Coming Soon to a website near you! The one you're looking at in fact...
In my most recent newsletter, (subscribe here) I shared with readers that I’ve been exploring how I can embrace a niche in my coaching practice. While it may seem like a good thing to have a market as big as, “I can help anyone who wants to make positive changes in their life,” it really isn’t unless you have the marketing budget of Coca Cola. I don’t, so niche hunting I went.
Early in 2008 I honed in on working with people who felt pulled between their business and family lives. There is something really valuable to this, and I think there’s a real need for it, but it wasn’t quite right for me.
Recently I put it together. What really gets me excited is helping people do something they love, whether they need to discover it, nurture it, or develop it into a business. It all really fires me up. It uses so much more of my experience and skills. And how great to have more people spending time feeling good about doing something they love. Good for all of us.
After making this announcement, albeit to a pretty small audience, I started getting lots of support and encouragement and a few questions.
A couple people wanted to know how I went about discovering this. It was a multi-part process. First, there were the big things, classes and a retreat with Mark and Holly over at Heart of Business, and Ittybiz’s Online Business School then there were the little things, like meditation and journaling that were supported and enhanced by two amazing things, Dance of Shiva and CDs from the Immrama Institute.
I’ve written about Dance of Shiva before. It’s just one of the coolest things I’ve ever done to open up my mind (and nix the negative self-talk) and meditate and write and think and just generally be creative.
As for the CDs, they sound like rain when you listen to them. But they do something really cool to your brain. My summary of the official explanation is that they use binaural beat technology to shift your brainwaves into a deeper state of relaxation and create new neural pathways.
My experience? Listening to the Insight CD right after doing Dance of Shiva, and then listening to the Focus CD while writing, helped me really get in touch with what was important to me. Oh, and Immrama is having a little sale. Click on one of the links in this post, and use the coupon code IMM427 when you check out to get $10 off the Insight or Focus CDs. (The code is only good through December.)
As I mentioned in the newsletter, making this shift feels a teeny bit scary and a whole lot right. Probably should have my website rewritten already, but I don’t and I want to start sharing this with people now!
I’ll definitely let you know when the new changes are up.
Checking In With Yourself
(This is December’s Main Newsletter article. See the whole thing here.)
I have a client who wants to feel more comfortable getting her creative thing out in the world. We had a good session on Wednesday. At the very end, I took her through a little process to check in with herself, see what her heart wants. We went through it, and at the end she said, “that’s the kind of thing I’d love to see on your website! You talk about it, but I didn’t really get it, until now.”
She asked, you receive!
When you find yourself feeling a little unsure or icky, or like you want to do something but aren’t sure what, rather than pushing through, pause. Take a moment (right now works too) and put your hand on your heart. Inhale, almost as if you could breathe into your hand. Exhale. And again. One more time.
Now, if you haven’t already, turn your attention to your heart. Ask yourself, “How can I best care for myself in this moment?” Then simply observe. Notice the very first thing that pops up.
For my client, it was “red.”
It could be a pictures, a word or phrase, a sensation, a color. It may be very clear, it may not make sense to you right away. If it isn’t clear, sit with it for a few moments. And notice what you notice.
When she sat with “red” for a moment, she pictured riding in her red truck, singing and enjoying herself.
Then give it to yourself the best you’re able in that moment, even if you’re simply imagining it.
She thought about her icky situation, but with that feeling, and it didn’t feel so icky. In fact, it seemed just fine.
Rinse. Repeat.
This is great to do in the moment, as you’re going through your day. If you aren’t sure how that will work for you, you can practice. Seriously. Here’s how:
Think about a situation recently when you felt lost or unsure. And go through the process.
Or for even more fun, think about a situation that might come up in the future, where you could get an unsure or icky feeling. And go through the process.
There are only a couple of rules to follow as you’re playing with this:
1. Be nice to yourself.
2. Observations only (no judgments). If you aren’t sure about this one, refer to #1.
There is no right or wrong, no good or bad. Simply you, learning to care for yourself in each moment.
There’s actually some science behind this. If you’re interested in knowing more, check out The HeartMath Solution. (This links to the book on Powells, the best independent bookstore in the world, rather than the Heartmath website because it is more informative!)
I’d love it if you’d try this and let me know how it goes.
Thanks for telling me!
Know who cares? The United States Postal Service. Know how I know? They told me. They told me WE CARE in big giant, bold block letters at the top of the plastic bag in which they carefully sealed the shredded remains of a piece of my mail. Which I found wadded up in the back of my PO Box.
I’m glad they told me, because otherwise I wouldn’t have figured it out. The clues just weren’t that good.
Sometimes It Is Just Semantics, And It Really Matters
I love words: reading them, writing them, speaking them, coaching with them, trying to find the right ones that say what I want to say and fit into 140 characters or less. So clearly I get that words have meaning, or they wouldn’t matter so much. But sometimes, still, I get surprised by just how much things can change by choosing different words.
An amazing coach, organizational consultant and friend, Manya Arond-Thomas* is getting certified in a new assessment tool that helps you identify and quantify those tasks and activities that are “mission critical” for your success. I volunteered to do a practice assessment with her. (Duh, me, me! I’m a sucker for I love these kinds of things. If you ever need a volunteer for a quiz, test or assessment, you know where to find me.)
You come up with a list of things, rate them according to a few different criteria and the results are put on a grid. Manya helped me understand what the placement on the grid means, and how to shift things around so that the things that really do need to take priority do. Hint: it’s based on a combination of your perceived ability and perceived challenge.
One of the things on my list was: Be physically active 5 times per week. This was something that, until the broken toe incident, had been a regular part of my life. Now, I’m finding it difficult to get back into the routine. And this phrase, Be physically active, was how I had worded that desire in the past. It worked well before, but now, it just seemed boring and irrelevant.
Through talking with Manya, I discovered that if I changed the language to: Train to Climb Mt. Hood, the whole thing shifted in a really cool and magical way. I get excited and really connected to it. And the irony of it, and this is where the importance of semantics becomes really clear, the actual things that I’ll be doing to Train to Climb Mt. Hood are the exact same things I’d be doing if I was just being physically active.
- Just a quick PS! While Manya’s niche is working with Physicians and Healthcare executives, she also works with others outside the healthcare field. And, she’ll soon have a free assessment tool, similar to the one I took, available on her website. Check back next week if you’re interested!
