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Are You Hiding? Thoughts from a Life Coach

02 08 10'

Written by leanna

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“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” Marianne Williamson

“To change the printout of the body, you must learn to rewrite the software of the mind.” Deepak Chopra

“Ever try to change your mind, only to find out that your mind has a mind of its own?” Robert Williams

Thinking it Through…

Self sabotage. Are you familiar with it? I sure am! I’ve often heard that if you want to grow as a person start your own business or go further in your career then you ever thought you could. Taking a leap like that has the nasty side effect of bringing out more mental blocks and limiting beliefs then you can shake a stick at. I’ll just choose one of my personal favorites to talk about today. This is a belief that has blocked my way so many times that it feels like an old friend (or enemy.) It is the belief that “It is not safe to stand out.” It also ties very neatly with the belief that “It is not right to stand out.” Does this sound familiar to you? In our society we honor those that stand out, at least for good things, and hold them on a pedestal until they fall. Then it’s not pretty. Many of us remember experiences in school where we stood out as special and were quickly put in our place by teachers or peers. Most of us have been exposed to criticisms when we were in positions where we were noticed. Perhaps you heard from your parents or relatives that “The tall blade gets cut first” or ” Don’t get too big for your britches.” No wonder so many of us find ways to disappear and sabotage when our career or business requires us to stand out, speak out and be noticed.

If you can relate to these beliefs you are probably wondering what you can do about it. The first step is to realize that you have the beliefs and take a good look at them. Do they make sense for you now? If you stand out you probably WILL get criticized once in a while. Can you keep yourself safe? Do you have strategies in place so you can handle it? A tool I most often use to remove the power from my limiting beliefs is EFT. It is very simple to learn and extremely effective. Whatever you choose to do, take a good look at your beliefs and make sure they are working for you not against you. It is time to live large, contribute lavishly and enjoy life to its fullest.

Challenge:

1. Are you afraid to stand out? What do you think will happen?

2. How has that belief held you back?

3. When have you sabotaged your success?

4. What is the downside of changing your limiting belief?

5. What new belief will you choose to have?

Dance with Joy,

Leanna Fredrich
Life Coach
Leanna@AmazingMondays.com

PS: If you would like to learn how to use EFT please email me for more information. If you would like to work on beliefs that are sabotaging your ability to have work you love go to http://www.amazingmondays.com/products/tia-work.html.

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Uncategorized, beliefs, career, career change, career coach, career transition, life change, life coach, life coaching

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This New Year I’m Tossing Out Goals… Thoughts from a Life Coach

01 05 10'

Written by leanna

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“You want to set a goal that is big enough that in the process of achieving it you become someone worth becoming.” Jim Rohn

“Create your future from your future not your past.” Werner Erhard

“Simplicity! Simplicity! Simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.” Henry David Thoreau

Thinking it Through

This New Year I threw out some of my goals. It was so much fun and I think I lost weight while doing it! I went through all of last year’s goals and found the ones that I had done very little or nothing on. (Not hard to find I’m ashamed to admit.) Any goal I had that met the “no action” criteria I took a careful look at and most of them I just threw out. For example one of my goals was to bond with my boys every Sunday morning by playing sports at the park. That worked really well for awhile but Sunday morning sports disappeared with the first hard frost. I just know from the bottom of my cold feet that I will not take action in the winter on that goal. So I changed it to be a summer one and during the colder months I will bond with them over pancakes by a blazing stove.

Our brain can only handle about 7 goals at one time. Sometimes I think that is stretching it! So it is important to save our energy, creativity and focus for goals we will actually take action on. In order to do that it is important to let those “no action” goals go away. You can always pick them up another time but for now let them go. I can hear some of you saying, “Yes, but I really need to reach that goal!” If it is that important to you, then it is time to do something different. Hire a coach or join a class or be accountable to a group and most of all take action. Goals that just sit there with no action are worse then no goals at all because they drain your valuable energy. So here’s to keeping only goals you are taking action on and tossing out the rest!

