ARTICLES - a2a coaching - Life Coaching, located in Australia, coaching clients worldwide

Making Your Own Life Choices: Attitude is Everything

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -1000

Life is about choice. Though you may not have a say about how the world reacts to your life choices, you always have a choice about how you react to life around you. If you want to understand how to change your life, you need to understand that attitude is everything. You can make a difference by changing the way you think.

Become a Hero in Your Life Choices
Did you know that you can be a hero in life? I am not talking about becoming a superhero, I am saying that you can be someone that people respect and look up to. Let me ask you a question, is superman super because of his strength, his speed, or is superman super because of his desire to do what is right for people? It is truly his life choices that make him a hero, not his alien attributes. In the same way, with a positive attitude and an understanding that life is about choice, you too can be a hero.

Attitude is Everything
Honestly, I cannot stress this enough. Making the choice to live as a hero is how to change your life. This starts with having a positive attitude towards life. You have to want to live if you want to live with purpose and in abundance. One of my favorite quotations is from the movie Braveheart where William Wallace says, “Every man dies, not every man really lives.” It is this attitude that will spur life choices that make you a hero.

Life is about Choices
It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, we all have difficult choices to make. When another sales person takes your commission, or when a customer is rude to a worker, it isn’t easy to be a hero. The easy thing to do is respond in kind, but these life choices are crucial in developing a hero within you.
In life, things will happen that you cannot control. You will not be able to control the actions of others. These things, however, offer a great chance to make life choices that make you a hero. You will be a hero to people because of the care, compassion, and love that you show. This positive attitude has a lasting effect on those around you.

Learning How to Change Your Life
The process of become a hero is not easy. It takes first the desire to want to help others and make life choices with a positive attitude. You take this desire and let it be your attitude about life. Remember, attitude is everything. When you change the way you react to the world, the world see’s you differently. They begin to see the hero inside you.
Of course, this is a lot easier said than done. Life is not going to stop challenging you. It is the choice to rise to this challenge and react with a positive attitude that will make you truly heroic.

Getting Help When You Need it Most
If you are honestly interested in living like a hero, you have to understand that you cannot do it alone. Support is one of the biggest forms of encouragement in our world. When you surround yourself with those that support your heroic desires to have a positive attitude and make excellent life choices, you increase your chances of success.
Another form of support can be found in a coach or mentor. They are people who not only know you intimately, but understand how to cultivate your heroic desires in a life changing way. They can teach you how to change your life by emulating the hero you want to be.

Take on All Life’s Challenges with a Positive Attitude
Learning to become a hero starts by choosing make good life choices. Making good life choices requires a positive attitude. Just like I said at the beginning, you may not have a choice about how life reacts to you, but you always have a choice about how you react to life. The first step in learning how to change your life is to know that it will always be your choice.

Live with Passion and Have Abundance in Life!

Scott Epp
Certified Professional Coach
Saskatoon, Sk. Canada
Phone: 306-380-7800
www.abundancecoaching.ca

The Pull of Your North Star

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -1000

Maybe you have already heard about the concept of your North Star and how it effects your daily life and results.

So what does this actually mean?…..Your North Star is which makes you get out of bed in the morning. It is what drives you to take the risks you do and to experience the results you create. This is what makes the journey, with its ups and downs, difficulties and surprises, worth the effort.

Your north Star isn't your goal, accomplishment or destination. It is the guiding principle you abide by for your goals, accomplishment and destinations you are pursuing. This is your motto! It can also be called your "words to live by" or " what you believe".

Once you've chosen your North Star it serves as a stable life principle as you make choices for what you wish to do with your time. It also can become a major source of peace, happiness, satisfaction and purpose for your life.

It can be any of an infinite number of things: being of service to others, living a life with no regrets, being a risk taker, being of influence, assisting those in needs, connecting to those around you on a deeper level, living peacefully in harmony with the planet, creating a green friendly world……the list is endless. Only you know as you can feel it inside if you give yourself space and time to go deeper and think about it for a while, reflecting on your life and all of your experiences until now.

Finding your North Star can be a major life changing event. It can provide meaningful direction for the rest of your life and your big WHY becomes clear and will assist you on a daily basis with making decisions and also understanding why you are the way you are.

Once I have started to travel on this path of self discovery, I found that with me evolving and my mindset changing also my North Start had changed, which is completely normal. Trying to stick to something which doesn't serve us anymore will actually hold us back and eventually feel suffocating to our decisions and way of living.

