Editorial

Do you let sense of obligation to override taking care of yourself? I know I do sometimes and it is my belief that many of us do this without realizing it. I recently took part in an event where I was on the organizing committee and on the day of the event I was so focused on making it run well that I neglected my own need to eat and drink and the result was a bad head for the whole of the next day.

I have spent a lot of time learning how to listen to my body over the last few years as I strove to overcome back and leg issues but my adrenalin levels were running so high that I was not getting the messages or I was choosing to ignore them. I was working in crisis mode. I have done this all my life and I see other people doing the same thing; Mothers who continually put their children before themselves, not necessarily a bad thing to do but where is division between solving all the children’s problems and letting go so they can learn to stand on their own feet. Or what about the employee who is so afraid of loosing their job they stress over the job at the expense of everything else and are unable to take time to enjoy other aspects of life.

If you know you behave in this way know also that you are probably making yourself sick.  Maybe you do not see symptoms of illness but over the long term high levels of stress – which is what this really is, are not good for you.

What ever you are doing that is causing you to be this focused for any length of time give yourself the gift of balance and incorporate some other things into your life.  Set yourself boundaries that help you to know when you are allowing obligation to override your personal well being.

There is a saying that time flies when you are having fun. I guess I must be having a lot of fun because it’s hard to believe that it is already January 22nd. In many ways it seems as if the New Year celebration for the Roman calendar was only yesterday and in others it feels like it was a long time ago as I get back into the swing of things with business, we move away from the holiday celebration and back to the everyday commerce. Students are returning to university, high schoolers are going into finals for the semester and business is ramping up. If, like me, planning is a big part of this time of year you may be experiencing the excitement and motivation that comes from spending time looking at the expectations of the coming year and beyond, I know I am. It is also time to celebrate  the lunar new year and we enter the year of the dragon.  In a few short weeks we will see the arrival of spring and the beginning of the growing new year.

This week I have also had several occasions to talk about my time as a school teacher. At one time I was responsible for coordinating the history curriculum of my school and one of my favorite topics was looking at the period of time when the Roman Empire dominated Europe and an expansive area surrounding the Mediterranean sea. The Romans were responsible for much of the calendar as we know it today and January is named for one of their gods -Janus, the Roman god of portals or doorways. Janus had two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. I like to think about the wisdom of the Roman civilization and that 2000 years ago they recognized that understanding the past and planning for the future were both important when planning how to move forward. The Roman empire became the dominant civilization in that part of the world because of strategy. Tacticians planned and strategized when every one else was reacting to what was happening around them. Through planning and strategy the Roman empire grew and with every success they became more motivated and gained momentum to grow. Eventually the Empire receded and was replaced by the dark ages, a time when countries vacated by the Romans were fragmented and a period of reorganization took place with no major ruling force but this was after hundreds of years of economic domination.

I enjoyed teaching about this period in history and even as I am writing this I am realizing the parallels in strategy between the big picture of the way the Roman Empire grew and the way any successful enterprise grows.

At a very basic level to be successful first strategize, execute the strategy, evaluate what worked, repeat.

This is true for any aspect of life and even without realizing it all our successes and failures follow this outline.

To me the difference between success and failure hinges on one part of this formula -the evaluation.

If we evaluate something that didn’t work for us as failure and make the decision that we cannot do it or it is not possible or even worse we start attaching emotions based on what others may think of our lack of success then we are unlikely to attempt anything similar. We may not even be aware of the decisions we have made, they could be generated subconsciously.

If, however, we choose to use the things that don’t work as feedback and do not allow the emotional stuff to paralyze the thought processes that enable us to see what did or didn’t work, then we can progress forward towards success.

Thomas Edison made thousands of light bulbs that did not work before finally finding one that did. What would our world be like today if he and the many other great inventors of our time had accepted failure over feedback?

