Being You for Real

October 1, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Friendships are a source of both joy and heartache.

Women have a greater need for friendships than men do.  Our friendships run deeper.  Men like to “do things” with friends.  Women want to “know things” about each other.  We like to do things together too, but we want to talk while we do it! We want to be real friends, who trust each other and are there for each other. Friends are part of your total prosperity, enriching your life in so many ways.

Girls are naturally drawn to each other.  A girl’s first experience with heartache may have been over a lost “best friend” rather than a “boy friend”.  When friendships are lost, women grieve. We do not just grieve for the friendship, but also for the secrets shared, the trust given and the acceptance enjoyed.  If betrayed, the pain runs deep.  No one can cause you more harm than someone you have deeply trusted.

Your best friend in school knew who you were afraid of and who you secretly liked.  She knew you still kept your Barbies in your room and that you cried for a week when Shaun Cassidy got married.  I’ll bet you remember a time when a friend you trusted proved not to be a trustworthy secret keeper.  It cut like a knife and that is when it starts – the creation of the wall and mask—your public facade.

The “you” you are willing to let the world see. You don’t want to risk letting people see the bad stuff, because if  they never see the real you,  you will be accepted and enjoy great friendships. Yes, we hide behind our constructed reality, thinking we are better off, but we lose so much.  If no one knows you are struggling, you deny them the chance to comfort you and keep you accountable.

If you are being accepted by people because of a facade you present, deep down you know it is only that disguise being accepted. The real you will be terribly alone and you know it.  That is why so many women you envy for their seeming perfection are struggling with deep insecurities, afraid to shine their light out in the world. One of the many teachings in Monetary Identity is to know who you are and what you bring to the table of relationships.

How do we start?

However your masquerade started and was reinforced, you need to look at how to take the mask off and start to be real.  Before allowing others to truly see us, we must accept who we are.  If you are not comfortable with the real you, you will always hide behind walls. Monetary Identity is a great way to begin and continue that process. Love to really see you there!

Filed Under: Education, Monetary Identity, prosperity

Getting to a Growth Mindset

September 24, 2017 By Leave a Comment

How to Nurture a Growth Mindset – The 3-Step Process

One of Rich Chicks’ principles is prosperity–true prosperity of all aspects of your life: health, spirit, wealth.  Sometimes we get stuck in a pattern that does not bring prosperity into our lives. That’s when you need to examine your core beliefs and values to see if they are what you truly believe and want in your life. Monetary Identity, starting on October 11 helps you get to the growth mindset and out of fixed beliefs and ideas that are holding you back.

Step One – Awareness: Hear Your “Fixed Mindset” Voice

You most likely already know your “inner critic.” The first step is to identify it and the times you hear it. These are times that you’re brought back to a fixed mindset. Practice awareness by identifying the voice when you hear it. Remember what preceded those thoughts–look for clues.

Step Two – Reframe

Once you recognize that inner critic, you can learn to control it. The way that you interpret challenges is up to you. It’s hard to reframe the voice when you have ingrained thinking patterns. Imagine giving advice to a friend. We’re generally harder on ourselves than others. Take each statement and imagine that you’re giving advice, then reframe it

Step Three – Action: Take on the Growth Mindset

Choose a challenge that you’ve been avoiding and try it again. Turn your fixed mindset around. Start with one challenge and then apply it to the next once you have success.

Where Do Limiting Mindsets Come From?

Limiting beliefs come from a place or event in your lifetime experience.  As children we are conditioned to think in more fixed mindset terms.

Intelligence

IQ tests give you a ranking or identity as a child. Most of us develop an identity based on a perceived level of intelligence, and it becomes a label that we carry around. Modern research shows that intelligence is much more fluid than the system suggests.

Money

Money beliefs again usually originate within the family. Limiting beliefs express feelings of guilt, hopelessness or scarcity. These are obviously not useful.

