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Who am I? What makes me unique? Where am I going in life? Am I comfortable with myself? Solitude is a chance to learn something about yourself. Self-discovery is a process that involves asking and answering the questions above.
Solitude also provides an opportunity for perspective. When you’re caught up in the hassles of day-to-day life, all you can see is what’s directly in front of you – the problem of the moment. If you want to see and appreciate the big picture of what your life’s all about, you have to step back and get a bird’s-eye view – and that’s exactly what solitude allows you to do.
Taking time for yourself is often viewed as selfish and uproductive. Solitude is also uncomortable for many people because they’ve learned to derive their self-esteem from activities initiated by their “other selves” – that is, their efforts to satisfy themselves by satisfying others. But there are important benefits that come from spending time with your “personal self”, that part of you that doesn’t need other people to be happy…:)
Fear is the most destructive element to any undertaking. In most cases, fear can’t be identified by the fearful person. It is not specific, but more of a feeling of emptiness of not knowing where to go or what to do. Fear is having the lack of proper knowledge to make life decisions. Since we are peope of choice, and we live every day, life brings us daily challenges that we choose how to deal with. Self-awareness provides us with the proper knowledge to make informed decisions, leaving us feeling confident rather than scared, secure rather than insecure and lost.
Fear makes us dependant on other people to take care of us, which usually doesn’t work…
When you are accountable for your actions and self-aware you know who you are, what you have to offer, and where you want to go from here…and you have, in the process, eliminated fear from your life. You have replaced fear with adventure, hope, and trust 
On my way over to Sweden I took the time to study some of my passengers prior to embarking on the plane and during the flight itself. The fear of flying takes a lot of different forms – but can you actually spot a nervous person by just observing their physical behavior? Maybe. But if you would ask each one of the passengers what that person is afraid of, you may be surprised to hear that the calmest, “coolest” passenger is the one who is the most afraid…
….and when asking that person what he/she is afraid of, the answer usually is “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure”. Fear is a skeptical feeling like in a horror movie. You just think something bad is going to happen, and you sit on the edge of your seat and wait for the unknown.
Change brings unknowns with it. Managing change is the art of breaking down unknowns into predictable and hopeful visions of the future. How far you can go is as far as you can see. When you become blind with fear, you can’t go anywhere. Through self-accountability, we take on self-awareness, and move forward through self-improvement.
So, going back to the fear of flying – and not knowing exactly what the person is afraid of – you need to break down the perceived fear into predictable and hopeful visions of the future – of the next 8 hours on an airplane, controlled by skilled pilots who know very well that by being proactive, turning problems into challenges, and through accountability, self-awareness, and self improvement (continued ed), these challenges are transformed into opportunities (to in a case of an emergency, respond by using all the known predictables of the emergency to conquer any perceived fear of the unknown).
So, how do you overcome the fear of flying, heights, making a lifechanging decision or a career change? You simply won’t allow any “barriers” into your life:). You choose to transform the barriers, the challenges, into opportunities to conquer, resolve and build your new life, fearless of the unknown…
Really liked this post by Sister Karol Jackowski and thought you would too! So here are four simple steps to real success – simple, powerful but oooh so important…:)
The Four Simple Steps
We often insist that the outside world reflect something at us that tells us who we are…Whether that comes in the form of success or failure is beside the point. To attempt a meaningful life is to embrace that which can be measured only within ourselves. It’s not the snapshot of ourselves, seen through the lens of someone else. It is rather how we feel about the person staring back at us in the mirror and how we feel about life…
How do we get to that point when we embrace the randomness of life?
If everything were linear and predictable, we’d come to a halt. There would be no creativity or evolution or growth. To live is to weave constantly between the known and unknown. But for a lot of us, the impulse is to hide from that which we don’t understand or can’t answer. We lose our reverence for mystery, and instead choose fear, avoidance, and denial. It’s easier to shut down and close out the unknown rather than enter it with a conscious awareness that we don’t have the answers.
It is frightening to trust ourselves to be creative, to find answers or resources or people who can help…
…but if we can start to embrace the feeling of wonder, openness, and curiosity we can get comfortable exploring the vastness of the unanswered questions.
Leading life in a meaningful way requires embracing the empty spaces, the blanks and vastness. Living in the gap, we find ourselves and the meaning of life
Everyone has a future – choose to plan yours.
Set your goals taking into account your values, attitudes and habits, working with your strenghts to raise the likelihood of you achieving what you set out to achieve. Work with an Emotional Intelligence goal-setting model, engaging your emotional brain as well as your thinking brain.
