The Benefits of Daily Motivation and Life Coaching

One of my favorite quotes is by Zig Ziglar, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

It may come as a surprise to you but even motivation and life coaches need to get their daily motivation too. We turn to others in our field who inspire us. We don’t always have good days, we just have more good days than most people.

I work mostly in the health field and I can tell you that taking control of your health, well-being and fitness is not always easy and can be a struggle. In fact, it can be dang hard and we all fall off the wagon at times.

If you’ve never been fit and just starting out, or if you’ve been fit and fallen off the wagon for a long time, let me tell you, it’s not easy to get back in shape. It will even feel like torture in the beginning. Many people say that getting started is the hardest part, but they forget to mention that keeping momentum when you think you’re dying is hard as heck too. It takes daily commitment, willpower and motivation. Your muscles are so sore you feel like if you move you’ll break. You won’t, trust me, but it sure feels that way. If you’re completely new to exercise you’ll wonder why anyone would ever torture their body that way. You will need someone to keep you motivated to push on, day after day. Even those of us who enjoy muscle soreness need a daily dose of motivation and inspiration.

Who do you turn to in those times? The person or persons you turn to is an extremely important facet to getting in shape. Friends can be great but if they don’t have the same goals as you, they won’t be very inspirational. Friends often don’t motivate you with positive language either. One little slip up on their part in the way they say something can knock you back down several notches. If your best friend hates eating healthy and exercise, this is not the person you want to share your new changes with. It’s best to get motivated elsewhere and lead by example where your friends are concerned.

Where do you find motivation then? The internet is a great place to find like minded people who have the same goals as you. There are many health and fitness groups you can join. But sometimes you need a one on one personal touch. If you’ve never considered a life coach or motivation coach, this may be the time to do so. They work much like a personal trainer in the fitness industry; except they help you build your self esteem and find the power within yourself to stay motivated. They also help you hold yourself accountable. This is the greatest benefit of having daily motivation and using a life or wellness coach.

You may be thinking that hiring a coach is too expensive, but what is your well-being worth? Aren’t you worth an investment in yourself? You were designed to be a great person. Let a life coach help you discover your own greatness so that you can show it to the world and inspire others. This is another great benefit of having a life coach

Patti Stafford lives just outside of Branson, MO, with her awesome musically talented husband, two parakeets and a cat. She has been writing on the Internet about health and motivation for over ten years and finally decided to take the plunge and is currently working on certifications in Life Coaching, Hypnotherapy and NLP. You can find her at Sassy Women’s Health. One day she hopes to fully launch the Sassy Women’s Network for sassy women entreprenuers.

How To Reach Your Goals In Life

Are you having trouble pinning down your goals, never mind reaching them? Do you despair of ever living your dreams in this lifetime? Take heart. It is possible, regardless of how overwhelming it feels right now. Join us as we take steps to define and refine our goals, learn how to reach your goals in life and and begin to live our dreams.

1) Define your goals – Do you know what your goals are? The first step will be to do a ‘brain dump’ of everything you would like to do. It doesn’t matter how big or how small. If it comes to mind, write it down. You are basically doing a brainstorming session and no thought is too small or right or wrong. It just is. So like we stated above, if it comes to mind, write it down.

2) Sort your goals _ Now that you have completed your brain dump, it is time to sort your goals. A goal is simply the result or achievement toward which effort is directed. It is an aim, or an end. So, take your list of goals and begin to sort through them. Don’t worry about prioritizing right now. Sort according to what it would take to accomplish that goal. There are two ways to do this, you can sort on a separate piece of paper with two columns–one marked immediate and one marked long- term. If you want to use the same paper as your brain dump, just use the letter ‘I’ for immediate and ‘L’ for long-term. Every goal on your paper can be sorted into these two categories.

3) Prioritize your goals – Now we begin a two step process of prioritizing each category. Start with your immediate items. Some of the things that might be on there would be get the cat or dog to the vet for immunizations, set a doctor’s appointment for X procedure or checkup, etc. Obviously the priority one would be those that involve the health and well-being of family and pets. Prioritize each of these kinds of goals as ‘A’s’. Continue in this manner until you have prioritized every item in each category as either A, B or C items. If you have goals that don’t fit any of these priority rankings, perhaps they aren’t really goals that are important to you and can be eliminated.

4) Set a date to complete immediate goals – Now that you have prioritized your goals, let’s tackle the steps to complete our immediate goals. Once again these goals should be those things that can be completed with, at most, 2 steps. Using the example of getting the pets to the vet for immunizations, step 1 would be to call the vet’s office for an appointment, step 2 would be to go to the appointment. So set a date to make the call and you have begun the steps necessary to achieve a goal of yours. You should be able to complete each of the immediate goals using this method.

