Ira Glass on the Creative Process

It’s so easy to feel inadequate and quit, especially when you’re starting something new.  In this video Ira Glass reminds us that one of the most important parts of the creative journey, is to push through our fears and develop and create and never quit.  Each of us is in a creative process, because life is a creative process.  Our personal creative output could be anything we want to excel at doing, it could be art, or writing, or starting a business, or developing a new career.

Dreams require us to recognize the creative process, embrace it, develop it, and work hard daily to manifest our creative vision.

So, don’t give up if it doesn’t look exactly like you think it should, at the get go, in fact do more, practice more, and grow your body of work.

StoryJacking Difficult Conversations – True Kind Necessary

True, Kind, Necessary: How to have difficult conversations and develop better relationships

Imagine a stool, three legs that hold up the seat. Without one of the legs, the stool becomes unstable.

When thinking about True, Kind Necessary in respect to conversations, it’s important to remember to use these ideas together in order to have the best outcome. In happy and agreeing conversations we don’t even have to think about these qualities, because we are having fun and we are not threatening someone else’s view point or sense of themselves. Intent and Impact are very important, especially in difficult conversations or situations. Often times we bring our judgment, ego and opinions into the arena and while we may have a positive intent, we can end up having a negative impact.

True – Obviously we want to be honest in our handling of information and give honest reflection to people. It also helps to truthfully communicate our own feeling and experience, without telling others how they feel, what there intent was, or judging their behavior as the issue. Ask yourself some questions: What is the story I am telling myself about this situation? Am I making any assumptions? Do I have enough information or are there other questions I need to get info on? Am I exaggerating or escalating the truth?

We can rapidly set people up to feel attacked and when that happens, they either tunes us out or we engage them in an argument.  Also, if I am telling you a truth, from my perspective, and I am unkind in my delivery, or it’s really not my place to share my truth, I run a very real risk of landing poorly on you and feeding a fight.  I may be generating a drama story that won’t do me or anyone any good.

Kind – This is the level of how we approach a conversation with compassion and gentleness. We might be sharing our truth without thought to other people’s feelings. In conversations that we have with others we can inadvertently hurt peoples feelings, Intent/Impact. This is especially true in the texting, typing, IM’ing medium. People can’t read our non-verbal body language, we may not even know each other, and so we end responding to things based on how we feel the message is coming at us. If it’s a difficult situation, people may already be defensive. Kindness is about intention. We can decide if our intention is to be helpful or hurtful. If it’s to be helpful and our message still lands poorly, apologizing for the unintended outcome is kindness too.

Necessary – It may take a few questions to yourself to figure out this one:  Why are we vested in sharing our perspective? What’s our goal for the conversation?  Have we been asked for feedback? Or, are we trying to ‘teach’ someone something we think we need to know? Is what we’re about to say, for the greater good of the person we are speaking/writing to?  I also like to ask myself, “Is what I am about to say, think or do, going to take me closer to my goal or farther away?”

There are definitely times that we do need to speak up, maybe we see a way to help someone be more efficient or correct something. Or, we may be setting a healthy boundary on how others speak to us, or what we are willing or not willing to do for someone. The more necessary the conversation is, typically the more painful it runs the risk of being. Which is why adding the elements of True and Kind can help the conversation go better for all parties.

In communication there is another area to consider. Let’s call this the fourth leg of the stool, increasing stability.

Timing – Are you calling someone out in public or private? Are you giving them time to respond or pushing for an instant response? Can you have a face-to-face conversation, even if we are talking Skype versus an email argument or texting war?

Think about our own timing; are we hungry, tired, overwhelmed, or not feeling well? All these factors will effect how we bring ourselves to any difficult conversation.

Giving ourselves time to cool down before responding is helpful too. If I get fired up about something, my brain floods with Adrenaline and Cortisol and increases my reactivity, while decreasing my ability to think through a situation.  Have you ever had an intense conversation and then later think of all the things you wished you had said instead? If I give myself an hour or a day before responding, I have time to engage my thinking brain again and I may come up with a much better response.

We can all get HiJacked by our brain.

Even using these tools will not guarantee a 100% positive outcome in every situation. But, your odds of a better conversation are greatly increased.

 

 

 

 

Great Podcast by Fizzle

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a Coach, a Therapist, and a Consultant?  

Do you wish you could know what to expect from the Coaching process?