The more clearly you begin to see and focus on your North Star, the more quickly you will begin to experience some of the magic the universe has to offer. Keep your eyes and mind open to expect situations and opportunities to present themselves that can help you along the way. You will actually attract people, situations, experiences, and circumstances in different and surprising combinations that may be exactly what you need to move toward your North Star.

This is, quite literally, the appearance of opportunities and adversities that you bring toward yourself in direct alignment with your goals and dreams. Every goal, every dream, every destination or accomplishment brings with it the risks and rewards or the opportunities and adversities associated with it. As you steadfastly hold your North Star to your mind and depart in it’s direction, you will experience the Pull of Your North Star naturally and automatically.

So take a minute and find your North Star….it is such a liberating thing to do and to finally be clear about where you are going and why.

Rita Schwarcz is a Business and Lifestyle mentor / Yoga instructor and has a business within the Personal Development Industry. Our company produces Success Education Media, Human Interest Documentaries, and an interactive software program in Personal Development Education that assists individuals in learning and developing success principles to get better results in any area of their lives, so they can live into their full potential. It is suitable for every human being open and committed to change their thinking to become more positive and to achieve their desired goals and dreams by breaking through limiting beliefs and learning how to integrate success principles into their daily life. www.MyLifechangeBiz.com

Do you make time and space to dream?

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -1000

Do you spend enough time dreaming?

By this I don't mean are you getting enough sleep ... I am talking about wakeful dreaming, allowing your mind to explore what you might like to do in the future that does not currently seem possible.

Many people struggle to dream as they get too bogged down in the question of "but how?".

Dream: I would like to travel the world for a year ... BUT HOW take time off work and not lose my job?

Dream: I would like to have a photographic business ... BUT HOW would I pay bills while I was getting it going?

Dream: I would like to live by the ocean ... BUT HOW could I afford that?

"BUT HOW" stifles our capacity to dream. The need to answer this question stops us from really exploring the full expanse of ideas and dreams that excite us, in turn it makes it hard to ever pursue our dreams because we are not allowing ourselves to have them.

So what should you do?

Create a time and space just for dreaming ... perhaps under a tree on a sunny day, or curled up in front of the fire with a glass of red wine.
Give yourself permission to dream the biggest dreams you can without needing to know HOW they would actually be realised.

Once you have allowed your dreams to be fleshed out more fully in your mind it is so much easier to see HOW. Even if 100% of the dream cannot be realised the 70% you can see HOW to achieve is probably a lot more than if you had never created space for the dream in the first place ... so what do you have to lose?

Linda Anderson, Principal Coach of a2a coaching, dedicated to helping people live bold and rewarding lives. Linda has an energetic and direct style of coaching which suits people who like to be challenged. Linda is also the co-founder of Mums on the Go - a website created to support mothers to value themselves as much as they value their children.

5 Tips to managing the unexpected in life

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -1000

I confess that recently my life took an unexpected turn which inspired this article.

It was tempting to have a meltdown about the sudden and unforseen changes but instead I chose to remind myself of these 5 very useful tips:

Tip 1: Think "anything is possible" - often when challenges or obstacles arise it is easy to focus on how "hard" this makes life. How you can't do x,y,z ... try thinking that anything is possible .. really possible ... and see if that opens up some new ideas and opportunities

Tip 2: Remember "how to eat an elephant" - a great saying when you feel overwhelmed in life! Q: 'How do you eat an elephant?' A: 'One bite at a time'

Tip 3: Don't fight it - the change is going to happen whether you like it or not. So instead of resisting it try to let go and go with the flow.

Tip 4: Enjoy the Ride - it can be easy to spend a lot of energy "not liking" change which is really unhelpful. Try adopting a perspective the the journey can be fun, the new experiences can be fun, and the unknown can be fun

Tip 5: Remember "this too shall pass" - a beautiful Buddhist saying. All things in life pass ... the challenging, the easy, the sad, the happy ... so ... this too shall pass

Linda Anderson, Principal Coach of a2a coaching, dedicated to helping people live bold and rewarding lives. Linda has an energetic and direct style of coaching which suits people who like to be challenged. Linda is also the Founder of Mums on the Go - a website created to support mothers to value themselves as much as they value their children.

How can you make money in times of adversity?

