Category Archive:
Posted by Amy Hale on December 19, 2011 at 7:15 am
Do you push and push, day after day, not taking a break? Not even for a moment? I’m not talking about all of the work that you do. I’m talking about the self-bullying you do to yourself. Do you ever get tired of telling yourself that you “should” have done something different, or “If I hadn’t said that?”
You can take a vacation from your inner bully. Imagine what it might be like to not have that negative voice going on and on in your head. Think about how peaceful you could be. Think about all the things you could get done or even explore, if you’re inner bully wasn’t telling you no in some way.
You can write that summary. You can ride that bike, even if you haven’t rode in 20 years. Yeah, maybe your boss is a jerk- you don’t have to let that negative energy wrap you up for the rest of the day. (Yes, that’s negative self-talk, too.) What happens when you give permission for that negative voice to subside for just one day?
This week’s experiment:
Pick a day, not too far in the future – like today, for instance. Tell the negative inner voice that you’re leaving it for a vacation. This vacation can be for as long as you want, but it cannot be less than one day. Make a commitment to yourself to not be hard on yourself for at least one day.
Let me know how you do. What kinds of adventures did you allow your mind to take without that negative bully around?
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Posted by Amy Hale on December 12, 2011 at 7:30 am
How many times have you met someone, an expert or a so-called expert, and you said no to them because there was something, you couldn’t quite put your finger on it (or maybe you could) as why you wanted to say no? Or you felt it was easier to say no?
I hate to say it, but sometimes looks matter. I’m not talking about the dna that you were born with, but getting a client to say yes could come down to what you’re wearing (amongst other things).
Picture One: You’re meeting with an expert (in whatever area you need an expert in) and she or he is wearing khakis and nice shirt. This person is very casual and casual brings on a different posture and offers a more relaxed feeling. It also often allows a cubicle worker to get more done. What this business person says is great and might even be compelling. The product or service that this person is offering, however, has a pretty hefty price.
Picture Two: You’re meeting with an expert (in whatever area you need an expert in) and she or he is wearing savvy, expensive looking, business attire (doesn’t actually have to be expensive). This person is casual and has the movement and posture of a successful business consultant. What this business owner says is great and might even be compelling. The product or service that this person is offering, however, has a pretty hefty price.
Who do you have an easier time saying “no” to? Some of you might say the person in picture two.
However, the majority of people find it easier to say no to a person that resembles picture one.
Now if you do most of your business by phone or internet, it might not matter so much. It occurred to me to look at this one day as a couple of people came to visit me for a consultation and I was employing a “Casual Friday” type of attire. Still business like, but not a look saying “I’m very successful and you can be, too” look. The people loved the the service I offer, however, they didn’t move forward with it. One of them was kind enough to mention that I didn’t look the part because I was wearing khakis.
This made me think a bit about my own unconscious purchasing strategies. I have to admit I would rather purchase from someone who looks successful and looks the part which he or she is offering. I’m the first to say, I don’t judge people by the way they look and for the most part I don’t. However, in business, many of us find that we have some unconscious (and conscious) criteria of who to work with.
What are your thoughts on success, business and image? Do you think it’s easier to say no to someone who is dressed “the part?”
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Posted by Amy Hale on December 5, 2011 at 7:16 am
Do you want to make the most important relationships in your life work? What are the significant relationships in your life – examples: your spouse, your child, your boss, your colleague, your parent, your sibling — anyone who is a major player in your life.
What approach do you take in regards to particular major relationships? Do you make that relationship work, do you let that person walk all over you, or are you passive to the point where you’re just waiting to see what’s going to happen.
I’m often surprised that when someone comes in to talk with me about a relationship, they are usually waiting to see what’s going to happen next. This might look like a good 
choice at first, but the problem with this approach isthat if you wait long enough – you’ll inevitably see things you don’t like.
I’ve noted three key differences between a relationship that a person want to make work and one where the person is waiting to see if things will turn out the way they want.
