Negativity

Every now and again you run into someone that does not have anything positive to say. That Negative Nancy or Nicholas insists on sharing horrible tales of injustice and songs of woe. Hearing them whine and complain about the sunrise or the effervescent giggles of a small child, you begin to wonder when they swore an oath to be a contradictory wet blanket. Then, every now and again you look in the mirror and see that Negative Nancy or Nicholas starting right back at you. How many times have you heard yourself complaining and wished you knew how to back away from that place of doom and gloom? You hear yourself revving up into a full on rant and you wished you knew how to interrupt the slide down that slippery slope.

What you need is a Negative Nancy/Nicholas Emergency Preparedness Plan. This is a scramble code to activate during your Negative Nancy/Nicholas tendencies and quickly get back to feeling more peace, love, joy, and hope. Like any good emergency plan, taking a few precautionary steps can help you be ready to quickly respond when these emergencies arise.

Have a Negative Nancy/Nicholas Awareness Check List - we all know certain things work on certain days. When you are in a negative space, it can be difficult to come up with positive actions to take. Not every strategy works for you all the time so having a check list to fall back on will help you remember creative ways to get back into a positive place.

So what is on your Negative Nancy/Nicholas list?

Start Your List Within - look for strategies that you can do for yourself and by yourself. You are more powerful than you think. Besides, if your go-to strategy involves someone else, how will you cope when that person is not around to kick start your joy? No one is responsible for your moods but you. You have everything you need within you to handle what’s going in with you. Start looking for the powerful solutions to your fussiness within.

Prepare a List of Positive Actions - what can you do in the moment to address what’s making you so fussy? Nothing is off the table but I find the most simplistic things normally work better and faster than a more complicated solution. Sing, dance, walk, meditate, make a list, speak positively, listen or watch omething positive, help someone else, drink some water, take a nap.

What other positive actions can you think of that would bring you more peace, love, joy, and hope?

Now when your inner Negative Nancy/Nicholas shows up, you’ll have all the tools you need to kick back into a space of unspeakable joy!

Gratitude

It’s hard to believe that the holiday season is once again upon us. The holidays can be the most stressful time of year – not because of what actually is, but what we have been conditioned to expect. Precious few of us have the kind of situations depicted in those Norman Rockwell pictures… and the Huxtable’s exist only on television.

The truth is far too many people have accepted fantasy as the standard. Real people have drama, trauma and uncomfortable stuff to deal with. It’s a part of life. So, with Thanksgiving just around the corner, what is there to be thankful for? Just look around.

Regardless of our circumstances, there is something to be grateful for. It is our responsibility to see the glass not half empty – not even half full. We must always see the glass running over. The way we feel about any situation is directly linked to our attitudes.

When starting your day, don’t pull out that mental list of things to do. Before you even get out of bed, take a few moments to think about things that make you feel good, those things that bring a smile to your face. Then give thanks for all of the good things you have in your life… even if on the surface it doesn’t seem like much.

Before you know it, that gratitude list will get longer and longer and you’ll notice that your day will go a whole lot smoother.

Weather Conditions....

So how’s the weather in your neck of the woods today? No, I’m not asking about tropical storms or sunny skies. I’m asking about how you are feeling on the inside. What’s your mood like right now?

Check your internal weather conditions frequently. Live today like the Weather Channel. What do you notice when you check in? What name would you give to how you are feeling right now?

Why do I ask? Well, because what you are experiencing in this moment is attracting more of the same in the next moment. Like attracts like. Negativity breeds more negativity. Doubt breeds worry and fears. Anger generates rage. Powerlessness facilitates despair. Panic makes bad decisions.

When you mix enough of the wrong stuff together, you get a perfect storm. Your thoughts emotions and speech influence what comes next in your life and how you perceive it. Just like a weather forecast, you can check your internal Doppler radar conditions and predict with a high measure of accuracy what’s coming next.

So if what you are experiencing in this moment is attracting more of the same in the next moment, do you like what you are experiencing? If so, keep doing what you’re doing.

If not, here are some quick tips to get out of that storm path and move into sunnier place.