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -1000

Over the past two months both the Dow Jones and the Australian market have fallen over 14%, 4% of this occurred just last Thursday as panic about the future of the US and world economies washed across world markets. So how can ordinary Australian’s make money when there is all this doom and gloom around?

We have all heard the quote that if life sends you Lemons then make Lemonade. When it comes to the share market, Warren Buffet’s famous quote is to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful, and this is a comment I firmly agree with. But how do you follow this rule?

In my opinion there is no better time to focus on making money in the share market than following a substantial pull back like the one we are now experiencing as such a move is always followed by a wealth of opportunity to purchase quality stocks that have been sold down as investors try to liquidate their holdings. There is of course a right and wrong way to go about investing, but sadly despite all of the information out there I still see mum and dad investors continuing to make all of the same mistakes, and so the cycle repeats. But there is a better way….

The answer to building wealth is to do what rich people do, and this means having a simple plan or set of guiding principles so as not to make investing complex. Whether you are an investor or have a self-managed superannuation fund, here are 10 things that that you can follow to keep you safe and ensure that you avoid the pitfalls so you can profit more:

1.     Educate yourself and understand what you are investing in
Many are willing to spend years studying to gain a formal education with the expectation that they will obtain a job. Yet when it comes to educating themselves about how to create wealth, they never quite find the time.

2.     Don’t over diversify
Aim to have between 8 and 12 stocks in your share portfolio as this rule lessens your risk and increases your returns.

3.     Most importantly, learn how to set a stop loss to protect your capital in the event a share falls in value. I suggest 15% below your buy price or 15% below the most recent highest price.

4.     Find out for yourself, don’t take tips from others as they are often less educated than you.

5.     Becoming rich through the share market is not about how much you make on any one investment, it is how much you do not lose. If you lost 50 per cent in the GFC then you need to make 100 per cent to get back to where you started. This rule means learn how to sell, and I know having this one rule would have saved the majority of Australians from the GFC

6.     Do what the rich do and don’t follow the masses
The rich don’t follow the herd. It’s the opposite – the herd attempts to follow the rich. The statistics are that those who are not rich tend to move their money into the market just before the peak and out of it after the crash. Remember Buffet’s quote. Now is the time to be greedy and looking at buying for the long term, not being fearful and selling.

7.     If you are serious about making money for your retirement or lifestyle, don’t make investing a hobby make it your business. After all your boss will not make you rich, that’s your job.

8.     Understand the pitfalls with buying investments just for income.
Don’t be lured by high dividends – doesn’t make it a safe investment and in current market conditions is often there to attract mum and dad investors who don’t understand that it is pointless getting income if the risk to the capital is high.

9.     Don’t be a gold digger looking for cheap stocks, remember the tech wreck. Buy only quality stocks in the top 100 shares on the Australian market. Cheap stocks may look attractive but they are often wolves in sheep’s clothing.

10. Don’t buy and hold as timing the market is more profitable than time in the market. My research over the years and what I have done for my book proves that anyone can achieve good returns with a little knowledge and patience. Buy and hold will only get you poor to average returns, learning to buy and then selling at the right time yields far better returns and lessens risk.

Dale Gillham, from Wealth Within, is a bestselling author with the book “How to beat the managed funds by 20%”. He is also a regular expert on Sky Business News and The Business Channel program Your Money, Your Call.

What we think about.. we become! Are your thoughts serving you?

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -1000

Buddha said, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” The mind conquers all, it is everything. Our sorrow and happiness, success and failure, riches and poverty, and everything in this world depend on this wonderful gift called mind. All through mankind’s best, the statesmen, scientists, historians, and even philosophers have told us that the most powerful tool available to human being is their minds. The mind’s range is borderless and we do not need to look for proof just to understand this reality. The truth is around us. We are surrounded by the greatest minds. However, not all of us may achieve what these greatest personalities had; they just stretched their mind a little longer a little bigger.

What is holding you back from attaining greatness yourself? You fear your dreams because you do not believe you can attain them, so you confuse your mind with non-self belief. You tend to argue your limitations. You bring negativity to yourself because you decline to have faith that good things can happen to you. If you continuously tell your Universe that you are of less use then the Universe will agree. But if you release your mind completely from self perceived boundaries or if you just strive to never giving up, then, your Universe will respond to you in amazing ways.