I just listened to this podcast on Fizzle, How to Find, Evaluate, and Work with a Business Coach.  These smart guys do a great job of really talking through the differences between a Coach, a Consultant and a Therapist.  And, they explain how a coach can benefit you differently than an expert in your field.  I highly recommend you listen if you are even remotely considering using a Coach.  My story is that you will get some insight and clarity about the coaching process.

You will walk away from this podcast:

• What, exactly, will you gain by working with a coach?
• How can you find and hire a coach (or a few coaches)?
• What mindset should you bring to a coaching relationship and what should you expect?
• How can you evaluate if a coach is working for you or not?

What’s the story you need to tell yourself, so you listen?

Please let me know what you thought!

Turning Conflict on its Head

Conflict may be inevitable – how we successfully deal with conflict is not.

Someone once said, “Anytime you have two people in a relationship, it’s dysfunctional” and this seems to play out daily in our lives.  

Daily our realities bump into other people’s realities and when these realities meet and agree, things are golden.  Unfortunately, as soon as my beliefs, values, wants, or expectations bump into someone else’s beliefs, values, wants, or expectations and they are different, hold on, it’s about to get bumpy.  So, how do we learn to cope and manage conflict?  This all depends on your desired outcome or goal for the situation.

What’s your outcome goal? Whatever you’re about to say, think, or do will either take you one step closer to your goal or one step farther away.

We’ve all met people we don’t like. They are too different from us; they want something we can’t or won’t give, or they just rub us wrong from the get go.  Yet, we sometimes need to work with these people and figure out a way to either ‘get along’ and ‘move forward.’  So, the ability to manage conflict is key to a good life and healthy relationships.

Five simple strategies:

• Personalize nothing. Miguel Ruiz talks about this at length in his book the Four Agreements. Personalization is all about the ego. We get into trouble in a couple of ways with this one. Either we personalize something that is said or done to us and react poorly or we misinterpret something that is said or done to us, believing it’s about us and react poorly.  It’s hard, but important to remember that nothing is personal.  Everything that anyone says or does to you tells you about them.  It doesn’t mean you need to just sit and take it, but you may need to plan the best way to effectively handle the situation or behavior.  It might be time for healthier boundaries or it might be time for an important conversation about your perspective. Try to take time to breathe and let yourself cool down.  When you react without working through a planned response, it often hurts more than it helps.
• Listen to understand, not for ammo.  I first thought about this concept when I became a 7 Habits Facilitator.  When we find ourselves in a situation where we don’t like someone or are feeling angry or defensive, it’s easy to hear the other person’s words and not “listen” to understand. Hearing someone’s words and listening are different activities.  People sometimes assume that listening to someone equals agreement.  But listening and understanding where people are coming from doesn’t mean we agree with them, it means we are trying to understand their perspective.  Working to understand another person will often pave the way to reducing conflict, plus it models the behavior you want to see.
• Be willing to find the middle path.  In the past 20 years, I have worked with individuals, couples, organizations and teams, and a one-sided push for a one-sided outcome is often expensive.  If we want a way through conflict, we need to be willing to find the middle way. We often assume we are fighting a war and must win, but in fact when we respond with a win/lose mentality, we’re creating future problems.  In most relationships, if one of us loses, we are both ultimately losing.  A willingness to brainstorm solutions and create a plan that works for both people will lead to far longer lasting solutions.
• Take responsibility.  When we are defensive or angry, the hardest thing to do is take personal responsibility for any part of the conflict.  I’m not saying you need to take 100% responsibility for the whole situation. You do need to take 100% responsibility for your part. If you’re in a conflict, you’ve participated in the conflict on some level. Sometimes, even by accident, someone might personalize something you said or misinterpret your meaning.  If you can “own” your side of the street, you can reduce the drama of conflict.
• Turn conflict on its head. Most of us are taught that conflict is angry, maybe ugly. It is a fight and it has a winner and a loser. But, what if we change how we think about conflict? Conflict, or as I like to call it Passionate Disagreement, can also be a force of good. Conflict gives us opportunity to work through differences, build insights, see a situation from multiple perspectives, and this kind of constructive conflict is capable of bringing us together. Some would say we cannot deeply trust people until we know how they handle conflict. Until we experience how people will behave in disagreements, we don’t fully know them. Few important problems are solved because everyone was trying to be nice and just get along. I’ve experienced the connection that comes from having a passionate disagreement, working through that disagreement and building a more powerful relationship or solution. This level of connection is called intimacy.