5) Achieving long-term goals – Even though they are bigger goals, the principle is the same as achieving the immediate goals. Each goal takes a number of steps to complete. So figure out what the steps are that are required, and begin. Is one of your long-term goals to begin or complete college? Do you keep putting it off thinking you’ll be too much older than the other students? Don’t let that stop you! In most colleges, continuing-ed classes are offered that are aimed at the older adult returning to school or starting college for the first time. At least half of the students in continuing-ed classes are older adults. You will be among your contemporaries. There is no time like the present, so contact your local college regarding enrollment. Step one is now complete!

6) Allow for changing circumstances – Sometimes no matter what our plans are, life happens. We need to adjust our plans, change our timetables and so on. This shouldn’t derail our efforts to complete our goals. At most, you may need to take a step back and figure out how to rearrange things or reschedule things to continue moving forward towards completion of your goal. Changing circumstances shouldn’t discourage you from completing a goal. They should encourage creativity in figuring out a way to continue.

7) Have fun along the way – In being goal-oriented, we can sometimes lose sight of why we set goals in the first place. Many of us want to accomplish things. But if we focus only on achieving our goals and drive forward at all costs, we risk burning ourselves out. In addition, we may miss some wonderful things in our lives, including our life itself. There are indeed a few things where driving forward is preferable. After all, we don’t want our surgeon distracted by anything mid-surgery. Overall, relaxing and enjoying the journey along the way is the best way to achieve our goals. In the process we are kinder to ourselves and to those around us.

8 ) Living the dreams – Ideally, achieving our goals should lead directly into living our dreams. If we are finding that achieving our goals isn’t leading into fulfilling our dreams, it’s time to re-evaluate our goals. As we get older, our dreams do change. We may not have many of the dreams at thirty that we did at 15. We just need to evaluate what our current dreams are and make sure that our goals are taking us towards those dreams.’

9) Keep it manageable – As you go through your immediate goals list, keep the number of things you add to your daily to-do list manageable. After all, you are the best judge of the time you have each day to devote to a particular goal or activity. This is especially important when you get to the priority B and C goals. Even our priority A goals need to be scheduled realistically according to our available time each day or week.

10) Plan your work, work your plan – Each of these tips is really pointing to this tip. Without a plan, we don’t function efficiently. So, plan your work, or actions or steps and then, work your plan. That is by far the best way to achieve your goals. The immediate list of goals is much less dependent on this, but it is still more effective and efficient to plan the work and work the plan to achieve even simple goals. It is the best way to achieve long-term goals. Each goal is comprised of steps that need to happen to achieve the goal. Some steps require a series of steps to be achieved. Without planning you end up working in an inefficient and haphazard way. It is possible to accomplish things this way, but why would anyone want to? Save yourself time and aggravation. Plan your work and then work your plan.

If you need help in learning how to reach your goals in life,  simply sign up for one of our affordable coaching packages.   You can also grab your free 20 minute coaching consultation to find out more about how a life coach can assist you.

Tips for Managing Worry

Gaining tips for managing worry is something that everyone should look for. One of the most common problems faced by mothers today is their inability to stop worrying. It’s just a natural thing for mothers to do. We know that our children are young and don’t realize all of the dangers within the world, so we worry. Not only do we worry about our children, but we also worry about our relationships with others, our jobs, our finances and many more things. For some reason, women seem to be more susceptible to excessive worrying. However, as mothers, we need to realize that while we’re worrying about all of the dangers surrounding our children and our lives excessive worrying is a danger in itself.

There are many health problems that can arise when we allow ourselves to worry too much. Now, please understand that worrying is a normal thing for people to do, especially mothers, it’s the excessive worrying that we need to control. Excessive worrying is when you find yourself worrying about something practically all day, every day.

This is the worrying that can cause health problems. The health problems that can arise from excessive worrying include:

• Anxiety Attacks
• Digestive Disorders
• Physical Illness
• High Blood Pressure
• Muscle Tension
• Weak Immune System
• Premature Coronary Artery Disease
• Heart Attack
• Memory Loss

The list above is a short list of the health problems that can be caused by excessive worrying. As good mothers, the thing we want most is to be in good health so we can always be here for our children. Therefore, it’s important that we start practicing things that will help us in managing worry.

Tips for Managing Worry

Eat Right: It’s important to realize that when you’re excessively worrying about something, you’re most likely not eating right. Therefore, concentrate on eating a healthy, balanced diet. Make sure you are eating enough throughout the day, but also make sure you aren’t overdoing it either. Eating right is important when trying to control your worrying because when you’re focused on eating right, you’re not focusing on the things you’re usually worrying about. It’s also important for your physical health.

Exercise Daily: Exercising has a way of making us feel better. When you exercise every day, you will be giving your mind a break from the worries that have been plaguing it. You will also be releasing chemicals within your body that work to improve your immune system.

Meditate: Meditation has been around for centuries and is well-known for its therapeutic powers. In order to meditate correctly, you must be in a quiet place and be still. You must clear your mind and concentrate on nothing but the present. This means that you must not allow your mind to think about anything that may happen in the future or has happened in the past. Meditating daily has been proven effective in helping manage worry and stress.