If you persist to have faith as you continuously believe, you will keep on acting as you have usually acted, you will keep on getting what you always gotten. By changing how you use our mind, you will get different results in your lives in all areas. If you would like to achieve something which you think is unattainable, then deliberate on that thought for a while. Visualize attaining it and be determined to reach success.

Converse to your mind and train it. Observe the performance of your mind in times of sadness and joy then perform and respond appropriately. As they say, your mind is like the sand you pour into your palm. If you try to grasp or hold of it, the more it sneaks out of your palm. Thus, do not force your mind to be uncontrollable, instead, discipline or tame it towards something else productive. Do it steadily that it becomes a habit to you as well as to your mind. As a result, you will no longer need to tame it. It is then you will appreciate the power of mind.

Lee Anne is an entrepreneur and success educator and has a business within the Personal Development and Media Industry which produces Positive Educational Media, Human Interest Documentaries that bring awareness of the true potential of the human spirit, and a full Personal Development Educational curriculum that assists individuals in learning and developing success principles to get better results in any area of their lives, so they can live into their full potential. It is designed to assist existing entrepreneurs create success in their current business or develop a business with the product line. http://www.lovinglifenow.com.au/mums-at-home-work.html

Out of Your Comfort Zone

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -1000

Do you live your life inside your comfort zone? Never taking any risks? Never venturing outside the secure box that you live in?

I hear you asking: Why would I want to break out of my comfort zone, I am quite happy where I am right now!

The reason: Because in life things never stay the same, you are either moving forward stretching for bigger better goals or you are slowly moving backwards. Even though you might feel that things are exactly the same for a while and you are feeling comfortable with them that way, one day something will happen (A little adversity) that you weren’t quite ready for or expecting and you will be knocked for a six.

I personally love to live outside my comfort zone on a regular basis as I find it helps me achieve bigger and better things, because each time I try something new, or do something I am fearful of, I move forward in life and the next thing I attempt doesn’t seem so hard. I am no longer scared all the time of the “WHAT IF” What if it doesn’t work out, What if I fail and look silly… I take the What If I didn’t try and this was the best opportunity which helped me achieve my goals… I would rather fail then wonder what could have been.

So my challenge to you: Make a change this week, whether it is stepping outside your comfort zone and doing something you were scared to do, or whether you have a business idea that you never started incase it failed. Whatever it is, give it a go, you will be successful no matter what, because you gave it a go… Successful people are really just the people who failed over and over again, until that failure turned into success.

The Power of Scripting

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 -1000

I’m going to share a very powerful tool that can change the way you feel every day. It’s called Scripting – it’s simple, fun and takes only 5-10 minutes each morning.

Scripting is about setting an intention for your day – about how you want to feel as you move through your day. It is not about a “to do” list or making sure you have certain outcomes. It is about amping up your energy and what you want to feel more of.

Each morning give yourself a little time, centre yourself and when you are clear of distractions script your daily intentions. It is most powerful to write them down to help anchor them, then as you progress through the day you can remind yourself what you wanted to feel today.

Once you start scripting you can also look for the positive evidences in your day that are everywhere. You will find yourself focusing on what is working in your life and what is going well. Start with little things such as enjoying a great meal, getting through on the telephone first time, or getting a job done easily and efficiently.

Your scripting can be as simple as “Today I want to feel a greater sense of ease and flow. I want to feel a sense that everything will work out and I have plenty of time to do what I want”.

You will find it more beneficial to take small steps in your scripting, rather than completely trying to turn around your feelings. At some point you will notice that your feelings have shifted and you can then take the next step. You want to feel good about what you’re scripting, not that it requires a huge effort.

If you have a day you know has some difficulties, script about these – about how you want to feel as you move through these times. Notice when you are in the moment how you can shift your energy and feel more positive. The 5-10 minutes you spend on setting your intentions for the day can make a world of difference!

Margit Cruice is an Associate Coach at a2a coaching ... you can read her full bio HERE

Are you too available?

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -1000

Is there any such thing as being “too available” to your customers?
Surely if we want our soloist businesses to thrive we need to be available for our clients whenever they need/want us?

I have a cleaner, a wonderful cleaner who turns up on time every 2 weeks to give my house a better clean than I ever do. It dawned on me one Thursday that the Easter weekend was approaching and that our fortnightly clean was actually due on Easter Monday. Of course I did not expect our cleaner to work on a public holiday and was surprised that he had not discussed rescheduling with me.