First, you can choose your battles you can use the my way or the highwayapproach. In any of my relationships, there are certain areas I just won’t negotiate,including boundaries that involve my physical and mental well-being. It theline gets crossed, the person isn’t allowed to remain in my presence. However, inrelationships that I choose to wait and see, I give a more leeway to somepeople than I do others.
Forexample, if your 5 year old sticks her tongue out at you, is that a “dealbreaker” for the relationship? Of course not. If a friend sticks his tongue outat you and calls you a name, you might not like that. If you don’t, you mightjust use that as a “deal breaker” and relinquish the relationship.
Second, you can fix the problem or fix the relationship.As with anything, what you focus on expands. If you want to fix the problem,the problem becomes more evident. It also become less tolerable. When you decide that you want to make the relationship work, you bring in more of the concept of relating. You build on the better points of that relationship.However, if you’re in a “wait and see” relationship, and there’s a problem being focused on, you tend to re-evaluate the relationship.
Third, Many people care about things and what happens and some people over-care. When we decide to focus on making a relationship work, we don’t stop caring about ourselves and our own personal needs. When choosing for the relationship, we also don’t require to make our happiness dependent on relationship. On the other hand, when we are waiting tosee what happens and how things will turn out, we can get caught in the “over-care”trap. This means that when something doesn’t go your way, you take it personal and get caught in the never-ending cycle of inner argument and resentment.
Today’s Experiment:
Make a list of you top five important relationships.
Next to each one, decipher whether this is a relationship you have decided to make work or are you “waiting to see” how it turns out.
If you have chosen to “wait and see” in any of your relationships, experiment with how that relationship would change if you decided to make it work.
Let me know what happens. I love hearing from you.
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Posted by Amy Hale on November 28, 2011 at 7:10 am
Written by Steve Chandler
Professional people fall into two categories. There are doers and there are feelers.
Doers do what needs to be done to reach a goal that they themselves have set. They come to work having planned out what needs to be done.
Feelers, on the other hand, do what they feel like doing. Feelers take their emotional temperature throughout the day, checking in on themselves, figuring out what they feel like doing right now. Their lives, their outcomes, their financial security are all dictated by the fluctuation of their feelings. Their feelings will change constantly, of course, so it’s hard for a Feeler to follow anything through to a successful conclusion. Feelings are changed by many things……..biorhythms, gastric upset, too strong a cup of coffee, an annoying call from home, a rude waitress at lunch, a cold, a bit of constipation. Those are the dictating forces, the commanders, of a Feeler’s life.
A Doer already knows in advance how much time will be spent on the phone, how much in the field, what clients will be cultivated today, what relationships will be strengthened, what communications need to be made. A Doer uses a three-step system to guaranteed success: 1) They figure out what they want to achieve. 2) They figure out what needs to be done to achieve it. And, 3) They just do it. This is not a theory, this is the actual measured and observed system used by all super achievers without fail.
Whether you are a Doer or a Feeler has nothing to do with your character or personality. It has everything to do with choice. Choice is the key to it. You can choose either one, at any time, in any situation. So today, as you are challenged by situations, be sure to ask yourself, “What can I do about this?” instead of “How do I feel about this?” You’ll be very pleased with the day you have.
Nice job Steve Chandler. I highly recommend Steve’s work and he has written several books that you can find on Amazon.com. Just type in his name and there’s a nice list of them. He also has built a wonderful club called Club Fearless which can be found at http://www.clubfearless.net
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Posted by Amy Hale on November 14, 2011 at 9:24 pm
Have you ever wondered, “how did I get here? Life certainly isn’t turning out like I thought it would.”
A couple of months ago, I was speaking with a group of people who had come together to learn more about creating a better working environment for themselves. Many people believe that they are stuck in employment situations in which they cannot flourish or move forward. One person spoke up regarding her weight as being a problem for her in moving forward with her career. She heard comments about her weight from people around her and she was finding it hard to stick with a process for losing the excess weight.
Since her weight had been confronted from hearing comments of other people, I asked “Do you really dislike yourself the way your are, or, are you more hurt by the comments of other people? Which of these drives your weight loss more?” The woman thought for a moment and then said, “I really just want to be accepted. I think that I’m losing out on opportunities because of my weight. I really just want people to like me for who I am.” As we went on, this person realized she was trying to lose weight to please other people and not herself. She knew she was intelligent and could do more, but she thought others just didn’t see her that way.
