6 Stepping Stones of Career and Life Transition

“What do I want to be when I grow up?”

Has this question come back to haunt you lately?

It sure haunted me about seven years ago, when I decided to pivot from my longtime career in marketing and advertising to becoming a dedicated mom, and founder of my own coaching practice.

If you’re like me, or most people who are contemplating a career or life transition, chances are you’ve given this question, and others like it, a bit of thought; but, you probably haven’t paused for long, because everything else in your world is commanding your attention – your work, your family, your friends, your school, your email accounts, the latest news headlines, social media posts… ALL OF THAT NOISE that surrounds all of us!

So, how do we typically manage all of this?

I'll Tell You Mine, If You Tell Me Yours: What's Your 'Why'?

Yet, all the while, despite my directionless drift, confusion and daily grasping, something inside of me kept nagging with the message – “there’s more for you.” And, amidst so many other life priorities and to-do lists, the mere thought of creating new possibilities for myself just felt too overwhelming.

So, I chose to bury the idea of trying anything new, in exchange for playing it safe. It just felt plain easier to deal with the devil I knew, than to confront the one I didn’t know. Besides, I had gotten pretty darn good at running myself ragged, and barely staying afloat ; ). I was a "survivor."

Then, something major happened in my life, and it changed everything. Our first son was born.

Create Space For The World To Respond

A few years ago, I took a big leap. I left a field that I knew for my entire career. It brought me many successes, and my future was looking bright. Yet, something was missing for me, and I was ready to take a chance and branch out on my own.

I felt like I was starting over – I was facing a vast unknown that could either succeed or completely fail. Since then, I’ve experienced quite the roller coaster ride. There have been some incredibly exciting highs and plenty of tiring lows.

Regardless of the ups or downs, I’ve continued to stick with a master plan, which is to consistently plug away at mastering my craft. And, you know what I’ve come to learn? The concept of trust isn’t just important when we take that initial leap of faith. That’s just the starting point.

Trust becomes even more important after the adrenaline, excitement, and hype of our first big decisions wear down. Trust is the only thing that keeps us connected with whatever is possible; especially, when we confront challenges, lulls or situations that just don’t quite pan out as we expected.

In a proverbial sense, trust creates a vast invisible web of opportunities. And, when we remember to honor it, we loosen our grip from what “has to” happen, and exchange it for possibilities that we could have never dreamed of on our own.

In the time it took me to jump off a giant career cliff and build a steady, successful coaching business, I’ve learned a thing or two. The overarching theme of it all boils down to giving the world some damn space to deliver what we want.

So, here’s where we can start:

Patience: The Underlying Key to Success

Are you impatient? Chances are, if you’ve got the slightest twitch of ambition, you are at least, just a little impatient. When we strive for success in any sort of endeavor, most of us wish our results would come sooner, rather than later. So, it seems like impatience is a perfectly normal, or perhaps even expected mode of operation. Right?

When, if ever, have most of us stopped to wonder what impatience is really costing us? And, by “cost,” I don’t just mean the endless dollars we’ve thrown at “systems” that promise to “get us there faster.” I’m also referring to the amount of effort we put into to trying to skip our natural growth procession, in order to get to the top of a proverbial mountain with as little effort as possible. This only causes us to miss-out on the most important experience of all – the climb.

4 Steps To Overcome Fear and Jump Anyway

As 2020 begins to move into its final stretch (insert cheers and jumps for joy here), many of us are contemplating what’s next (insert deep breaths, a big gulp and nail biting here). What could 2021 look like for us? Perhaps some big ideas involving personal transformation, or professional shifts, are on our horizons.

As for me, I’m anticipating the launch of my new online coaching program, the Pave Challenge, and this comes with a mixture of everything from internal cheers, to big gulps and nail biting – all at the same time : ). If you’re like me and you’re considering big shift in your personal or professional life, then you might be contemplating, “what if I actually take those steps towards making things happen?” And, just as our ideas begin to present themselves as possible realities, something else may happen, too. Our stomachs might suddenly start to drop from nervousness and fear. At this point, we could find ourselves abandoning our ideas altogether, only to store them in that mental compartment called “wishful thinking.” And, if we’re honest with ourselves, this wouldn’t be the first time. The outcome? Fear wins.

Regeneration in a Changing World: How the breakdown of old systems can lead to better lives.

A little over a year ago, I was hiking my favorite trail in the mountains with our two young boys and our great family friends in one of Colorado’s national forests – it had literally burned to the ground the year before. I remember how awe-struck I was by the burnt landscape’s polarizing beauty. The bright bold colors of scattered wildflowers burst like fireworks amidst their charcoal black surroundings. Even more stunning than the scenery itself was the site of our four small children, laughing and playing amidst the charred trees – the makeup of an inaccessible space, only one year prior.

As I snapped a photo, which is now the header image to this article, I couldn’t help but notice its poetic symbolism. The word “regeneration” instantly came to my mind, as I looked down to view the visual – “hmm” I thought, “isn’t this one of life’s simple truths?”

Finding Our Purpose Within Challenge

We’ve all heard it before – “follow your passion,” and “your values will guide you towards your purpose.” This guidance works really well when life’s circumstances are optimal, or at minimum, functional. You know, the times in life when our outlook is constructive, our actions feel effortless, and most things are humming along pretty easily. These are the ideal times in life when we feel the strongest, most capable and creative – when finding areas of passion and connecting with values not only makes sense – it can be fun!

