“Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.”
– Walter Scott

What in you longs to blossom now?  Even though many of us choose to set goals and make resolutions in January, that timing actually contradicts nature – human nature and Mother Nature . . .

As Nature herself knows, attempting new growth in the dead of winter makes for a very short life span!  Perhaps explaining the reality of so many new year’s resolutions never taking hold?! 

Trees and flowers know better to wait for warmth to blossom.  And so we as human have this same blossoming opportunity now – when the air is cool and the sun is warm and we feel hope deep inside our limbs!

So, regardless of what did or didn’t happen with your new year’s resolutions, what longs to blossom in you now?  Can you sense more vibrant health inside you?  Do you know greater abundance in your business?  Are you feeling excited about new love blossoming?  Is a new project waiting to blossom?  New collaborations? Deeper friendships? New fun and adventure?  Spiritual awakening?  Travel to new places?

Let’s use this wonderful, fresh, spring energy to give voice and commitment to what longs to blossom from deep within us . . . looking forward to a wonderful autumn harvest because we’re taking the time now to tend the inspiration of new growth . . .

Feel free to post your spring blossoming urges in the comments below.

“Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”
– Albert Einstein

Several years ago, I fell in love with how clearly and accurately the StrengthsFinder™ assessment tells each of us where our genius lies.  Yet, there is a tricky part: our top 5 natural strengths are to us like water is to a fish.  Without some contrast with other strengths, it can be hard to know the “water we’ve always lived in.” 

In the last few months, I have immersed myself even more deeply with not just understanding each of the 34 strengths, but also how a person’s top 5 natural strengths work together to create their specific natural genius.

If you haven’t taken StrengthsFinder™, give yourself a HUGE gift and do it immediately.  Buy the book StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath and use the code in the back of the book to go online to take the assessment, which takes about 30 minutes.

If you’d like more info:
http://www.annstrong.com/strengthsfinder-coaching-you/

And as always, I invite you to share your own responses and experiences in the Comments section below.

“Your genius is precise.”
– Marcus Buckingham

To your natural genius!

I recently learned that problem-solving triggers fight-or-flight.  Choosing to instead engage with “What If . . .” generates safety and creativity.  I have been playing with it myself to experience the truth.  I can feel it in my body. 

When I think, “This (whatever “this” is) is a problem and now I have to find a solution,” I feel anxious. 

I think thoughts like:

• What if I can’t solve this?
• I don’t want to make (fill in the blank) mad.
• Why do I even have to deal with this?
• This is too much trouble.
• What if this snowballs into more problems?

You get the idea . . . 

Can you feel the anxiety or pressure building in your body as you read my thoughts?!?  Crazy.

If I instead, look at “What If . . .,” my body immediately relaxes.

I think thoughts like:

• What if it’s better than I imagine because (fill in the blank)?
• Maybe we could (fill in the blank).
• What if I don’t do anything right now and allow this to resolve itself?
• Maybe he meant (fill in a generous explanation, rather than the explanation that means I now have a problem).
• What if all is well?  Right now.  Everything as it is.

I just took a deep breath.  Did you? Can you feel your body relaxing?   

As always, I invite you to share your own responses and experiences in the Comments section below.

To finding the amazing opportunity in every single thing we had previously thought of as a problem to be solved!

I love living life from a coaching perspective.

Has fear guided you to the safe path?
Is life now calling you to walk your own path?

The distance between the two is far less than you believe.

I’m here to partner with you
in taking courageous steps
on this sacred journey
to more of yourself . . .

Walking in your own shoes.
Living your purpose. Your passion. Your strengths.
Your work. Your business.

Here is a bit of what I know for you, hold for you,
take a stand for you . . .

1. You are here on this planet for an extremely precise
   reason known as YOU.
2. Your own path is safer for you than the “safe” path.
3. You have precious, worthwhile gifts to offer. If you
   don’t offer them, no one else ever will.
4. You are being called to create new daily practices that
   replace old, out-dated, habitual thoughts that are holding
   you back from being more of you.
5. Your “confusion” no longer serves you.
6. Your thought of “who am I to . . .” must be replaced with
   knowing and owning your brilliance and Divinity.
7. Your brilliance and Divinity are more real than your fear.
8. Your strengths are your way.
9. Your excitement and enthusiasm will impeccably guide you.
10. There is a line outside your door of people waiting
    patiently and impatiently to work with you!
11. You are here to be with them in a way that makes their
    lives and work richer and fuller because they work with you!
12. You must make your choices and create your own life and
    work from the specificity of YOU.

 I have created 7 gift “More of You” Coaching Strategy Sessions
between now and the end of the month.

Is one of these sessions yours?

If you know that you are now committed to courageously walking
your own path with your life and your coaching business, then
book your appointment on my online calendar now.
https://www.timetrade.com/book/FJYJS

This session offer huge value. It is my gift to you.

You will leave the session with:

• A clear picture of where you are now with your coaching business and where you’d like to be a year from now.
• An understanding of what stand between where you are now and where you want to go.
• Direction, excitement and next steps about what it takes to bridge the gap!

 And, I have an opening for two new coaching clients. If we
determine you and I would be a good fit for me coaching you,
we can talk about that at the end of the session.

To the joy that comes from
living and working
from more of all of you!

Ann

P.S. If you’re still reading and not sure if this session is
for you, take a stand for yourself and claim it now!
https://www.timetrade.com/book/FJYJS

P.P.S. If you’ve had a gift Jump Start Session or a gift Coaching
Consultation with me in the past, please allow someone who hasn’t
received one of these gifts to do so. Instead, call me on my direct
office line to talk about working together if you feel called now.
303.399.8737.