* Values: understand what is really important about the goal, what will be great about achieving it in the grand scheme of things.
* Attitudes: check that your positive attitudes and beliefs will support and be supported by your values.
* Awareness: be aware of your intentions with the goal you set. Your intention is strongly linked to your values – by knowing what’s important about your goal, why you are working towards it, you can use your strenghts, personal power and flexibility to keep on track.
* Do: consider what behaviour helps you achieve the goal. Positive behaviours will strenghten your positive attitudes and fulfil your personal values.
* Done: give your goal a deadline! It improves the chances of success to know when you’ll be in the new situation.
Goals are vehicles for living your values…Sounds complicated? Maybe so, but when you think about it – isn’t the best day, “Your ideal day”, filled with activities that results in an experience of positive emotions and highs? Yes, of course you say – that’s obvious…but I don’t know what my values are…That’s why we, together, will work on what’s important to you and by doing so we will start finding out what your values are – the Values Staircase asks the question WIATY (What’s Important About…To You) starting with What is important about success to you?
Find out more- visit my web site and contact me for a free consultation!
I’ve been away for a while…distracted from MY goals, my values compromised and rather than action, inactivity…That’s what happens when you steer away from your goals, your values.
If our values represent our highest priorities, doesn’t it make absolute sense that our goals and dreams are rooted in our values? Yet how often do we pursue things, jobs, careers, relationships, even possessions, and when we achieve what we think we desired, we feel let down, somehow dissatisfied and disappointed?
Our values are our internal blueprint for sucesss. They make us who we are and they are intrinsically linked with our attitudes and selfregard. 22 percent of people who join a gym in January have thrown in the towel after 24 weeks. A further 20 percent will disappear before December. Why? Because we are either doing it for the wrong reason, or we don’t know why we’re doing it.
If your goals don’t reflect your values, it will be hard work to stick to them. So make sure you know you HAVE values (because all of us do) and make sure you know WHAT they are! Then set your goals based on your values and action will follow. You will stay focused and motivated, reaching your goals because you ACT – we always do when your goals are aligned with your values:). Need help identifying your values? Visit my web site for more about my 5-step values based coaching process.
Goal setting is one of the most important key concepts in life and in life coaching. Beliefs about what you can and cannot achieve are formed early and before you reach your teens, most of you have settled on certain goals and given up on others. It doesn’t have to be like that. It’s important to break down your ambitions and dreams into achievable “step-by-step” goals and align your behavior with your goals. If you set yourself up for success you will succeed – if you set yourself up for failure by letting yourself down, feeling a hopelessness and give up rather than revisiting and resetting your goals, you will fail. Build a hopeful attitude, use the concept of “Smart” goal setting, and make sure you back up your goal setting by setting you up for success – attend school, say no to drugs, get in shape physically and have a positive frame of mind by breaking down your goals in smaller steps, write down the skills you’ll have to learn, name strategies and resources you need to use such as more homework time and track your progress. That’s what setting you up for success is about. Same strategy for teens as for adults, same strategy in your career, personal development, well being and relationship. Read this article in WSJ for more and visit my web site for more information what you can do today to get the help you need to set your goals!
It’s no surprise, nor a secret, that EQ (Emotional Intelligence) is critical to your success. That’s true to your personal success as well as your professional success, be it in your Relationship, Personal Development, Quality of Life, Well Being, Finances and Career. It’s also interesting to compare us as a nation to our main competitor and trading partner in the world, China. In an Emotional Intelligence Appraisal test sample of 3000 from both public and private sectores in China and USA, American executives averaged 15 EQ points lower (a rather big discrepancy…) than Chinese executives in Self Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness and Relationship Management.
With 90% of top performers high in EQ, and EQ twice as important as IQ in getting where you want to go in life, who can afford to ignore it?
ThinkLars – Everyone has a future, choose to plan yours.
How many times do you REALLY look yourself in the mirror, not to look at your “exterior” but to check out your “interior”? What’s your total package? What makes a person attractive to another? Looks are a big part of the equation, but remember to pay attention to the things that you can control. Presentation is one, your voice is another tool, your health yet another. Understanding that looks matter doesn’t mean it is the most important part of your package. What IS the most important thing you can do is to bring what you have. Find your strenghts and build on them. Get the support and encouragement from a professional. Clarify where your life is heading and find out more about yourself in the process. That’s what being “the most successful one of all” means