If you change how you respond or react to conflict, you can shift the majority of conflicts that roll your way. 

You will meet people who do not want to compromise; they aren’t interested in your perspective and they may even be looking for a fight. Inevitably, I have found I get much better results with these five strategies.

images from Bigstockphoto.com

 

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Have you ever played pool? Did you notice how you might be a ½ millimeter off when you tap the white ball, but by the end of the table the white ball is off course by inches?  Such a little thing as a ½ a millimeter can radically change through time and space. The same thing applies to any change we want to encourage in our lives. We are actively living in time and space. Any small changes you adopt to improve yourself, will grow through time, if you keep at it.

Things that might empower you:

• Power List!  Write a list of all the things that you have accomplished.  Make sure you add things like, I graduated from…, I taught my child…, I am a good friend to…  Find accomplishments from your education, your personal life, your work/career, and volunteer jobs.  Have you every gotten a compliment about being smart, or creative, or funny?  Write it down.  Keep the list somewhere that you can find it and add to it as you go.  This list will help on the days you feel less than.  It will help you challenge your thinking, when you may be more negative than is useful.
• Leave yourself Love Notes! These aren’t love notes in the traditional format, but rather you telling yourself the things you need to hear. I am capable! I manage stress well! I am likeable! I care about people and they care about me! I am smart and getting smarter!  Put these post it note messages up all around your bathroom mirror, you will have to see them at least twice a day and they will be good for you.
• Try Power Posing! Stand like Superman or Wonder Woman. Raise your hands in the Victory V and smile to the sky. Sit with your legs up on the desk and your hands behind your head like a big shot. Find a power pose and then practice it in private, but over time, you will change the testosterone and cortisol levels in your body and will develop a more powerful sense of yourself.
• Visualize! See yourself handling anything you need to do well. See yourself being successful in anything you might normally be scared of, such as talking in front of people, or in a job interview, going to a party where you don’t know people, walking into a classroom the first day, whatever might be scary. Then see yourself doing that thing with confidence.
• Let Go!  It can be hard to let go of regrets, resentments or worries, it seems you’re hardly human if you don’t have a few of these.  All these things are either past focused or future focused, and they take attention away from ‘now.’  And, unfortunately,  the more you focus on the negative aspects of the past or the future, the harder it is to feel good about yourself and/or your direction in the present.  When we focus on things we have no control over, the past especially, it’s really difficult to move forward.  Looking backwards is only helpful if you are learning from it or letting go of it.  The future is open and unknown,  we can work to influence it in positive ways, but worry and resentments rarely get you where you want to go.

Try these tools to help you keep your energy high as you move toward your goals.  We also need to support ourselves through the journey.  Just like in pool, these tiny tweaks will lead you to new outcomes.  As you make these small adjustment, see how they are working, if you are feeling more empowered, then make another, and then another, and another.

Tiger Tiger

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night.
William Blake

If we roll back time about 12,000 years, what we would find in 10,000 BC is small bands of humans who had mastered using tools, they could use fire, they had art, and they had a developing culture. But, they were still outnumbered by all sorts of scary things that thought, “Humans taste like chicken.” The reason I am even mentioning this, is that humans have had to developed a very quick defensive response or arousal response in their brain. They needed to be able to react quickly to the tiger sneaking up on them, they needed fast reflexes that got them running faster than others, or up a tree in a second. This arousal response is something I talked about in the blog about the Navy Seal training program. It’s very connected to the Fight, Flight or Freeze response. People needed ways to survive in a dangerous world and the people who had quick arousal responses typically made it to parenthood and passed on their genes.

Fast forward 12,000 years. You and I live in a very different world. There are not as many tigers stalking us, but the world is still filled with situations and other people who can, at worst, be dangerous, and at best be annoying to the point that we get stressed out. Who among us has had a serious illness, or the loss of a loved one, or had to swerve as they’re driving to avoid another car, or had to grab a child who is about to have a calamity, or tripped as we were walking and texting. Speedy reflexive actions are life savers. But, not all situations are truly life or death. The husband or wife who is annoying us, might be really annoying, but probably isn’t deadly. Yet, we may have a reaction to this person that is bigger and more explosive than necessary. Especially depending on how long we have held our stress in check.

There are many tools to manage our brains on stress and fear.