Challenge:

1. What are some goals you need to throw out this year?

2. What are the goals you are going to focus on?

3. If you keep an old “no action” goal what are you going to do differently this year?

Dance with Joy,
Leanna Fredrich
Life Coach
http://www.AmazingMondays.com

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The Brain Experiment…Using Your Head to Reach Your Goals: Thoughts from a Life Coach

12 02 09'

Written by leanna

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“Mind is the master power that molds and makes,
And we are mind, and evermore we take
The tool of thought, and shaping what we will,
Bring forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills.
We think in secret, and it comes to pass,
Our world is but our looking glass. James Allen

“…Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” Napoleon Hill

“The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.” Ben Stein

Thoughts…

People throughout the ages have discussed how powerful thoughts are and how they can change your life. Often the explanations can get very deep or scientific as they talk about quantum physics and energy. While all of the discussions hold truth , there is a far simpler explanation of how your thoughts change your life. It all begins with a part of your brain called the Reticular Activating System.(RAS) This diminutive part of your brain has an exceedingly huge job to do. It’s job is to filter through all of the stimulus we receive every second of our lives and then let us know what is important for us to focus on. Without this part of our brain we would go crazy trying to pay attention to everything from how our socks feel on our toes, the hum of the refrigerator to the sounds of a child crying outside. Everything would grab our attention equally and the result would be major overwhelm. Thankfully this beautiful part of our brain offers up to us only what we have decided is important. And that is where the power of our thoughts come in. Whatever we think about over and over especially with emotion, that is what the RAS shows us.

I just heard a fascinating example of how this works … John noticed that everyday when he looked through the mail it consisted of bills and useless catalogs. “I sure wish my mail was full of checks instead.”he thought. John decided that he would imagine many times per day checks filling his mailbox. Each evening when he walked in the door he would ask his wife “Did I get any checks today?” Everyday the answer was “no” and his kids started thinking dad had really lost it. Months went by as John trained his RAS to look for ways to get checks in his mailbox. Then one morning as he walked into his office where he worked as a journalist the secretary said, “John, people keep asking for some of your old articles do you have any I could share?” John’s RAS started screaming! Here’s a way to get checks in the mail! So he took some of his old articles and put them in a small booklet to sell. That was the beginning of John receiving checks in the mail almost everyday . He had let his brain know by his consistent imagining that getting checks in the mail was very important. The RAS started scanning his environment for anything that could bring him checks in the mail and kept at it until an answer was found. John used this process to bring more money in, my friend Debbie used it to lose weight and keep it off, the possibilities are endless. Using the power of your thoughts is not complicated but it requires daily imagining and the ability to remain curious rather then always asking if it’s working! So here’s to the RAS, imagining and curiosity! Start using the power of your brain today.

Questions…

1. What do you want to create in your life?

2. What will you imagine?

3. Are you curious or desperate?

4. Commit to spending time everyday picturing what you want.

Dance with Joy,

Leanna Fredrich
Life Coach

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life change, life coach, life coaching

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5 Keys to Thrive

11 22 09'

Written by leanna

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I hope you enjoy this video and the new look of my blog! For those of you in the US, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Click here to watch the video
Dance with Joy,
Leanna Fredrich
Life Coach
http://www.AmazingMondays.com

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life change, life coach, life coaching

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The "Yes List": The Key to Living on Purpose

11 04 09'

Written by leanna

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You don’t have to let yourself be terrorized by other people’s expectations of you. Sue Thoele

One must live the way one thinks or end up thinking the way one has lived. Paul Bourget

The more time you spend doing what is important to you the quicker the unimportant things drift away. Leanna Fredrich


Thinking it Through…

One of the keys to living a life of purpose is to know what your “Yes List” is . A “Yes List” is simply a list of your top priorities. The brain can handle only 7 goals at a time so choose a maximum of seven priorities for your life. Make sure YOU, your self-care, is one of those seven items. So often I see client’s who quickly begin writing their priorities and leave themselves right off the list. The fact is if you don’t take excellent care of yourself then you might as well throw out all the other items on the list because you won’t have the energy, health or creativity to do them well.