• Be Thankful - Nothing clears stormy skies faster than gratitude and joy. Identify things in your life that you can be grateful for.
• Listen to How You Speak. - You can move yourself into higher ground just by being powerful in your language. Select words that describe a positive powerful ideal state instead of words that call to mind where you don’t want to be.
• Pay Attention to the Thoughts Running Through Your Mind. - Are you thinking more about what you want or what you don’t want? Just be aware of your thoughts and challenge the ones that come from fear uncertainty and doubts.
• Look at what you are doing - If you were taking action as your most powerful purposeful self, would you be engaging the way you are right now?

Regardless of what the weather conditions look like outside, if you check your weather conditions within, you can enjoy variations of your favorite seasons 365 days a year! Wouldn’t that make you want to go singing in the rain?!

Effective Delegation

Delegation helps develop employees, build team capacity, and free managers to work on key corporate initiatives. Yet many of us still choose to hold on to work that others can do. Take a look at your calendar, to-do list, and project plans. See if there are items you can delegate to others with:

1. A clear objective
2. A deadline for the delegation to be complete
3. Training to do the task or project (if necessary)

As you review your list for work you can delegate, keep this in mind: If you are doing something somebody else can do, it's keeping you from doing only the things you can do.

Get Unstuck!

Get Yourself Unstuck from the Muck  - Somehow you are stuck in some real muck. It doesn’t matter what the muck is, or why you are there, or even how you got there. Put all of that aside for right now. Do not analyze the muck or beat yourself for being in muck in this moment.
The only constructive thing you can do you when you are stuck in muck is to get unstuck.

Here are 5 great strategies to get unstuck from the muck. Any or all five may be needed. You won’t know what works for you until you do it. On any given day, one strategy will work better than another. Be flexible and trust yourself to use any or all these strategies as the circumstances dictate.

1. Revisit Your Why - Why does this even matter to you? How meaningful is the thing you are trying to accomplish. It is so easy to get distracted and tied up into things that are not necessarily meaningful to you. If you are honest with yourself and realize it is not meaningful, this is the time to begin your exit strategy. However, if it is meaningful to you, there will at least be some tiny bit of inspiration, some motivation, and some hope attached to why you want to make this happen. Focus on your why.
2. Write Down a Plan - There are a million thoughts running through your head about this situation. Some useful, some not so useful. Do a quick brain dump and help yourself begin sorting out the helpful ideas and thoughts. Even if the plan is a simple list of projects to do, writing it down helps you to stop trying to work it all at once. It shifts your brain into action mode and away from running in circles fretting. Prioritize your plan of action and get moving.
3. Take 1 Step in the Right Direction - Now that you are operating from your most powerful purposeful self, this one is simple. Ask yourself what makes the most sense for you to do right now. Do it.
4. Be Positive - Once you start moving, you may begin to shift back into thinking and fretting. Pay attention to your thoughts and how you are speaking about this situation and life in general. Challenge any and all negative thoughts and self-defeating statements with positive statements of hope, peace, joy, and success.
5. Do Something Fun - Perhaps the only thing you need to get unstuck from the muck is to allow yourself to have a bit of uplifting fun. Every overachiever needs a break. Be creative. Be simple. Be honest with yourself about what you need right now to feel laughter, fun. It can literally lift your spirits. Getting yourself unstuck from muck can be as simple as allowing a bit more space for you to feel good even for just a moment. Try it.

Don't Give Up.......

Now is NOT the time to give up or give in. You are purposeful and wonderfully made. This moment may be terrible. It may be the worst that you ever thought it could get. This is a temporary situation. There is always hope and you’re stronger than your current circumstances.

Yes, of course it’s difficult. It may even be terrifying. And that’s okay. There is always hope and you are stronger than your current circumstances. You’ve made some terrible awful horrible choices to get to where you are right now. And guess what? We all have. Do you know what we have learned from making terrible awful horrible choices?

There is always hope and we are stronger than our current circumstances. So are you. We learned that at any given moment, we can choose to make better decisions. So can you. We can choose to learn enough about how we made this bed to know how to lie in it just long enough to get up out of it. So can you.