Work

Early educational experiences also play a part in shaping limiting beliefs about work. The current education system does not train people to become growth thinkers or develop an entrepreneurial mindset

Other Limiting Beliefs from School

Some ideas you might have internalized include:

  • Obey Authority
  • Schools and workplaces are hierarchical–those in positions of authority know best.We learn this chain of command very early in our lives.
  • Follow Rules–this system naturally requires rules and discipline. There is a need to maintain order early on, but carrying it on into adulthood doesn’t serve us well.
  • Learn and Then Do. Tasks in school are given with instructions, learning starts with theory and ends in practice. This is the opposite of the growth mindset.
  • Comparing with Others. School evaluates and grades to compare with others, which fosters fixed thinking. This fixed, negative thinking can hold you back.

Take These Steps

 Even a small shift can create a tremendous amount of change toward a growth mindset. You have learned how to make these changes step by step. It’s easy to fall back into old mindsets, just remember these three fundamental steps to make your new mindset take root:

  • Awareness
  • Reframing
  • Action

This is only a small part of what life-changing ideas Monetary Identity brings to your life. Check out Monetary Identity! Use code gap to get and early bird discount (expires September 30)

Filed Under: Goals, Gratitude, Monetary Identity, prosperity

What Keeps You From Getting Where You Want to Go in Your Life?

September 22, 2017 By Leave a Comment

What is Mindset?

One of the concepts we present in Monetary Identity is that of mindset. Mindset is a collection of beliefs, including basic qualities like intelligence, talents and personality, a concept was originally formulated by psychologist Carol Dweck.

Factors like intelligence and ability do not guarantee success. Mindset and beliefs about abilities play a key role in fuelling success. We all know someone incredibly gifted who doesn’t achieve their potential.

Whether conscious or unconscious, negative mindsets can adversely impact success. A positive mindset can help activate potential. Examining your beliefs and your mindset is deep work, Monetary Identity helps with the discovery process enabling you to begin to develop a prosperity mindset and move forward in your life.

What Holds You Back? The Inner Critic

Mindset and beliefs can be totally unconscious. The voices in your head–your ‘Inner Critic’ is an inner voice that occurs on continuous repeat. The Inner Critic might tell you that you’re wrong or inadequate. Some people are very aware of this voice, while others aren’t. Many people mistakenly identify with this voice as their own. Mindset is malleable–you can develop or evolve your mindset and make profound differences with small shifts in awareness and habits. Shifting to a growth mindset is the next step!

Reaching for Success: Growth vs. Fixed Mindsets

Research had identified two types of mindsets

  • Fixed
  • Growth

Having a fixed mindset means that you believe characteristics are static and cannot be changed. Some people constantly feel the need to prove themselves. People with fixed mindsets often get consumed in proving themselves in their jobs or relationships. This comes from a need to confirm existing characteristics and static labels.

A growth mindset is one where an individual sees characteristics as developing and evolving. A growth mindset doesn’t compel a person to constantly prove themselves. They know they can change and grow with experience. A key element in success is a willingness to learn and grow.

A fixed mindset can be seen in someone who masters something quickly then plateaus.

A growth mindset is seen in someone who learns gradually, accepting new challenges along the way.

Mindset is situational

You may use growth mindset in certain situations and the fixed in others, often without realizing it. If you’re unsure, you’re more likely to adopt a fixed mindset. Defaulting to a fixed mindset instead of looking at options can limit success, health and happiness in the long term. In Monetary Identity, which starts October 11, you will be able to determine your mindset and work on it for maximum personal growth. Reserve your seat in this life-changing education.

Filed Under: Monetary Identity, prosperity

Are You Living Your Values?

September 15, 2017 By Leave a Comment

In Rich Chicks’ Monetary Identity class (coming up on October 11), we spend a lot of time on values. Not just picking values from a list and tossing them into a values basket and pushing the basket to the values checkout lane, though. It is deep work that also involves looking at your beliefs around prosperity and other life areas. Truly knowing your values and how they affect your life and decisions is amazing. Putting those values into your life is important and Mickey Mikeworth and I help you do that over the six-week course of the program.

