Book cover via Amazon

I’m a strong believer in the concept that all things will be provided for you as long as you choose to observe or listen.  Now I’ll admit that I’m often slow on the uptake when it comes to something beating over the head telling me I should pay attention.   This one has made it so obvious to me that I simply couldn’t ignore it.

About a two months ago I came across my first contact and then in the past week have come across the same thing 3 more times, 2 of which have happened in the last twenty-four hours.  Both of which came to me through my Google Reader Account (My shared items can be found here), the first was from the blog of Jeri-Lyn McRae and author of Words of Wisdom, she published her post on August 15, 2008 and the second was from Carolyn Townes, she published her post on August 14, 2008.

So I said to the Unverse, “Universe, I get it! I’ll go and read the book!”

I’ll be making a trip to the bookstore in the not too distant future.   What I’m speaking about is a book written by don Miguel Ruiz called The Four Agreements, from looking at the book at the bookstore it’s a small, slim volume that speaks to Four Agreements we should have with ourselves for a more fulfilling life.

“In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible.”  - quoted from Don Miguel’s Website

On don Miguel Ruiz’s site there is a short write up of the four agreements and each of them speaks loudly to me, providing me more motivation to go and purchase the book and I’ve taken the liberty to post them here, but all credit goes to don Miguel Ruiz.

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

TAKE ACTION CHALLENGE:

What’s been hitting you over the head telling you take action?  If you haven’t make an agreement with yourself that you’ll act on it in the next 7 days!

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One of the things I am constantly telling my clients, especially my uber-busy female clients, is that they need to take some time to listen to the silence between the noise.  Listening to the silence is taking the time to step away from the busyness of our lives and connecting with that silence that can be found between everything else.   There seems to be a badge of honour that is achieved if you live a life that is filled, filled to the brim with busyness.  Even our days off are filled with “things, tasks, and places to be”, to truly achieve a sense of inner balance and to begin to acknowledge the ultimate importance of self-care you need to take the time to stop and listen, listen closely to silence between all the noise.

For a busy woman this can certainly be easier said than done, but I encourage my clients to just take it one small step at a time.   Find those few moments in the morning shower, in line anywhere, waiting for your kids at soccer practice, where ever and when ever you can find opportunities to listen to the silence can have a  profound effect on your well being, your stress levels and your outlook on life.

Once this is practiced on a regular basis, you begin to connect with the thoughts between the thoughts, your inner concious and your true essences of who you are.  It helps you to define your ultimate goal and lets you define where you want to be as a person.

Take Action Challenge:

I encourage you for the next seven days to find moments where you can breath deeply, close your eyes and listen to the silence.  Let me know what you discover.

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The people whom you have the most contact with and hang around will have either a positive or negative effect on your levels of self-esteem and confidence, which in turns effects how you interact with those most important to you.

We all know those people who are positive, happy and joyful to be around. How do they make you feel?  Yes, they make you feel the same! They can put zest into a boring atmosphere and can fill the room with positive, can do vibes that has noticeable effect onto everyone else.

We also know of those people who could are just the opposite! They never had the opportunities, they are always putting people down, they don’t like others to be successful, they are jealous and are negative thinkers - need I go on! These people drain your energy and bring you down to their level, a million miles away from the level that YOU want to be operating and where you need to be to be a full benefit to yourself and those you care about!

So what should you do to make sure that the people who you hang around with empower and support what you stand for rather than bring you down all of the time?

1. You have the power to choose who you hang around with. Ideally you want happy, vibrant and positive people.
2. If you have good friends who are negative and yet you still want to hang around them, make a point of letting them know how you feel – if they are a true friend they will respect you for this. If they are negative from time to time just acknowledge that this is what they are like and block out the negativity.
3. The same can be said with family. Your more mature family members have behaviours that have been conditioned for years and years and from different eras. Appreciate where they have come from and as mentioned above, elicit and select the information that filters through to your brain.
4. Remember, that nothing has meaning in life except the meaning that you give it.

An important step for busy women is to begin to focus on your self-care and doing what is necessary to make sure that those around you are the people that are going to enhance and improve your life not be an additional burden.  Remember, choose those who are important to you to be the ones who have any influence on your life.

Take Action Challenge

Take 5 minutes during the next 7 days to think about who is an energy drainer in your life and build a three step action plan to make the changes so they are no longer an energy drain!

