Mi Hamba Blog

Do you have a vision board?  You know a board where you have pictures of the “things” and the experiences that you want.  All of the personal development gurus will tell you that the vision board is an important part of your ability to move forward toward your goals….. and they are right.

Just having the board and the fancy pictures however is not good enough.  After all, you can sit and stare at the board all day long, waiting for the Universe to deliver all of those things into your world.  That delivery isn’t about to happen though, until you are ready, you are prepared and you put the following 4 other ingredients into your vision board and your goals:

1.  You have to have a true burning desire to possess the item, or to experience the feeling,

2.  You have to believe that you deserve it,

3.  You have to decide that you are going to achieve it,

4.  You must take the actions that are required to get it done. 

Without these 4 other ingredients, your vision board is just a picture board.  A vision board is designed to empower your belief systems into achieving, through desire, decision, belief and action.  A life coach can mentor and guide you in the process.

Taking part in some life coaching will allow you to learn how to put some focused energy into your wants, needs and desires.  Developing your belief structure and realizing your limiting beliefs is where that process excells.   A life coach will empower you to achieve all that you can believe.

Just like an automobile engine needs to fire on all cylinders to run at peak performance, your life,  your business, your relationships and all aspects of your life need to be firing on all cylinders to run at peak perfomance.  Your life coach can be looked at as your Mechanic.  He or she knows the engine inside out, how to diagnose why the sputter is happening and what to tweak or concentrate on in order to get the cylinders firing in sequence again.

Let’s take a moment and look at business, or your job and what it takes to be successful at it.

Here are 5 common denominators for success, in business: (Discovered in the book “The Answer” by John Assaraf and Murray Smith)

– You must have a passion for what you do, an absolute burning desire for success

– You must become excellent at it

– Your belief structure must reflect absolutely no doubt that you can be the best

– You must know how to monetize it

– You must be willing to take daily action to accomplish it

None of these are more important than the others — all 5 must be in place.  Becoming a student of personal development, working with a life coach and exercising your development of them is imperative.  If the kind of success you want is for marginal results then you can probably run on 2 or 3 cylinders, but if it is exceptional results and success that you have that burning desire for then it is work out time.  Find a coach, mentor and life coach that will ensure you are exercising your capacity for improvement in all areas.  No different than if you were going to become a Marathon Runner and get your body ready.

Here are some things to watch out for and to be wary of:

– Don’t get stuck in the getting ready to get ready phase

– Concentrate on your strengths and give up trying to turn your weaknesses into a strength because it probably will never happen

– Remember that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly (at least until the cylinders are all firing in sequence)

I’m not someone who watches a lot of television, mainly because our selection includes garbage, trash and violence.  However, aside from some great television (Discovery Channel,  The Learning Channel and Arts & Entertainment to name a few) there are some programs that I really love.  My favorites are The Next Food Network Star, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, and Last Comic Standing.

I like to say I’m not a fan of reality TV, but I’ve named 4 above that draw me back time and again.  Why is it that?  I’ve realized that what these programs have 1 empowering element in common…

Imagine having a dream, a passion, a goal so far out of your reach you think it’s impossible to achieve.  Then along comes someone who will mentor you, take you completely out of your comfort zone in a very supportive environment, and directs you to the tools you need to be successful.  All you have to do is show up and do the work so to speak.  That’s what these programs do for you.  They take the average person, cultivate your dream, support and encourage you while you do things you’ve never done before, as you begin to believe you can achieve anything you set your mind to.  Before you realize it, you’ve achieved your goal.

That’s the value of a mentor or life coach.  What’s your impossible dream?  Who’s your mentor?  What we now know is that anything is possible for anyone.  You bring the desire and the coach will bring the toolbox.

Personal Development — takes practice and experience.  Like most things, as you start to practice a new skill such as guitar, piano, swim or personal growth the “novelty” wears off relatively quickly and it may start to feel like work.  This is all about achieving our results isn’t it?  We must remember that our results will not be determined by what we did yesterday, or even what we are doing right now.  Our results will be determined by our feelings, thoughts and actions from this moment on.  Developing a vision of our burning desire.In every case of our desired achievement, there will be adversity — this is not if there will be but that there will be adversity.  Great victories always come after adversity has been overcome.  Knowing the Law of Attraction we always attract our own adversity and that is a fact.  Once we allow and empower ourselves to overcome what is guaranteed to come we will achieve our vision.  Many times the adversity is the means to the end for the realization of our goals and aspirations.