What we really had to get down to is who are you going to let create your life? This is something we all have to think about whether we want to boost our careers, be healthier, or prosper in a marriage. It’s hard for many of us to move past the idea that our environment controls who we are and what our future holds, when in reality, the control lies within us.
This week’s experiment:
If you have been experiencing your life as externally controlled, here are some exercises that can help you regain your internal creative edge:
1. Take a break in your daily schedule to settle in with who you really are. Write down what you like about yourself and your life and then write down a few things that aren’t feeling good because they are prompted by other people. Review these lists and look at why you like certain things and why you don’t like others. Is it because you get a feeling of gratitude from yourself or is it because you’ve created a mold that others put together for you?
2. Take all of the desires that aren’t really yours, but the ideas of other people, and meditate on whether or not you really want these things in your life. Do they make you happy or do they only make the people around you happy? Are they truly necessary in your life?
3. Make the choice whether to keep the attitudes and desires of other people in your beliefs.
4. When you decide to relinquish one of the things that truly is not good for you, imagine a chalk board in front of you and erase the unwanted ideas that you previously took on as yours.
5. Write on this chalk board what you would like to include in your thoughts and desires. What will your life be like? Will you be happier? Will you enjoy yourself alone and with others more?
Moving forward in our own thoughts and desires can often take us through places in which negative attitudes hide and want to remain strong. By thoughtfully and deliberately revisiting what we truly want for ourselves can help us along our journey and expose these hidden beliefs that aren’t doing us any good. Being true to ourselves, we become more spiritually enlightened and enjoy the presence of our own company in a different light.
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Posted by Amy Hale on November 7, 2011 at 7:30 am
Do you have a goal that seems to just stay out there in front of you? One that you just can’t seem to wrap your mind around it. Maybe even a small goal seem huge for whatever reason. Just like many of you, I let goals get the best of me until I really learned to annihilate them.
If you have one or more goals getting the best of you, what could you do to make it smaller than you? Alicia works in sales and most of her sales begin with speaking with a potential client by phone. She always had trouble with making these calls. She would put them off and put them off, finding other tasks to keep her busy. Her initial goal was to call four people per day to invite them to review what she had to offer.
Sure this could be deduced to fear of rejection, this or that, however, we decided to try an experiment to help her crush that goal. Instead of letting that goal control her, she became bigger than that goal and began imagining her success as having made the calls and feeling the freedom of being successful.
To her surprise, she began making her calls earlier and earlier in the day and she was calling approximately nine people per day. She told me that her goal was something that she didn’t want to do, however when she decided to beat it down and use her mind to accept no as a no instead of no meaning she wasn’t enough, she was able to make more calls than she anticipated. To her further surprise, she 2/3 of the people she spoke with were interested in speaking with her further.
This weeks experiment:
Do you have a goal that seems to always be there or you have trouble maintaining certain tasks (such as calling customers on the phone)? How is it controlling you? How can you make yourself larger than it?
Make the decision to annihilate that goal. Laugh at it, stomp on it. Imagine having accomplished it and how you feel with it behind you. Use that as your motivation to follow through with it.
Then notice how easy it really is to blast your goals because you’re bigger than they are and you’re in control.
Let me know how you do.
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Posted by Amy Hale on October 24, 2011 at 6:54 am
Have you been putting off larger tasks because they seem so big? Or getting smaller tasks out of the way in order to immerse yourself into the larger task, except the little things keep cropping up and you don’t make much headway? That used to be what I experienced and those larger tasks or projects were the money making portions of my business. So what did I do?
I made the larger projects my first priority and created focus days. Now I take one or two days per week to focus entirely on the larger projects.
The smaller stuff doesn’t tend to generate income, so it can be organized into other times around my projects or an assistant can do the smaller things for me.
Focus Days are spent exclusively on high-income projects. This means no interruptions, email, phone calls (unless these are your high income activities). These days could be spent making proprietary systems or fine tuning the ones you have.