So my hope for all of us today, as we start building the momentum on 2012 is that we can use all of our experiences to drive us towards the goals we have set for ourselves. Allow the things that don’t go to plan to become feedback and be aware of what emotions are trying to say. Are the emotions setting us up to feel less than good about ourselves or are they allowing us to see the feedback the experience is giving?

For many people the start of a New Year is the time to reflect, look back at achievements from the previous year, and think about what is to be achieved in the New Year. For others it is the last thing they want to do. We all have our beliefs and attitudes about how we live our lives and every one of them is valid to each individual. Personally, I am one of the people who likes to plan. I haven’t always been that way though.

Up until a few years ago I was one of the people who set New Year resolutions and by January 31 they had all been forgotten – swallowed up in the hustle and bustle of every day life. My life was pretty good. I have two awesome children that I had dedicated my life to bringing up and my major focus in life was them. Pretty much every choice I made was for their benefit or certainly included the impact on them. They were my focus and I am very proud of both of them and I am also very satisfied with my own performance bringing them up.

Looking back over my life so far I can distinctly remember a time when as a single mum I made a pledge to myself that my primary “job” was my responsibility to them until they were grown and that is what I did. It wasn’t the only thing I did but it was the primary focus. I went back to school and trained as a teacher – because it was the best choice I could make to support myself and my children. I married a wonderful man but he had to be compatible with my children and very fortunately for all of us he is. I love him dearly but the children had to be taken into consideration. We moved from England to the United States and again the main decision factor for me was what would be the affect on the children. So all through my life from the point of that pledge all my choices and actions were centered around my children. Then about 8 years ago just as my youngest was in college I was asked what my ambitions were? What was my purpose for being? What did I want to achieve with my life? I couldn’t answer other than to say to bring my children up to the best of my ability. – and I’d already done that.

The last eight years of my life and of many people I know have been transformational. After the shock of realizing that all my early ambition had been achieved and my single focus – although very good, was no longer serving me I realized I had no idea what came next. I actually sat next to my husband in a room of a hundred people and watched hopelessly as every one in the room wrote down things they wanted to achieve in their lifetimes – and I could not think of anything to write. That experience was an eye opener for me. All these people, including my husband, had dreams, goals, ambitions and I hadn’t got any………………at that time. I came away feeling depressed and something of a failure. Despite the wonderful job I had achieved so far in my life I suddenly realized there was so much more, but how could I possibly do any of the things the others had spoken about?

For several days my mind was in turmoil. I was too old to start! I wasn’t qualified! How could I possibly get what I wanted this late in my life? Did I even want to try?

I had shifted from the place of being pleased with my achievements so far to a position of “I’ve done nothing with my life” – I had done plenty but it didn’t feel like it.

Have you ever walked along a river? In the flow of the river there are places where the water flows calmly, the surface of the water smooth, plants and animals living in the water below the surface; but then the water reaches a place where the gradient gets steeper and the flow of water speeds up and suddenly all is turbulence. The water moves rapidly and it is hard for the environment beneath the surface to have stability, everything seems to be in a state of chaos; but then the gradient levels out, the river widens and grows and calm returns. Life is like that river. In order to grow we often have to go through periods of turbulence and seeming chaos, the term often used to describe this is a period of perturbation. That is where I was 8 years ago- in the middle of a painful period of perturbation. And now I am so happy that I went through it. That was the beginning of my transformation.

The human animal is incredible. We are capable of so much. We are the most adaptable animal on this planet which is why we live the way we do with numerous inventions that have made our lives what they are today. We are made to adapt and yet we like stability, we have our comfort zones and we find change painful. But it is that pain that enables us to grow. Sometimes we choose to visit those painful places of perturbation and other times we are thrown into them. The loss of a loved one – to death or separation, or a traumatic experience like loosing a job are examples of being thrown into periods of perturbation. Many of us resist growth and try to maintain the stability in our lives. Sometimes changes can bring anger and resentment, sometimes it is fear that drives the resistance to change, we have a multitude of emotions all working to maintain the status quo and keep us safe in the boundaries we have inflicted on ourselves.