Regardless of what the adversity is or when it rares it’s ugly presence you must be aware that it is enroute to you.  Through this adversity you will develop a story for yourself and whether you choose the story to be positive and empowering or negative and disabling.  Through working on your own personal growth, now, when things are great or, now, when the adversity is feeling overwhelming.  Belief in yourself is developed through your own mindset and your mindset is not easily developed all by yourself. 

Get good at Personal Development by tapping into associations with successful people.  A life Coach can show you the way, can provide the excercises and the mental visualizations of your burning desires.  You can also find the tools that will allow you to grow and to be able to change the way you look at adversity and at your life situation.  I find it so much easier to have someone that holds me accountable and keeps me in integrity to the promises I make to myself.

I must admit when I first heard about life coaching, I found the idea a little ridiculous.  Why would I need a coach to help me live my life when I already know how to live it?  It wasn’t until I actually put my skepticism aside and joined a coaching program, that I was able to understand, appreciate and even experience the benefits of having a life coach.

The purpose of a life coach is similar to that of a coach for a sports team, to keep you motivated, guide you through the steps required to achieve your goals, and to help you ultimately win the game.  The game in this case is your life.  Your life coach is unbiased and is therefore the best person to keep you in integrity to yourself.

A life coach is there to help you to identify where you are currently at in each area of your life, and then to guide you through identifying the steps required to get you where you want to be in each area.  Your coach will help you make a plan to achieve your goals and keep you accountable for sticking to the plan.  There may even be areas of your life that need attention that you haven’t even thought about, your coach will have you exploring these areas as well.

I have personally experienced breakthroughs in many areas of my life thanks to my life coach.  My life is now on purpose, my why, my vision, my goals are clearly defined, I will win the game!

One of the most often overlooked principles of personal development is that of integrity.  I believe the most important facet of integrity is to be “in integrity” to yourself.  So let’s look at the definition of Integrity according to the Encarta North American English Dictionary:Integrity:  To be in possession of firm principles.  The quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standards and the state of being complete or undivided, of being sound or undamaged.

Things that make you go HHMMMMM.

Now more than likely, you are just like me.  Once you give your word, say yup I’ll do that or even if it is inferred that it is your responsibility you will be “in integrity” to that person or situation.  No doubt about it right? After all you gave your word and you are a person of integrity.  Most of us will do what ever it takes to keep our word and if for some reason we are unable to we will confront that situation and let the other people involved know that there will be a delay or that there may be a problem in completing the task.

So here is a challenge – go look at yourself in the mirror, look right into your own eyes and honestly tell yourself that you have kept the promises you have made to yourself.  I know that if I am completely honest with myself, I am unable to do that in more situations than I am able to.  How many times have I promised myself to eat better, take better care of myself, do whatever it takes to achieve the goals and aspirations that I have that burning desire for?  How many times have I let myself down without saying a word to myself or even acknowledging the lack of integrity to myself?  Assuming that we are all being honest with each other and especially ourselves that answer is many times.

So here is what I am going to do and maybe if you have been “out of integrity” with yourself you will as well.  I am going to dive even deeper into my Personal Growth and ask my life coach to hold me accountable.  People have more trouble holding themselves accountable than allowing others to do it for them.  Reach out and allow a life coach to assist you on the road to integrity to yourself  become complete, sound, undivided and undamaged.

If only he could talk!  I guess first of all I should introduce Guido as I write this post from what I believe would be his perspective.  Guido is a member of our family and is a Boston Terrier, 2 years old and really believes he is a Bull Mastiff with a Beagle’s Heart. Guido, for all intents and purposes is the happiest living and breathing thing that I know of on this Earth.  We are blessed to be continual students of Personal Development and Life Achievement and as a result are able to design our lifestyle, and live it.  Guido has known no other way. 

He has never given the impression that the dog accross the street has it better than he does, or that the world is out to get him or even that he deserves better.  You see Guido has it made in the shade and he is extremely grateful for that.  He expresses that gratitude continually.

This is a guy that is never satisfied with his lot in life and is continually working and finding ways to make it better.  Even though he has many toys to play with he adores getting a new one.  So many times though, if he as put all his toys out in the yard and can’t find them he will create a new one, maybe with a slipper or one of my socks.  His bowl is always half full, never half empty.