1/ Meditation. Meditation isn’t just for monks, it also doesn’t have to take hours. Meditation can be as simple as focusing on your breathing for 2 minutes, focusing on your breathing until you feel your automatic nervous system relax. There is no need to chant, though there isn’t anything wrong with that either. But, really it’s an intentional shift of focus from what is outside of you and stressful (external) to your breathing and body relaxation (internal). The more you practice this tool, the easier it is to do. Also the easier it is to access when you’re feeling stressed. I often recommend to those new to meditating, try focusing on your breathing every time you sit down, for a minute or 2. You might end up meditating 10 times a day, for 1 or 2 minutes, but this is still going to have a positive effect on your stress and build your toolbox.  The hardest thing for people to do is sit down and try and meditate for 30 minutes, you have to learn to work this muscle a minute at a time.

2/ Laugh. Readers Digest has said it for years, laughter is the best medicine… Both laughing and crying do a similar thing in your body, they pump the diaphragm and relax and tense muscles. On a physiological level this action moves chemicals around the body, like stress chemicals, which help to flush them from your system. But, laughter offers other benefits too. Laughter is linked to a healthy immune system. When we are stressed, we make more blood platelets, which cause obstructions in our arteries. Laughter increases our natural killer cells which combat illnesses, we increase our Gamma-interferon, T-cells, and B-cells all of which help us to stay healthy even under stress. Also, researchers estimate that laughing 100 times is equal to 10 minutes on a rowing machine… I know which I would choose. Check out Laughter Yoga, it’s an international movement that might just crack you up.

3/ Challenge it. Someone once said, “don’t believe everything you think.” Well, it’s true. When we are afraid, stressed or angry, our brains will tell us all sorts of amazing and false things… Be very careful what you latch on to, in these moments. Depending on our personalities, we may over react that we did something wrong, or conversely that everyone else is wrong. Either of these responses could be incorrect. The truth, whatever that grey area is, probably lies more in the middle, and either cursing yourself, or cursing someone else probably isn’t going to help much. Plus, you may just be reacting to misinformation. Dr. Amen talks about asking yourself 2 questions. 1. Do I know this belief to be 100% true? 2. What do I know that challenges the negative belief? These questions are great. You may find you are telling yourself the truth, but if your not, then you can head off making the situation worse.

4/ Just Wait. Steven Covey, in the 7 Habits, talks about being ProActive and giving yourself time to choose a different response. When our brains start freaking out, our cortisol and adrenaline increase, our reactivity goes up and our ability to think plummets. Have you ever had a reactive conversation with someone, said all sorts of crazy things that maybe didn’t even make sense, and an hour later thought to yourself… “I should have said…” or “I should never have said…”? That’s because your brain on stress is stupid. It’s not meant to think about deep philosophical insights, thoughtful arguments, it’s supposed to keep your happy ass from being eaten by the tiger! One of my best strategies, and mind you I am a Red headed, Irish, Leo… I know of what I speak, one of my personal best strategies is to… wait for it… keep my mouth closed, or conversely, don’t press the ‘send’ button. If at all possible, I wait to respond.  I have given myself several weeks, depending on how angry I was.  I know that my brain is not acting in my best interest in the heat of the moment, so I shut my mouth and wait for my brain to catch up. It’s saved relationships on several occasions.

5/Visualize.  Creating a picture in your head of how you would like something to happen, how you would like to handle some situation,  seeing yourself be better at some activity, or how you would like a job interview to go, or what you want your life to look like in a year.  Visualizing the outcome you want is like setting a visual goal.  The more clarity you have about what you want an experience or situation to look like, the more likely you will handle yourself in ways that take you where you want to go.  Visualize yourself being successful in navigating tigers, managing them, and maybe even making them purr.  Most of us have been successful at times in handling stressful situations.  Think back to times where you handled your stress in a way that felt empowering, then visualize yourself in new situations, handling yourself the way you would like to.  The mind doesn’t know the difference between visualizing doing something, and actually doing it.  Brain scans show visualizing doing something (practicing a golf swing), lights up the brain similarly as actually doing something like swinging that club.  Visualizing doing exercise actually improves muscle mass.  So use your mind to help you.

6/ Breathe.  When all else fails, or maybe before anything fails, breathe.  Most bodies tense up and stop breathing when they get stressed.  People either find themselves breathing in short shallow breathes, or big gulps.  How you breathe affects your nervous system, and if you wonder why I am making a big deal about breathing, think about how long you can go without food?  A month? Or water? A week?  And, then think about how long you can go without oxygen.  Most of us can maybe go without oxygen 5-7 minutes.  That’s a ridiculously short amount of time.  The most important connection here is that you can control your breathing, when you slow your breathing down, you affect your heart rate and you reduce the Cortisol and Adrenaline that fear of tigers produces.  Conversely, you can hype yourself up by breathing faster.

