Month: September 2009

Applauding “Find Your Strongest Life”

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I am so excited about Marcus Buckingham’s newest book and assessment, “Find Your Strongest Life: What the happiest and most successful women do differently.”  As one of the developers of the StrengthsFinder™ assessment, Buckingham has devoted his life to “. . . helping each person identify her strengths, take them seriously, and offer them to the world.” (Marcus Buckingham, “Find Your Strongest Life”)

I can’t wait to share this with you because I’ve devoted my life to helping people more consistently live and work from their best.  A huge part of living and working from our best involves living and working from our strengths: those natural abilities that, when we engage in them, strengthen us!

As an avid fan of StrengthsFinder™ for many years, I am now over the moon about the “Find Your Strongest Life” assessment and book.  In this newest body of work, Buckingham gives us the opportunity to discover the role we were born to play.

The “Find Your Strongest Life” assessment revealed my lead role as teacher (my best quality: my faith in others’ potential) and supporting role as advisor (my best quality: my ability to find a solution).  So confirming and affirming for my role as a life and business coach!  I strongly urge you to take the free “Find Your Strongest Life” assessment to discover your natural roles.

If you haven’t already taken the StrengthsFinder™ assessment to learn your top five natural strengths, I strongly encourage you to do that as well.  No other body of work has so clearly directed my own happiness and fulfillment!

After you’ve taken both the “Find Your Strongest Life” and StrengthsFinder™ assessments and read the books, if you would like one-on-one support with orienting your life and work around your StrengthsFinder™ strengths and your “Find Your Strongest Life” roles, I would be honored to support you in that hugely meaningful process . . . 

Meditation Tips: Recipe for “Instant” Manifestation

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As I have been contemplating new products and programs I’d like to offer, I have found myself second myself, wanting to look good, fearing failure and generally resisisting change.  Not much fun . . .

So, I paused to reflect and be with the fears and doubts so that I could move forward from a more centered place, from a place that is more of the best of me.  During that reflection, I wrote this meditation / affirmative prayer to support my process.

I offer it to you now, too, so that it may offer you hope and direction as well!


Recipe for “Instant” Manifestation

Within every desire
is all that we need
to bring that desire to fruition.

As we are ready to surrender
our ego strong-hold on:
•    What we think we know
•    Needing to look good
•    Old habits and patterns that no longer serve
•    What we believe is “the way”
•    Outdated identities that no longer fit
•    Whatever demands we have . . .

And we open to the magic of:
•    Being reborn in a moment
•    Expressing vulnerability and humanness
•    Loving all that is
•    Accepting our good
•    Flowing with change and transition        
•    Allowing ourselves to be all we are meant to be . . .

We are now ready in this moment
to bring our desire into reality. . .

Meditation Tips: Taking our Cues from the Season

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Happy Autumn!

As we transition to this new season tomorrow, take some time to reflect . . .

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  • What are you harvesting?

    What has grown into what you’ve dreamed it could?  As you meditate and reflect on different aspects of your life: wellness, relationships, career, money, home, personal/spiritual growth, what calls for celebration?

  • What are you ready to till back into the soil?

    As you meditate and reflect on aspects of your life, what has fulfilled its purpose and is ready to “go back to the Earth” to be reborn in a new way?  Or, what didn’t grow as you’d imagined and you now feel ready to release?

  • What yearns to be brought inside (within you) to warm by the fire?

    What ideas, passions, questions might you like to keep close to your heart and hearth right now?  What might be your meditation focus in this season?

  • What might you like to be for Halloween?

    What “character” within you wants to play right now?  What aspect of you would like some time “on stage”?

  • What activities do you most enjoy in this season?

    What autumn activities make your heart happy?  What are your favorite ways to be in nature this time of year?

Meditation Tips and Affirmative Prayer: Standing in the Center of Me

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Thank you to everyone on the Thriving Coaches Roundtable today who asked for a copy of this meditation, affirmative prayer, opening for our gathering.

So, I have now publically commited to having the published book of these meditations, affirmative prayers, openings, centerings available to purchase by Christmas.  Thank you so much for all of your encouragement!

Meditations tips: Feel free to use this piece and the others listed under “Mediation Tips” on this blog in any way that serves you and your clients . . .

 

Standing in the Center of Me

I’ve been tempted to step to the right
when I suspected that’s what he wanted me to do.

I’ve talked longer than I wanted because
I thought she would like me more.

I waltzed way over to the left
before I caught myself trying to please.

I’ve bent over backwards
until I noticed how much it hurt.

I agreed to projects that didn’t inspire me
because I thought I needed the money.

And, then it occurred to me:
all these contortions cause a lot of confusion.

Left to the whim of what I think you want me to be,
or what I believe she wants me to say or
what I hope he wants me to do,
then I am lost.

So I consciously choose to step back into the center of me.

In any moment, I choose based on how it feels to me.

Do I feel alive?
Happy?
Peaceful?
Whole?
Complete?
Loving?
Inspired?
Ignited?
Connected?
Expansive?
On purpose?
Of service?
Energized?

This is the center of me.

Do I feel less than?
Not enough?
Unworthy?
Self-conscious?
Drained?
Irritated?
Angry?
Sad?
Disconnected?
Confused?
Lethargic?

This is me attempting someone else’s dance,
attempting to stand in the center of something other than me.

Yet, there is no something else.

I can either stand in the center of me,
or deprive the world of my Self.

So, I choose now
to stand in the center of me.


“Standing in the Center of You” Coaching

If you would like empowering one-on-one support for Standing in the Center of You, check out Ann’s new, three-month “Standing in the Center of You” coaching program.

 

StrengthsFinder™: Full permission to do lots of the fun stuff

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One of my favorite aspects of the StrengthsFinder™ assessment
involves receiving full permission to do all the things that feel most natural, most easy, most fun for me.  If you haven’t yet taken the assessment to learn your top five natural strengths, I highly recommend it!

The Gallup folks who developed the StrengthsFinder™ assessment define a strength as “near perfect performance in an activity.”  While “near perfect performance” seems like a high standard, I have noticed with my own strengths over the years that I do, indeed have near perfect performance and it’s nearly effortless!  How cool is that?

I recently had this reinforced in a simple, yet powerful way  while getting a birthday card for my brother-in-law.  I sometimes find him hard to buy for, but this time I had an idea.  He lives near the beach in San Diego and just bought a second home in Maui.  He loves the beach and the ocean!  I wanted to find him a birthday card about his birthday being a great day at the beach.

One of my top five StregthsFinder™ strengths kicked into gear: Individualization, which involves loving noticing and responding to the specific uniqueness in each person.  I can’t always tell what excites my brother-in-law, but in this case I knew my birthday card idea hit the bulls-eye for him.  Except that there wasn’t a card in the greeting card store with that message and image!

Now what?  Well, I love making torn-paper cards (my own Individualization), but I wasn’t at all sure he would appreciate the hand-made card.  I felt excited about the idea, so I decide to proceed.  And I loved making the card and the finished product.  I mailed it and forgot about it.

Until a few weeks after his birthday, when my sister told me that my brother-in-law loved his card so much that he wanted to frame it!  That brought tears to my eyes.  I love that me being me, doing what I love to do naturally and easily had impacted him so strongly . . .

What would each of our lives be like if we focused every day on doing more and more of what strengthens us, what we are naturally gifted at, what we love to do?