. More than just human pain, you also are likely to be able to connect with the suffering of animals, plants, and nature itself.

Empath Trait #2: You are a natural healer. 

Does everyone look to you for help or advice? Do you tend to rush in to help take care of people when they’re sick? Do people say you “brighten their day” or they “need their fix of you?” 

That’s what I am talking about with being a “natural healer.” Whether you are in an official healing profession or not, people in pain (mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or physically) will seek you out, looking for you to help. And, whether you are conscious of it or not, you WILL help with your caring, concern, and energy. 

In addition, you may also seem to just have a sense for what someone needs to do to be able to heal. From knowing the best path for someone to take to understanding the connection between a recent stressor and a new sickness, this information might flow out of you (with or without your conscious thought). 

Empath Trait #3: You are a tuning fork for everything going on around you. 

Have you ever walked into a room and "felt" that people were angry, sad, or upset before anyone said a word? Or, have you been with someone that had a headache or pain in their body, and you develop the same, only to find it leaves you after you part ways? 

If so, it's a pretty strong bet you are an Empath. As an Empath, you are open to and capable of sensing, subtle (and not so subtle) shifts in people's emotional and energetic states. Because of this, you become like a tuning fork, vibrating at the same frequency as they are. 

If you are an aware Empath who has the skills to simply feel this and move it on, you're fine. 

If you are unaware this is happening, you end up feeling sick, angry, sad, happy, or whatever else is going on around you, making you wonder why you are suddenly feeling so much different than you did just moments before. Actually, it likely makes you wonder if you are crazy.

You're not crazy; you just have more finely tuned empathic sensors than the average person.

Empath Trait #4: You are more sensitive to your environment. 

I can't tell you the number of times I will say to my husband, "You don't hear that? It's driving me crazy."

It will be some little intermittent beep that is crystal clear to my high-sensing ears, but misses him completely. (As I write this, I just got up to figure out where a constant bumping sound was coming from that he didn’t hear at all. Ends up, it was our washing machine having gone out of balance; I was at the other end of the house from it with doors closed; THAT's what I am talking about - an Empath will hear things others just won't, even if the source of the noise is behind closed doors on the other side of the house.)

If you're an Empath, you'll experience the same. You'll notice when a room doesn't feel quite right. You'll hear the annoying buzz of a fly that no one else seems to hear. You'll sense the vibration of a giant air conditioner unit or smell a specific spice in a meal. 

Because of this, being on a plane can be one of the hardest things for an Empath, as you will not only feel every bump and jerk as if you've just gone over a mountain, but you will also be in an enclosed space with a lot of people and their varying emotional states. I find that many Empaths become fearful of flying without realizing that it's their hyper-sensitivity causing the fear, rather than any real danger. 

Empath Trait #5: You are charismatic (even if you don't think you are).

For most of my life, I couldn’t figure out why people seemed so drawn to me, especially when I didn’t think I was being or doing anything special. Everywhere I went, strangers would end up telling me their life stories like we’d known each other forever. Moreover, I had no idea why I attracted so many very needy people to myself, and then had a difficult time setting healthy boundaries or extracting myself from the relationship. 

Once I realized I was an Empath, I got it.

Because of the high-vibration of energy that Empaths naturally put out, you end up being like a flame to a moth; people are just naturally drawn to you because your energy and your caring ways make them feel better (many times they don’t know why they need to be around you so much, but that’s why - you recharge their batteries!). 

If this sounds like you, you will notice that people start up conversations with you in public places like coffeehouses, airports, or restaurants. You will notice that people seem to need to recharge by being around you; because of this, you may also notice that you have a preponderance of very needy people who become very demanding of your time and energy as well. 

Empath Trait #6: Hurting other people is unthinkable to you, even if it’s in self-defense. 

Do you ever feel like a wimp because you can’t seem to stand up for yourself, even when someone has said or done something cruel to you? Is it physically impossible for you to say something purposely hurtful to another human being, even if everyone says they deserve it?

If so, it’s very likely you are an Empath.

For years, I felt like there was something really wrong with me because I just simply could not say something purposely cruel to someone, no matter how awful they had been to me. What I realized is that there was nothing wrong with me, nor was I a wimp (my other common thought), but rather, because I could actually feel in my body how something would make another person feel, I just simply couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to make another person knowingly feel pain.

To be totally honest, this caused me a lot of trouble in my life; I definitely didn’t stand up for myself because I didn’t have the words to be able to do so in a way that I felt was positive. However, I now have those words and can set healthy boundaries, which is one of the key things I am teaching in the Empowered Empath Academy. 

Empath Trait #7: You need to get away from all stimulation sometimes. 