7/ Distract yourself.  Have you ever noticed when you’re in a hurry that all the people around you seem to S  L  O  W down?  You’re standing in the grocery line and the lady in front of you starts to pay in pennies, or everyone driving in front of you is on a Sunday drive?  If you decide to change lanes, you may get block again, only to see the lane you were in speed up?  This is one of the vortex’s of the universe, my made up name for the phenomenon is Hurry up and Wait Syndrome.  But, I digress, one way to manage this situation is to distract yourself.  Dream about what you would do if you won the lottery, most people can easily pass a few minutes to a few hours dreaming of being a big winner.  Or, read a magazine in line, as soon as I pick up a People magazine, the line freakishly speeds up.  I am flipping and searching for some article and before I know it, it’s time to pay and I have to decide if I care enough about the article to buy it.  Listen to music or a book in your car, if that’s where you lose your mind, so you can distract yourself from focusing on all those lost tourists and Sunday drivers.

8/ Music soothes the savage beast.  There is a recent study from the University of Missouri, by Yuna Ferguson, that showed that music can improve your mood.  Music can also energize you, which is probably why people do aerobics to upbeat high energy music and not Classical Opera.  In another study by Thomas Schäfer, Peter Sedlmeier, Christine Städtler, and  David Huron, The psychological functions of music listening, found that people listen to music to regulate arousal and mood, to achieve self-awareness, and as an expression of social relatedness.  With the regulating arousal and mood and achieving self awareness being more important than the social relatedness.

In another study, on the Effects of Music to the Human Stress Response, found that Relaxing music, reduced the physiological responses to stress.   And, there is new research showing that music positively affected brain waves, muscle tone, blood pressure & heart rate, for the elderly, when they were listening to the music of their youth.

These tools are not really meant to be used in any particular order.  Try them all and bolster your toolbox.

Making it Stick!

Popular New Years Resolutions

• Get Healthy
  • Lose Weight
  • Eat Better
  • Drink Less
  • Quit Smoking
• Volunteer
• Education
  • Learn something new
  • Finish your education
• Get a Better Job
• Save Money
  • Manage Debt
• Manage Stress
• Take a Trip

Based on the statistic that 8% of people with a New Years Resolutions successfully complete them, we know that most of us make a resolution with high hopes, then something happens.  The goal is something we say is important to us, yet within a week 75% of us have already moved on, put the resolution in the junk draw and basically gone back to life as usual.  It’s like we love the idea, but we don’t have enthusiasm for the work that goes into changing a habit or working on a goal.  So, how do we continue to generate enthusiasm after the first flush of New Years has left us? Here are some ideas.

Be a Decider.  Don’t just go with the crowd when it comes to your New Years Resolutions or goals, get individual and decide what is really meaningful to you.  If everyone wants to do xyz, but your heart really isn’t in it, what is your heart open to?  Imagine looking back on 2015, what would be one or two things that would make you feel like you had honored yourself?  What would you like to say about yourself to others?  What would make you feel proud of yourself?  Write that down. Whatever goal speaks to your soul is going to be a much more interesting goal or resolution than just following the masses.

Create an Explicit Juicy Goal.  Without a clear vision that is based on your own ‘why’, most people just aren’t enthused about what they say they want.  Make your goal clear, meaningful, and fun.

Realistic Expectations.  This is one of the Super Secrets of life.  If you begin with an unrealistic expectation such as, “I’m going to lose 50 pounds in a month,” it’s going to be very hard to make this happen. It’s not impossible, but it isn’t healthy and it probaly requires a level of commitment that may be overwhelming.  If the goal is realistic, “I’m going to be dancing daily till I’m fit,” then you can develop that goal into something juicy.

Baby steps.  Every goal has many steps along the way that chunk it down and make it more easily “do”able.  Baby steps break down the ‘what to do’ or action aspects of a goal.  These baby steps will guide you along the way and help to make the goal more manageable.  Losing weight is a great goal, but you’ll need to break it down: Create a play list of music I like to dance to, Schedule it, eat more veggies, & cut the simple carbs.