We consider ourselves to be his life coach as we have provided the structure and the elements for him to study and utilize in order to become the happy, grateful, satisfied and overly generous dog that he has become.  He has taken all of these tools and used them to be the best dog he can be.

We can learn so much from our beloved pets.

If there was one very defining element to your thought processes, your feelings and therefore ultimately your actions and your results it would be your circle of influence.  Having said that we know:

Your Feelings + Your Thoughts + Your Actions = Your Results

This is the basic equation that “allows” you to use the Law of Attraction to your benefit.  As long as you are feeling good and positive you will have good and positive thoughts.  It is these thoughts that produce the vibrations you are having right now and right now.  It is also what determines what action you are going to perform right now and right now and of course the completion of the equation will be your results. Your vibrations are as a result of your choice of action.  Turn the TV on and watch your favorite program or sit and write that blog post that you had been thinking about all day.  Lay on the Couch and relax or pick up your copy of Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich therefore enriching your mind and your feelings and thoughts.

So what do I mean by your circle of influence, and how do they affect your feelings and thought processes?  Well  your circle of influence is your choice of associations:

Work Mates,

Family Members,

Bosses,

Children

Neighbours,

Friends,

Associates, just to name a few of the people around you.

Now it is very tough to control your associations with these people, no matter what their ideas, ideals and even their feelings and thought processes are.  These are people that you have to and yes even want to associate with.  You will never change their outlooks, ideas or ideals, you can only change your own. How do you do that you ask?

Simple — add some new associations.  This does not have to take going out and meeting new people or anything drastic.  You can look for role models, people that you would like to emulate and people that are, have and do the things you would like to do.

One of my first recommended courses of action to expand your circle of influence is to work with a life coach.  There are many books that you can read to expand your associations, or at least feel like you have.  Take some time to reflect on your associations, and determine if they are the right ones to allow the Law of Attraction to expand your horizons and experience real personal growth.

Success requires effort and real, absolute success requires focused energy.  Most of the time, for many many people, focused energy is very difficult because of the level of fear involved.

The Fear of failure, the Fear of success, the Fear of rejection, the Fear of not knowing how, the Fear of feeling like it just can’t happen for you are only some of the fears we hear about and experience on a daily basis. 

The most common definition of Fear that we have heard, most people define it as “False Evidence Appearing Real”.  What I have found is that anything that lies outside of your comfort zone is usually considered to be false evidence that appears real.  Therefore it stands to reason that your comfort zone is a mirror image of your success zone right?  Think about that — your comfort zone is a mirror image of your success zone.

How about we take the definition and both consciously and subconsciously change it to Focused Energy Achieves Results.  Now this is not to suggest that we go blindly forward without performing due diligence into the possible tools that we may use to expand our comfort zone, just to perform the due diligence. 

Think again about your comfort zone being a mirror image of your success zone.  Change that around and look at it like this:  Your success zone is a mirror image of your comfort zone.

Do what it takes to expand your comfort zone.  A life coach has the ability to direct you in the expansion.

My Dad was a dreamer.  I say was because I no longer have the gift of his influence in my world.  It’s been 6 years since he moved onto whatever comes next after this human experience.   Dad gave me permission to dream big, to believe that anything is possible if I just put my mind to it. So what went so terribly wrong?  Outside influences - my peer environment of “who do you think you are”, and “that will never happen”, and “do you think you’re better than me”.  I had big dreams that seem to have faded with the years.  Can you relate? 

Something amazing came into my life after I woke up and realized that I just wasn’t going to live that way anymore.  Do you know about the Law of Attraction?  That’s okay because I didn’t either at one time.  I now know that it had been working in my life in a negative way, because now I’m experiencing it as a miracle.   Once I made that declaration to live my life my way and to be happy and fulfilled, the people and resources I needed appeared in my life as if they were crazy coincidences.  One of those people was my life coach.

Personal coaching sounded pretty foreign to me at one time.  “What exactly is it and what could it possibly do for me?” was my first skeptical thought.  My coach helped me focus on what I wanted, set achievable goals, get organized and prioritize my endless “to do list” (don’t we all have those?!) and rediscover what I’m passionate about.  Living a happy life is so important to me now that helping other people find that for themselves is what drives me these days.  It feels so good to be living my dream - it’s not the one from my childhood but it’s evolved and even better!  What’s your dream?  Is it the same from childhood or has it grown into something different?