It was not the original plan – working together on one project, then discovering how it helped us move on to separate projects – but that’s exactly what Carolyn and I found this summer.

We both came to know the truth, but first had to leap over some real resistance to changing our plan, as we love working together!

As we’ve all heard by now… it’s all good…

Another good thing: we get to continue supporting each other as we continue to grow our businesses.

So, look for Carolyn at Backyard Pearls, and here at Life Come True, look for a new blog launch, along with some beautiful, streamlined offerings right around the corner.

In the meantime, take some time to scan your own current projects, at home and at work – especially those you feel are moving too slowly, or that feel locked up.

Ask yourself the following:

* Is there a single change that I can make that would resolve this?

* Am I keeping a curtain closed? Is there something I’ve not acknowledged because I am assuming that in doing so, I’ll face only unappealing solutions? What if there are positive choices behind that curtain?

* Is there a way to take the original idea and do it better, and in less time?

Don’t just ask; listen deeply for your answers. By courageously looking at your truth in a situation, you offer yourself an opportunity to grow past your limitations.

As Marriane Williamson put it:

“…no one will listen to us until we listen to ourselves. The Goddess awakens in our hearts before she awakens in the world.”

I always thought I needed a good 8 hours of sleep a day to be my best. Perhaps even seven. Less than that, and I figured my day would suffer. You know the feeling when you ache in vague places and your thinking is fuzzy? Your productivity equals that of a gnat and your mood is even lower?

Recently my husband and I had a weekend getaway, and for some inexplicable reason, two days before we left I had a hard time sleeping. My tally of ZZZs for the evening — 3. The night before we left, the same thing happened, leaving me with only 2 hours of sleep that night.

So, when we headed out for our trip in the morning, I fully expected the worst (until I caught that thought and changed it!).  Instead, I found myself not only with plenty of energy for the rest of the day, but with more than enough as I powered out for a late afternoon hike and stayed up late for dinner and conversation.

This wasn’t a case of magical thinking creating the outcome I wanted. There were many factors involved, and all of them had to do with having the tools of Energy Management at hand. For instance, as we were getting ready to leave that morning, I found myself getting grouchy as I sometimes do when I feel rushed and am worried about packing all the right things. I was about to make an irritable comment to my husband, when I felt the energy drain of being in that state of mind and making that comment.

Instead, I chose to conserve. By quieting my mind for a few minutes and deciding not to project my mood outward, I was able to plug that leak. For the rest of the day, whenever I found myself getting unnecessarily drained by a reaction or activity, I stopped and conserved instead. This led me to not only an ok day, but to a sublime day of connection with my husband and myself.

Next time you find yourself with what you feel is less than adequate sleep, watch yourself as you go through your day. See where you are casually tossing energy away, and where you can conserve it. See just how “energized” you can be — no matter how much sleep you’ve had!

A good stretch always feels good, right? So, why not stretch beyond the typical spring cleaning thoughts that saturate us this time of year? As bursting botanicals freshen the air, why not invite this season of change to go to your head? How? By adding simple things that not only cure the commonplace, but also keep your brain fit!

Spring is an ideal time to revive your life by stretching past your customary ways of doing things — and I’m not just talking closet cleaning routines here. (In my world, that’s a continual process anyway!)

Try catching yourself in mundane moments and wake up to some of the choices you have available to you. Why not:

* Start a new project from the completion end

* Choose a new, interesting location for your next meeting (what about a museum coffee shop, or a picnic table at a park)

* Explore how it feels to eat, brush your hair, or put away files with your “other” hand

* Expand your exercise routine by adding new music or movements

* Is it time for a brand new look for your hair or wardrobe?

The possibilities are endless. And the benefits go way beyond brightening our everyday moments. On the “Brain Fitness Program,” a PBS special this week, scientists discussed how playing outside of our habitual sandbox is essential for keeping brains healthy.

So, shake things up! This isn’t one to add to your list; just dive in. Keep it light – just like a spring breeze on your face as it blows back your hair. Reach up (with your non-dominant hand) and strrrretch…

The spring season brings in delicious, new energy for all. As you witness fresh life burst into color all around you, reach out and grab a handful for yourself. Use it to inspire your own life changes.

Be wise with this newborn energy by taking time to reflect on what you want to improve or alter. When you scan your choices for the actions that will pull you closer to what you want, prioritizing comes without effort.

I must admit I was skeptical when I heard about a great film that was 2 ½ hours long – and almost completely silent. Intrigued, however, I couldn’t help but to order it and find out how a movie stays afloat without words.

When “Into Great Silence” arrived, I put it in my player and started cleaning up in the living room. Surely they didn’t expect me to simply sit for that amount of time and watch a movie without words, did they? As I cleaned, I glanced over at the screen.

