Earlier this year a new caregiver couple moved into my mother’s group home. Prior to their retiring, the former caregivers tended to my mother for three years with great love and kindness. This changeover could have been a time of apprehension but I was reassured by an interaction that first week. While setting the table and about to serve that evening’s dinner, Delia remarked: “I hope they like it. I put my soul into it.” Read more
Who am I? Why am I here? Whether it’s for you personally or in an organizational context, identifying your core purpose can have a profound and lasting impact. When I guide someone through the process of discovering his/her purpose, I describe it this way: We’re going to the mountaintop and back. Read more
The Girls Weekend was my friend Diana’s pick to celebrate her 50th birthday. On the menu: a variety of exercise and outdoor activities, spa treatments, and all-around pampering. One of the activities I signed up for involved swinging from a bungee cord. Billed as a fun event, it was by no means extreme compared to the courses that require any degree of athletic skill. You go up, have a little wee-I’m-swinging thrill and that’s it. Read more
Last month in Your Best Work, I brought up the topic of experiencing success later in life. Some of you wrote to me with examples you’ve observed. While in a hypnotherapy training program this week, my friend Monica met a woman who, like her, is pursuing this accreditation so that she can incorporate it into her counseling practice. The woman Monica met is 80 but that isn’t stopping her from keeping her work fresh and bringing new tools to her clients. Read more
Two years ago, while scanning the local entertainment scene for something different to do on my husband’s birthday, I found just the kind of event I had in mind at the MIM Music Theater in Phoenix. While unfamiliar with the artist, I was intrigued by the concert description. I liked her attitude. I liked her leather jacket. I liked her story of being rediscovered late in her career. And when I watched Bettye LaVette’s performance of the Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” at the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors, I clicked “buy tickets.” Read more
Let’s wrap our summer series with a brief recap and an additional motivational strategy that ties everything together. First, the highlights: Read more
Today I bring you installment #5 in our summer series on motivation. Most of the strategies we’ve covered so far are things you can do to move yourself, both internally (to stay inspired) and externally (to make progress). Now let’s consider the people who move you. Read more
In the last issue entitled: How to Get Yourself Off the Dime, I described a motivational technique that I call: Declare It a Project. I advised against making the project too complicated, big or scary because there’s nothing like overwhelm to quash your motivation. Scoping the project that way will only feed the procrastinator in you with the ready-made excuse: I have no time for that big honkin’ project. But what if the project is overwhelming or guaranteed to be time-consuming? How do you get yourself ready to take it on? That’s where staging comes in. Read more
Talking about a problem or describing a frustration is easy. What’s harder is getting ourselves to do something about it. Often, we just get really good at describing the problem. We convince ourselves that we can’t do anything until we figure it all out… which is pretty tough to do without taking any action. And that’s how we stay stuck. Read more
Last time in Your #1 Motivator, I asked you to think about the things that motivate you. Some of you sent me your answers via email (love that, by the way), and here’s a sampling: Read more