A few years ago, my in-laws had been in town for a week. Now, they are lovely people that I care about, but you just don’t get a lot of peace or privacy when they are there (my mother-in-law likes to follow me around, no matter what I am doing). They also like to marathon-watch the Weather Channel (I cannot imagine a more fear-based network - everything is an “IMPENDING DISASTER” “WORSE THAN EVER BEFORE” with “HORRIBLE CONSEQUENCES FOR ALL MANKIND”!! Ugh. Not all storms can be that bad, but I digress.). It's enough to drive an Empath to drink.

Finally, I just HAD to find some quiet, non-stimulating time. I went to the master bedroom closet (I was pretty sure she wouldn’t come in there), closed the door behind me, turned off the light, and laid face-first on the floor. 

Hey, an Empath’s gotta do what an Empath’s gotta do. 

Do you find yourself feeling the same need to retreat to some sort of safe, quiet space upon occasion? Do your nerves feel like they are all vibrating or like you have a static charge to your whole body? Are there times when you cannot have someone talk to you, touch you, or even be around you for a while? 

And after you come out of your quiet space, do you feel 100% better? 

If so, it’s a very good indication that you are an Empath. 

Do you recognize that you have many of these traits? Do you feel overwhelmed by your empathic nature sometimes? Sign up to join my upcoming Empath Institute, and go from being exhausted to being empowered to help yourself and the world with your gift. 

Still wondering if you are an Empath? Take the Empath test.

Free Your Mind and Your Life: 3 Steps to Feel in Control of Your World

There are times in life when you may feel like you have little freedom in your life; and sadly, you may feel like it's been years since you felt free to be you.

Your life may feel very much like you are controlled by dictators, always trying to live up to other’s standards or views on how you should live.

You may feel that you are trapped by difficult circumstances, or that you cannot control your own life for a variety of reasons.

I am here to tell you that you absolutely can free your mind and free your life right this very moment. In fact, you can do so in in 3 simple steps:

Step #1: Realize that your mind is already free. 

No matter what your current issues are, your mind is free right at this very moment. No one can force you to believe their viewpoint on anything. You make all the decisions about what to think, feel, and do. 

Is this difficult to believe? Here’s an example that might make it easier:

What if someone walked you to the edge of a cliff and told you that you must think about an apple immediately or he would push you off.

Would you actually have think about an apple to save your life? Could you just tell him that you were thinking about an apple? How would he know if you were lying? 

The reality is that you could think about anything you wanted, and there would be little he could do about it. Saving your life would be fairly easy, as you could claim that you thought of an apple, and he would have to believe you.

While that is an extreme example, this same idea applies to your life.

All too often we think that we must believe the viewpoints of parents, friends, acquaintances, bosses, doctors, religious leaders, and even the media. Again and again, we give our personal power over to the opinions of those around us, because we think we have no choice and no right to question them. 

Worse, we’re brainwashed to believe that we must live our lives by their standards or suffer some horrifying consequences, like going to hell or our lives ending in abject failure with them standing over us saying, “I told you so!”

Let me tell you, living your life based on beliefs you don’t agree with is a recipe for a miserable life, and nothing more.

You’re free to think anything you desire about yourself, your life, and what you really want to be and do.

You’re a perfectly wonderful person as you are, and your needs and desires are good and appropriate for you.

Whether or not they are appropriate for others isn’t your concern. You have a right to make choices that live up to your standards, and no one else’s. 

Step #2: Free your life by freeing your mind from the power of other’s beliefs. 

Take a moment right now to decide whether you want to keep living by other people’s standards. Here’s a great exercise to help you:

First, take out a sheet of paper. Then, write down everything you believe you should be, should do, and should think. Write down others opinions on your decisions and their beliefs about your life. 

Then, ask yourself whether you want these things to be true for you.

For instance, you may have lived your life with guilt because you never put in the effort to become a doctor. However, when you really consider it, you never wanted to be a doctor; you only feel guilt because it was what your parents expected of you.

Or, you may have been taught that you were not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, or any of a million terrible things that we all learn throughout our lives. 

Now, ask yourself if these are the beliefs that you want to continue to build your life around. How much time have you wasted allowing these beliefs to control you? How many negative experiences have you had because you believed these things about yourself? What experiences have you missed out on? 

Take back your freedom and your life. Rip up that piece of paper and mentally decide you are throwing out beliefs you don’t agree with. Decide right here and now that you and only you choose what you want to believe about yourself and how you want your life to be.

Step #3: Retune your mind with new belief statements.

Now that you have found a way to free your mind of old beliefs that were holding you back, you must replace those with new beliefs that empower you and the life that you desire to live.

Formulate some new truth statements for yourself. You might want to say something as simple as “I am free to live my life the way that I want”, or something as specific as “I am smart and capable. I choose to live up to my greatest potential.” 

Try saying these new truth statements to yourself over and over again throughout the day. You will be amazed at the new life you begin to create for yourself. 

Best of all, it will be the life that you truly desire! (Now that’s freedom!).

What do you do to feel in control of your life? Have you been feeling stuck and worn out lately? I'd love to hear your stories. 

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