Plan for Bumps along the Way.  This is really a part of realistic expectations, but it deserves its own bump.  Imagine you’re going on a trip.  You’re heading from Seattle to Boston.  You get on the plane and you’re off.  The plane has a clear destination, Boston.  The flight is not actually moving in a straight line, it’s a direction, and along the way the pilot is bringing the plane back on course with many little adjustments.  Expect that you might get off course on your own journey. Know that you can bring yourself back on course as many times as it takes to get to your destination.

Celebrate Successes.  Too often we set a goal and then we lose steam as we work and work and work.  Set mini goals. I called them baby steps above and celebrate them regularly.  I often make something I love to do into a prize at the end of the work.  If I have paperwork to do, which is my least favorite thing, I might say to myself, if I get this paperwork done today, I will go out to a movie.  I can create my own carrot.

It takes a Village.  At about the four to six week mark, people become excuse machines.  We throw up all sorts of rationalizations, reasons, justifications, smoke and mirrors to let  ourselves off the proverbial hook.  Having people who will support you through the rough spots is important and necessary to success.  It could be a person or an online support group.  When I quit smoking, it was much easier to hang out with nonsmoking friends. The more you surround yourself with people who support your goal the easier it will be for you to be successful.

Get Explicit and Make those Juicy Goals

What does it mean to get Explicit?  If this is the key to making a New Years Resolutions, or really any goals successful, then explicit is important.

ex·plic·it – ikˈsplisit/

adjective

adjective: explicit

1.    stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt.

This will be our working definition.

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     So let’s get explicit.  

When you think of your goal, begin by asking yourself, on a scale of 1-10, how important is this goal to me?  If you are not at a 9 or a 10, then why do you think this is a goal worthy of your time and attention?  What would it take to get the goal to a 10 for importance?  This is really important because we will often say something is important and then not follow through on it. This is the behavioral equivalent to saying, “I don’t really care about this…” and I am not in the habit of working with people on their lukewarm goals.  A lukewarm goal is basically a set up for failure.  Not the sort of failure where you really try to change something and you don’t succeed, but the sort of failure that you get from not really trying.  I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but those are two very different types of failures.  I don’t enjoy spending a lot of time, money, energy and not meeting a big goal, but at least I know I gave it my all.  In my mind, there is no failure with true effort.  When I was younger, I was a swimmer. I would spend hours a week at practice, back and forth laps, working on my stroke, a lot of time and energy was invested.  All this work didn’t mean that I won every race I entered, but without the time, commitment and effort, I wouldn’t have even started, let alone finished a race.  The more I trained, the better I did.

Let’s look at the example like I want to “Get Healthy”:

• Is this a real goal, or is it a goal you think you ‘should’ have? Do you think it’s a 10 value goal?
• How do you know you’re at a 10?
• What does “getting healthy” mean to you?
• What are the most important aspects of this goal for you?
• What would it look like if you were behaving in a “healthy” way?
  • Remember, “healthy” may mean different things to different people.  Be clear about what you mean.
• How will you know you have reached your goal?
• What will you have done during the year, when you look back on this goal on Dec 31, 2015?

Maybe my goal over the next year is that I want to eat healthy, or maybe I want to exercise every week.  Do these goals sound interesting or juicy?  If the goal doesn’t excite you, it will be harder to commit to.  What would a juicy goal sound like?

You might start with: “I want to exercise every week” then keep writing what you want from the goal.

• I want to move daily
• I want to feel powerful in my body
• I want to spend time outside breathing in the forest
• I want to take my dogs on regular walks

If you sum up these wants, what might the goal sound like?

• Daily tree time with my dogs, breathing in nature, makes me strong!

As you write what you want from the goal, you can begin to mold the goal into something that speaks to your soul.  Which goal sounds juicier to you?  I want to exercise every week  or Daily tree time with my dogs, breathing in nature, makes me strong!  I know which one I will be choosing.

What are the baby steps that I need to take to meet the goal “Daily tree time with my dogs, breathing in nature, makes me strong!”?  Break it down:

• Commit to X number of times a week.
• Put it in your schedule.
• Find a friend who might want to join you.
• Join a dog club that walks.
• Or start your own dog walking Meetup.
• Find the dog leashes.
• Pick some places close to your house that you can go walking outside that make you feel excited.

Figure out all the little things that you need to do to help you meet this goal.  The baby steps help you map your plan for success.  This is true for every goal you ever set for yourself.

Time to pick a goal.  Next blog we will start looking at different goals and how to suss out whether they are 10’s for you.