It reveals the day to day life of Carthusian monks, who live in a breathtaking valley in the French Alps. They live under a vow of silence (except during weekly walks, where they’re allowed to chat, and during daily praying and singing). The camera follows them as they peel oranges for lunch, or walk down the road, gravel crunching. We see the light hit the ancient charterhouse walls, and the leaves turn as seasons change.

As the movie went on, I found myself getting more and more drawn in, and finally the irresistible pull had me sitting, mesmerized, dishrag in hand. Each scene is like a work of art as the viewer watches rain fall into puddles, circles widening around each drop, or snowflakes drifting and settling onto rooftops as a lone bird calls through the silence.

I was drawn into the very rhythms of this life, the ebb and flow of rain and prayer, of sunlight and chanting. The spiritual simplicity of the movie wasn’t so much something to watch, as something to release into and experience. Deeply. It takes our busy minds a bit of getting used to, but once the movie’s quiet has made our minds still, there’s nothing left to do but be there as the images roll by…

Success and life balance can be a challenging twosome for a lot of entrepreneurs. When woman come for success/wellness solutions, some common ground can be seen in many of their visions, but is more often found in the challenges they face on their journey. These shared trials often blanket a closet full of outdated beliefs, or ill-fitting truths, that the woman possesses at the time.

I’ve pared down some common challenges with solution pieces that have proved powerful with women in coaching. At the time, certain questions were offered that invited women to reflect on, and if appropriate, re-choose their truths about their particular situation. I’ve shortened the process, distilling their findings in the following few blog posts. You can find them all under “The truth is…” category.

Challenge #1:

“I know I need to make changes for better work and life balance, but I’m just too busy – starting a change right now is impossible.”

The truth is…
You can’t continually ignore your need for change without trade-offs. If riding your life balance scale feels like you’re on a runaway train, you have to make changes now to avoid potential problems in your relationships, with your health and within your business.

Some who shared that they had been “getting away with burning the candles at both ends for years,” later found that living in that imbalance had slowly stolen from them over time.

If you’ve found yourself resisting an inner call for change, take a moment to imagine that you had to address your imbalance because of an emergency – like an accident or serious illness. If you had no choice — if you simply had to — what’s the first thing you would alter?

Some of my clients did the following…

* Took white-out to their planner pages.
* Started going to bed much earlier.
* Dropped one energy-sucking project completely.
* Stopped eating things they would later regret, and started eating food that made them feel good.
* Left work early and took a walk once a week.
* Quit their job.

The adjustment they thought of first was often the first one they implemented, proving that they had indeed adopted a new truth for themselves.

Feel free to share how you updated a truth of your own. Other women may benefit from a quick glimpse into your experiences.

My next post will be about Challenge #2: Inadequate support.

Support is fundamental in creating changes that stick. Our club members will soon experience support in many forms, from the monthly teleseminars, to the member’s forum.

Sign up to our mailing list to receive your taster call invitation. Already on our list? Expect your email invitation and details soon!

Stress for success stories come in all flavors, and at any hour. I was just slipping into bed after a late movie on Saturday when the phone rang. As the ring pierced the silence in the house, I thought of two things: it’s either a wrong number or something’s happened. Something had happened – and my son had called to tell me all about it. Too elated to remember the time, he’d grabbed his cell, eager to share his moment:
“I was last man standing at Improv night!”

This was actually his second Improv experience. The week before he’d called when he’d tried, and won, his first time out. He was more emotional then, sounding somewhere between stunned and cloud-walking, as he relayed that night’s details through adrenaline-soaked vocal chords.

This time, the more seasoned participants welcomed him back, thinking, as he was, that he was a lucky first-timer. He was bubbling, but calm as he shared the story of this second win. I heard no sign of the anxiousness he had felt the week before. I asked about his almost relaxed demeanor. His answer was so simple:

“I just showed up and let go. I’d already done it once and won, so I decided to go have fun this time.”

After this second win, the veterans of Improv night extended my son the ultimate compliment: They asked him (maybe not so jokingly?) not to return again. Apparently, he was winning with more than just luck.

Repeating success doesn’t automatically require us to repeat stress, yet many of us pull on our previous attempt’s anxiety as we would a favorite garment. Don’t our “wins” earn us the right to more confidence and more relaxation as we do what we feel called to do?

Most of us didn’t start our own businesses because we sought out a more stressful, adrenal-exhausting lifestyle. How often do we miss opportunities to just let go and have fun the second time around?

Explore your own answer by taking a quick peek at your success beliefs. Are you operating from what you believe it takes to succeed, or from someone else’s truths that you adopted somewhere along the way? It may take you a few tries to identify ones that don’t belong with you, but it’s well worth the investment.

What’s the best part? When you spot yourself acting from a mismatched belief, you have a choice: You can keep wearing the old one, or you can improvise until you exchange it for another — one that feels tailor-made, just for you.

