Posts

Purpose

When it comes to purpose, I have a unique perspective as I have been to many places as an avid traveler, and worked in many industries as a life-long learner and jack of all trades…master of none? Actually, I am a master of ONE trade. This one. Coach and confidant. I didn’t always know that. And that’s part of my perspective. I wasn’t sure about my purpose. I had it wrong in some ways, and other ways, I was simply afraid to claim it. I had to learn to lean into my purpose. Even while I was in a role that was perfect for me. My title was Health Coach, but I had to move into another phase of starting a business. My company was about health and wellness, but it had to fit into corporate settings and it had to be growing. So, while my days were spent helping people with their goals and being the very thing that I felt destined to be, even then, I wasn’t really doing that. I was just trying to fit into a box that I thought I wanted to be in. But, I didn’t realize that. At the time, the box...

Momentum

  Sometimes we can get stuck because we aren’t already doing something. It is hard to start things. If something is new, it is difficult to start it and even more difficult to be doing it regularly right away. I’ve talked about not being afraid to start something. I’ve talked about not being afraid to be bad at something. Anything you do for the first time, you will not be an expert. Period. That’s just how it works. But something else that can keep us from taking that first step, or trying to take another step after we’ve been off for a while. It’s momentum. We’ve heard the law of physics: an object in motion stays in motion. That is literally true. It can also help us get going. More importantly, it can help us not beat ourselves up about it. You can tell yourself that you want to be doing something. It can be any habit. More water, less screen time, more movement. Whatever it is, there is our desired place and there is where we are now. Even if that gap is small, it ca...

Do you know what you want?

  Do you know what you want? I’m not used to deciding what I want. I’m an easy-going, go with the flow type of person, so if you put something in front of me and ask me if I can do it, the answer is yes. If you ask me if I will do it, I will. If you ask me if I enjoyed it after the fact, I will likely have done it with a smile and so yes, it wasn’t too bad. But if you ask me beforehand, what do I want to do. I often don’t know what I want to do. I’m working on that. My wife asked me the other day, what do you want to do. On a good day that is met with a question mark. But on a bad day, that can be met with genuine anxiety. I can handle a lot. I know I can do a lot of hard things. I have had some difficult tasks put in front of me and I take pride in my ability to get it done. But I have realized that just because I can do something, even well, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s what I want to do, or even what I should do. In school, in our careers, many of us have been doing thi...

Listen to your body.

  Your body has a way of telling you something is off. Whatever it is, we really should listen. The best way I’ve heard it put as: "Powering through what’s draining you won’t make you stronger." We’ve always been told to push through, or "no pain, no gain", all the cliches, but think about life and all the situations where something just didn’t fit. I can think of many experiences like that myself. No matter how hard you are on yourself, it isn’t going to work. And that’s ok. We just have to do it differently. Or do something else.   I am thinking about that a lot today. I am thinking about what it means when something isn’t working. When something is harder than it should be. As I step into my new role…well it’s not new, but I had to listen to my body telling me to come back to this. I really feel like I’m coming back to myself. No matter what path we are on, we need to listen. We need to be able to look at ourselves and our goals. We need to be able to name wh...