Mother’s Day can be a complicated day for many, and I have always had mixed feelings about the day. Often the stage of life I find myself in, also dictates the scale and intensity of those mixed feelings. […]
Thoughts on motherhood
Courage
What if fear is not a bad thing?
The other day I was helping a client work through a lot of fear and anxiety she was feeling. The way she was relating to fear was that it was a bad thing and that she shouldn’t feel so scared. And so often we do that, right? We resist the fear, telling ourselves that we shouldn’t be fearful. Yet, what we resist persists. So, the more we try and ignore our fear, the bigger it seems to get. Eventually it’s like this dark looming cloud.
Susan David says, “real courage is not fearlessness, it’s fear walking”. And she has a point. However, have you ever considered WHY you experience fear in the first place? […]
You don’t need motivation to get started on something
I’ve always been a highly driven and motivated person. I seldom have difficulty getting into action on something once I’ve decided that I want to do it. I can’t relate much to procrastinating on things, because I don’t do it often. And people have often described me as someone who knows what she wants and goes after it.
Two weeks ago, I attended a coaching development workshop. In many ways it was a life-changing experience. And then almost at the very end of the workshop, I received a new insight on motivation that not only changed my perspective on the whole concept, but also made me realise why some people get into action quickly and others don’t. And I want to share what I’ve learnt with you, because it will change the way you think about motivation.
The most important thing I’ve learnt from this experience and from reflecting back on my own life experiences, is that you don’t need motivation to get started. You need something else. […]
You are the seed of your future self
In conversation with my coach the other day, she said two things that stuck with me. She said, “You are your future self. Whoever you will become, you are already her. She lives inside of you.” And she also reflected that flowers don’t just burst open and start blooming, they blossom slowly.
I had to think long and hard about this. What she said hit hard. […]
Reconnecting with a sense of hopefulness
As a coach, a big part of my job, is to instill hopefulness and inspiration in my clients. My job is to help them see a different perspective so that they feel empowered to move forward in a difficult situation. I can’t solve my client’s problems for them, but they can navigate their problems with grace, if they feel like they have a choice. And you always have a choice, even if you are not seeing it right now in this moment.
So, given that I am the custodian of hope for my clients, how do I stay hopeful during times of chaos and frustration? […]
The world needs you to be a leader
Over the past few days, I’ve watched with shock and horror the events unfolding in Ukraine. The fact that one person could yield so much power to literally destroy people’s lives, is appalling. And the sense of powerlessness I felt, was causing a knot in my stomach and an intense and deep ache in my heart. Coincidentally, I attended a Co-Active Leadership Experience this past weekend.
The Co-Active leadership model turns traditional assumptions about and definitions of leadership on its head. It postulates that we are all leaders and that different situations call for us to take on different leadership positions. And frankly, it’s profound, because it cultivates a true sense of power. It teaches that in any moment you can take ownership of how you want to show up and as a leader. It’s your responsibility to take ownership of your impact on the world. And we are all having an impact. […]
The keys to a more loving relationship
In the spirit of the month of February being the month of love, I recently attended an event hosted by the University of Santa Monica on the keys to a more loving relationship. The core idea Drs. Ron and Mary Hulnick shared at this event, is that we are all engaged in a fundamental misunderstanding about love, and that is that we believe love is “out there somewhere”. This idea resonated with me.
Often people are looking for love, and they believe that when they find it, their lives will change for the better. In many ways, this is a passive way of engaging in any relationship. Waiting for love to find you or for the loving feeling to come over you, is essentially saying YOU can’t create love or relationship. You must WAIT for it to happen to you. And that’s not entirely true. […]
What if rejection is redirection?
We’ve all been there. You ask out that person that you can’t get out of your mind, and they say no. You apply for that dream job, and it’s a no. You apply for a loan, or make an offer on a new house, or negotiate on a car, and it’s a no. You send in a proposal, apply to the university you would love to get into, send in an article to a big publication, and they say no. Rejection. It’s stings. Sometimes, it deflates you so much that you simply want to give up.
None of us get through life without being rejected along the way. For some, the rejection may have started early in life. You may have felt rejected by your parents, or your family, or your friends. For others, they are so used to getting a yes to everything they ask for, that the first rejection floors them completely.
When I started working with my coach, she introduced me to Steve Chandler’s work. Something he says often is, “yes lives in the land of no”… […]
Starting over…
As someone who has left my home country and immigrated to another country, I’m often in conversation with people who are considering immigration. And one of the most popular “excuses” I hear for why someone cannot leave or why they are resistant to the idea of immigrating is, “I can’t start over”. The fear of giving up everything they had built and moving to a place they don’t know to start over from scratch, terrifies them.
And I get it. I was there too. In fact, I had ignorantly underestimated how traumatic it would be to uproot my entire life and to start again somewhere else. Now perhaps – PERHAPS – the fact that I have had to start over many, many times in my life, gave me the courage to take on the adventure of immigrating.
AND I want to point out here that there is also a false belief holding you stuck if you are scared of starting over. […]
How to be ambitious in a way that leads to fulfillment in life and work
The dictionary defines ambition as “a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.” In a workshop with Michael Bungay Stanier recently, he said, “we unlock our greatness by working on the hard stuff.” So, it’s when we work hard on something that matters – i.e., when we are deeply ambitious – that we unlock our greatness or have a real impact.
Bungay Stanier believes that when you set a goal, you should also ask how it will matter? Who will benefit if you achieve the goal? How will you achieving the goal change the world? How will you leave the world a little better than you found it? What he is talking about, is an ambitious goal. A goal that is bigger than just reaching a deadline or acquiring a new level of performance. It’s a goal that inspires – a calling or a mission if you will. […]