Thinking of all the wonderful people I have come to know watch grow – myself included, in the last 8 years they all have one thing in common. They know what they want and they aim to get it! Before 2004, I had drifted through my life with no real ambition other than to raise my children and I did a good job. Since then I have achieved so  much more.

After the experience of feeling inadequate, surrounded by people who knew what they wanted followed by a period of beating myself up for not being good enough I began to understand that, just like anything else, knowing what you want takes practice. You cannot go from drifting through life with no goal or ambition to instant laser focus. It takes time and learning to find out what it really is that lights up your world and drives you with passion towards that fulfilling, satisfied life. For me allowing that time was the hardest part, I wanted to know immediately – but that wasn’t to be.

Over the course of the next few years I observed a group of people who became close friends as we navigated this path of finding what we really wanted to be (when we grew up.) The first step was to identify the things we wanted. It took two years before I was able to sit down in January and write my list of 100 things I wanted -some of them are material things – a particular car, a second home in the mountains; some of them are lifestyle changes – eating a particular way as a natural course, exercising as a natural thing rather than forcing myself to go because “I should”; some of them are things I want to achieve, my business in my own office and helping x number of people to transform their lives. The point is that by practicing and focusing on what I want I am so much more aware when opportunities present themselves to help me get it.

When I first wrote my 100 list it stayed pretty much the same for a couple of years but then as I became more congruent with who I am and what my life is all about I began to find I was completing more and more items on my list each year and the scope of my 100 list was expanding. My simple initial list has morphed into a much more complex animal with resistance to change, we have a multitude of emotions all working to maintain the status quo and keep us safe in the boundaries we have inflicted on ourselves.

In my group we would find as we started to work towards things some of them were not what we really wanted at all and it was back to starting again but many times we hit the bull’s-eye and achieved phenomenal results. The key to all of this is that we all kept going. We kept striving to be more than we already are, growing, taking action, trying things out, making mistakes but keeping going anyway. Sometimes there were incredible celebrations and sometimes tears of fear, frustration or anger. The important thing is that through it all we kept going – supported by the other members of the group. For me it has been an absolute honor to be on this journey with this group of people.

Once I had mastered the art of knowing what I wanted the transformations became more and more easy to achieve. After learning how to identify what I want the next phase is to work out how to get it. Some things are obvious and easy, others take a little more planning and then there are the things I know I want but have no idea how to get to them. The important thing here is to not only recognize the goal but to also write it down. Writing it down cements it into focus and adds a different level of awareness.

My hope for you in 2012 that you do achieve what you want to achieve. If you have never tried writing down your goals, your dreams or wants then I hope you will try it. At the beginning of every year I now invest time on myself to write down my 100 list and a plan for how to achieve everything on the list.  The more I practice the easier it gets and the more I achieve every year.  I love my life and the direction I am moving in.

At the very least try writing your 100 list, if you feel good about that plan how you will achieve the things on your list.

If you do want help with this then I run a weekend workshop.  My group and several others attend and everybody writes their individual plan for the year.  If this is something that interests you then click on the link “Design You Life” to find out more and register.  In 2012 the workshop will be Friday, January 13 (7pm-10pm), Saturday, January 14, (10am – 5pm) and Sunday, January 15, (10am – 5pm).

After all the transformation I have seen in my life and the lives of the people I associate with I sincerely hope you will try this as it truly does help to create a satisfying and fulfilling life

Thanksgiving was on Thursday and on Friday morning every media channel was declaring that the holiday season has now started.

My thoughts are turning to all that involves – writing cards and getting them to their destinations in time, gifts, food.

In amongst all this preparation I have a whole category for looking after myself.  After all, I have been carefully watching my food intake and quality, my movement, my sleep my water intake and so on, do – I really want to jeopardize all that for the last month of the year?

I was talking about this to a friend last week and her point was that she wanted to enjoy the holiday without restriction which made me ask myself is that what I am doing? Restricting myself?  After only a short period of thought I came to the conclusion that no, I am not.  But then I asked question “why do some people see eating well and taking care of themselves as a restriction?”

