Mid-Life Unfolds

Life Unfolds - Dedicated to "Attracting What's Next in Mid-Life and Beyond!" Have you reached mid-life or beyond and are you wondering what is next? Life Unfolds provides business and personal coaching and training to help you thrive while answering the what nexts. We specialize in helping mid-lifers achieve their dreams, change careers, retire happily and to thrive through transitions. More information can be found at http://www.lifeunfolds.com.



Friday, February 15, 2008

Motivation and Action

"Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something." -- Andrew Carnegie

This is a powerful, albeit obvious, statement about the human condition.

First, it says that our desires, our dreams, our wants are powerful motivators. They spur us to get up out of our chairs and move. As a child, motivation came easily and naturally. We were motivated to crawl, to walk, to communicate. Motivation is the difference between something being difficult to achieve and being easy to achieve. The more motivated you are, the easier it is to take action. Even dull or difficult jobs take on an excitement and become easier when we are powerfully motivated. In fact, it is more difficult to not take action when motivated. I have dieted many times. When I was powerfully motivated, the weight seemed to just fall away by itself. Eating healthfully was easy. Exercising was easy. But when I just decided (in my head) to lose weight, every choice was difficult, with lots of backsliding and little success. The only real difference was motivation. It was certainly not knowledge, will-power or planning.

Second, it says that action makes things happen. Action is our way of building a life, fulfilling our desires and even fulfilling our destiny. When we take action we are building momentum, speeding up the fulfillment of our dreams or our desires. Your dreams are not created by sitting in a chair (unless, of course, that is your dream!). Dreams are created, brought into life, by focusing your energy on that dream. By making it as real as possible and then taking action to achieve it. Without the action, a dream is just that, forever a dream.

Think back on your past achievements. What desires and dreams did you have that led to those accomplishments? What was your motivation? What actions did you take to accomplish these things? Which ones were difficult and which were easy? What special qualities (such as persistence, intelligence, courage, gratitude, etc.) were used in each accomplishment?

What insight do you gain from these questions and answers to help you with a current dream, or a current obstacle in the path of your dreams? Have you clarified your dream and focused your energy (both inner and outer) on it? Are you motivated? Are you taking appropriate actions to create your dream?

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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

A Sin Against the Light

I just finished watching a British mini-series called "All Passion Spent". It is the story of an elderly woman in the British aristocracy whose husband died. She'd spent her entire life doing what was expected of her. She married well as her parents expected. Her husband was the prime minister of India and she fulfilled her duties as his wife with grace. She had children and raised them, created a home, and endured with love and without bitterness. By outward appearances she had a wonderful life. So what was the problem? She was "meant" to be an artist. She loved beauty and art, but had entirely given up this part of herself as it did not fit in with her expected life.

So now she is 85 and finally asserts her desires on her life. She moves to a small cottage (from the big mansion) away from her children. She has a beautiful garden and makes the home cozy and filled with light as she has always desired, but could never have. She surrounds herself with interesting people (some from the "trades") and meets up with an old gentleman acquaintance from India. Even though she doesn't remember him from 60 years before, he understands her now as he understood her back then. In their conversations about her life and her missing art, he says that her not pursuing her art was a "sin against the light." I really love that phrase although I'm not much into the whole sin thing. It has a double meaning, since light is so important in art. The light being sinned against can be the light we see or the inner light (soul, spirit or the source of all being).

It really describes what I think so many of us do with our lives. We "sin against the light" by not being all we can be. By not doing what we were truly meant to do. That thing we were meant to be and do can be anything. It doesn't have to be something as romantic as being an artist. It can be teaching, or being a mother raising good children, or being a whiz at gardening. The trouble is we often take our role in life and because we're doing a good and important job (such as raising children) and rationalize that this must be what we were supposed to do. All the while ignoring the tightening up of our hearts, the depression, the dis-ease that will come about when we ignore our most inner longings.

So what messages from your heart or soul are you ignoring? Can you explore them? Can you give yourself permission to take a few baby steps toward the light? Toward expressing your being in your own unique way?

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Friday, February 08, 2008

Feeling Bored (Yawn!)

When the winter doldrums set in and you're feeling bored and restless, I have just the thing. Take a free online course. Now I'm not talking about just any old thing, but courses from MIT, from respected universities the world over! I am a lifelong learner and can't tell you how excited I am about being able to take classes any time free. Go here to find out more.

http://education-portal.com/articles/Universities_with_the_Best_Free_Online_Courses.html

What are you registering for?

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Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Flow Mojo




One of my desires is to stay in the flow as much as possible. To have ease in my life and have things just flow, without major obstacles, and stops. Everything can be thought of as a flow of energy. Money is a flow of energy. Love is a flow of energy. Creativity and creative endeavors are flows of energy. These flows can be encouraged or discouraged by our emotions, thoughts and actions. Let's look for just a moment on how to encourage the flow, to strengthen or amp up the flow so that abundance can be ours right now.




Money: If money is tight, you're feeling the lack of money and resources to fulfill your dreams, then your reality of money is following your feelings and thoughts. Your thoughts and emotions of lack and "not enough" are causing the very thing you fear the most. Your worries are playing themselves out by bringing you more to worry about. So, take a breather. Sit down and write the things you have right now and can feel appreciation for, especially around money. Examples might be, my rent is paid up, I have a savings account with a positive balance, I have a job that brings in money every week, I paid off a loan last year, whatever comes to mind. Remember, it's best if you can "feel" gratitude rather than just stay in your head "thinking" the appreciation. Now the next step is to take action. Prime the money flow pump by being generous. Donate extra books to the library or clothes to the local women's shelter. Give money to a charity. If you can swing it, tithe money to a group that involves your heart (spiritual works for me). While you are doing these things over the next few weeks or months, each time you feel tight or worried, give a little. Give without expectation of getting something back. Give because you already have abundance and can give.

Love: Love is a flow of energy, positive and life-giving. When we don't feel loved or don't feel like we are being appreciated, we tighten up and close off this energy. It becomes blocked. By love I mean any positive feelings about another person. It can be friendship, inspirational, romantic, or familial. Again, sit and write about what you do have already. It might include: I have a husband who takes care of my car every month, I have two best friends who have given me support, my sister loves me, and so on. Include the kind of detail you need to make you "feel" the gratitude. Then give love. The easiest way to get the flow going, to prime the pump, is to give it. Do something special for a friend or a neighbor. Be kind to a stranger or to someone who is down and out. Say heartfelt thank yous to your doctor, florist, postman and grocery store clerk. Every interaction can be completed with love (positive feelings). Again do these actions without expectation of return because you have an abundance of love and can give it away freely.

Prime the pump by giving.

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