This month, we’ll be announcing our first “taste of the club” calls. We’ll touch on beliefs during these calls, but we’ve designed a thorough, step-by-step belief inventory in our club program, making it easy to locate and exchange ones that don’t serve you.

If you haven’t signed up to the mailing list, do it now so you won’t miss our announcements. If you’re already on our list, tell a friend! We’re launching soon with a “Join With a Friend Special!”

The other day, I was at a friend’s house and we were chatting while she made brownies for a school fundraiser. As we talked, her daughter came home from school, slammed down her books, and said she felt terrible because she’d done poorly on a math test.

As she talked, her mood got worse and worse. “I never do well on tests,” she continued. “School is horrible and I’ll never survive!”

While this may be a typical bout of teen angst, she did what we all do from time to time. When her bad mood came to the door, she invited it in, let it lounge on the couch and fed it chocolates.

Typically, it’s been written that a mood lasts from 3-5 seconds before it changes. If we’re in tune, we can see the subtle changes and eventually it will pass. But if we aren’t aware, we start indulging it (with thoughts like “Oh, this always happens to me!”) and unintentionally feed it until it’s so big it can barely move, let alone get out the door.

This week, see what thoughts typically come to mind that amplify your moods? If you’d like, share them here on the blog, then thank them for visiting and scoot them along. They don’t need several servings of chocolate any more than we do!

Over the years, I’ve learned not to make long lists of goals for the new year. This year I feel especially opposed to the idea.

As I reflect over the last twelve months of coaching, I see women exploring the awareness steps needed to make genuine changes. These are far more necessary for women than making another neat and orderly list. One of the themes that’s especially popular is deep, unrecognized craving.

Beneath a layer or two of task-focus are true longings that ripple along steadily. These longings tap and stroke, waiting for us to raise our busy heads. When we actually take a moment to offer our attention, we invite something vital to surface. This is when our desire gets its turn.

Without our participation, however, this rippling may begin to feel like an irritable, inner tic. We might even have mislabeled one of these long ago as procrastination trying to tempt us away from what we plan to do. But ignoring a true hunger is a common cause of slow energy leaks within us, the kind that slowly add to our feelings of exhaustion.

So, how do we tell the difference between an important desire and a simple distraction (or even procrastination)? We have to be willing to be uncomfortable for a moment, willing to hand our attention over to the tapping for a moment. We have to trust — which can feel counter-intuitive as you race around, trying to get things done before the end of the day. But what if it’s actually very intuitive? What if it IS our intuition that’s been tapping?

One way to explore this question is to stop looking forward into this new year. Try stopping just long enough to hear a whisper, or clarify a feeling about what’s beneath the obvious. Perhaps you’ll hear a long-ignored priority, or a different truth behind a ripple you have running in the background right now. You might find something you knew was there all along. But then again, you might be surprised at what you hear.

Have you ever been in a situation when you were doing something that seemed to be quite normal… but judging from the reactions of others, you realized it wasn’t?

That’s what I encountered last week. With the end of the year approaching, we decided to switch dental insurance plans. There were a number of offices on the new plan, so I decided to check them out. I called to see how promptly they answered the phone, how friendly they were and to ask a few questions. Then, I picked my top three and paid an in-person visit. I walked in the door and took note of the clients in the waiting room, the décor, the attitudes of the people who worked in the reception area.

Then I stopped a moment and felt the energy of the place — relaxed, frantic, annoyed? Finally, I walked up to the receptionist and asked what to me was a reasonable question. I told her we were switching insurance companies and that I was considering their office, and could I take a look at one of the empty dental examination rooms? She looked at me as if I’d just asked for all their money! With suspicion, she replied that no, I couldn’t see one of the rooms, and why did I want to see it, anyway?

Therein lies the misunderstanding. To me, it made perfect sense to see the examination room to assist in my decision between offices. I already had my ideal in mind. A large window to look out of, soft music and hygienists who looked happy to be there. When I’m in a dentist’s chair, it’s a real benefit to have a bright, uplifting atmosphere. A small, dark room with stale air and no cheer is not where I want to have my teeth worked on. If I don’t have a choice, I accept what I need to. But when there’s a choice, I take comfort and atmosphere into consideration. After all, why not take care of myself in the best possible way I can? Why not get the extra bonus of a woodsy view during my anesthesia shot rather than a yellowed, peeling poster of tooth decay?

So many of us feel our environment isn’t important, and yet it impacts our moods and energy on many different levels. Think of the different places where you spend your time (home, office, nail salon, dentist) and see if they are supporting you — or something to be tolerated? I’ve happily settled on my new dentist office and, while I don’t imagine a trip there will be akin to going to a spa, I do know it’s a fit that will make it a more pleasant experience. In a small way, I’ve uplifted the quality of my life.