Here is the answer I came up with – It is all about perception and mindset!

Do I need to eat excessively to enjoy myself? No.  Do I need to drink excessive amounts of alcohol to have a good time? In truth there are only a few drinks that I really enjoy drinking and even then I don’t like huge amounts. Looking back over previous years when large quantities of alcohol have been part of my holiday excesses it was really only done to be sociable because alcohol seemed to be the choice of the people I was with.  I didn’t even realize this at the time since my mind was in a place of being part of the group and if it was a group thing I participated as part of the group.  I wasn’t forced to do this it was a choice I made at a subconscious level with very little conscious thought.  It was a party therefore drinking alcohol is expected.

The same is true for many of my habits and behaviors – I do many things because I learned from other people that they were “good” to do.  As a child, how many times did you eat up all that was on your plate because that was expected of you by your parents.  Conversely, I know that as a parent I did have that same expectation for my children.  In addition to this I know, from my recent education, that some of the things I gave to my children as meals were not necessarily the healthiest options for them.  Some times I even gave them unhealthy choices because in my ignorance I did not know what I was doing.  Sometimes it was even of a case of trying to get them to eat anything.  I know that I trained my children with some bad habits that still exist for them today.  I know this because they still make comments about Mum eating “woo woo” foods!

I recently asked some high school seniors how they know what is healthy for them and after an initial blank look as they sifted their thought processes for an answer one of them said they got their knowledge from the media. Some news articles, some adverts, etc

This year I have made myself a promise.  I am going to eat the things I love to eat.  I love fresh produce, raw vegetables and fruit, foods that are not too sweet, my palette does not like “sweet” anymore and I actually feel unwell if I do indulge in sweet, sugar intensive foods.  The other choices?  I will try small quantities but if I do not know all of the ingredients it will be one or two bites only.

Will I be Restricting myself? Yes and no.  I am making the choice to eat and drink things I enjoy.

This month has been very exciting.  I am moving into my new office space!

I am moving! – fetching and carrying furniture, Sorting through files and taking the relevant ones to the new space. Getting rid of a lot of the things I have been holding onto that are totally unnecessary.  It has been an interesting journey and of course I have come up against several emotional barriers and gremlins that could derail me from the purpose and goals I have set for myself.  Even though I spend time with clients working on exactly these issues – they still raise their ugly heads in my own life and thought processes.  The beautiful thing is that I can now recognize them for what they are so much more easily than I used to and I realize that just as with everything else creating the new habit of boldly moving forward despite all my fears and doubts takes practice AND, just as with anything else, the more I practice the better I get at both identifying and resisting the emotions and habits that would otherwise keep me stuck and playing a very small game.

 I am at the point in my life where I am growing – emotionally and it is not always easy. Some of the habits, the values, the beliefs and the attitudes that I have developed during my entire life are no longer serving me for the direction I wish to take in my life but they have served me very well up until now, they have kept me safe; they have made my life normal; and most importantly they have made me feel good and confident about myself and who I am – they are part of my identity……… and now I am changing them.  Emotionally this is a challenge.  While I struggle to come to terms and work through issues emotions run very high and I have been experiencing fear, anxiety, stress and lots of other very powerful emotions that do not feel good.  The bonus to all of this is that once the process has run it’s course and the choices are made then all of the negative emotions disappear and I am highly motivated with the pathways I am taking.  The old way of thinking actually disappears and becomes a feint memory of what was.  I even find myself asking “What was the big deal – this is so obviously the correct choice.”

 I remember times in my life when I have had similar things to deal with – difficult choices to make.  With clients I have often used the example of what I consider to be the most difficult choice I ever had to make which was whether to continue to try and save a failing marriage.  At the time I was in my mid twenties, had two small children and the prospect of going it alone was very frightening.  There were lots of things to consider that I am not going to expand on here but the outcome was that once I decided that the marriage was dead and despite whatever hardship lay ahead, anything was better than remaining in a relationship that was very negative for everyone concerned.  At the point of that choice everything became crystal clear and I could plan forward instead of stagnating.

