Carry out a personal development plan to transform your life » life coaching

Sexual Category Differences – A Women’s Coach

allaboutlifecoaching — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:00:30 +0000

Are men from Mars & women from Venus here too?

I realize that I am more inclined to coach women. I have recently become aware that, although I have two sons and a great husband all of whom I have close and cherished relationships with, I am not in a man’s life or a man’s body or brain. I cannot view the world from their perspective and experience.

Because I have no brothers, a struggling first marriage and am sometimes very surprised by a male perspective on things, when my husband and I were first together, I often “interview” my husband about a man’s perspective on things so I could learn.

That being said, I notice that most women – including me, are more emotional and more easily connected to spirit or a spiritual perspective. I have a different experience of the world just because I have different cultural biases, a different functioning body, I use makeup, I wear dresses and skirts not just pants, the media sees me differently, etc. I think it’s safe to say there are some gender differences even if they are culturally stimulated.

So I tend to have female clients with some notable exceptions like a single parent father with a child and a female ex- to deal with. I know that I am more drawn to talk about certain things with women – sex, feelings, even business perspectives.

I am not saying one is better than the other for a woman. Just different. I often have had some great short-term coaching from my husband and occasionally some other male coaches but most likely I’d never hire a male coach for an on-going experience. I need a women’s coach.

But that’s me. What about you?

Click here and watch the Three Magic Secrets Movie for free – a free self-help ebook!

Living in the Now – We Teach What We Have to Learn

allaboutlifecoaching — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:00:23 +0000

Living in the Present

You know the phrase, “We teach what we have to learn”? Well, I should never be surprised that I spend a good deal of my days teaching, coaching, reminding clients about the very things I need to be reminded of. Some days I find I’ve done such a great job that my clients say exactly what I need to hear! Today was such a day. I needed to hear that I should be living in the now and that’s what happened.

My client started describing how she believes she is overcoming her anxiety. Besides being vigilant about what thoughts she’s thinking and giving up complaining, she realized that when she consciously was living in the now situation (whatever situation or task it is she’s involved in), her experience this past week has been – way less anxiety.

Just the reminder I need. I’m not having a problem with anxiety but I sometimes have a problem of feeling emotionally flat. I believe that habit comes from my childhood when the negative feelings and sense of powerlessness was so acute for me that I had to numb out so that I could survive my childhood. And that habit has survived to some extent all these years later. But when I am living in the now, I feel myself and feel my lively, juicy interior self.

You might be wondering how you are in the now or not even know what I mean. I’ll do it right in this moment and stop and explain the experience.

I stop and notice whether my full attention is on what I’m involved in. Right now I’m writing on the computer and because I write often and fairly easily, I notice that part of me is a little absent which means I am not in the present.
Now I come out from behind what feels like an inner door and be here with all of my attention focused on this very moment.
Now I’m trying to type and stay present with what I am doing – notice my fingers on the keys, my eyes following the type on the screen.

I knew even as I wrote the above that it isn’t the best description in the world but, hopefully, you know what I mean, will practice a bit and can duplicate my experience of living in the now.

Click here and watch the Three Magic Secrets Movie for free – a free self-help ebook!

Improving Self Esteem – 8 Questions to Ask Yourself

allaboutlifecoaching — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:00:11 +0000

The Lonely Issue of Self Esteem

If you think you are the only one interested in improving self esteem, you are not alone. Most people think that they are the only ones that have low self esteem while the truth of the matter is that most people at some time in their life suffer from self esteem issues. I mean really, who wants to walk around all victimy these days and say, “Poor me. I’m working on improving self esteem for myself?” Anyway, self esteem issues are a pretty good subject for your old friend denial to pop right in and cover up the whole thing from your conscious mind.

So if you want to check it out, ask yourself the following to uncover self esteem issues:

Do you settle for way less than you want in a relationship?

Do you absolutely never let anyone see you dressed less than perfectly?

Or do you go the other way and dress pretty sloppily quite often?

Do you work at jobs that are way beneath your talent ability or allow yourself to be way underpaid?

Do you tell yourself that those kinds of jobs are all that’s available or that you’re only doing them temporarily but find that you’ve actually done them for years?

Do you let your personal environment go to the point of severe clutter and either clean up only for visitors or keep people out of your home?

Do you secretly feel your aren’t very talented?

Do you sacrifice your wants and desires for others all or most of the time?

I’m sure many people could add to this list of questions but these are ones I can think back to from my own severe self esteem issue days.

The good news is you can change this. You can learn how to have higher self esteem. If you look around on the internet, you might run into statements like:

•    You just need to learn to love yourself and your life.
•    Let go of any anger or fear you are holding onto and be grateful for all that you have already been blessed with.
•    Forget about the past and the mistakes that you have made along the way. You can’t change them now and it will not accomplish anything by making yourself feel worse.

They sound nice and maybe even easy. But how do you accomplish those ends?

Look around this site. Every coach trained by YOU University Online has worked at improving self esteem themselves – oftentimes dramatically.

Develop your strengths and use them to gain any knowledge that can help you in the direction that you would like your life to go in. High self esteem is not a luxury it is a necessity and the only thing that will allow you to accomplish all of your goals. Since self-esteem affects every facet of life, having a healthy, realistic view of yourself is important. You also deserve to like and respect yourself and to be happy with your life and who you are. And remember, high self esteem doesn’t mean that you’ve gotten too big for your britches — it means you value yourself.

Click here and watch the Three Magic Secrets Movie for free – a free self-help ebook!

The Best Self Esteem Activities Are Just For You

allaboutlifecoaching — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

How Do You Feel About You?