Write your 7 Priorities down on index cards or where you will see them often so you can check in frequently. Now, when someone asks you to do something that is not on your “Yes List” it is time to cultivate the fine art of saying “no”.
I recently asked a client about her “Yes List”. One of the items she wrote down first was to start the business she always dreamed of. I asked her when she last spent time working on her business. Well, that questions stumped her. She had to think and think before she hesitantly answered that it was about 4 months ago. Four months since she has devoted any time at all to one of her top priorities! Unfortunately, she is not alone. That is why it is critical to be clear on your priorities and divide your time up accordingly. Put yourself back in the driver’s seat of your life.
.

Challenge:

1. What are the seven items on your “Yes List?”

2. Are they really your priorities or are you listing what you think they “should” be?

3. How much of your week are you spending on your “Yes List?”

4. What do you need to say “no” to so you have more time for the things that are important to you?

Dance with Joy,
Leanna Fredrich
Life Coach

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Purpose, life coach, life coaching, life purpose

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Job Hunting: Price Yourself Like a House

11 03 09'

Written by leanna

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I saw this article and thought those of you looking for a job right now would enjoy it… Happy job hunting! Leanna Fredrich, Life Coach

Job-seekers want to know: How do I price myself in this erratic job market? If I set my sights too high in the compensation department, I’ll lose out on opportunities. If I price myself too modestly, I could leave money on the table—and worse, I could lose credibility with employers who won’t value my skills any more highly than I value them myself.

The most common mistake job-seekers make is to price their skills based on their current or most recent comp level. If you’re in a high-paying industry or company, your past or current salary could be the perfect measure of what you’re worth in the market. But if you’re not—if you’ve come from or are still working in one of the many companies paying below-market salaries—you’d be shooting yourself in the foot by relying on your past employer’s assessment of your value. You can do a better job of pricing yourself, than that.

Homeowners use the Web site Zillow.com to gain intelligence about their house’s value. Zillow uses tax records and home-sale data to arrive at house-by-house pricing estimates (called “Zestimates”) that help homeowners make a value argument when nearby comparables are hard to come by. What’s great about Zillow is that the longer the database continues to be populated with new datapoints, the more accurate it becomes.
Where to Look

Job-seekers need a Zillow of their own, to price their skills against the market and leave behind the tired “what my last company paid me” measure. Here are few tools to help the comp-befuddled get a sturdy comp number to guide them in their job-search travels:

• GLASSDOOR.COM is something like Zillow for working people. It uses real-person input to arrive at salary estimates for various jobs as well as reviews of specific employers.

• PAYSCALE.COM is another terrific source for job-by-job salary information, factoring into details such as your location, the school you graduated from, and how long you’ve been on the job. To receive your free report, you’ll have to wade through a spammy page or two hawking online degree programs, but the information is good to have, whether you’re job-seeking or just checking your market rate.

• SALARY.COM is the hoariest of the online salary-data sites, with good information based on Zip Code and job title.

To supplement the online pay-level data you collect, it’s a great idea to check in with a local headhunter or two to make sure your numbers fit the market and those of other candidates with similar backgrounds to yours.

Once you’ve got a number you are comfortable with, you can start to talk confidently with employers about your salary expectations. And you must: Don’t plow through the interview process without having a brass-tacks compensation chat by the end of your second interview round. You’ve got something to sell, and you’ve got to share its cost, the same way your Realtor posts the listing price of your home on the multiple listing service. When you’re selling a house, you can’t take a buyer through the place, chat about the neighborhood, and then ask “What do you think it’s worth?” You’ve got to name your price up front. It’s the same way in a job search—coyness about compensation is not part of the deal.