You’re not the first person to royally utterly and totally fail. I know that doesn’t help because right now where you are, it seems like this is the most hopeless situation that ever was. You have no clue how to get up or if there is any way to make things better. You’re over your head and clearly in need of a miracle.

It’s a good thing there is always hope and you are stronger than your current circumstances, right?! Just take a moment from beating yourself up or looking for someone else to blame and just…breathe. Really, it’s okay. Just enjoy some deep cleansing breaths right now. Allow yourself to relax just a bit.

There is always hope and you are stronger than your current circumstances. Say that with me: There is always HOPE and I am STRONGER than my current circumstances.

So what if you allowed yourself the possibility of being in this mess without judgment – just for today. Consider it a temporary reprieve. Remember that time you realized there was hope where you saw no hope? Remember that time you proved to be stronger than those circumstances? Yes, remember how awesome that felt? Remember how great it was to move past that place?

So what could you do in this moment to begin making better decisions? Don’t look behind you. Look ahead. Focus on where you want to be and how you want to feel. Get up out of your own issues for a moment and look to see what you can do to help someone else. You might just find that helping others, in a strange way, helps you in ways you didn’t imagine.

Guess what. There is always hope and you are stronger than your current circumstances.

Detox Your Mind

     We hear a lot about detoxing our bodies and how there are chemicals in our food that can be harmful, certain hormones and bacteria that can build up, even pesticides in the air. Many people don’t realize their bodies are full of harmful toxins and that’s what is causing them to feel bad. Most experts recommend you go through a deep cleansing where you put yourself on a fast and then eat a certain diet, staying away from things that are harmful. They say over time you’ll rid yourself of those toxins and begin to feel better.
     In the same way, there are all kinds of toxins that can build up in your mind. When you dwell on what you can’t do and the hurts you’ve felt and the challenges you face, you are focusing on toxic thoughts that can do as much damage as toxins in your body.
     Toxic thoughts build up and become like toxic waste that will eventually contaminate your whole life. They affect your attitude, your self-esteem and your confidence. They become part of who you are. Above all else, guard your heart for everything that you do flows from it. You probably know someone who is bitter, cynical and has a sour attitude. They expect the worst. Why is that? They’ve allowed toxic thoughts to take root. These negative thoughts are poisoning their future.
      Make guarding your mind a priority, put it at the top of your to-do list. If your mind is polluted, your whole life will be damaged. If you ignore toxic thoughts and keep your mind filled with thoughts of hope, thoughts of faith, then those toxic thoughts will be starved and will grow weaker, and before long they won’t have any effect on you.

What is Leadership?

When asked which employees they would keep when it comes to leadership skills, employers say, "The ones who are willing and able to assume a leadership role and take charge when necessary and appropriate." So, what is leadership in today's organizations? Traditional organizations of the past had "bosses" who told their employees what to do. Then these bosses found that employees would do just that and nothing more!

In today's organizations, most "bosses" have taken on new roles. They realize that "bossing" others can destroy an employee's sense of ownership and pride. Today's organizations need leaders rather than "bosses".

♦ A boss possesses a title. A leader sets an example.
♦ A boss demands respect. A leader earns respect.
♦ A boss tells employees what to do. A leader inspires action in others and demonstrates the right way to do something.
♦ A boss focuses on "I". A leader focuses on "we".

Continual Personal Development

Your continual self-improvement is essential for personal development in life. A healthy child does not stop progressing after learning to crawl. He or she goes on to walk, and ultimately learns to run within his or her capacity. Each day is an opportunity to learn something new and to pursue knowledge about areas of interest and purpose in which you are passionate.

There is valuable wisdom within sound experience, but it is not recommended that you always totally rely upon what you may have learned or experienced eons ago. In every area of life, improvements and changes are continually taking place.

Below are four simple points to keep in mind for daily self-improvement:

1. Read books, trade magazines, journals, blogs and research articles pertinent to your area of interest.
2. Network and socialize with diverse individuals who share your interests and passions for living to keep abreast of new trends and areas of thought surrounding your interests.
3. Take courses available to you to advance your field of knowledge in your area of expertise or field of interest.
4. Travel internationally to learn about different customs, cultures and traditions surrounding your area of interest.

