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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 
“Life is like a combination lock; your job is to find the right numbers, in the right order, so you can have anything you want.” – Brian Tracy
This morning I’m back in New York City again, the city that never sleeps but also the city with a touch of fresh air. Fresh air you say!? Well, today is actually Earth Day and I guess you could argue that the New York city air is far from “fresh”…may be, but although not clean, it certainly feels refreshing and inspirational to be around people with “fresh” ideas, sitting at the classical Caffe Reggio (the home of the “original cappuccino brought to America by Domenico Parisi, the original owner of Caffe Reggio, in 1927) surrounded by students, artists and writers with a feel of being at a street cafe in Montmartre, Paris
Especially in New York City, and any other big cities (like Paris for example), people are constantly searching…searching for what is right for them. Work, relationship, life…Yes, NYC is a jungle and it’s easy to get lost, easy to lose control and easy to get off track. But it’s also a place of opportunities, opportunities to find your way back onto the road you have chosen to travel on – Your Road Map to Success!
Like Brian Tracy said – the combinations are many, your job is to find the right numbers, the ones that work for you. Help, guidance and support is there to be found – you just need to make an effort looking for it and wanting it.
Enjoy Earth Day today and wherever you may be at this moment remember that we are all part of the Circle of Life. So do the best you can today, and every day, to unlock the combination of your lock finding out what’s important to you , in the right order so that you can have anything you want.
For more information how a Life Coach can help, support and guide you on your Road Map To Success, visit www.ThinkLars.com.
Values are like a compass for your life which helps you recognize who you really are. That’s what having and knowing your values is like. Values are your personal motivators, they’re what make you tick and the greatest tragedy is that most people go through life not even knowing they’ve got values, let alone what they are!
They are your own internal compass and when you pay attention to them, they give you direction in life. Values are not attitudes or beliefs, though they do live in the same brain (the emotional brain/limbic system).
Attitudes are things that are linked to our emotions and behaviors. It’s the way a person views something or tends to behave towards it, often in an evaluative way. It’s the glasses we wear and through which we choose to see the world and people around us.
Beliefs on the other hand is an idea, a principle accepted as true, especially without proof. If your attitudes are the glasses you wear and through which you choose to view the world and people around you, your beliefs are your truth or your story of the world and people around you. For example do you believe the world is flat or round, do you believe in Santa Claus? The key with beliefs is that they are not necessarily correct. Think about what your beliefs are doing for you? Are they supporting you to achieve your goals or holding you back..?
An attitude is something more than a belief, as it is an emotional expression.
Beliefs can form attitudes and attitudes can form beliefs.
Ultimately, attitudes and beliefs can help or hinder us and affect how we behave and how much of our potential we use. All attitudes can be rewired to form new, healthier attitudes if we choose to do this. The key is to get underneath the ones that undermine us (by first raising conscious awareness of them), weed them out and replace them with healthy supportive beliefs and attitudes
So, values, attitudes and beliefs have a powerful connection with our thoughts, feelings and behaviors and how we perform.
Consider a tree with values representing the roots of who we are, the beliefs being the trunk, attitudes being the main branches with the leaves being our behaviors and actions.
Values are an intrinsic part of who we are, and our core values are far less changeable than our beliefs and attitudes.
Make sure you know your internal compass (values) on your road to success in life! By identifying your core values, the glasses you wear and choose to look at the world through (attitudes) and the truth you see (beliefs) you are able to work on your behaviors and actions! Get your free consultation today! Find out more about yourself and your strengths, using your internal compass on your Road Map to Success. But don’t take my word for it – check out what others have to say!
“The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.” – Hugh White
Today I’m blogging from New York City and what better back drop than this to remind ourselves that it’s not what happened in the past that should guide us. This is a place that thrives on what’s going on right now and what is yet to come – the possibilities of tomorrow. Viktor Hugo once said “He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows the plan carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life”
Everyone has a future – choose to plan yours. Think about th following when you start the day today and every day:
“If you could do anything now, with the life you have in front of you, what would it be?”