I am conscious of my values. One of them is creativity. I love to learn, love creating things, love other people’s creativity and love helping people expand their creative thinking. Finding ways to express my artistic creativity is fun—I am not particularly gifted in drawing, but I remind myself that it’s not about the product. It’s about the process—the artistic process of creating something that didn’t exist before you took it out of your own head and put it on paper (or canvas or a photoshop screen).

Finding time for just creativity, for play with messy things or writing, sort of slips off the calendar pushed out by “gotta do” things. So I made creative play a “gotta do.” I take classes—sometimes in person, sometimes online—and SHOW UP. Just like I do for a client or a meeting I have scheduled.

Right now I am taking a nine week class called Weekly Wonderland, which meets for two hours once a week. It was dreamed up by my heroine and mentor, the wildly creative Marney Makridakis of Artella Land.  It was when I was in her coaching program ARTbundance that I learned about process not product and began to consciously play. I took ARTbundance after I was already a certified coach, because I felt there was something missing from the traditional coach approach. And I was right—art and play was missing from the coaching model I had learned.

Wonder Word Collage

Our first Wonderland class was about wonder. Here is how it went: we first did a word collage around the word wonder. This is not a thinking thing—it’s fast, so not much time. Here is mine.

I invite you to try a word collage when you are stuck about something. It’s a great way to quickly get something down to work with.

Invitation to the Party in My Head

Based on our collage—or not—we had several minutes to create some kind of invitation or anything that came to mind about wonder. Here is my Invitation to the Party in My Head.

The class uses Zoom, a video conferencing program so you can see everyone else, if you want. Then everyone shares their work—it’s fun! What are you doing to feed your creativity? It’s a big part of your total prosperity!

Interested in Monetary Identity? Check it out!

Filed Under: Creativity

Make a Plan to Keep This Happiness Going

September 6, 2017 By Leave a Comment

It is hard to believe it has been 30 days since we started this Happiness Challenge together. We covered a lot of ground and if you followed along with the tips I shared and made an effort to improve your mood, your gratitude, and your joy, I’m sure you’re seeing a lot of progress and growth. Don’t let what you have learned evaporate!

Let’s take a minute and look back at everything we’ve covered so far this month:

  1. Welcome and Why Happiness Is A Choice You Make Every Day
  2. Make A Commitment to Cultivating Happiness
  3. What Makes You Happy?
  4. Start Your Day with Gratefulness
  5. Happiness and Doing Stuff
  6. Stress Kills Happiness – Easy Ways to Destress
  7. Happiness and Exercise
  8. We Crave Human Connections
  9. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – Savor It
  10. Finding Happiness in a Sea of Sadness or Overwhelm
  11. Fighting Against Our Brain’s Bias To Negativity
  12. Your Happy Squad—a Support System of Positive People
  13. Happiness and Getting Your ZZZZZs
  14. Boost Your Confidence and Become Happier
  15. Make It a Point To Make Someone’s Day
  16. When All Else Fails, Fake It
  17. Talk to Yourself–Keep A Journal
  18. Learn to Deal with Negative Thoughts and Emotions
  19. Live in the Moment
  20. Positive Communication
  21. Giving Back Makes Us Happier
  22. Meditating Your Way to A Happier You
  23. Trade Things for Experiences
  24. Happiness in Simplicity – Declutter Your Life and Your Mind
  25. Stop Complaining. Take Action.
  26. Good Nutrition–Good Mood
  27. Calling Me for a Date with Me.
  28. Happiness Is Contagious
  29. Are You Noticing a Difference?

I hope you’ve been following along and enjoyed this happiness challenge. It’s amazing what will happen when you start to pay attention to how you feel and do what you can to increase your happiness and that of those around you. I hope you have found some tools, techniques, tips, and ideas that have helped you increase the joy in your life.

