“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounding yourself with assholes.” ~William Gibson

I shared the above quote with the group of gals who joined me in Kennebunkport, Maine for the Creative Business/Life Retreat that I held this past weekend. Needless to say we all got a great laugh from the quote and the Truth that the statement exudes.

You may be able to relate – and get a chuckle out of the above statement as well – where you’ve been (or are now being) surrounded by others who you know, aren’t being their Best Selves and, as a result, aren’t encouraging you to be your Best Self either.

This is why being around positive energy and people is so critical to your own growth and success in life, business and relationships. The key is knowing how to discern who and what has served you in the past and will continue to serve you – and who and what will not.

We all get stuck in ruts. We all get stuck in old patterns. And we all get stuck in believing that “this is all there is” and life is meant to be mediocre and bland.

But the Truth is – life is meant to be adventurous, joyous, mysterious, uplifting and constantly changing – which means you as a person are doing all those things! This is why it’s so important to surround yourself with positive energy – and this includes people who are just as committed to your growth and evolution as you are.

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“Your value and worth is that you are a bearer of LIGHT that the world needs now more then ever. Others have always seen your tremendous power, glory and gifts, yet have you ever really owned and trusted that you’re in possession of them? You’re tried to “fit-in”, to be like everyone else, tried to ‘do’ things the standard, ordinary way. Yet accept the fact that you aren’t meant to fit into molds. You’re actually meant to break them.” ~My Wise Inner Voice ;)

I love to share the story of when I was on the ledge of quitting my corporate job to start my own coaching practice. I had just begun the journey of not only listening to my Wise, Inner Self, but actually following Her guidance.

One day as I sat at a red light, thinking about what to do next, I began with the whole “What If” vortex of thinking “What if this goes wrong, what if this happens, and what if this, that and the other thing happens?”

This pessimistic voice clearly wanted me to stay put at that red light and look for all the reasons why (and how) everything could go wrong and why I should just stay put in the ‘safety’ of my J.O.B.

Then, in the next moment, I heard a quiet, reassuring, compassionate, supportive voice whisper to me: “What if it all works out?”

Then the light turned green.

Hmmm, I thought to myself, “Where did that voice come from?”

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>”Having a vision for your life allows you to live out of hope, rather than out of your fears.” ~ Stedman Graham

Lately I’ve been finding myself talking more and more about the fact that having clarity on what it is that you really, really want, is extremely underrated.

It’s interesting to see the resistance that crops up when I encourage clients to start with the end in mind – to step back, take some time out, and get clear on what it is that they would really like to see happen – BEFORE we begin to put the action pieces in place.

At first glance, I used to think that the resistance that folks have to the visioning process had to do with them just wanting to get started with the action pieces because they value feeling productive above anything else.

And even though the need to feel productive still tends to trump the creative process of visioning, I’ve found another reason folks resist the visioning process – and this reason boils down to plain ol’ FEAR & Self-Doubt

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“Life is accepting what is and working from that.” ~Gloria Naylor

Accepting “what is” is probably the hardest thing for us to do. Afterall, isn’t the purpose of life to change what is?

Unconsciously – the collective belief “out there” in our world is to constantly change and improve our circumstances, ourselves, relationships, etc – whatever it is – we are taught that it isn’t good enough as is.

We are taught through a variety of mediums (especially advertisers), that we must change in order to be happier, fulfilled and living the good life.

But is that true? Is it true that your happy life and great future exist somewhere out there – in fantasy land?

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And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful that the risk it took to bloom.” ~~ Anais Nin

The first inclination when you feel like you’re stuck in a rut and lacking all motivation to do anything is to – get out of this state quickly! The feelings that arise when you’re stuck are very uncomfortable and almost unbearable because they go against your character and who you know yourself to be.

If you identify yourself with being a can-do, go-getter, overachiever who has a track-record of getting things done – then being stuck in a rut is probably the worst feeling you could feel. It goes against the grain of everything you know about yourself and it hits hard to your identity and how you see yourself – and, where you source your value.

Imagine for a moment that you source your value and self-worth from giving.

Consider that you may get a hit of adrenaline every time you accomplish, give, or prove that you’re valuable by doing or giving – whether it’s to someone or something – it feels good to get it done or provide because it feeds something in you – albeit temporarily.

Yet, at the same time, you may feel resentful and not know why. You may wonder why it seems that you never get back what you give. You may begin to get angry but have no idea why you’re angry. You may begin to feel sad and not know why. Pretty soon you find yourself not only sad, but stuck in a full-blown rut and have no idea how you got here.

Sound familiar?

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“If you don’t set a baseline standard for what you’ll accept in life, you’ll find it’s easy to slip into behaviors and attitudes or a quality of life that’s far below what you deserve.” ~Tony Robbins

I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that a high quality of life has to do with what you take off your plate than what you add onto it. I agreed with the statement at the time I read it, and as I’ve gotten older, it’s become much more relevant to my own life and also the lives of the people I coach and teach.