There are many techniques and self esteem activities that you can easily incorporate into your life to help increase or maintain your self esteem. You’ll find some in some other blog posts on this blog.

Keeping your self esteem at a healthy level will make it much easier and enjoyable to succeed at whatever you hope to accomplish. Realize that it truly does not matter what other people think. You don’t need their permission to be who you are or their approval of who you are. All you need is your own positive view of yourself and realizing that is the best thing you can do for yourself and your self esteem. I’ve also discovered it’s one of the major benefits of growing older. I just don’t care much any more. I just have to be happy with me.

Remember to be nice to yourself even when you make mistakes. You are going to make them – sometimes big ones. Keep in mind that every single person on the planet makes mistakes too – sometimes smaller, sometimes bigger but everyone does it. The key is how you react when you do make a mistake. Try not beating yourself up but rather accept your error and forgive yourself. Try to learn from your mistakes so that you don’t continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over.

What to Do if You Were Taught Not to Take Care of Yourself

allaboutlifecoaching — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:00:57 +0000

Selfish or Self-Care?

It seems when I was a child I was never taught about self care or to want things. Whenever I wanted something, I was accused of being selfish. It didn’t matter if I was tired or just not wanting to do chores. I heard it so much and so often and didn’t want to think I was anything bad like that, I stopped taking care of myself in many different ways. If taking care of me was selfish , than taking care of and pleasing others was unselfish . And I’d much rather be unselfish. I suspect many people and maybe more women are taught this self-defeating, unloving attitude by other women – mostly their mothers who had learned the same thing in their early lives.

If you experienced something like that dynamic somewhere in your past, you might find it difficult to rest enough, difficult to eat well, difficult to take care of your body in other ways. You might find it difficult to take care of yourself in relationships. You might judge your emotions as unworthy of a good (unselfish) person. You might also find it difficult to have healthy boundaries and difficult to stand up for what you know is right.

How do I know all of this? I know it because I have lived it in one way or another. So what do you do if you see yourself in these words?

Start paying attention to how you treat yourself. Take a little notebook and write down the ways you see you not taking good physical care of yourself. Then get support to change those old habits. Find someone or someones who will help you understand that you are infected with wrong thinking. Funny. My mother also said, “God helps those who help themselves.” I’ll buy that one. So I help myself.

Start paying attention to how others treat you. Are you taken advantage of in relationships? Are you expected to give more than your partner? Are you underpaid? Do you do work that is unsatisfying? Talk to someone who loves you enough to be an honest mirror and listen to what they are saying. It is most likely the truth and you most likely know it is deep down inside yourself.

I have learned that self-care and self-love is the basis for a healthy and prosperous love-filled life. If you don’t know how to find the kind of support I am talking about to make those life-giving changes, see if life coaching is for you. Read about me. Find other coaches and interview them. Find support to learn to love yourself from the inside out.

Click here and watch the Three Magic Secrets Movie for free – a free self-help ebook!

Fears – Barriers to Personal Growth

allaboutlifecoaching — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:00:14 +0000

Fears in Control?

Allowing fears to stop you from accomplishing what you want in life might be one of the most significant barriers to personal growth.

Say you want to stop spending your life working for others, doing a job that is largely uncreative and unsatisfying to your soul. But you know how much money is coming in every month.

What if you don’t know what you do want to do or you know but have never been in your own business and don’t know how to start or all your old messages of incompetence arise? Hire a coach.

The right life coach will help you sort out your talents and skills and brainstorm with you on possibilities.

The right life coach is in their own business so they certainly can teach and support you to do the same.

The life coach will help you deal with your negative self talk.

Many people have various different fears and no matter what they are about, they can be so strong that they are completely debilitating. Many life coaches will help you with tools and techniques to overcome your fear so you can follow a clear path towards your future.

A coach will give you tools and techniques to help you over come your barriers to personal growth, of course, but the most important thing that they can give you is the confidence in yourself to know that whatever your fear is, you can handle it. Sooner or later, as you progress with your coach you will suddenly feel so strongly that you can face that fear and do whatever it is you are so scared of, you will just jump right in and do it.

Click here and watch the Three Magic Secrets Movie for free – a free self-help ebook!

Do You Have High Emotional Intelligence?

allaboutlifecoaching — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:00:09 +0000

Is Emotional Intelligence Important?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The only one allowed to get angry when I was a child was my mother. At least that how it seemed to me. I never really tried it past about 4 so I’m not sure what would have happened had I said, “Lay off, Lady! I hate that you are criticizing me and making me feel so bad.”

I seemed to be allowed only to be happy or hurt – at least that’s how I interpreted it all. As a result I not only lost touch with my real feelings but I acted the same way in my first marriage as I acted in my family. Happy or hurt.Then I found people, places and tools to teach me functional emotional intelligence. Beyond all the healing I did, my watchword was “tell the emotional truth quickly”. And that’s what I did – particularly in my relationship with the Martian. It was very scary at first. I thought I was risking losing him because my feelings were not all the popular ones. But a funny thing happened. We became closer and closer and we trusted each other more and more.

But we’ve refined that as time has gone by and we know neither one of us is going anywhere. We both try to remember timing.

Do I actually need to tell him some deal I’m going through when he is just walking out the door to work or when he is going through a rough patch himself? Well, sometimes I do but I have learned to be much more thoughtful and conscientious about my timing. I don’t let things pile up unexpressed but I do pay attention to the state my partner is in before I bring up difficult stuff. It works way better and sometimes things even get resolved before we’ve carved out the space to have that kind of communication.

As I tell my friends and clients, this is the single most important aspect to the success of our 27 year relationship.

Click here and watch the Three Magic Secrets Movie for free – a free self-help ebook!