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For the last few weeks, I’ve been mulling over the idea of gratitude and trying to pull together some great ideas to write about gratitude and the part in plays in our lives, so I started to surf the ‘net to find some posts that moved me and would get me to write something, when I came across Christine Kane’s blog and her posted about gratitude….she written everything I’ve wanted to write.  This post is from 2006, but what she says in her posts is important, read it and start following here advice, it’s worth it.

Thanks Christine, I’m grateful for the internet and to have found your writings.

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Okay don’t despair, it’s a catchy title from an interesting book by Tim Ferris.  The Four-Hour Work Week seems a bit of stretch to me, considering that I’m building a thriving coaching business, while assisting my husband in building his fly fishing education programs with his business, Rp3 Fishing Adventures and School, but a great life work balance can be achieved and found for each of us.  I can see the possibility of a 20 hour work week though!

The truth and reality is that to find a better work life balance it’s important, vitally important to be really clear on your personal vision and mission in life.  If you’re not then you need to get there, as a personal lifestyle coach part of my mission is to work with clients who are working on getting clear on their own vision and mission to life.  A personal mission statement gets you clear on whom you are and what you want to accomplish in life, if you keep your mission statement clear in your mind decisions you make everyday become easier.  Commitments you once felt obligate to keep are no longer important simply because they don’t help you meet your greater picture and because you are working towards your better life you begin to focus on what is really, truly important to you.

Tim Ferris writes about his drive to his Four-Hour work week and his book has many useful tips on ways you can begin to live your life in better balance and live a life worthy of your most important desires.  It’s not about fitting into any particular mould, each one of us has different desires dreams and goals.  One of mine and my husband’s – after my step-son graduates (in 2012), liquate everything we have purchase a second hand class “A” motor home and travel North America. The nice thing is I’m still able to do what I love, coaching fantastic clients helping them achieve their dreams, as well as enjoy life in a better balance for what works for me. While my husband gets to fly fish and educate others on the wonderful sport of fly fishing (find out about his classes here – yes it’s a plug LOL!)

To achieve such a lofty goal my husband and have downsized, reduced our expense right now, and each of us are focusing of building our businesses so we can have the necessary income to support our dream.  For right now this helps us get to our ultimate dream and in the meantime since both us have the flexibility to be homebased we can support each other and still live a balance life for us…..

What about you?  What’s your ultimate dream, how would your time be spent and balanced?  If you’re not sure sign up for my newsletter (sign up to the right)  and receive the complimentary assessment “Are you the lead or understudy to your life”, only you can determine what will work best for you, but the assistance of a coach can help to clarify your mission.

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Isn’t coaching just a different form of therapy?  As a coach I get asked this question a lot but the general public and clients alike.  The answer is no, it is not.  Though both coaching and therapy have a similar path and many of the techniques used in the coaching process are similar in nature to a therapeutic approach…”therapy is about uncovering and recovering, while coaching is about discovering” (Coaching vs Psychotherapy by Patrick Williams, Choice Magazine, 2004).  To the root of it all, coaching and therapy can and often do coincide in a person’s development.  While some works on discovering who they are and how they want to live life, therapy can help to clarify what might be causing someone to repeat the same pattern over and over again and to recover from the past and move forward.  Moving forward is where the coaching process excels; it helps people get really clear on matters most to them.  While on the surface coaching and therapy have many commonalities; both support the individual, both have regular sessions with the client whether face to face or by phone and both coaching and therapy look to help the client get from where they are now to where they want to be, that is essentially though where the similarities end.

Coaching has developed from many of the early pioneers of what is now considered modern day psychotherapy, Carl Rogers wrote the book “The Client Centered Therapy” which shifted the idea of therapy to focus more on the clients ability to grow and change, this helped to frame the early stages of what has now been coined as coaching.  Coaching has blended the best techniques from the psychotherapy world with organizational and personal development training.  Tony Robbins is an example of someone who uses many of these techniques.

I’ve pulled this information from the article mentioned earlier written by Patrick Williams of the Institute for Life Coach Training, it provides an easy to view of the differences of coaching and therapy and rather than recreate the wheel….. 

As the general public learn the differences between coaching and therapy and begin to see the great benefits of using a coaching approach to their lives coaching will become a mainstream activity that most organizations and individuals will use to progress through life.  Coaching will become a catalyst towards success and will facilitate lives full of purpose and authenticity.

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Other articles of interest about therapy & coaching

•  Border Line – Understanding the Relationship between Coaching & Therapy  by Patrick Williams
•  Coaching vs Therapy Chart   from Coachville
• Coaching & Counselling – What is the Connection by Julie Austin
• Coaching vs Therapy – What is the Difference by Lisa Fredette

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