Removing things off your plate both externally in your outer world, and internally in your inner world is truly the KEY to living authentically. We all know how awesome it feels to purge, clear out your closets and clear space on your calendar for new things to show up in your life. And how great it feels to begin to integrate and let go of limiting beliefs so you can begin to live the vision that is meant for you to live.

Yet, what most often happens is – the space that gets cleared off your plate, can cause all sorts of emotions and anxiety. And, the first inclination – without even being aware it’s happening – is to quickly and effectively get those empty spaces filled-up with more stuff. More to do’s, more have to’s, more places to be, more people to see.

Does this sound familiar?

If it does I understand. I’ve been a long-time member of the ‘heavy expectation’ club too. A club whose members feel if you’re not striving, chasing, and staying motivated and on-track towards something better, then something must be wrong.

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>“Without faith, hope and trust, there is no promise for the future, and without a promising future, life has no direction, no meaning and no justification.” ~Adlin Sinclair

Lately I’ve been seeing many folks being served curve balls in their life. – events and circumstances that are completely out of their control and are not only challenging, but are forcing them to have some serious Faith.

And the interesting thing about this is – we can’t really know the evolutionary plan for our lives. Sure, we can know where we need to grow, what we want to have, experience and do – but the plan for the evolution of our soul – well, that’s a different story.

In last week’s article, I wrote about the gift of discernment and how every situation, circumstance and person is in your life to evolve your soul.

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As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.” ~Marianne Williamson

Seth Godin’s daily blog is one of the few emails I’ve kept subscribed to throughout the years because his content is always pertinent to our times and extremely valuable.

In a post from last week, Seth struck a chord with the statement: “You don’t need a new plan for next year. You need a commitment.”

How true. Before you make a plan, make sure that you’re committed to what you plan to do.

And then, make sure that you’re just as committed to changing course and being flexible to where the path takes you vs. feeling as if you need to control each step because it’s part of your
“plan”.

We all know at a certain level that planning has value – but knowing exactly how things will un-fold is impossible.

More importantly, a plan is valuable only after you’ve committed to achieving the goal.

Therefore the question really is: How do you know what it is that you’re committed to? And how do you know if you’re really committed to the “right things”? The things that are aligned with your deepest values and who you really are and are meant to become?

The Truth is: our commitments show through our actions. We commit to our choices by what we do, not what we say. And even though you may say that you want something to happen, your
commitment will show through the actions you take or the actions that you don’t take.

It’s a simple concept to cognize, but not an easy concept to understand.

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Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable ~Helen Keller

“…to behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefetable”
What a statement huh? Helen Keller certainly had in-sight for sure even though she couldn’t ‘see’ on the outside.

That is very telling considering that most of us are so focused on the external world that we can’t connect with the internal – which is really where all the joy, beauty and magic lives!

Yet, to re-capture our child-like innocence – we must find the strength and courage it takes to live more freely in a world that can feel very limiting and constricted.

This is the challenge – feeling like you’re trapped in a life that is full of everyday mundane responsibilities, when all you really yearn to do is soar to greater heights – and experience more freedom, fun and flexibility with your days.

And, this is what we’ve been discussing in the
December Call Series, how-to get clear and organized in your thought processes for 2012 and learn how you can experience what it is that you really want both in the long-term and short term – and make it a reality in your everyday life.

With the visioning process and thinking outside your present reality, lots of resistance crops-up – where I witness folks trying to think about new possibilities or ‘what could be’ different in their lives – yet getting stuck in wanting and needing to know HOW it will happen!

Yet, as I always say, it isn’t your job to know the HOW.

But, you may ask, what’s the formula for letting go of some control, and also knowing what I’m responsible for and what I’m not?

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“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” ~Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs statement above says it perfectly –“Simple can be harder than complex”.
Very true, especially when you’re creative person who has a ton of great ideas on how you can express yourself and do all the things that you yearn to do.

So, why is it so hard to pick something to focus on when you’re really creative and have lots of ideas? Why do you sometimes (or all the time perhaps) give in to doing nothing vs. taking action on something?

I’ve found 3 main areas which include:

• Fear of Failure: the fear that you may fail and try something that doesn’t work out
• Fear of Sacrifice: the in-ability to choose something to take action on because you fear you’ll have to give-up the other things you yearn to do as well
• Fear of “How”: not knowing all the details and how-to’s on how something will happen and yearning to have an A-Z plan to create complete certainty.

Again, as Steve Jobs says: “Simple can be harder than complex”. Your mind yearns to KNOW, to have all the answers, to crave certainty – and if it doesn’t get all these aspects fed, then it won’t take any action at all.

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