Coaching in a Nutshell

Are you ready to wake up and create the life that you want?

Tag: Anne Pustil (Page 2 of 2)

Get Out Of There Before You Suffocate

December 30, 2012 /

Your comfort zone.

It will choke the life out of you.  But your fearful mind will feel better if you stay in your comfort zone because you’ll be safe.  Maybe not happy or fulfilled or excited about your life or contributing or involved.  Safe and comfortable, which is all your fearful mind cares about.  Because its first concern is your survival.  Not your happiness, your joy or whether your life is meaningful.

But your soul, your life force, your inner spirit – whatever you want to call that inner flame that feeds on love, purpose, growth, passion and joy – gets most of its fuel outside of your comfort zone.

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”  Neale Donald Walsch

We are at the dawn of a new year.  Start from here.  Wherever you are.  And walk boldly towards possibility and opportunity.

Do you know why we so desperately hang onto safety?  Why we’re afraid to venture outside our comfort zone?  We’re afraid that we won’t be able to handle whatever comes our way.  And that we might fail.

So we cling to safety.  And shrivel up inside.

“… and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  Anais Nin

I am declaring 2013 the year of sailing outside of our comfort zones.  Not forcing or pushing or struggling or slogging or striving or fighting.  Those are painful and create inner resistance.

Sailing.  Get ready for some rough waters, big tides and strong winds where you’ll learn how to navigate this journey of your life to the destinations of your dreams.  And, as any experienced sailor knows, get ready, too, for those magic days of calm waters, sunny skies and perfect, warm winds where everything just flows.

Can you imagine what your life will be like if you get out of your comfort zone again and again in 2013?  As I ask my clients (and myself), are you willing to try something new and see it as an experiment without judging or needing to be guaranteed of the outcome?

Have a wonderful New Year filled with love, joy, excellent health and the courage to sail outside your comfort zone.  As always, THANK YOU for taking the time to read this newsletter and for sharing your comments and your experiences with me.

I look forward to offering you more opportunities and getting to know you better in 2013.  Let’s navigate these uncharted waters together.

Put Your Hand Up if You Like Transition

July 15, 2012 /

Change is the only constant.  Heraclitus

What? I don’t see any hands going up…

It never fails.  When I’m working with a client who is going through a transition of some kind – whether it’s divorce, the death of a loved one, getting married, giving birth, retirement, the empty nest, menopause,  moving, going back to school or changing careers — they don’t understand why they feel so discombobulated.  So uncomfortable.  So nowhere.

When you’re going through a transition you are in nowhere land.  You’re no longer where you were, which was a place that you knew.  Even if you didn’t like it much, it was familiar territory.  You knew the lay of the land and how things worked.  And you’re not yet wherever you’re going. That’s new and unexplored territory so it can be scary.

We usually want to get out of nowhere land as fast as we can because it’s so uncomfortable.  So undefined and therefore unnerving.  We want to be somewhere.  Anywhere but in the unknown.

The time of a transition is similar to a field that a farmer has left fallow for a season.  It doesn’t bear last season’s crop nor is it yet nurturing next season’s harvest.  The fallow period allows the soil to replenish and rejuvenate so that it can again be fertile and bear future crops.

So it is for us.  Transitions are an opportunity for us to replenish and rejuvenate. They can be a time of dreaming, of assessing where we have been, of going deep within and deciding where we want to go.  To determine what we have learned and what’s next for us. A time to stop rushing and to let our souls and spirits breathe before launching into the next phase of our lives.

The biggest mistake we can make is to try to rush through a time of transition so that we don’t have to feel that sense of nowhereness and confusion.  Actually, I just realized that “no-whereness” can also be “now-hereness” which is the best thing you can do during times of change.

Be present.  Ask yourself what you have learned.  Have compassion for yourself.  Be aware of your fears and uncomfortable feelings.  And remember to breathe.  Deep breathing floods your body with endorphins, the feel-good chemicals produced in the brain.

Stay tuned. I’m developing a program for sailing through transitions. I’ll tell you all about it in my next newsletter.

As always, let me know how I can help you create the life of your dreams.

What is holding you back from living your dreams?

April 29, 2012 /

In my last newsletter, I talked about how the #1 regret of people who are dying is that they didn’t have the courage to live a life that was true to themselves.

What might be holding you back from living your dreams?

Can you relate to any of these?  You:

  • Don’t know what you want
  • Are afraid of other people’s disapproval
  • Don’t take what you want seriously
  • Don’t know how to create what you want
  • Don’t have the time or energy for your dreams
  • Aren’t sure whether it will really make you happy
  • Are terrified that you will fail
  • Don’t believe that you can have what you want

Those are all important and can definitely sabotage you but I believe that the #1 reason that you don’t go after your dreams is:

YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

This shows up in at least two ways:

1.

 You don’t believe in your ability to successfully create what you want. You’re not sure what steps to take or even where to start.

2.

 You don’t believe in your ability to handle whatever shows up for you. In other words, you’re terrified to take the risk of going after what you want because you don’t know what will happen (who gets a guarantee?) and whether you’ll be able to cope with it.

If you really believe in yourself then you know that you could (and would) step up and deal with the outcomes of your actions. If you really believe in yourself then you know that you would (and could) do everything possible and never give up on living your one and only life being true to the only one who matters. (Guess who.)

But that fearful mind of yours keeps asking you what you’ll do if you fail or if people don’t like what you’re doing or won’t pay you or whatever terrifying scenarios your mind can concoct for you.

Here’s what should terrify you:

Dying with your song, gifts, talents, dreams, hopes, desires and vision unsung and unfulfilled inside you.

Here’s a wonderful quote from the President of the Republic of Liberia who is the first elected female Head of State in Africa, Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, speaking at Harvard University’s 360th Commencement Ceremony:

“If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.”

Believe in yourself. It trumps terror every time.

If you’d like some help believing in yourself or making your dreams come true, email me at Anne@CoachingInANutshell.com and we can set up a time to talk.

If there’s something I can help you with, click this link (https://coachinginanutshell.com/askanne.html) to submit a question.

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