 Then and now facing the fears head on and moving forward regardless is a very liberating experience.  I have just taken on a great deal more responsibility but I know I am stronger and am in control of my own situation.  I see a pathway forward that was previously hiding behind all my fears and habits.  I feel that even though I have generated more obligations what I have really done is free myself to grow and evolve.

 My hope is that by sharing this experience with you it will give some perspective to similar situations that I see many people experiencing in their own lives.  It may not be as traumatic as choosing to end a bad relationship or as exciting as moving into new business premises but if you have things happening in your life that are dictating what you do and they do not feel good or are holding you back from what you really want to achieve give some serious consideration to alternative ways of behaving or believing.  Look outside the box if necessary.  There are so many possibilities that are outside of our range of experience but that could be exactly the answer we are looking for.

 For several years I have worked from my home office because I didn’t believe I could afford to do anything else – now I know different and I am already seeing more growth as a result of my choice. The world is an abundant place but when we live from a position of scarcity, scarcity is what we get.

Recently I have found myself doing a lot of work on “Values” with many of my clients.  Everyone has things that are important to them in their lives.  The more important, the more value they put on it and the more it will take priority in the actions people take.

If you think your top value is health and yet you find yourself eating less than nutritiously and avoiding exercise then health is not your top value or priority; If you think you value money but do not have a lot of it in your life then money is not a top value or priority for you.

For many people right now I see the top value being security; they are working a job they hate because they are afraid of the consequences of change and they are cutting back on the things that are beneficial to them in order to save money.  They are coming from a position of scarcity rather than abundance.

I went through an experience of this myself.  I was looking at office space and had two options.  One space was more than twice the cost of the other and for a period of time I was paralyzed in my decision making process.  The more expensive office was much nicer but I would need to find more money to pay for it (Scarcity!) - could I aford it?  Fortunately for me I have very good advisors and they helped me to take into consideration all of the other factors.  I looked at the choices from the perspective of the opportunities they offered me and suddenly the choice became a “no-brainer.”  Even though it cost more money the potential of the nicer office was so much greater than the less expensive that I immediately chose it. Once the choice was made so many things opened up and fell into place but I had spent a great deal of energy agonizing over what to do.

Recently I read an article on Yahoo finance that made me consider this whole issue of priorities even more.  I was actually getting quite irritated reading parts of it.  The article is titled “How to eat for $7 or less a day.”  Click on the title to read the article.

So why was I getting irritated reading this article?

In the current economic climate where security and money are playing such a large role in people’s values and the choices they make, from one perspective, this article really does come from the scarcity position.  Save money and eat for less.  What it does not address is the balance between quality and quantity.

Many of the tips are good.

• From the point of view of preserving food I believe freezing is by far the best since it is the best way to preserve the important nutrients in food and if you cannot eat fresh, live food then frozen is your next best option for quality.
• Buying from farmers markets instead of more expensive grocery stores will often result in fresher produce.

But where I disagree with this article is the increased use of Carbohydrates to bulk up the quantity of the meals.  It is my belief and the belief of many of the natural health professionals that I work with, that instead of increasing the proportions of Carbohydrates in each meal, increasing the proportion of the meal that is vegetables is a much better and healthier option.  Too often I have seen young people head off to college and resort to living on carbohydrates to save money – my own daughter did this.  Her health suffered and her immune system was less capable of fighting off colds and flu while in college because she chose to eat noodles, grains and other carbohydrate based foods instead of vegetables because it was cheap and she could use her money for fun things like going out with her friends.  There is even an urban legend about a student who chose to eat nothing but oatmeal so he could spend his money on beer and as a result he ended up with rickets – a nutritional deficiency causing bones to soften and break or be deformed.

