The Power of Focus

A recent Victorious Woman survey indicated that distractions are a woman’s biggest goal-achieving challenge. Not surprising – women are so used to multi-tasking and giving their time to help others, that they often get side-tracked.
But it’s not just other people that create the distraction. Most women have many interests and talents. It’s easy to pay attention to that shiny thing over there instead of focusing on that boring, tedious thing right in front of you. And that’s how your life gets to feeling fractured and unproductive and lacking the satisfaction of purpose.
Fifteen years ago I joined a behavior modification program for weight loss. It became the focus of my life. My B-mod program and my work were the main things I worked on. I gave those two things about 80% of my attention, time and energy. The rest went to my relationship with Joseph. Over the course of twenty-four months I lost fifty pounds. I maintained that weight loss for over ten years.
Then my mom got older and needed progressively more care-giving. Though I’m one of four children, I felt more and more like I was the only child (many of you know what I’m talking about!). I lost my PPF – personal positive focus.
When my mom died, and I got fully back to my work, my business felt like a hobby and I was twenty pounds heavier. Though I had no regrets for using my time the way I did, at the same time I had to start over – not what I anticipated at that stage of my career. And taking off twenty pounds in midlife is not a piece of cake.
Still, difficult doesn’t mean impossible. You can trust me and my experience when I tell you that you can only manage a challenge by staying laser focused on your end game.
Do-overs and Second Chances demand that you order your priorities, be crystal clear about what you want to do (your goals), how you’ll do it (your strategy) and laser-focused on completing tasks. When you do, step-by-step, you turn your life around and experience the joy that second chances promise: the life you love living.

Did you like this tip? Then you’ll love Victory by Design!

	Victory By Design offers step-by-Step instructions for you empty nesters and midlife women who are ready for a change to something better – to a life you love living. Victory by Design gets you out of your boring comfort zone and skyrockets you though your personal glass ceiling so you can experience the personal power that is that greater, even more fabulous expression of the real you.
		Easy step-by-step instructions to start changing your life RIGHT NOW!
		Real life examples provide inspiration and motivation!

Find A Coach or Accountability Partner

We all have good intentions when we set a goal. But, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That’s why, especially in a do-over, you need someone who will hold you accountable to your commitments.
A coach is a good choice. There are different kinds of coaches. If you want to meet someone new, you can find a relationship coach. If you want to change your lifestyle, do something new or achieve a specific goal, find a life coach. Whatever change you want to make, a coach will help you do it.
Most coaches will do a baseline meeting to determine if you are a good match. Those first meetings are usually at no charge but the coach will talk about how much, how often, what you expect from the coach and what the coach expects from you.
If the cost is too much, or if you really just need to be accountable, find an accountability partner. S/he is someone you meet with regularly. You might meet weekly, every other week on just once a month. When you meet, you and your partner talk about what you’ve done since the last time you talked and what you are committing to do by the next time.
If you can find someone who is also working on a goal, the two of you can help each other. Or you can have a group of people who are all working on goals. As a group, you figure out the time, the frequency, the location and establish rules that you all agree to for participating in the group.
At the Victorious Woman Project, we have “Victory Teams” of as many as six people. The members help and challenge each other to their next victories. Most Victory Teams last anywhere from six months to a year. That’s pretty common for accountability teams.
To get started, find one person who is interested in making some personal or professional change. Establish your ground rules and get started – you’ll be amazed at what you get done!

Did you like this tip? Then you’ll love Victory by Design!

	Victory By Design offers step-by-Step instructions for you empty nesters and midlife women who are ready for a change to something better – to a life you love living. Victory by Design gets you out of your boring comfort zone and skyrockets you though your personal glass ceiling so you can experience the personal power that is that greater, even more fabulous expression of the real you.
		Easy step-by-step instructions to start changing your life RIGHT NOW!
		Real life examples provide inspiration and motivation!

Give That Change a Big Hug!

