Even The Longest Journey Begins With a Single Step

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” (attributed to Lao Tzu – founder of Taoism)

You have probably heard the saying before. Did you ever notice how powerful it is ?

I have met so many people and clients who feel disappointed for not starting or progressing their big projects and dreams. They often don’t know where to start and in view of the mountain of tasks ahead, they feel like giving up before they’ve really started. In this respect, we are all the same.

And yet, sometimes people achieve BIG things and you wonder how they do it, where they take the energy, time and stamina from. The answer is often so simple and even better: it is available to all of us not just a selected few. The answer is to take one little baby step at a time – and enjoy the process !

For this to work, you need to manage your expectations. Give yourself permission to take a couple of years to work on your BIG project. So what if it doesn’t happen next year. If you don’t even start it, it will never happen at all.

Then, break it down into pieces. What would you want to have achieved by the end of the first year ? If this still feels daunting, extend the total period further until your first year goal feels doable. Break your tasks down further to a monthly level/ ideally weekly.

Now think about what would be the very first baby step in the direction of your goal ? A phone call ? Surfing the net ? A few notes ?

Just focus on your first step and when that one is done, focus on the next one but only that one, don’t look ahead and get disheartened. The winners are the ones who just keep going: step by step. And they enjoy each step because their big goal is in line with something they are passionate about, so their little steps feel exciting, too – most of the time. The other times they just display perseverance in the sure knowledge that it will lead to the goal.

As Sir Edmund Hillary was saying. Ultimately, “It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”

“It’s not about me !” or Taking Things Personal

Have you ever suffered from or felt hurt about comments which others, such as colleagues, family members or friends have passed about you ? Today I share a powerful secret with you ! None of these comments were actually about YOU ! Yes, I mean what I say. Here is why.

Most people are way to pre-occupied with themselves to truly be interested in you. Everything they say and all their behaviour is only an expression of what is going on in them, what is on their mind and needs an expression. So when these people say something about you or behave in an unpleasant manner vis a vis yourself, what they are actually doing is giving away information about themselves. If they judge you e.g. by calling you lazy, you get to know that laziness is something that bugs them, probably about themselves. If they try and push you aside at work, you get to know that they might be afraid of you, that they might feel insecure and worry they might not succeed otherwise. If someone snaps at you without much of a reason, you get to know that they might be very stressed or have been snapped at themselves….maybe by their partner….

Once you realize that other people’s comments or behaviour are nothing personal but simply information about them, then you can relax. You can even become curious and maybe even feel sorry for their situation or behaviour. The main thing: you are free.

So next time you feel the rising anger or hurt because of someone else’s comments, tell yourself “It’s not about me !” and become curious instead “I wonder what is going on with that person ?”

Try this for the entire next week and see what difference it makes !

The Power of Silence

You haven’t heard from me for a while. I was harnessing the power of silence. Have you experienced its power yet ?

Silence is so much more powerful than noise or talking – in so many ways. You can’t use it though, unless you feel comfortable with silence. Most people don’t.

You may remember the “awkward” silence in a conversation you had and remember how fast one of you “covered’ it with saying something, anything, …just so it wouldn’t feel so awkward. Silence is hard to stand, hard to maintain….unless you decide to focus on it, decide to become comfortable with it and train yourself in staying silent. Why ?

In conversation, silence encourages your counterpart to keep talking, to deepen his/her statements, to reveal more of the motives behind his/her earlier sentences. It signals that you are listening and ready to hear more. Silence provides space for depth and encourages exploration. It creates deeper relationships, relationships in which it is ok to just BE together.

Staying silent on your own is another matter. Most of the time noise and clutter dominate our lives. As a result we feel constantly busy. Some of us have grown so used to feeling busy that they get confused when they are not. They instinctively fill any empty slot with a new task, cramming more things into their fast noisy lives. The result is that you can’t see the wood for the trees. You are IN your life, driven by immediate requirements, emergencies, commitments. What you miss is seeing ONTO your life. Leaving the day-to-day behind and reflecting upon what’s going on for you from a perspective far above your daily actions.

In fact, being silent for a while and stopping the mad routine of DOING DOING DOING, is the only way to reflect about BEING, about who you are in this life and more importantly about who you are still becoming. This is where I have been.