There are also those other times; you know the ones – the inevitable tougher times. These periods stimulate a more critical outlook, when our actions feel restrained or forced, and we generally feel less capable of connecting with ideals and possibilities. In fact, we may not even believe they exist. Most of us would rather pledge immunity to these times – we certainly aren’t broadcasting about them on our social media channels. Yet, all of us are familiar with the ups and downs of joy and pain, and we often ride these currents the most during periods of career or life transition.

When You Appreciate The Good, The Good Appreciates:

I’ve noticed something really interesting over the last several months. It has to do with the energy, time and motivation I have for people who are appreciative. Now, while this may sound like an extremely obvious idea, which perhaps has taken me forty years too long to grasp, I’ve also noticed that many of us have a tendency to place far too much attention on people and activities that just don’t appreciate.

Note the duel meaning here; by appreciation, I’m talking about both an expression of recognition and gratitude, as well as an increase in value. As founder of the Happiness Studies Academy, former Harvard Professor in Positive Psychology and author of the book Happier, Tal Ben Shahar states, “when you appreciate the good, the good appreciates.”

So, what does it mean to “appreciate the good”? Is it as simple as passively taking note of the things that make us grateful, and perhaps even stating them out loud, and writing them down for ourselves? Or, could more be done in the form of appreciation? Is it possible that more of the finer things in life could appreciate, like love, deep friendships, rich conversation, success, wealth and overall life satisfaction, if we took more time to actively express our appreciation of others?

4 Tips To Cultivate More Patience in an Impatient World

Are you overly critical of yourself when you don’t see your goals develop quickly enough? Join the club. Even though we all innately understand that our biggest dreams will require a lot of time and energy to fully manifest, most of us get a little impatient when we don’t see instantaneous results.

We all know that immediate results aren’t typically part of the “let’s try something new” equation. Yet, we live in a world where we can order just about anything with the simple click of a button, only to find it on our doorsteps the very next morning. Most of us are incredibly impatient, and why wouldn’t we be? Waiting is not a common component of our everyday lives.

So often, impatience leads to giving-up and completely abandoning our goals, only to feel skeptical about the very dreams and aspirations that used to inspire us. So, who couldn’t use a little inspiration to stay-the-course with our biggest goals from time-to-time? Here are a few tips to do just that.

Know The Difference Between Busyness and Business

As I’ve wrestled my busiest self for all of these years, a few things have become abundantly clear. For starters, there’s a lot more to my “busyness” than all of the tasks, projects, accomplishments, social engagements, and activities I take on. Behind all of these things is actually a deep-rooted neediness to be recognized because of a much darker state of being – one that haunts me at my core.

For most of my life, I’ve stretched, flexed and adjusted my schedule to accommodate just about anything that seemed mildly “important,” just to numb-out a stinging voice underneath it all, which actually says, “I’m not very important.” And, what better way to discount this voice than to prove it wrong with everything I do?

As I’ve grown to own and understand this state affairs, I’ve also come to recognize a vast difference between my busyness, versus tending to important business. While the former keeps our need to feel important pacified with lots of distraction and noise, the latter is a disciplined choice to stay hyper-focused on what really matters. And, to know what’s really important, we have to get to know ourselves at a level far beyond what we do. As the late and great Wayne Dyer said, “I am a human being, not a human doing.”

How Do You ‘Transcend Your Ego’ When You Are Surrounded By Big Egos?

Ego. The three-letter word that just about every spiritual practice or personal development system tells us to try and let-go of and transcend.

Often associated with traits like arrogance, conceit, competitiveness, condescension, and judgment, these attributes typically mask a person’s low self-esteem or the smallest version of themselves.

Let’s face it, few people would describe someone with a big ego as pleasant, and few people who exhibit these traits seem happy, so it’s a wonder why so many big egos exist at all. Yet, they do – all around us.

So, how on earth are we supposed to transcend our own egos, when big egos surround us everywhere? They prance around us at work, within our communities, all over social media, and even within our own governments and families.

How are we supposed to ‘keep up’ without building a big ego of our own?

7 Ways Being Your Own Mom Will Benefit You

In anticipation of Mother’s Day next month, I have a simple question.

What do you think would happen if we treated ourselves like our own moms treat us, or better yet, how might we treat ourselves differently, if it were more like how we treat own children?

If we did, I think we’d probably all live more joyful, stress-free and purposeful lives.

Think about it, the most nurturing mothers not only love and accept their children, no matter what, they also always see their children’s value.

I’ve often laughed at my own mom for openly pointing out my strengths and boasting about my successes, big or small. I’ve shrugged off her words with thoughts like, “of course you’d say that mom – that’s because I’m your daughter.”

But then I remember an important fact.

My mom has been with me from the beginning. Like it or not, she knows me better than most people – the good, the greatest, the bad and the ugly.

Yet, she chooses to always make room for the best version of myself. And, quite frankly, if we could all do the same for ourselves, I think we’d all experience much more inner peace.

So, what can we learn from our moms, and how can we model their behavior to benefit ourselves?