This week two of my clients discovered huge “shoulds” around being different than who they are.

“I did great last week when I was home every night.  I love being home and not having to go out.  This week several of my friends want to hang out.  I should go out with them, but I’d rather be home.”  As we talked, I realized that my introverted client felt she had to be more like her extroverted friends.

“My cousin lost weight on Weight Watchers.  My husband follows a high-protein diet and it works great for him.  I’ve tried both several times and I don’t lose weight.  What am I doing wrong?”  As my client spoke, I heard that she hadn’t found her natural way to lose weight.  She was slowing her progress to discovering her way by thinking that her cousin’s or her husband’s way should be her way.

Finding our own way is not as mysterious as we might initially think.  Does it energize and excite you?  Does it feel good to you?  Right for you?  That is your way!  No matter how different it is from what those around you are up to.

Does it drain you?  Feel like a burden?  Do you hear (actually or implied) “I should?”  That is not your way!

The specificity of you is never, ever to be repeated.  If you really, really knew that, how might you shift the way you do your life?

If you’d like more specifics and activities around this wonderful topic of being more you, then grab your copy of my book: Thriving Work: A Journey to Your Best Self.

And as always, I invite you to share your responses and experiences in the Comments section below.

To noticing when you aren’t allowing you to be you and then consciously choosing more of you . . .

What do you long to create this year?  In the continuous cycle of giving and receiving, what would you love to receive?

This year, instead of running “out there” to “get” or instead of sitting right where you are now, waiting to “attract,” I’d love to offer you something far more sustainable and fulfilling.

Consider for a moment the energetic difference between getting, attracting and creating.

What does each feel like?

If you are anything like me and my private coaching clients, you may find getting to be exhausting and attracting to be frustrating or some variation of each.

What makes creating truly different?

While you are not in charge of what you can get or what you can attract, you are always in charge of what you create!

Do you want to create or re-create your coaching business?  Good.  Then coach every day and ask people to pay you.  Do you see the difference between that and trying to get clients or waiting for clients to show up? 

It’s subtle and it changes everything.

Do you want to finally write your book this year? Great.  Then write four pages every day.  Can you sense the difference between that and buying a book-writing system or hoping you’ll have the time to write?

Creating holds you accountable.  Receiving naturally follows creating.  As you create your coaching business, you receive clients, income and fulfillment.  As you write your book, you receive your own body of work, new opportunities and fulfillment.  As you create, you begin to realize your infinite capacity to create. 

What were you born to create?

If you are ready to immerse yourself in the creation process and would love an amazing coaching partnership in that endeavor, I will have an opening for a new client the end of January and another the end of February.

If you have an inkling that you would love to create a partnership with me as your coach, reply to this email and we’ll schedule some time for us to explore that.

In December, I created play in two areas: 21 intuitive paintings in 21 days and tremendous learning around StrengthsFinder™ from an advanced training.  I then took two weeks off to integrate.  I really stretched myself and feel so renewed and invigorated, ready to create more!

To our delicious creating and receiving!
Ann

P.S. Speaking of delicious creating, My client, Emma Skala, proprietress of The Shoppe here in Denver creates a dozen new cupcake flavors every single month!  My favorite this month: French Toast.  She told me she could create new cupcakes every month for the next 20 years!!!  Now that’s creating. 

She is featured this week on the Cooking Channel’s “Unique Sweets” the Wild West Sweets episode, first airing at 10:30 pm ET.  How’s that for creating?!?  
https://www.facebook.com/pages/TheShoppe/214370898579113?ref=ts&fref=ts

Most of us are not naturally disciplined.  Sure, we can learn discipline.  We can push ourselves.  We can muscle our way into something like discipline, but we don’t tend to stick with it because it doesn’t come naturally and it doesn’t energize us.

Last month I attended an advanced StrengthsFinder™ Train-the-Trainer and learned that after 10 million people taking the assessment, Discipline is one of the bottom 5 of 34 strengths.  We questioned that finding.  Surely people in the military have a lot of discipline.  To fully understand, you need to know that the StrengthsFinder™ folks define a strength as consistently near perfect performance.  After working with StrengthsFinder™ for more than 10 years, I’ve noticed that when people are using and expressing their strengths, they are naturally energized.

So if you, like most people, don’t stay consistently disciplined and aren’t naturally energized by disciplined, how do you move toward, engage more with your optimal life and work?  Most people I know aren’t too keen on New Year’s resolutions, yet they still feel a calling at this time of year toward more growth, more life . . .

My top strength, Maximizer, calls me to take things from good to amazing.  I’m energized by making something already good even better.  I love to make a practice of things, creating a lot of opportunity to consistently maximize.

Often this time of year, I create a new practice so that I naturally move toward the things I might otherwise try to make resolutions about. Yeah to my Strategic strength!  For me this year, I have gotten back to daily sacred time in the morning before I start my day. (This feeds my Connectedness strength.)  I give myself 20 to 30 minutes to do a short meditation, some reading and some writing.  This quiet, open time creates the space for me to connect with best uses of me for the day.  That way, if I don’t get to everything in a given day, I have at least gotten to the important things, rather than the details in my line of sight or the “urgent” distractions.

What about you?  Which of your strengths can you call upon to naturally energize yourself toward more of your wonderful life and work?  If you haven’t yet taken the StrengthsFinder™ assessment, I highly recommend it.  For the cost of a book and about 30 minutes of your time, you receive an incredible personal compass of your top 5 stengths and huge permission to be more of the best of you!  

For info, visit:
http://www.annstrong.com/strengthsfinder-coaching-you/
 
And as always, I invite you to share your responses and experiences in the Comments section below.

To your own natural and energizing resolve!