Visit my new website at Intentional Actions

Please visit my new website and blog at Intentional Actions.

I will keep this blog active for awhile, but all updates and fresh content can be found on my new site.

A Life Less Valued

How often do you embrace your life’s most cherished moments? What are the simple things in life that bring a smile to your face? What are the gifts of life that bring you the greatest sense of contentment and satisfaction?  You know those precious experiences that breathe energy into your spirit and fill your life with meaning and purpose. Our core values remain fairly constant but they can easily be misplaced or lost as we traverse through the pathways of our hectic lives.  

Would your choices be different if you were mindful of those experiences that brought the greatest value to your life? Perhaps you might start pursuing personal passions and dreams, engage in meaningful activities with family and friends more often, join a grass roots organization, extend a helping hand to a stranger you pass along the way, join a barber shop quartet, quit your job of 20 years and start that business you have always dreamed of, volunteer time and energy for a cause you embrace. How much more fulfilling would your activities and experiences be if they were aligned with your core values? 

You get the idea

It is easy to lose our connection to those internal prizes that bring us great rewards. There is the living of life that can derail us within the blink of an eye. There is so much to do, to accomplish in such a short period of time. And what do we have at the end of that time? 

There are many reasons why we end up distanced from those values and beliefs that hold great power and rewards for us?  We are driven to succeed in a frenetic and ever changing world. We are apprehensive of stepping off course, of making changes and of letting go. We are fearful of failing, of disappointing others. We are distracted by the maelstrom that is our daily life. The end result frequently leaves us feeling short-changed in satisfaction, sense of purpose and inner peace. 

There is always opportunity to reset your focus and action towards activities more aligned with what you truly value. Greater mindful awareness of what motivates the choices you make will be required.  You will need to take the time to reflect on what you do, why you do it and what your rewards are. 

• Identify and write down your core values 
• Note how often your choices are guided by these values
• List experiences that have brought you the greatest sense of fulfillment throughout your life. Record any that you have lost sight of along the way that were particularly important to you and that you would like to build back into your life.
• Develop a plan of action that allows you to maintain awareness of what you value most and identify how you will build in more experiences that follow you core values and beliefs. 
• Identify the benefits you will reap by following this action plan. You are much more likely to adhere to a new activity when the benefit is clear.
• Schedule time to review choices you make to assure that you are adhering to your action plan.  

The quality of life is determined by the choices we make and we thrive or suffer based upon them. If your choices are determined by your core values, you are destined to thrive.  

Contact Jim today for a complimentary 30-minute success coaching session.

The Power of Persistance

 I was working strenuously to build at least a semblance of a muscle at the gym the other day when I noticed a young man working a seemingly uninspiring exercise. This gym-master simply shrugged his shoulders while holding a barbell at the end of his arms. I wondered what would drive someone to do this tedious exercise even just a few times.  It wasn’t exciting. He didn’t look like the Incredible Hulk when he was finished. He looked just the same as he did before he started.

I decided this fellow would need to replicate this routine many times before any observable result would be achieved. Yet here he was repeating this movement over and over no matter how dull it appeared to me.

The thought that this man had patience, persistence and trust in what he was doing immediately crossed my mind. He persisted in this activity despite the presence of any immediate reward. He knew if he maintained this routine he would reap the reward of a stronger and healthier body over a period of time.

How many of us are willing to persist in any routine that doesn’t offer an immediate return on our investment? To trust that our replicated actions are leading to enhanced health, wealth, professional and personal performance, quality of life?

"Achieving long-term benefits takes persistence, patience and trust."

This is the era of immediate stimulation and reward. You want to feel better? Take a pill, put on your headphones and blast music into your brain, call a friend while your are driving on the expressway at 75 miles per hour, get on line and socialize with two thousand of your closest friends, gulp a Grande Mocha-Ole-Latte-Light with a Red Bull Chaser and feel the immediate rush. Everything is in the moment, with little thought about the outcome of our actions or a willingness to defer immediate gratification for a longer lasting reward. No time to think about what I am doing now. I got things to do and I want to feel a rush of energy and emotion at every turn of my life.   

Achieving long-term benefits takes persistence, patience and trust. Sometimes the activity will not be glamorous or exciting, but if it is well designed you will reap sustained benefits and rewards.  When you set your sights on the Golden Goose be ready to replicate behaviors that work, trust that what you are doing will serve your best interest and be willing to wait for the return on your investment.  

Contact Jim today to your complimentary introductory coaching session.