Often, caught up in the “they like me!” vortex of a fast-moving interview stream, candidates think this way: “I really like what I’m learning about the job; I just hope it pays enough. I won’t bring it up until they do, so that I don’t seem too greedy.” This is a bad way to proceed, because it sets you up to take a job that doesn’t pay your rate. Once you’ve invested time and emotional energy in the selection process, you’re at risk of making a bad decision rather than walking away. That’s bad for your long-term earnings as well as your credibility.
Don’t Play Cat-and-Mouse

Since you’ve taken the time to determine your market value, you’ve to state it—proclaim it, in fact—when you and a potential employer begin to discuss a job offer in earnest.

Some job-seekers play hard-to-get with their salary expectations, waiting for an employer to name its target pay range for a position. They do this so that in case their target pay requirement is $110K and the company has budgeted $115K for the position, once the company lays out its pay scale the candidate can position himself to collect every dime of it—forestalling the risk that the “extra” $5K will be left on the table.

In my view as a former HR exec, this is silly. The odds that your well-researched salary level is far off the mark are low, and the odds that it’s off the mark on the low side are even lower. And besides, if you ask for $110K and get it, what’s to be unhappy about? If your employer is the sort that values talent, all the better for you—there should be promotions and bonuses in your future. Rather than play cat-and-mouse with an employer over the issue of “who speaks first,” I’d advise a job-seeker to say, at the second interview or the phone call inviting him to the second interview, “Shall we talk about comp ranges now? I’d hate to waste your time or mine if we’re not in the ballpark with respect to the salary level.”

With that entree, ninety-nine and a half out of 100 company reps will ask you, “So, how much are you looking for?” You’ll name your number, and let the recruiter or hiring manager react. If you’ve done your homework, you shouldn’t be far out of line from the company’s own expectations. And if you’re too rich for their blood, you wouldn’t want to work there anyway.

Liz Ryan is an expert on the new-millennium workplace and a former Fortune 500 HR executive. www.lizryan.com

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Let’s Hear it for the Unbalanced Life!

10 05 09'

Written by leanna

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“I will not should on myself today.” Unknown

“The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.” Ben Stein

“Decide upon your major definite purpose in life and then organize all your activities around it.” Brian Tracy

Thinking it Through…

We hear a lot about the need for having a balanced life. “If I only had more “life balance” it would be better.” Give it up! We will never have a balanced life nor would we probably want one. What most of us want is a life full of doing what is meaningful to us and what we are passionate about. Think about someone who is passionate about their life. Is it balanced or are they spending huge amounts of time doing exactly what they value? Often we talk about needing more balance when what we really mean is that we are spending a lot of our life doing things that we don’t care about. That’s when our lives feel unbalanced. It is when we are spending our lives on “shoulds” that we start feeling futile. (For example the day I had last week full of running errands. Ugh!) So instead of worrying that your life is not balanced ask yourself how much joy and passion is in your life? Perhaps having a life full of passion will require spending a entire day painting, hiking or researching a topic of interest. Is that balanced? No, but it is fulfilling and purposeful. So my challenge for you this month is to discover the joys of an “unbalanced” life. Load your days up with activities that are meaningful and enjoyable to you.

Challenge:

1. What do you wish to fill your life with?.

2. What are the “shoulds” in your life that you want to let go?

3. What percentage of your day is filled with activities you love?

4. Take steps today to increase the percentage of time spent on those things you are passionate about.

Dance with Joy,
Leanna Fredrich
Life Coach
Leanna@AmazingMondays.com

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career change, life change, life coach, life coaching, passion-filled work

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5 Keys to Wealth and Happiness

09 24 09'

Written by leanna

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I listened to this audio by Tony Robbins this morning and got so much out of it! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Just click here to listen… (http://jay-tr.s3.amazonaws.com/5keys.mp3)

Dance with Joy,

Leanna Fredrich
Life Coach
www.AmazingMondays.com

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What is Your Ikigai?