I have to say that I was shocked myself how easily one gets sucked up into the DOING-TRAP, working off to-do lists, completing task after task (our move, the establishment of the international coaching practice in both Dubai and Germany) and even feeling accomplished in the process of it.

And then, one day I woke up and realized I was not walking and enjoying my life but running it, sprinting the last months along. Why ? There is no rush, there is no point in arriving. The whole point about living a happy life is about enjoying the journey and regularly correcting the course of the journey by reflecting upon one’s life. This is what I took my time of silence for in the past week, reflecting – just being still and listening, just writing down what I heard, just viewing my life from a “mountain” – is what I have been doing in the past weeks.

I have come to some great new insights and visions for my next life phase. I feel refreshed and full of energy to enjoy the next stretch of the journey. I have made a commitment to spend regular time in silence - treating myself to this pleasure on a weekly basis. How about you ? When do you harness the power of silence ?

Interactive Wheel of Life

Hi,

for a quick assessment of the state of your life and your satisfaction with it, the wheel of life is an excellent tool. I have described this tool in a previous post, but just found this electronic version of the wheel of life. Enjoy !

Goals are not Enough

Today I read an article by John Carlton titled “What Makes an Entrepreneur?” and I found it had a lot of great truths about what it takes to achieve your aims, how setting exciting goals is a great first step, but it is also only that: a great first step. Afterwards you MUST create movement, any movement getting you a little bit closer to your goal. And maybe even more importantly he recommends you look at “what will happen if you actually reach your goal, what then ?”. Thinking about this will take away the biggest fear of all. Believe it or not, the biggest fear of all is the fear of success !

Here is his article. Enjoy.

“A few weeks back, I visited my hometown to see my family. Dad still lives in the same house he bought just after WWII, and it’s hard for me not to feel like I’m 15 again when I’m there.

Not that I feel all young and vibrant. Naw. More like I get back in touch with how freakin’ clueless I was for the first half of my life.

It was a great childhood, a gruesome adolescence, and even now ghosts from my past haunt every corner of the neighborhood.

Always interesting/spooky/insightful to go back to old stomping grounds. I love my family. And I’m still chewing over how that town shaped who I am today. In fact, it got me pondering long and hard about what “makes” an entrepreneur.

A lot of people – including me – talk about the value of goals in launching any entrepreneurial venture. Figuring out what you truly want… setting a plan in motion to attain it… and following through.

There is, however, a difference between “understanding” goal-setting behavior… and actually DOING it.

So here is what I propose you do this coming weekend: Give yourself a brutal reality check.

Are you spending enough time figuring out what you really want to do when you grow up?

This is not a trick question. Most rookie goal-setters need to refine their skills at this over a frustrating period of time.

The first goals you set are likely to be things you actually don’t want, after all. There is an art to looking deep into your own heart and soul and coming to grips with what REALLY rocks your boat… and what will continue to make nice waves in your future.

It’s never enough to want to be “rich.” You must spend time thinking about what “rich” means to you. Not to your buddies or your colleagues or anyone else. You.

And if you decide you want to be filthy rich… well, you’ve got to do more than just set that as a goal. Ya gotta work out your plan to get there. With lots of little goals along the path.

If you’ve yet to make dime one online, for example, then a goal of becoming a billionaire online isn’t a goal… it’s a dream. You’ve got to earn your first buck. Then your second. And go on from there.

Your first goal may be to weed through all the info available out there… find the resources you feel you can trust… and dig in.

Those subsequent “dig in” steps – the actual goal-by-goal stepladder that will take you toward your desired destination – cannot be glossed over.

And there are consequences to consider. You may not yet know what awaits you as a cash-generating genius. But you sure can examine how your life starts to change as you go.

Every detail of your life can morph in strange ways when the money starts coming in. Your friends and family may wrestle (often unsuccessfully) with your rise in status, liquidity, and self-confidence.

It won’t always be pretty. But the more you “arm” yourself with insights like these, the less surprised you’ll be when you hit each milestone in your quest for a better life.

You’ll be… uh, what’s the word?… prepared.

Goals are great. But I’ve known too many people who ONLY set goals. They never go after them.