Change is a forever part of life. No matter who you are, where you live, or what you do, change happens.
Every second chance in life begins with a change. Maybe the change happened outside of you, like the death of a loved one, a move to a new house, your company merging with another, or even your favorite TV show going off the air. On the other hand, you may be the change catalyst because you decided you want something different than the empty relationship or the iunfulfilling job.
Either way, whenever change happens, you experience grief. Of course, the grief you feel will be very different if involves the loss of a loved one vs. your favorite TV show begin cancelled. And it’s easier to manage if you initiated the change. But the one thing that is as constant as change is the sense of loss. Loss is accompanied by grief. Grief has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
When it comes to dealing with change, it’s safe to say that most women get stuck in one of the five stages of grief. Most commonly it’s in the anger or depression stages. Here’s an example: You’re angry over a divorce or losing your job. You bargain in your head, thinking, “maybe if I do this…or that…I can still keep my marriage together or hold onto my job.” When that doesn’t work, you get depressed. There is much research that supports the idea that depression is anger turned inward.
So what do you do? Stay angry for the rest of your life? Some women do. Or do you go into a depression that you don’t get out of without medication? That happens a lot.
While change is constant and grief has its stages, in the middle of all that, you have some control.  No matter what happens, you control your reaction to change.
Once you understand the stages of grief, and recognize where you are, you have a better shot at moving through the stage if you let go of the past and embrace the change. Of course, it’s easy to do when you’re reading it and not so easy when you’re living it. But resisting the changes don’t do anything for you except make your do-over transition harder, maybe even more painful.
The faster you recognize, deal with and move through the stages of grief, the sooner you’ll embrace that fact that your life has changed – and the faster you’ll get to the good stuff.
So…what are you waiting for?

Did you like this tip? Then you’ll love Victory by Design!

	Victory By Design offers step-by-Step instructions for you empty nesters and midlife women who are ready for a change to something better – to a life you love living. Victory by Design gets you out of your boring comfort zone and skyrockets you though your personal glass ceiling so you can experience the personal power that is that greater, even more fabulous expression of the real you.
		Easy step-by-step instructions to start changing your life RIGHT NOW!
		Real life examples provide inspiration and motivation!

How Much Should You Trust Your Gut?

A LinkedIn discussion started with the question: Do you trust your gut in making big decisions or do you have a process that you follow?
I was surprised by how many business women trust their gut exclusively. I believe that’s a mistake. Not the trust your gut part, but the exclusively part. And I say that coming from a lifetime of being pretty intuitive. I can honestly say my “gut-o-meter” is better than most. Still, in times of stress, I know how easy it is to confuse a gut feeling with fears and wants.
Too often I’ve listened to women who tell stories about jumping into something because some feeling says “yes” even when everything else says “no” or “wait” to get more information. They are willing to get involved with that “bad news” guy or get talked a business partnership that could never work out except on paper. When asked “what would happen if…” questions, too many women are willing to say something like “I”ll worry about that if it happens.” Later, when something goes bad, most women admit, “I had a feeling about that, but I ignored it.”
Trusting your gut is easier when you’ve looked at all sides and faced potential problems. Yes, it’s true you can spend too much time weighing pros and cons and lose an opportunity. What’s more likely, however, is that you’ll only focus on the good potential outcomes and ignore the rest. You can get into more trouble by not looking at all the things that could go wrong and determining how you will handle them if something happens.
On top of that, in the middle of a do-over, your intuition can get clouded by stress. It can also get clouded by the desire to get to the end or the pressure to make a decision.  Any of those can gunk up the channel to your higher self.
How do you avoid that? Look at what you want to do, then:

• List of all the good outcomes
• List all known obstacles
  • Get input from people you trust. That may or may not be family and friends. It might be really good to get help from a coach or counselor.
  • Brainstorm how you could handle those obstacles
  • Be honest with yourself about your physical and emotional ability to deal with the obstacles and its remedy
    • Let’s say you want to buy a house. You find one you really love and the realtor says you can afford it. Yet it’s at the very high end of your price range. Still, you really, really want it. On the upside, it’s in a great location so there’s a 99% chance it will appreciate in value. On the downside, it needs some work. You think your gut is telling you to buy it, telling you how happy you’ll feel living there. But the obstacles include living in the home for a while before you can redecorate, furnish and upgrade. Can you live with that? Will the stress put a strain on your personal relationship, and maybe other relationships?
• Once you know what obstacles you could be facing, figure out how you will handle them.
  • In my success workshops I teach women to list out whatever obstacles they can so those can be dealt with up front, or at least prepared for in advance. That preparation can relieve some stress and, as a result, let real intuition float into consciousness and be helpful.
• Sit down with the pros and cons. Now you’re better prepared to make an intuitive decision. Sit quietly and let your gut talk to you.
• If you feel a ‘yes’ then go forward. But pay attention and be open to a ‘no’ if it comes up (that is, don’t ignore your gut).

Did you like this tip? Then you’ll love Victory by Design!

	Victory By Design offers step-by-Step instructions for you empty nesters and midlife women who are ready for a change to something better – to a life you love living. Victory by Design gets you out of your boring comfort zone and skyrockets you though your personal glass ceiling so you can experience the personal power that is that greater, even more fabulous expression of the real you.
		Easy step-by-step instructions to start changing your life RIGHT NOW!
		Real life examples provide inspiration and motivation!