09 08 09'

Written by leanna

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“Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in life has a purpose.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“Decide upon your major definite purpose in life and then organize all your activities around it.” Brian Tracy

“It’s time to start living the life you’ve imagined.” Henry James

Thinking it Through

I was reading the book, The Blue Zones which shares the results of research studies done in areas (Blue Zones) where more people live to be over a 100 then anywhere else on the earth. The researchers were looking for commonality’s among the octogenarians to discover the secret to their long and healthy lives. One of the clues they found was that all of the octogenarians had Ikigai (icky guy) or purpose, a reason for living. (Really, it is lots more fun and exotic to say Ikigai then purpose!) In Okinawa, one of the Blue Zones, they talk about it all the time. In fact if you stop one of the Okinawan octogenarians on the street and asked what their Ikigai was they could tell you without a pause. If I asked you, could you tell me your purpose? Do you know why you get up or is your day just made up of an endless to-do list that feels meaningless? If you are without an Ikigiai then it is well worth your time to find a quiet place and think about it. Don’t worry we all have one! Consider what is meaningful to you and what you really care about… Here are some examples of purpose statements.

“To leave the world a better place than I found it, for horses and for people.”

“To uplift humanity’s consciousness through business.”

“To inspire and Coach people to live life with passion.”

“To bring beauty into people’s lives through their homes and yards.”

As you read these statements it is obvious that there are many different ways these people could live their Ikigai and that’s the beauty of a purpose statement. It needs to be big enough that it will still get you out of bed when you are a hundred and ten! The other wonderful thing about purpose is that you will never get bored because you can do many different things to live your purpose. For example; Let’s look at the purpose statement “To bring beauty into people’s lives through their homes and yards.” This person could be doing a million different things. They might build water features, open a boutique with beautiful things for the home and yard, have an online business, be an organizer… and the list goes on. When I work with clients to find their Ikigai they are often surprised to discover they are already involved in at least a few activities that relate to their purpose. The problem is they have not acknowledged their accomplishments and are not focused on their purpose. Knowing your Ikigai and focusing on it daily makes all the difference!

Challenge:

1. What is your Ikigai? What is it that gets you out of bed in the morning?

2. What are your top 3 unique strengths?

3. How can you use those strengths to live your purpose?

4. What is something you can do today to live your purpose?

Dance with Joy,

Leanna Fredrich
Life Coach
www.AmazingMondays.com

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life coach, life coaching, passion-filled work

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Are You Sitting on an Idea?

08 03 09'

Written by leanna

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“In action lies wisdom and confidence.” Albert Schweitzer

“…courage is only an accumulation of small steps.” George Konrad

“I’ve never been afraid to step out and to move out in order to make things happen.” Victoria Gray

Thinking it Through…

I love the world of ideas. That pure, perfect energetic world where anything can be created and obstacles are unheard of. I’m good at playing in that world. I love hearing other people’s ideas and I enjoy thinking up my own. There is no argument that the world of ideas is wonderful but taking permanent residence in “idea land” can become a problem. What I have found is that if I stay too long in the “idea stage” the idea becomes stale and bitter causing me to not even want to think about it. The idea that once was energizing becomes an energy drain!

The only cure I have found is to begin the messy work of taking steps to move the idea into reality. It is messy because the minute I take action to create what I have envisioned my “monkey mind” starts chattering. It says “helpful” things like “This will never work.” “I think you can come up with a better idea.” “There are too many problems with this idea.” or the particularly encouraging, “You’re an idiot and all your ideas are doomed for failure!” Taking action is also messy because when I take action that is when I find obstacles and things I need to change. Over time I have learned to hang in there because when I keep taking action a beautiful thing happens…My idea gives me energy again. Even though I come up against problems I feel excited because I am creating and creating is one of the aspects of life that makes it worth living.

Challenge

1. What idea do you have that has become stale and bitter due to inaction?

2. What small step can you take towards creating this idea?

3. Every day for a week take at least one action step to create your idea. At the end of the week notice how you feel.

Dance with Joy,
Leanna Fredrich
Life Coach
http://www.AmazingMondays.com

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life coach, life coaching

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