Movement is key. And you’ll feel better about moving toward your goals if you spend some serious time thinking about them.

Play with them. Mold them. Constantly put them through your “What if?” grinder. (What if you can’t do it with your first idea? Will you try again? Try something else? What?)

The “secret ingredient” of great goal setting is to cogitate obsessively on the consequences of actually meeting each goal once you set it. This not only helps you blow through failure… it also creates a “vision” of yourself that keeps your motivation hot.

This requires “forward thinking”… which doesn’t come with the default equipment you’re born with. Ya gotta exercise it.

Without goals, you’re just being taken for a ride by Fate.

Goals do not guarantee anything… except, once you take steps to attain them, you will move SOMEWHERE new in life. And you’ll be doing as much of the driving as possible.

Fate will still screw with you. But you’ll no longer be helpless.

At first, even five minutes of focused “forward thinking” will make you sweat and want to go do something else.

Get over it. Stick with it. Soon, you’ll be an ace at peering into the fog down the line, and you’ll be able to exert more control over events than you ever dreamed possible in your pre-goal-setting days.

This weekend, get your five minutes in. Move through the sweat and avoidance.
Jumpstart something new.

What do you get enthusiastic about ?

Enthusiasm is such a beautiful trait. Don’t you love being around enthusiastic people ? Even if you don’t share their enthusiasm, don’t they make you smile ? Lift you up ?

I just came across some great quotes about enthuiasm. This one from Samule Ullmann, I absolutely love:

“Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.”

Think about it. Isn’t that so deep and so true ?

Ralph Waldo Emerson also commented on enthusiasm: ” Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is due to the triumph of enthusiasm”

What are you enthusiastic about ?

What were your ideals when you were younger ?

Remember a time when you were totally enthusiastic last ? What was it about ? Who was it with ?

How could you get enthusiasm back into your life ? How could you be enthusiastic more often ?

The Importance of Living Your Passion

I can’t believe I haven’t written about this topic earlier. Passion is so important. When you live your passion you feel ALIVE. You are filled with energy, enthusiasm and joy every day. And as if that wasn’t enough yet, you will bless those around you because enthusiasm is like a fire that ignites the hearts of all those you meet. Who wouldn’t want to live like that ?

The million dollar question is: How to find my passion ? And my simple answer is: CREATE it ! Yes, this is no mistake. You don’t need to search for it, discover it or find it. Your passion, purpose, reason for being or life contribution can actually be created ! Sure, you will need to spend a bit of work on knowing and understanding yourself. But from there PASSION IS A CHOICE (just like happiness is a choice) ! All you need to do, is to decide that you WANT to live your passion, that it matters to you.

There are lots of techniques to get you in touch with what brings you alive and what you feel passionate about. In my workshop “Discover Your Life Purpose & Love Your Life” I use the major one’s. But you could start with taking 15 minutes for yourself answering 3 simple questions:

“What do I love doing (even if I got no money for it) ?”
“If I could anything I wanted to do and money/time/family would be no issue, what would I do with my life ?”
” What did I use to enjoy as a child ?”

Answer each question with 10 lines at least. Don’t stop until you have filled all 10 lines. Then have a look at your answers. Anything you had lost touch with lately ? Anything that gets your hear beat faster ?

How could you get more of that into your life now ? What if you CHOSE AND DECIDED to put these passions into the centre of your life ? How would your life be different ?
What changes would you have to make ? And if you made them, what (or who) would you have to say “NO” to from now on ?

Now commit to ONE ACTION for the coming week that will have you live (one of) your passion(s). Then learn from it. Stay conscious about how you feel and what impact this one action has on you and those around you. Then decide to do it again until it becomes your life and who you are !

CHOOSE TO LIVE YOUR PASSION.

A poem from Celaleddin-i Rumi Mevlana

Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixir that renews:
how can there be weariness
when passion is present?
Oh, don’t sigh heavily from fatigue:
seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!

Financial crisis & happiness: Time to kick the habit of wanting more

“How to stay happy in these troubled financial times ?” some of my clients ask me ?