There are so many nutrients in vegetables that help to keep us healthy, support the immune system, maintain our optimum weight, clarity of thought, avoid depression and positive mindset, maintain great levels of energy, and many other great benefits.

So my recommendations for eating more economically are:

• Cut down on the portion size of meat, chicken or fish – these are generally the most expensive items.
• Increase the numbers of vegetables you eat, especially whatever is in season right now since they are generally cheaper than vegetables that have to be transported from other areas.
• Have several different color vegetables at each meal. Different colors indicate different nutrients.
• Be aware of the carbohydrates you consume.
• If you cannot eat fresh produce use frozen.
• Wherever possible eat meals prepared from basic ingredients and avoid pre-made, processed foods and choose items that have less than five ingredients in them.

What I have found in my own life is that by eating better quality ingredients my quantity requirement is less and so the cost of my groceries is less.

The additional benefits are I spend less on medical bills.  I am rarely sick from colds or flu so I do not need medications for these conditions saving me more money.  I have great energy and great mental clarity.

We live in a wonderfully abundant world and when we believe that and focus on the quality and availability that is all around us life can become much better and health can be our number one focus and value.

Every morning my first task in my office is to triage my email.  Recently my computer went through some upgrades and now my internet opens onto the Yahoo main page instead of straight to my email.  This sometimes distracts me to look at whatever is being reported instead of email and this week my eye was caught by a report “Obese now outnumber Hungry says Red Cross.”

My first reaction was sadness that in the abundant world where we live hunger is still an issue but as I continued to read the article my sadness turned to something else.  I find it increasingly disturbing that so many people are suffering from obesity.  To quote Jagan Chapagain in the article “Excess nutrition now kills more than Hunger.”

While I respect and admire the work done by the Red Cross and other such organizations I would dispute that sentence.  It is my opinion that most obese people are that way – not because of “excess nutrition” but because the food they are eating is so depleted nutritionally that they, too, are starving.

We are now in our 6^th decade since food processing and prepackaging became the norm.  The greater the processing, the lower the quality and the fewer nutrients in the food we eat.

The article points to economic factors making affluent countries abundant in food creating the every increasing problem of people dying from factors related to over eating while in third world nations the hunger problem is getting worse and blames distribution as a major factor.

I believe that those of us who are fortunate enough to have been born in a country where food and education are both readily available need to take on personal responsibility.  We have the ability to get great information about the value of the foods we eat and the ability to make choices.

If you are in anyway interested in taking responsibility for your own body and keeping it well nourished I challenge you to keep a simple food diary.  I do not want you to count calories, quantities or ingredients; this is much simpler than that.  For this challenge count how many meals in one week are made from raw ingredients and you know exactly what has gone into the cooking.  That is how many meals can you guarantee are made from fresh vegetables, quality meat if you eat meat, did not have any ingredients from a packet and you know what every single ingredient is.

If it comes from a packet of any sort it is processed, if it contains flour or some other treated grains it is processed, if you eat at a restaurant can you guarantee you know every thing that is in your food?

So how often do you give the responsibility for the nutrition of your body to someone else?
What is the percentage?

If I assume breakfast, lunch and dinner as the main meals of the day and two snacks that is 5 meals a day, 35 meals in a week.  If you eat a corporate lunch 5 days in the week then that is 14% of your intake that you are trusting and paying someone else to give you good quality food.  Conversely if the only meal you can guarantee is made from fresh ingredients is breakfast then only 14% of your weekly nutritious intake is within your responsibility.

So how well do you eat?

http://news.yahoo.com/obese-now-outnumber-hungry-says-red-cross-103519257.html

I rarely look at the news.  I hate the doom and gloom and it brings me down when I read about all the negative things that are going on in the world today.  In reality there is little I can do about things that are happening at the global level so I prefer to focus on the place where I can have an impact – my local economy.  If I focus on my business and improving that and support others locally to do the same then I believe we will see things begin to get better.