Previously I blogged about EQ (Emotional Intelligence) and its critical impact on your success in life (personal and professional). A couple of days ago I wrote a blog about Act or React and the importance of being aware of the mechanism of reaction – stopping the automatic reaction when our buttons are pushed…
Today I’m giving you a chance to “test yourself”
By becoming aware of how you think and help you understand what conditions positively and negatively affect your thoughts, you will be able to listen to your personal advisors and make better decisions. The STEP Model provides an opportunity to select words and phrases that describe how you communicate in different situations and help you to…
–> Understand what motivates you in different situations
–> Use words to describe how you are in those situations
–> Use your self-awareness to hear your personal advisors and make better choices
Select a situation as the focus for your self-assessment. For example, a work situation might be handling customers on the phone or leading a team or teaching a skill. A home situation might be dealing with your teenager about using your vehicle (or if you are the teenager – dealing with your parent about staying out late on a Saturday night )
Select and circle a total of five words or phrases from all columns that best describe the way you communicate in that siuation. Any combination is possilbe including the seclection of all five words in one column.
S
Stable, Cooperative, Specialist, Laid Back, Feeling secure
T
Thorough, Questioning, Perfectionist, Unemotional, Doing things right
E
Emotional, Outgoing, People oriented, Talkative, Being liked
P
Pusher, Assertive, Controlling, Quick, Getting results
Total the number of items (phrases or words) you circled in each of the four columns (S-T-E-P).
The column with the highest point total (or if tied with another column) represents your communication style in that specific situation your chose. Stable – Thorough – Emotional – or – Pusher. Then contact me by email or phone (see Contact information page) with your result and I will, free of charge, give you information that shows the relationship between each STEP style and emotionally intelligent thinking and examples/describers how you think, feel, and comunicate in situations that are motivating and positive, situations that tend to be most satisfying and stimulating to you, situations that tend to be irritating and annoying and cause you to disconnect from all your advisors, especially the logical advisor and finally, give you the warning signals that describe your emotions and thoughts when you are reacting automatically.
Go ahead – do the self-assessment – and get in touch with me. It’s FREE, it’s fun and it’s an eye-opening exercise! Get to know yourself a little better and be more effective in every day situations!
Ask your teenagers (and if you are the teenager reading this, ask yourself) before going to a party, an event or when “hanging out” – “There may be people drinking. Have you thought about how you’re going to handle that?” Then really listen to their answers…
There’s nothing better, EVER, than talking about ANY issues with your teenager. It’s a choice we as parents would have to make AND it then becomes our kids’ choice, once they know the facts, risks, and implications, how to become responsible drinkers or how to completely stay away from alcohol and other drugs. In today’s WSJ there was an interesting article that I recommend you discuss with your teenage kids at the dinner table tonight.
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!
Reacting means to act again, re-act. Reacting is based on what we already know and we do it automatically which is in an emergency is very useful but in a relationship the same automatic reaction may not be in our best interest. If we can be aware of the “mechanism of reaction”, when our buttons are being pushed, and stop the automatic reaction we could be much more evenly balanced, avoid problems and experience a much higher degree of happiness.
An example in a relationship is when we react to the present situation which is SIMILAR to the past ones. For example having had an abusive father, now you think ALL men are abusive. Another example would be if your parents always told you what to do and now you get angry and resistant to ANYONE even asking you to do something. In these situations you often tend to blame others for “making you feel that way” or “making you do certain things”. Being responsible for your actions means that you are able to respond, thus response-able. That’s the alternative. Responsiblity is a matter of free choice; it is an exercise in free will. Responding is not subject to your feelings but it is rather an intentional choice in accordance with your values, ethics, and morals.
So, taking responsibility for anything and everything that happens to you in your life, no matter how unreasonable it may be, will make you more content, powerful, successful and ultimately happier than merely reacting to what happens to you. Take charge – Be responsible.
Learn more about your attitudes and values by taking advantage of my FREE consultation.
Some parents understand what a teenager is supposed to be doing with her life. Some parents have a hard time understanding. Many are somewhere in between. But only the teenager herself knows that growing up is all a chain of events and that each phase she is going through depends on the earlier stages being properly fullfilled. It also means that “I can only do these things well if I know that no matter what happens, you’ll [parents] be there for me when I come back.” Wise parents know this and fortunate teenagers feel this unequivocally from their families. The search for an identity is about courage and faith to leap into what you expect to be shallow waters but end up being the deep ocean. The searching is full of surprises, painful at times, exhilarating, exciting and scary at the same time. But knowing your core values, knowing what’s right and wrong, using your judgement and intuition to overcome obstacles and hardship will, after a few years of systematic searching, make you realize that you’ve embraced your life for all it’s worth – as your own. It scares parents at times, and it scares you, the teenager, at times. Have a dream – our dreams come out of our personal experiences, which are unique and valuable regardless of what anyone tells you.
For more about the values and attitudes you have and how they play an important role in your Family Relationship or any other relationship and interaction with friends, peers and adults visit my website for more information.