Former Soviet dissident author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had unique insights into the best and worst aspects of capitalism and communism. “Self-limitation is the fundamental and wisest step of a man who has obtained freedom and it is also the surest path to its attainment.”
English philosopher Bertrand Russell captured the concept elegantly: “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

Isn’t it true that our pursuit of more and more has in fact made us more unhappy, unhealthy and exhausted ? There are plenty of studies to prove it. Emotional distress is a disease of the affluent world !

Yet, our most fundamental needs as human are to feel secure, to be part of a community, to feel competent and to feel autonomous and authentic. So in these nerve-wrecking times, with many of our savings being wiped out, it is high time to preserve our mental health and remember what truly matters to us:
The things that truly enhance our lives – family, friendships, good neighbours and health – have one thing in common: They can’t be bought. Having and working towards them is REAL WEALTH, a wealth no financial crisis can ever take away from us.

Realizing your dream is a radical act

Years back when I took my training courses and exams in coaching I remember the trainer stressing the fact that fulfillment, that path of truly following what matters to you and who you want to be, is a radical act that brings you alive.

I have worked on this with numerous clients and this summer, when realizing my dream of moving to and coaching from our beautiful new location in the Alps, I have experienced the full blast of it myself.

To create the life you really want, you most likely need to break with the familiar, “break shells and bust out of boxes that may have become quite familiar and neatly decorated, lined with the soft illusion of safety”. This is likely to be painful. Staying where you are is certainly easier, yet the question is: does it make you happy ?

Once you have become clear about what really matters to you, what uniquely defines success for you, you are ready to take the jump, make the changes towards a life that is more aligned with who you are inside. At that moment you can garantuee, absolutely garantuee that your inner critic, that voice that says “don’t try”, “it won’t work”, “you are crazy, stay where you are”, “what if you won’t make enough money”, etc etc will shout out its objections loud and clear. People around you might join in, pointing out all the risks….all the risks whether real or just their own fears and worries.

It is very important for you to know, that it is inevitable that your inner voice will point out all your fears, most likely blown out of proportions. This doesn’t mean you are on the wrong path. The fact, that your inner critic presents those worries and counter arguments so strongly, is a sign that you are on the right path, the path to fulfillment, to becoming alive !
The way to handle those objections is not to give up and return to where you were, but to explore those worries “you will not make enough money and starve”, and cut them back to realistic size “well, I will earn less at first, but I will survive, won’t starve”. Or maybe you realize them as your parents’/grandpa’s/teacher’s old voice. Ask yourself, what life would be like if you it stayed as it is for the rest of your life. Would that be ok for you ?

Knowing that you can expect those objections to come up is 90% of the battle won, because you are prepared, ready to tackle them, rather then being tackled by them.

When we had decided to leave Dubai and move to our dream location in the alpine countryside (with no major industry nearby), we had our own inner critical voices as well as many parents and people around us pointing out the risks. We could have kept talking and day-dreaming about it and stayed where we were.
Having taken the jump, gone through restoring an old house this summer (work I had no idea how to do) and creating our new home and coaching base was the best thing we have ever done. We are living the outdoor life, climbing mountains, cycling along lakes and running through the fields. We spend loads of time together as a family and engage with our neighbours. And we are helping other people realize their unique definition of a fabulous life, coaching them from this magical place – mostly on the phone.

But, yes, moving along the road of fulfillment is a RADICAL act. It is not about not having fear, it is about keeping going despite the fears, knowing that what lies on the other side is worth it.

Goal Setting for Success – the NLP Way

Goal setting is one of most powerful ways of getting what you want and yet, so many people shy away from it because it hasn’t worked for them in the past. Have you set goals in the past (for example New Year’s Resolutions) and then NOT reached them ? As a consequence, have you felt disappointed and lost trust in your ability to achieve your goals ? Some people get so frustrated, that they decide not to set any more goals and just live….this takes the pressure and disappointment away and feels better (after all: you can’t blame yourself for not achieving your goal, if you haven’t got one in the first place). However, this also leaves you drifting away and giving your power to your environment and the people around you.

This article is about putting you back in the driver’s seat and helping you find the courage to set goals SUCH that you are garantueed to achieve them. Following the below Questions to Achievable Outcomes or goals (drawn from NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming) will be a sure way to state your goals such that you can achieve them easily. As a result, you will feel good about yourself, your self esteem will raise. No more disappointements.