Recently my email has started to open into the Yahoo front page instead of going directly to my email and being somewhat techno phobic I have not corrected it.  Like a bee towards flowers my eyes are drawn to the headlines every time I open up my email and I am getting sucked into reading the news – and it is mostly doom and gloom – until you consider perspective.

One article that caught my eye on Wednesday morning is entitled “4 Rising food costs that will hurt your wallet.”

My immediate thought was “which foods?” – Which is of course the hook in the title anyway but instead of a negative thought I was excited and was already looking for the positive in the message – and when I opened up the article my expectation was correct the main foods that are going up in price and are going to impact us are Wheat and Corn.

So why am I so excited by this?

It is my belief and the belief of many of the natural medicine community that we are far too dependent on Wheat and Corn.  Farming practices and good weather have made these two cereal products easy and cheap to grow in huge quantities and in our quest for cheaper and cheaper ways to eat whole food categories have been developed using wheat – we are even developing non-food categories like Bio-fuels because this commodity is so readily available.

Virtually every processed product in the grocery stores contains either wheat or corn and since much of the meat we eat is raised by feeding the animals on corn based food meat prices are also going to be impacted. Even most pet foods contain grains so they will be going up in price too.

We have become a nation dependent on ready made, processed foods because they are cheap and they are convenient and they are making us sick.

My hope is that as these foods become more expensive consumers will move towards whatever vegetables are cheaper and the proportions on the plate will change.  Padding out the meals with vegetables (rather than the increasingly expensive carbohydrates and meat) can only be a move in the right direction in my opinion.

That is why I am hopeful that this economic issue will actually be beneficial to the health of our nation.

To read the article click on the link.

http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113449-10939-1-4-

Do you ever find that people are very happy to tell you what to do and why you should do something but they don’t tell you how to do it?  I do.

When I am struggling to get started on a project and am procrastinating it is usually because I don’t have a clear picture of what I need to do.  Clarity can make all the difference to how motivated I am to get started.

At the beginning of August I launched my website after many months of struggling to write the copy to go on the pages.  Eventually I realized that I was not clear on what was needed for each page.  When I realized this I was able to complete the website in weeks instead of the months of struggling.  Am I totally happy with what I have written – no, but now I can go back and tweak the parts that I am not happy with.

I find it amazing that even though I am very aware of all these processes I still get caught up in the same habits and behaviors that prevent me from moving forward to achieve the results I want.  I overcome the habit in one area but it is still happening in another area of my life and the actions I take.  What wonderfully complex beings we humans are.

My suggestion to you this week is to look at areas where you are not getting the results you want and ask yourself:

“Where am I not clear about what I want and how can I get clarity around this area?”

If you have not checked out my new website I’d love for you to visit it.

www.lifebydesigncenter.com

For many weeks – even months my main focus has been my website.  The dilemmas about what it should look like, what the pages should be, what to write on each page, and lots of other details have occupied a lot of my time and in the last few months all my writing has been geared towards the website.

I still find it amazing that as a coach I can easily look at something somebody else is striving to achieve and make suggestions that can help them to move forward and yet, despite being very successful at it, I still get mental blocks when it comes to writing my own copy. The reasons for this are very clear to me, I am too close to it, have too much personal investment in it and am allowing all my own emotions and fears to get in the way – just the same as
every one else.  But what was really frustrating was my inability to use the tools I have on myself to get past the obstructions I was putting in my own way.

I am very grateful to Lynn from “Deglin Designs” for the support she has given me throughout the process.  As my web master she is one of the most patient and understanding people I know and the result is a website that I am happy to launch this week and she is happy with it being associated to her name.

My mother has a saying “you can’t see the wood for the trees” which is very appropriate when considering this situation.  Many times we are so close to something we need outside help to get the clarity that will allow us to move forward.  I am now seeking clarity in all things because I know that it will allow me to progress with my goals and achieve so much more.

To take a look at my new web site click here www.LifeByDesignCenter.com please explore the pages and look out for the free, no obligation gift from me – “10 Simple Things You Can Do to Improve Your Health.”