 

Discover Joy...

What lights your fire, floats your boat, puts a spring in your step? What makes time disappear for you? What motivates you to happily get out of bed in the morning?     
    It is great to discover why we do what we do, work where we work, engage in the business we do and find joy in our lives every day.  If you are fortunate enough to have family and friends around you who love you, we hope you share your time and hearts with them and embrace that joy fully.
    If you are in the group of people who also love your work and find joy in the everyday tasks and events associated with your work, you are doubly fortunate because you have discovered a secret-when work is fun, it is not work.
    We hope that you are in that group of people who love what they do. And if you are not in that group, maybe it is time to make a change and do something that will float your boat and make you happy while you work. It's OK to make a change, really it is. Scary, perhaps, but life is too short to be doing something every day and not be happy.
Here's to your happiness and Welcome To Living!

Peer Relationships...

Our peers can be a great source of support, information and camaraderie. Yet many of us get so busy we forget to take the time to nurture these important relationships. We often connect with our peers when we need something instead of creating mutually beneficial relationships throughout the year. This week, consider going to lunch with a peer and asking her/him the following:
•What's your greatest challenge right now?
•How can we interact in a way that would be even more effective?
•What can I do to best support you?

You will be amazed what you discover by taking the time to ask a few key questions and by sending the message that you care about the relationship.

Vote for Welcome To Living as the Best Small Business in Seattle!!!!

Vote for Welcome To Living as your favorite local business in Seattle. Click on the link below and you will find Welcome To Living under the Small Business tab, scroll down to #11 and VOTE!!

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/exclusives/socialmadness

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What Are You Focused On, Your Future or Your Distractions?"

Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning

List 1: Your Focus List (the road ahead)
What are you trying to achieve? What makes you happy? What's important to you? Design your time around those things. Because time is your one limited resource and no matter how hard you try you can't work 25/8.

List 2: Your Ignore List (the distractions)
To succeed in using your time wisely, you have to ask the equally important but often avoided complementary questions: what are you willing not to achieve? What doesn't make you happy? What's not important to you? What gets in the way?

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2009/05/two-lists-you-should-look-at-e.html?awid=9096134605609987456-3271

What Are You Focused On, Your Future or Your Distractions?

Create A Meaningful Life - Part II

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "If you are called to be a street sweeper, sweep streets even as Michaelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well."

Dr. King's quote is one that is steeped in choice, intention and right action and that power is ever-present with each breath we take. Isn't choice something we would all say yes to each and every moment? Of course, and yet we often unconscioulsy say no to choice because we rely on that automatic pilot-our habits, our ego-self that we have relied on for many years.

We don't even think about it. Many of us manage hourly, daily, weekly and yearly with our habits and ego guiding our thoughts, feelings and actions. To be unconscious to our own light and power could be due to many things: our lack of awareness of who we really are, our lack of discipline, our lack of a plan, our willingness to play small.

We just need to clearly remember and recognize who we are at the core of our being and act from that place of love and strength.

Create A Meaningful Life - Part I

The way we choose to think, feel and act directly comes from one of two places-our egos or our higher self. If ego or personality is at the root of our thinking, feeling and acting, our decisions/choices may be based on lack, survival, or fear. None of these would come from our higher self. Rather, our higher self shows up as possibility thinking, gratitude and inquisitiveness.

When we listen to our higher self, choices, decisions thoughts feelings and actions take on a whole new realm of possibility. Our perceptions are more objective, our thoughts are more compassionate, our feelings are more loving and our actions are in integrity.

New Beginnings

We may tend to think of a new beginning in terms of external change, but it actually begins as internal experience. It may be experienced as a subtle inner shift: a new sense of readiness, an inner awakening. Sometimes our dreams presage the New Beginning. Dreams of birth, of moving into a new house, of discovering something new are often signals that new life is emerging....