Believe it or not, your ability to achieve a goal depends more on the way you state your goal then on the content of your goal ! Yes ! Read this again. The power lies in the way you set your goals. So here is the process for Goal Setting for Success:

1. What is your goal, aim or objective ?
Write down whatever it is you want or desire. For now, this will look pretty much like the previous goals you may have set in the past.

2. What specifically do you want (rather than what you don’t want !) ?
State your goal in the positive ! “I want to have a size 10″ rather than “I want to stop eating chocolate”. This is absolutely critical ! Our brain cannot process the negation, with a goal stated in the negative you essentially focus your attention on more of the negative.

Now think about how you can make your statement more specific. Rather than “I want to make more or a lot of money” specify exactly what you want, e.g. “I want to earn x000 per month after tax by day xy”. Don’t forget to think about the when: by when would you like to achieve it ?

Make sure your goal is achievable in principal by you. “Becoming a CEO is achievable in principal – even if you are at the bottom of the hierarchy”, “Flying through the air like a bird” is NOT achievable.

Don’t get afraid about being specific ! Many people like to keep their goals vague in order to keep some room for interpretation when it comes to judgement day. Trust me, keeping your goal vague is worse than not having one at all.

3. Where are you now in relation to the outcome ?
Think about your goal achievement like a journey. What is your departure point ? What is it like there ?

4. Imagine the Outcome: what will you see, hear, feel etc. when you have achieved your goal ?
Close your eyes and paint a picture in your mind about what it will be like when you have achieved your goal. What will you see ? Who will you see around you ? Where are you ? What do you see in these people’s faces ? What do you hear ? What is being said ? What smells do you notice ? Any tastes that matter when you have achieved your goal ? How do you feel inside ? What do you feel around you (on your face, body etc) ?
Once you have a full picture with all your senses, imagine it was a picture or movie on television. Play around with its brightness, its colours, the size of the picture/movie, the volume to make it as inspiring and exciting as possible. Make a mental note of this picture/movie. You could also draw a picture or make a collage of it. Other people prefer to write down everything they saw in their mental image.

5. Evidence: How will you know when you have achieved your goal/outcome ?
Think about what signals or signs would tell you that you have actually achieved your outcome. What would be evidence or proof ? You really want to come up with something that is clearly there or not there at the specified time.

6. Congruence: What will this goal get for you or allow you to do ?
Have a think about what makes your goal important for you. What is it exactly, that you get out of achieving your goal ? And what is important about that ? Is that worth it ? If your answer to the last question is yes, you have a congruent goal.

7. Is this goal something that benefits YOU ?
You should set goals that benefit you in some meaningful way (even if your goal is to improve your husband’s work life, or your children’s social life – there has to be something SIGNIFICANT in it for you, otherwise you won’t achieve it). What is the significant, meaningful benefit you get ?

8. What resources do you need and which resources do you have already ?
Think about what resources you will need to achieve your outcome. Just make a list. Then think about which one’s you already have. Have you ever had or done this before ? Do you know anyone who has ? Can you act as if you’ve already achieved this ?

9. Ecological goal: What will gain and what will you lose if you achieve your goal ?
Here you want to look at the impact of your goal achievement on your others around you and the community or even the planet as a whole. How does it affect your partner, your family, your community, your country etc ? If it has a positive impact you are more likely to achieve it.

Finally ask yourself the following questions (the last one requires a bit of brain twisting but it works :
- What will happen when I get it ?
- What won’t happen when I get it ?
- What will happen if I don’t get it ?
- What won’t happen if I don’t get it ?

10. Now act “as if” it is a done deal that you will achieve your goal (you have already painted the picture of what that will look and feel like). You have seen it in your mind, you will go there with your body !

Don’t get put off by the work of going through these 10 steps. They will save you loads of work and negative emotions later. Spending time on those 10 steps will be an investment you won’t regret.
This process has worked for many people before (including myself and my numerous clients), so why would you NOT choose to re-apply what they learned and use the process for your own “Goal Setting for Success” ?

Setting goals will become fun ! Enjoy achieving your goals !!!

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