Tame The Beast That Runs You Ragged

Does it ever stop?

• Your boss’ last-minute emergency that has to be tended to before we can escape into the darkness of night. 
• Never-ending demands on our all-too-limited time.
• The relationship that needs our attention and nurturing.
• Family time, family crisis.
• Soaring expenses and plummeting cash flow.
• Gridlock, medical bills, national, political and financial meltdowns.
• Emotional overload and dare I say it? The end of Two and A Half Men as we know it, (yikes could the end of our civilization be upon us?).

In this helter-skelter world that we live in constant transitions is the rule. How we thrive through these transitions is critical to a successful and a valued existence.

Great value is attributed to human resiliency, the innate ability to rebound from devastating life experiences and to succeed against all odds.
There are a multitude of historical accountings of individual and community devastations and recovery that support our remarkable ability to flourish during incredibly dire circumstances.

But, how do we flourish during persistent and enduring change and daily stressful experiences?  I believe mindful awareness and conscious proactive choices are critical if we are to flourish during these never ending transitions.
It is imperative to have awareness of your external as well as your internal worlds. It is easier to see what is before you than what lies within you and yet both are critical to our well being. Our internal world is filled with thoughts, emotions and fears that we are all too often unaware of or tend to avoid paying attention to. 

Take note of what you are experiencing throughout the day. Ask these critical questions whenever you feel your actions aren’t leading you towards desired outcomes or when you have lost control of your focus, time and activity

• What am I doing?
• What is motivating me to do this (planful/mindful focus, strong emotions, a need for immediate gratification, distractions, fears, outside demands, feeling tired and needing a break)?
• What outcome am I seeking?
• Is what I am doing critical to this outcome?
• Will this outcome allow me to flourish?
• Have I lost my focus? 
• Am I in control of my actions or am I being controlled by them?
• Do I need to change my behavior?
• What is one thing I can do or stop doing quickly that will improve my situation?

Contact Jim to learn more about how you can achieve what matters most to you and begin living your "no-limits" life.

We frequently do not have control over what happens to us on a daily basis. While we seem to put forth great effort towards controlling our environment, it is quite common for universal forces to exert unexpected events upon us.

What we can control more successfully but not completely is how we face these events and the attitude we maintain during each experience. Being aware of your thoughts, feelings and actions give you an opportunity to make proactive choices that engender positive outcomes.

We typically do not step back to ask mindful questions as a part of our daily routine. This will take time and practice. Make an effort each day to step back and ask a few mindful questions when you are faced with a difficult transition or experience.

Remember, good choices typically lead to good outcomes. 

But I never planned on being a hat check girl in a Chinese deli!

So how did I get here?

By luck?  By accident? By trusting in the good intentions of others?

If you believed you were going to be an astronaut and ended up working as a Hat Check Girl in a Chinese Deli, chances are you never designed and followed an action plan that was based on your skills, your values, your goals.

Mindless focus and behavior often places us at the mercy of luck, accidents and the good or bad intention of others.

Take a moment to identify a personal or professional goal. Identify the steps it would take to reach that goal. Commit to taking the initial step towards that goal and set a completion deadline. Share this deadline with someone you trust.  Periodically share your progress towards this step with that person to assure accountability.

Three questions to help you get started on the path to helping you identify and achieve a personal and professional goal.

Use It Or Lose It

How many times have you sat through an exhilarating and compelling presentation/self-help workshop and walked away motivated and self-assured of achieving success?

You may try out a few learned techniques/strategies for a few days or weeks, but if you approximate the typical adult you will quickly fall back into long held patterns of behavior.

Habit will dictate what we do in a variety of settings over the course of our lives. We are often unaware of how comfortable these habits are. They often go unnoticed in the work place as well as in our personal lives. They lead us towards behaviors that are automatic and based in comfort rather than behaviors that lead to success and productivity.

If you want to implement new and improved behaviors follow the answer to the question,

"How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?" 

"Practice, Practice, Practice!"

If you are excited by something you have learned and you feel it has value in your life,  make it a habit.  Create a new habit that offers higher returns on you efforts.

Three questions to help you get started on the path to helping you identify and achieve a personal and professional goal.

Commit time and effort each week to practicing the new pattern of action. Schedule it into your weekly routine and adhere to the schedule. Make sure to review and assess your progress and the overall value of the new behavior. We are more likely to continue a behavior if we are clear of what the benefit is.

We will quickly extinguish a behavior when it has little reward.

Contact Jim to learn more about how to begin living your "no-limits" life.