For a salesperson, Focus Days might include following-up with customers to see if their needs are met and contacting leads for future business.
Now if you don’t have someone to help you with the smaller tasks, you can create Support Days. These are the days you commit to tasks that help maintain your business. These are days you return phone calls, clear your inbox, file all of your papers, and set up more Focus Days.
With all of this, you must schedule at least one free day per week. If you don’t, you will suffer. Whenever I push myself further without a free day, my immunity goes down. So I’m a stickler for the free day. It relieves stress, lets you focus on non-business priorities, and allows you a day of fun.
A lot of people wince at taking breaks or time off, however, you will be more productive and more focused if you do so.
This Week’s Experiment:
First, figure out what your high income projects/tasks are and begin scheduling your Focus Days for later this week.
Second, use the days before as Support Days and plow through as much maintenance as you can.
Third, schedule your Free Day. Make a list of things you like to do. Go to a movie, take the kids out for a play day, or go for a hike. You will look forward to these days every week.
Remember why you are in business – to make money. So make sure you prioritize your high income projects into their own day. By organizing by the day, you’ll accomplish more and stress less.
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Posted by Amy Hale on October 17, 2011 at 7:26 am
Everyone uses their imagination on a daily basis. Whether it’s just daydreaming, worrying, remembering to get angry or something else. We play a movie in our head as to how our life is, how we’ve perceived and reacted to our experiences, as well as, fantasize about how things “should” be or could be better. Have you ever stopped to really think about what your imagination might be costing you? Although many of us don’t realize we use our imagination to hold ourselves back, we can use our imaginations to catapult us forward into the life we want.
Here’s an example. If you fear making cold calls or public speaking, do you play a movie in your head about what it would feel like to be rejected? Scolded? Humiliated? If you said yes, you’re not alone. Most people indulge their fears through their fictional movie theater between their ears. If we have a fear of something, like public speaking, our subconscious mind will help you remember every time you felt bad getting up in front of others to speak, probably even remembering that time in high school when you forgot and important detail while giving a report.
Confidence isn’t something that you just install with a magic bullet. Just like you have to exercise your body to keep it in shape, you must exercise your mental confidence. Just 5 to 10 minutes a day can help move you forward to speaking with ease, or developing confidence in other situations.
Instead of wasting the day and evening away thinking about all of the things that could go wrong, imagine how things could go right. Use your imagery to capture how you would stand, speak and listen, if you were already confident and knew you were going to do well.
I admit, I don’t love public speaking, however, I have learned some great techniques which help me feel better about giving presentations – even feel confident with practice.
This week’s experiment:
The Shape Your Success Film Theaters are now open. Take at least 5 minutes per day to imagine something going well that you used to fantasize would go wrong. Add a soundtrack if you’d like to. Make the movie screen larger than life with vivid colors. Record the movie on your imaginary DVR to play back at any time.
As your move plays out, you’ll see images of success from your past as well as future scenes that haven’t even happened yet.
When you’re really imagining your success well, float out and toward that movie screen and place yourself in the movie. Merge yourself with the successful you. Hear through the ears, see through the eyes, feel through the calm and enlightened nerves of the successful you.
Notice where you feel those feelings of success strongest. Give those feelings a shape and a color. Moving the color to the top of your head and all the way down to the soles of your feet. Let the successful feelings expand as you float back to your body. Place your first finger and thumb together on your dominant hand and anchor those feelings in so that you can recall those successful feelings any time you want to.
Let me know how you do.
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Posted by Amy Hale on October 10, 2011 at 5:30 am
Do you have a habit of making list after list and not getting anywhere with it? Does it grow and grow until you feel overwhelmed? This was me a few years back. I couldn’t quite get a handle on what I thought I needed to do. I put my to do lists aside and for about a week it was uncomfortable. Even though I rarely checked anything off of my list, I seemed to need to have a list.
What I did was, I created a system of making a “done list.” Now I write down what I have done instead of what I think I need to do. What a difference! I’m surprised at how many things I have finished that remained on my to do lists for days, weeks, even months.