Relax: Make time to relax every day. Even if you can only find 20 minutes, it will help you in managine worry tremendously. Methods for relaxing is different for everyone, you may be able to relax by reading a book, watching television, soaking in the bathtub or gardening. The key is that you take the time to do whatever it is that relaxes you every day.

Seek Coaching or Counseling: If you struggle with excessive worry and can’t seem to get a handle on managine worry and controlling it on your own, then you may want to find a coach or someone else to talk to.    Just having someone to talk to about your excessive worrying will help. Don’t be afraid to seek help if you need it, because excessive worrying is dangerous for your health.

By using any or all of the tips above, you will gain more ground on managing worry and leading a happier life.

Ig you need help in managine worry, simply sign up for one of our affordable coaching packages.   You can also grab your free 20 minute coaching consultation to find out more about how a life coach can assist you.

Tips to Destress

As a mother, it’s extremely easy to get caught up in the everyday chaos of life with kids. However, this doesn’t mean you have to be stressed out as you deal with the daily struggles this life brings. While it might sound impossible, you can find was to de-stress. Below are just a few of the many ways to do this.
Have Quiet Time: One of the easiest ways to calm your nerves and dissolve your stress is to set aside some time each day where you can just sit and relax. Many women find that the best time to do this is early in the morning before they wake their children up for school. However, there are others who do this mid-morning/afternoon when their kids are at school…even right before bed has been found to work too. Regardless of when you do this, it may help you clear your mind and calm your nerves – so, give it a try.

Here are Some Tips to De-Stress

Pamper Yourself: For most mothers, pampering isn’t feasible. However, this isn’t the normal kind of “spa-treatment” most associate pampering with. The kind of pampering I’m suggesting can be done at home. To help yourself de-stress consider purchasing a few nicely scented candles, bath salts and new lotion. Then, after the kids are in bed, lock yourself in the bathroom and light the candles while you fill the tub with steaming water and watch the bath salts dissolve. Take a long (minimum of 30 minutes) bath and then apply the lotion once you’re out and dry. You’ll be surprised at how relaxed you will feel when you emerge from the bathroom.

Call a Friend: Sometimes, life can seem unbearable and it’s just too much for us to take by ourselves. This is when you need to pick up the phone and call a friend. We all have days when we just need to vent. However, it isn’t good to vent to our children and, sometimes, we should refrain from venting to our husbands as well – they just don’t always understand and make things worse by trying to “fix it.” So, pick up the phone and call a friend. Tell her what’s going on and that you’re just venting. You’ll feel much better once you’re done and your stress level will be lower too.

Listen to Music: When you’re in the car driving to and from work or taking the kids to the various places they need to be, try listening to music. Music has a way of unlocking the worries we have been carrying with us throughout the day and releasing them. Make a CD containing a collection of your favorite “feel good” songs and keep in your car so you will always have some uplifting music waiting for you. You’ll find that this CD will help your spirits on the days when everything seems to be going wrong.

Be Selfish: That’s right – be selfish. I know this goes against everything mothers are “supposed” to be, but every now and then it’s okay to be selfish. There are days when we, as mothers, get extremely overwhelmed because we are being pulled in so many different directions. This is when you need to take 30 minutes to an hour and just do whatever you want. It doesn’t matter if it’s writing in your journal, reading or taking a nap – do whatever you want. You will feel relaxed, de-stressed and able to focus after your mini-break.

Use any or all of the above as tips to destress and you will soon start feeling more at ease at work and at home

Increase Your Self Confidence

Self confidence is the difference between feeling unstoppable and feeling scared out of your wits. How you feel about your self is a direct line to how others will see you.  The more self confidence you have, the more likely it is you’ll succeed.  Learning to increase your self confidence is important if your confidence is low. 

Although many of the factors affecting self confidence are beyond your control, there are a number of things you can consciously do to increase your self confidence. By using the 5 strategies below, you can get the mental edge you need to reach your potential and increase your self esteem.  

1 – Jump Start!  Start off each morning and end each day with a positive statement or thought. Create your own mantra. (i.e: “I am intelligent”, “I will have a positive day”, “I will succeed”.)

2 – Keep it real! Get to know the TRUE you and accept yourself. The more you accept your true self the more others will do the same.

3 – Make a list!  sit down and make a list of all your positive characteristics and achievements. Keep adding to this list as time goes on and be sure to keep your list in a place where you can access it and read it at will.

4 – Be Mindful! Choose your words/thoughts carefully: Take time to replace negative thoughts with positive ones. If you are faced with a challenging task — instead of saying something like: “I will never get this done on time” try to rephrase that and say something like: “When I finish this task I will treat myself to something nice” or “This may be challenging but I can do this”.

5 - Turn it up a Notch!   Take what you are good at and enhance it. Let others know about it! Hold you head up high and proud and know you have a special gift inside of you.

To increase upir self confidence, it will take time but it is well worth it. You will soon find yourself embracing yourself and giving off a very positive energy that will surely come back to you.

If you are ready to hire a life coach, simply sign up for one of our affordable coaching packages.   You can also grab your free 20 minute coaching consultation to find out more about how a life coach can assist you.