Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

In order to live the life you were designed to live , it’s critical to understand yourself at the deepest level.

Recently I read a passage by the author Pamela Field in her book: A Woman Who Dreams Herself that: “We have two lives that run parallel with each other: the life we’ve inherited, and the life our Higher Self (a.k.a. our soul) has planned for us. And, at any moment, we can decide to change tracks.”

Have you ever thought of it that way? That there is the life that was passed onto you without any conscious choice – and then there is the life that is imbedded deep within your soul – like a blueprint – that has the plans on where YOU are meant to go and what you’re meant to do.

As I mentioned in the previous article: Carried Shame and Worthiness, oftentimes we don’t realize that if you’re stuck, or feeling a certain way about yourself, or doubting your abilities, etc. – it’s oftentimes a result of you holding onto someone else’s “stuff” and you holding onto shame that wasn’t yours to begin with.

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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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Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue… as the
unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.” ~Victor Frankl

This quote above is very profound and one I suggest you may want to print-out and contemplate.

And what a perfect time to contemplate what success really means to you – as we are embarking on another new year – a year full of hope, anticipation, and excitement – and another year
and chance to ‘get it right’.

Yet, trying to be successful, or trying to ‘get it right’, can not only cause loads of pressure, tension and stress – it can also feel really unfulfilling.

Think about it – how many times have you ‘gotten the goal’, achieved something that was important to you, and celebrated it – and then felt a deep pressure and a looming anxiety to figure-out what’s next and how you’ll top what you just did?

The habit of constant ‘bar-raising’ never feels fully fulfilling because it’s about achieving goals on the outside and constantly trying to get vs. learning how to give to life so you
can feel worthy of receiving.

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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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The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do. ~Sarah Ban Breathnach

This past weekend I facilitated a workshop with a fabulous group of creative, soulful, ambitious, smart women who all have one thing in common: the desire to live a creative, meaningful life – which encompasses more flexibility, freedom, and FUN!

And the key aspect that goes along with experiencing more flexibility, freedom and fun in your life and work is really a feeling that we all crave – fluidity. The ability to live life in union with your soul – where everyday you take action that feels productive and peaceful.

Imagine that for a moment –to feel productive and peaceful at the same time. Interesting concept for sure – but one that may feel foreign as most of us were taught that to get results, to achieve success, to have anything “pay-off”, that hard work was the value to prioritize in your life.

Yet, for a creative soul that craves MORE – more space, more time, more authentic success – in life and work – the peace along with the productivity have to be absolute yes’s in order to be aligned fully with what you’re here to “do” and be.

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“When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.” ~Pauline R. Kezer

When you feel overwhelmed by all there is to ‘do’, you feel powerless and buried under a heap of responsibilities. You may often struggle with feeling stuck and unmotivated – and hear your inner critic voice say: “Why bother even trying – it’s not going to make a difference anyways”.

Sound familiar?

If you’ve struggled with a consistent pattern of feeling overwhelmed, stressed, tired and burnt-out – by all there is to ‘do’ –and never feeling like you will be able to catch-up, then I invite you to look a little deeper and determine what may be driving you to want to feel overwhelmed.

Wanting to feel overwhelmed? Are you crazy? Who would want that!?

As I’ve written in the Heavy Expectations Article when you crave more time, more space, more balance, more sanity in your life – and then you actually get it – you may not know what to do with all that space because you’re so used to thriving on the overwhelmed feelings.

The challenge here is to understand what’s driving you to be more committed to being overwhelmed, stressed and busy – and why these needs are trumping your other needs for less stress, more peace and balance in your life. In other words – what benefit are you getting out of being overwhelmed?

The opposite of overwhelm is to underwhelm which means to “fail to interest or astonish or amaze”.

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