This week is all about taking action toward saying not and protecting your gifts, strengths, talents and your spirit!

Take Action! Five Steps to Setting Strong Boundaries and Saying NO

Step 1
Decide what you will and will not allow in your life. Define carefully how you want your life look, feel and be, then choose your boundaries and stick to them. Remember, saying no when necessary, means saying yes to something more enriching and more valuable: you.

Step 2
Just Say No! You are allowed to say no as often as you like. Don’t run yourself ragged just to gain approval.

Step 3
Detach your value from what others may or may not think of you. All you can do is your best, and you have no control over how others perceive you. Stay in integrity as best you know how and allow life to flow from this position.

Step 4
Tell the truth. Tell others what you will and will not stand for verbally and in action. Remember: you teach others how to treat you, so teach them well.

Step 5
Schedule time for you first. Until all of your emotional and physical needs are fulfilled, you will be unable to help others effectively. You must schedule time for yourself each week, or you won’t take it, and you’ll then act resentful of those who do take up your time.
 
Until next time, just say no!

Shawn

There are no comments for this post. Click here to read and make comments.

This entry was posted by Shawn Byler on March 31st, 2008 under Performance and Productivity with keywords .

Subscribe to this topic's feed.

You’ll need to get off the couch.

Imagine watching an infomercial promising how you can get washboard abs by wearing some device while lying on the couch eating bonbons. We live in a quick fix, instant-gratification culture. When I see book titles akin to How to Find Your Soul’s Purpose, Get Happy, Rich and Famous in Five minutes I want to scream. Let me assure you that creating an inspired life requires that you do your own intellectual, emotional, and spiritual sit ups (and some physical exertion as well). In the end you’ll be glad you nudged yourself off your comfort zone. The life that’s been waiting for you will also rise up to greet you.

• In what ways might you be expecting instant results?
• How well is this really serving you?
• What could you do to “get off your comfort zone” or love yourself more and do the work necessary for your desired growth?

Don’t expect linear progress.

Don’t beat yourself up if it feels at times like you take two steps forward and three steps back. As I’ve said, my clients are bright, successful achievers. It’s natural for all of them to have cycles of creativity and spurts of action, and then experience waves of confusion, doubt, or just needing down time. Rather than punish ourselves for straying from a direct line to a certain goal, we can embrace our process and learn even greater insights about who we are and what works well. We can discern what is a waste of energy – what may feel like pushing the river.

• Become a more curious observer of your process of growth.
• What is your natural process… what works well? What could you embrace instead of fight to change?

I’d love to hear your comments and/or your experience of delving into these questions.
Be well… be inspired,
Marian

There are no comments for this post. Click here to read and make comments.

This entry was posted by Marian Baker on March 31st, 2008 under Performance and Productivity with keywords .

Subscribe to this topic's feed.

During the last four weeks we’ve explored the emotion of sadness and how, by having the courage to connect with our sadness, we can become more whole, healthy and joyful people.  What follows is an exercise to help you do just that.

Find a time when you can be alone and uninterrupted, get out a pen & paper (or your journal) and write down all the things (in chronological order or whatever order they come to mind) that have ever made you feel sad - whether in the past and in the present. 

Whatever it may be, don’t censor what you write - don’t label it as justified or unjustified, foolish or folly - simply let your pen roll freely and let any tears come with them. As they do just sit there with your sadness and let it be. Give yourself permission to feel to the core of whatever emotions come up.  Breathe deeply into the core of the feeling and stay with it until any physical manifestations the emotion of sadness has brought on dissipates.  As they do ask yourself what there is for you to learn from this sadness, what might your experience of loss have to teach you - about yourself and about what matters to you in life.

Here are a few questions should you need some help in getting your pen rolling. 
Did someone you love die or move away?
Did you lose a friendship with someone you cared about?
Did you miss out on an opportunity to share or participate or enjoy something that is now gone forever?
Did you miss out on a chance to tell someone you cared or to express your love or gratitude?
Did you lose years of your life not enjoying a relationship with someone you would have liked to?
And right now, is there a loss of some sort that makes you feel sad? Whether it be the passing of a stage in your life/family that you can never return to, a loss of friendship or simply a loss of opportunity to do something you always hoped to do?

I hope this series on sadness has been thougt provoking for you.

Until next week, when I will move to a far more upbeat subject, live boldly, shine brightly, feel deeply!
Margie

There are no comments for this post. Click here to read and make comments.

This entry was posted by Margie Warrell on March 31st, 2008 under Performance and Productivity with keywords .

Subscribe to this topic's feed.