For example, my to do list would look something like this:
TO DO:
Write script for reducing insomnia
Re-caulk the tub
Wash windows
Take cat to groomer
My whole list was actually much larger than this, but I just kept putting them off. I was disorganized with my doing-ness.
When I decided to write things down after I completed them, I was surprised to find out how much more I felt I accomplished.
DONE:
Picked up dry cleaning
Wrote newsletter
Went for morning walk
Finished doing dishes
Met with three clients
Wrote 12 pages for workshop.
Made dinner for family
Paid bill
When I looked back at it, it felt really good. Now, I’m compelled to make sure I keep a done list, so that I can appreciate everything that I do. It’s very rewarding.
This weeks exercise:
Put aside your to do list. Start keeping a “Done” list. Watch how easily your fill your day and get things done. Everything seems to be accomplished quicker, too. What a difference it will make. Instead of looking at a challenging list, now you’ve got all of your accomplishments listed before you.
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Posted by Amy Hale on October 3, 2011 at 8:30 pm
If you’re looking to change your life or change even a part of it, give yourself some space. Change doesn’t happen overnight, nor should it. Many people that I know think making even small changes should be easy. But what really happens when you make a change? Usually we become uncomfortable in some way. If you’re changing a habit then the discomfort discourages a person and that person goes back to the habit he or she is wanting to replace. So what is the best way to create a better life, habit or reality?
Slow down. Clear a space for yourself. It’s imperative that you have a place to do the work that needs to be done. If you don’t, you’ll just be throwing chaos on an old wound or sabotaging your efforts right from the start.
Be aware of your surroundings. Are you living in clutter? Can you see the surface of your desk? Are the kid’s toys everywhere? Tremendous energy can surface from de-cluttering your surroundings. Inspiration can be found when you can see your desk and it’s organized. Take a moment and look around. Where are you residing? In a clean, organized environment or are you looking around at piles of magazines, toys, clothing, and dirty dishes, or whatever else might be cluttering your area?
Right now, get up and do something. Take 10 minutes to just dig in and put something in its place or make a place for it. That’s all it takes to start. Take 10 minutes per day to de-clutter your space.
Here are some tips to help you keep going…
If you haven’t used it in the past 90 days, can you get rid of it? Are you keeping things in case you need them in the future? The universe reads this as you don’t trust your future if you hang on to things you don’t currently use. This adds to an unconscious awareness that the future holds lack. No one wants to lack money, health or anything else.
If you would like to read more about Space Clearing, a great book to start with is Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui by Karen Kingston. She has so many valuable tips including why to make sure certain spaces are clean and also stories of how people transformed their lives by just living in an organized home.
If your task looks overwhelming, just start with a corner. Get bags or boxes together to place items in. Make separate bags/boxes for things to move to another area of the home, throw away, and think about because you’re not quite sure whether or not to keep it. This will help you keep from cluttering another area.
Once you have a nice space cleared, set up a peaceful relaxing atmosphere. Make a place for yourself, even if it’s just the corner of a room, to really become tranquil and peaceful. A place where you can meditate, journal, or read a novel.
If after you have cleared your space, you still don’t have a place to call your own, think about where you could go. Be creative. I used to have to use my car to find a peaceful place. I would come home after a long day at work and notice the silence as I turned off the engine of my car in the driveway. It was amazing. I treasured every second that it lasted.
It really is important. An organized home means an organized mind. The benefits can be truly life altering. One of my clients told me that she her husband was having a hard time finding a new job so cleaned the closets, drawers, junk room (where all those things are that you never use), and within two weeks he found a new job. There can definitely be a connection to clutter and negative energy.
If you really want to transform your life, let’s get going. Pick a room or a corner and start organizing your space. Next time I’ll be helping you de-clutter your mind. I’ll be coaching you to become aware of how you really speak to yourself and hypnotize yourself into believing things that just aren’t true.
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Do you push and push, day after day, not taking a break? Not even for a moment? I’m not talking about all of the work that you do. I’m talking about the self-bullying you do to yourself. Do you ever get tired of telling yourself that you “should” have done something different, or “If I hadn’t said that?”
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