One of the best ways to prepare for a New Beginning is to discover your soul's deepest desire. A true New Beginning will be some expression of this desire. And how do we discover our soul's desire? This is an extremely personal endeavor, so it is difficult to give a "formula" answer. Here are some questions to ask yourself in order to facilitate this discovery:

1. What is it that I have always enjoyed doing?
2. What has always come naturally for me?
3. What would I do if I could not fail?
4. If I were to die today, what would feel unfinished in my life?
5. What is it that is so important to me that I would risk everything in order to achieve or experience it?

Why It's Really Okay to Mess Up....

If you've already broken your New Year's resolutions, don't sweat it: Every setback contains its own reward.

 

By Martha Beck
O, The Oprah Magazine | From the April 2012 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/What-to-Do-When-You-Mess-Up-Break-Your-Resolutions#ixzz1pi9cEcXV

Overcoming your Career Challenges and Creating the Journey of Your Dreams

What you tell yourself affects the way you behave. So if you think negative thoughts, you will behave in a way that confirms them. For example, if you think career fairs are a waste of time, you will avoid them. If you think instead that you might make some useful contacts, you will go.

Now changing your negative thoughts to positive ones does require a conscious effort not to get caught up in negative automatic thoughts. Here are some tips to keep you focused on your positives:

1. Notice when you are having these negative automatic thoughts. Understand your triggers as it will help you to minimize them or prepare to replace them.
2. Get yourself to stop the negative thoughts. Either by something simple as saying “stop” or placing a rubber band on your wrist and snapping it when you have the negative thought.
3. Replace the negative thoughts with positive ones about the same topic.
4. Get support from friends or family that are good at being positive.
5. Praise yourself for your little and big successes and do not engage in negative thoughts or punishing yourself when things don’t go well-take something positive from the situation — a learning lesson perhaps — that will keep you going forward.

Start today on facing the career issues that you have been avoiding and begin on a path where nothing is impossible and you let positive thoughts, not fear, define your future.

Game Changers....

What are the game changers for you? "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody is willing to die." But what does that have to do with game-changers? Everything!

Many people say that they want to see a radical change in their finances or they want a healthier lifestyle- they want more income, increased savings, or want to improve themselves through proper diet and more physical activity but the strange thing is that many are unwilling to change their vision, themselves, their processes, their expectations or their attitudes.

The stage is set for success for those who are willing to step out of their comfort zone. I'm not saying you have to "go to heaven", oh no. But if you want to experience some success, a great deal of success, or extraordinary success, decide just how uncomfortable you are willing to become-stretch that vision, push your own envelope, and remember to surround yourself with people who are already where you want to be.

Here's to your great success!

Identifying Self-Limiting Beliefs

Years of self-limiting beliefs may be sabotaging you without your realizing it. These beliefs reveal themselves in patterns that keep coming up again and again in your life. For example, you attract the wrong kind of romantic partner: “I can't attract a good man because I always fall for losers just like my Aunt Milly.” Limiting beliefs are often so ingrained that they may seem to be at the heart of who you are, the very core of your being.

Self-limitingbeliefs hold you back from most personal and spiritual growth. You may harbor a fear of failure, a fear of never finding Mr. Right, or the fear of success. Perhaps you have engaged in self-sabotage, working hard to achieve something only to undermine your hard work with persistent, self-defeating inner criticism. Or perhaps you have always equated success with “no pain, no gain.” With the Law of Attraction, you can have success and abundance and you do not have to suffer to achieve it. You do have to recognize and release self-limiting beliefs.

If you feel stuck or trapped, set goals for various areas of your life — spiritual, health, family, work, personal. List specific reasons that keep you from reaching your goals, and include what has stopped you in the past. Know that you have the power to release even the most ingrained beliefs and turn them around into affirmations of unlimited potential.

FEAR IS A CHOICE....

Fear is a choice although it often doesn’t feel that way when we are experiencing it. It’s created by our thoughts. Some fears are necessary as they are anthropologically related to are ability to sense danger and react, but most fears are not related to real danger, but a created one
that stops us from achieving our full potential.

Sadly, often in our society we receive messages that support living in fear–just watch the news or the media in general. However, if you accept that FEAR IS A CHOICE, you will have control
of it rather than it having control of you.