Paste: Paste up Your Personal Mission Statement

July 19, 2018 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By

Post a copy of your goals, your vision, your ideal day, your life line, or your treasure map someplace where you can review it daily or weekly. Creating a visual reminder of the big picture you seek sets it in your mind and generates internal motivation and pictures to energize and inspire you. Sometimes we get so caught up in the day to day issues, inconveniences, and irritants of living, that we forget the big picture. Sometimes we need that big picture to help pull us through some of that yucky stuff we have to wade through to get to the other side.

I have made a habit of doing an annual mission statement and personal vision for my ideal life as well as writing down 100 things that I want in my life. I have been doing this for 20 years and find it quite interesting to see what was on my first list. Some things on your list may be easy to acquire or accomplish and other things may take you many years to achieve. It’s always good to have intermediate milestones to whet your appetite for more success.

Research has shown that our energy is enhanced when we are actively working on achieving a goal. I keep my treasure maps in my walk-in closet. I have also had them in my garage and inside my medicine cabinet door. One study concluded that 39% of the people who use your bathroom will look inside your medicine cabinet, so I decided to give them a show with my treasure map.

Reaffirming our mission on a continual basis gives us strength and energy to handle our challenges. The benefits of visualizing what we desire have been proven time and again. Seeing a picture of yourself in a positive state in the future sends a signal to your brain and your body to prepare for this end state and you subconsciously start behaving in ways to make it true.

Physical energy accounts for only 30% of our total energy while 70% of our energy comes from our emotional energy. Emotion is energy in motion. Get yours in motion through positive visualization. I have found that creating Treasure Maps – posters of pictures and words that you have cut and pasted from magazines that represent what you want in your life are like magical magnets to what you visualize for your life. The act of physically creating the poster and being on the lookout for images to add whenever you skim through a publication keeps your visions on the top of your mind and you are more likely to act in a manner that is congruent to achieving your vision if you see it clearly each day. Get your scissors, glue, and poster board ready.

 

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F10 “Often”: Do What You Love Often

May 19, 2016 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By

I’m sure you have heard “do what you love and the money will follow”.  Well, so will your enthusiasm. The time you spend on something is directly proportional to the priority you give it in your life.  Watch how and where you are spending your time to get a true picture of what you subconsciously think is important. Consciously choosing to do what you love often will increase your sense of control over your time and your life. (And your time is your life energy, remember?)

It may help to schedule a date with yourself on your calendar to block out the time to do what you love. List-makers know the power of the written plan. Take a look at the list of all the fun things and energy inserts you like to do and make time for creative renewal. When we are burned out, rusted out, pooped out, and tuckered out, then we have no energy left to give to others. If we don’t fiercely guard our personal energy by doing what we love often, then we run the risk of running on empty and not being there for others when they need us most. To be at our peak energy, we need to take care of ourselves, employ a healthy lifestyle, and honor our wants and our needs to be true to ourselves for optimum health.

A healthy lifestyle includes: hobbies, hope, honesty, home, heart, holistic thinking, happiness, hand-holding, healing, helping, humming, hanging out, hiking, good hair days, humanity, and honoring the human being inside the human doing.

I couldn’t imagine a life full of energy that wasn’t filled with these things. Currently stress costs American industries over $150 billion annually. What healthy habits are you cultivating to avoid being a statistic? Try including a new activity per week or a couple per month to get in the habit of practicing healthy lifestyle choices for a longer, enriching, and energized life.

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You Know You’re Not Living Your Life Purpose When…

January 11, 2011 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By

After working with many entrepreneurs, employees and others out of alignment with their life purpose and having experienced it myself from time to time; I decided to share in the Jeff Foxworthy fashion, how you know if you’re not in sync with your calling.

  1. You’re tired all the time event when you get enough sleep
  2. Waking up is hard to do – you hit the snooze button a few too many times
  3. You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’ – not in the mood for that or anything – you’re just blah, flat lined
  4. You or your friends notice your vocal tone has flat lined – there’s no excitement or optimism in it
  5. You don’t feel excited about life or you’re not optimistic about the future
  6. You can’t wait to leave your job each day and get home or can’t wait for the weekend
  7. You collect stuff, have too much stuff or spend too much money on stuff to fill the emptiness inside you
  8. You eat or drink too much, stuff your face with too much stuff to again fill the empty hole inside
  9. You take too many vacations to get away – nothing wrong with vacations, I’m a big fan of them – it’s all in the mindset of wanting to go someplace, explore, recharge, refresh or are you running away to escape from your life or are you getting away to add to your life – are you hiding out or living large?
  10. You hear the words “this is stupid”, “This is insane”, “They should do….” coming out of your mouth way too often
  11. You catch yourself citing all the ways your boss or your organization “should” be doing their work
  12. You are shoulding way too much on yourself and others in your personal or professional life
  13. You’re not making the income you so richly deserve and desire
  14. You feel like somebody or something is holding you back – you could be more, achieve more, do more
  15. You’re mentally and emotionally exhausted all the time – your work doesn’t charge you up, it drains you
  16. You dread Mondays or whatever day of the week is your Monday – you have lower energy on Monday than on Friday
  17. You keep wishing something would happen in your life to make you happy
  18. You’ve been ‘retired’ on the job for the past umpteen years, but you keep showing up for work each day
  19. You just clock in and clock out – you’re physically at work, but mentally you’ve checked out – you only do what they ask of you and not one thing more
  20. You’ve lost the fun in your life and your sense of humor is waning
  21. You’re more of a spectator in life rather than a participant
  22. You’re living in the future too much and not experiencing this moment right now
  23. You feel like you’ve got something to contribute, but not sure what, why or how
  24. You’re feeling stuck and don’t know how to get out or move forward
  25. You lack initiative and drive to do better or do more or serve more
  26. You look forward to your 10-minute break or you live for your lunch hour and quitting time
  27. You wait until you leave your job to lead your life
  28. You only do your job for the paycheck and the money is your only reward
  29. You wear a uniform or a nametag and hate it
  30. You wear an embarrassing costume and you’re not on stage as a performer
  31. You’re constantly being told what to do by incompetent people or somebody in high school as your boss
  32. You’re not working with people you like, trust, are proud to be around
  33. You’re not feeling proud of what you do for a living or taking pride in yourself, your image, your life
  34. You’re not happy and you’re not sure how to fix it or where to turn
  35. You know you need help to get your act together and are too fearful to quit your job or make a change or ask for help

So there you have the tip of the iceberg for starters. If you recognized yourself in any of those scenarios, then you may not be working in alignment with your life purpose. And if you have no idea of what your life purpose is, then you’re in the right place. My colleague Margaret and I have put together an overview in our free teleclass on how to crack the code to your calling. It’s all in your personal DNA – we just help you see it and show you how to use it to your benefit and the benefit of the world.

Contact me for the link to the call Cracking the Code to Your Calling – learning your life purpose.

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