When I phoned to discuss rescheduling he was amazed – ‘I have 6 other clients that day and none of them have offered to cancel’. I suggested that perhaps he should have just contacted us ahead of time to say as it was a public holiday we would need to reschedule that week. “Oh no, if my customers want me to clean then I will clean”.
I then discovered that the previous Christmas he had only taken Christmas Day as a holiday! I assured him that his clients would all be quite capable of cleaning their own houses for a few weeks over Christmas and that it was really OK for him to take time off. He did not need to be available to us 365 day a year.

So what is this really about?
•    Fear of losing customers if you are not available when they want you?
•    Discomfort in setting boundaries in business?
•    Wanting to please your customers?

When I started as a soloist I would coach at night and weekends because I believed that nobody would be able to have their coaching sessions during the day, Monday to Friday. I had a lot of clients during this time so I felt my choice was “right”; however, it had a large impact on the time I had available for my husband.

One day someone wise offered me a different perspective that changed my approach from that day onwards:

If you ring to make an appointment with your Doctor for Wednesday 1pm and the receptionist says ‘I’m sorry but the only available time is 10am’ you have a choice. Make whatever changes to your schedule needed to be available at 10am or ask which day (if at all) he is available at 1pm.

From that point onwards I stopped coaching on weekends and only offered 1 night a week for coaching sessions with only 3 times available. Guess what? I didn’t lose any clients and I regained some balance in my life!

If a new client contacted me who couldn’t be available when I was I would refer them onto another coach, resisting the temptation to become available at times that really didn’t support the balance of my life.

Now I have a young baby so I never work nights and only have 2 days a week available for client sessions … business continues to thrive.

As soloists we need to treat ourselves like a Doctor. Be clear with yourself about when you are available and when you are not. Trust that our customers will find a way to work with us during those times. If they can’t then they may take business elsewhere … that is OK … trust that there will be enough customers in the world who CAN work with us.

It can be very challenging to have this level of trust in the beginning. I know that I found it hard to begin with and that I had to be really firm with myself to ensure I maintained my new boundaries.

Are you too available?
What changes could you make that would improve the balance of your business life?
What if you committed to these changes for 3 months to see what happens?

Linda Anderson, Principal Coach of a2a coaching, is dedicated to helping people live bold and rewarding lives. Linda has an energetic and direct style of coaching which suits people who like to be challenged. Linda is also the co-founder of Mums on the Go - a website created to support mothers to value themselves as much as they value their children.

The Secret of Success

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -1000

What is the secret to success?

One that is often overlooked is the "Strength of Conviction"

Strength of Conviction is when you know who you are, what you believe in, what you are good at, and what you stand for. It is when you stay true to these things no matter what situation you are in. Sounds simple but it something many of us struggle to do.

• Have you ever been on a date and pretended to be interested in something because you thought it would make you more appealing?
• Have you ever been in a job interview and changed the way you answered questions about your experience because you thought it would make you seem more suitable to the job?
• Have you ever changed your marketing message at a networking event because you thought that is what the listener wanted to hear?

If you have said "YES" to any of those questions (as I can) then that particular occasion is an example of when you did not apply the strength of your conviction. At that moment you did not believe in your message, in your strength. In that moment you became what you thought someone else wanted rather than being 100% YOU and allowing the other person to make their own mind up.

I know that if you act with strength of conviction then you will automatically become more attractive and successful in whatever area of life you apply this. I know this because I tried it for myself!
For a period 4 weeks I played the game of being 100% committed to the Strength of my Conviction as a coach. I took the time to get really clear about what I stood for and what I wanted and then stuck to it no matter what. When I went to a networking event I was very clear in what my message is - not everyone in the room will be attracted to that message but that is OK. When a potential client phoned me up I was very clear about what my message is and I did not change it even if I thought the person on the phone was not attracted to it. I did not change anything else about the way I ran my business during that time.

The result of my "game" was that I doubled my monthly income that month and I attracted people 100 % suited to what I want in my business.
Needless to say I continued the “game” long after the 4 weeks expired! I had found a secret to success!

So how could this apply to you? What area of your life would you like to become more attractive in and more successful?

Take some time to really understand what you stand for in this area, what you believe in. You might need help with this step so don't be afraid to ask for it. Then commit to playing the "game" for 4 weeks - the game where you stand by the strength of your conviction no matter what.

Remember: you can always stop playing the game after 4 weeks if you don't get results so you have nothing to lose!