Where do you go from here? You keep implementing and continue to practice being happy regularly. Remember the Happiness Journal I talked about back on day 17? It’s an excellent tool you can use to keep yourself on track. I will be sending you a link tomorrow for some tools that might help you keep on the happy path.

Keep coming back to these posts as needed. It may not be a bad idea to bookmark this post as a quick reference tool. Above all, keep learning, keep smiling, and keep growing your joy and happiness.

Filed Under: Happiness

Day 29 – Are You Noticing a Difference?

September 5, 2017 By 2 Comments

Over the past 28 days we’ve been talking a lot about happiness and what we can do to increase how we feel. We’ve talked about a wide variety of different things from how sleep, exercise and nutrition can affect our mood, to simple strategies like decluttering and practicing gratefulness.

Tomorrow I’ll give you a quick little review and we’ll make some plans to go from there. Today though, as this 30 Day Happiness Challenge is coming to a close, I thought it would be a good idea to take stock and see if intentionally focusing on being happier is making a difference. I know it has for me, but how about you? I hope you’ve been following along and giving the various ideas a try. One thing we talked about in the past is keeping a journal. At the time, the idea was to practice gratitude and pay attention to the good things by writing them down. That same journal is also a great tool to judge how you’ve been doing throughout this challenge. Compare the earlier entries to the last few, or even how you’re feeling now. Hopefully you’re seeing some great improvements.

It’s important to remember that we go through seasons in our lives. There are times that we are overall happier, and times that are more challenging and sad. It’s ok to go through those sadder phases. We need to sad to make the happy stand out more, to appreciate the good times. If you’re stuck in a tough time, that’s ok. Do what you can to make yourself and your loved ones get through it and then work on bringing the joy and happiness back into your lives.

More than anything else I hope this short little challenge is making you more aware of the beauty and joy around you. It’s so easy to get sucked into our everyday lives and troubles to a point where we miss the people and things that will make us happy. This challenge was designed to make you more aware of them and create new, positive habits that you will continue to carry forward from here on out. We’ll talk a little more about where to go from here in tomorrow’s wrap up post. For now, I hope this has made a difference to you and I’d love to hear how you’ve enjoyed it and what you’ve found particularly helpful. Leave me a comment, connect on social media, or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you.

Filed Under: Happiness

Day 27 – Happiness Is Contagious

September 4, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Did you know that happiness is contagious? A fun fact that you may not have realized is true, but I’m sure you have experienced it. Think about a time when you were with a person who was experiencing pure joy. Kids are wonderful not only being completely happy, but also sharing and expressing that exuberant joy. If you’re around a small child that’s laughing, giggling, and having a grand time, you can’t help but smile along. Their joy makes us happier because it is contagious – sort of like a yawn.

Since happiness can spread from person to person, consider it a tool we can use to share our joy and excitement. Use it to make a difference in how happy you feel on any given day and don’t be afraid to spread it around.

Soak Up the Happy

When you’re having a rough day, cheering yourself up may be as simple as finding a happy person. Surround yourself with positive people who are good at sharing the joy. Find your own personal cheerleaders that you can call on when you need a little boost. While watching a comedy or happy movie may help, experiencing happiness in person seems to have a much bigger impact on how you feel. Go out there and soak up the happy.

Spread Happiness Around

Not only can you feed of the happiness of others, you can also start to spread it around. We talked in a previous post about how giving makes us happier than receiving. Along those same lines, sharing your happiness will benefit both you and those around you. If you are out there intentionally sharing your joy and excitement with those around you, you’ll create a positive energy that is infectious. You’ll start to notice your family and friends smile more, laugh with you, and have a good time.

Then something interesting happens. You start to feed off their positive vibes and happiness, increasing your own joy. Keep it going and you’ll create a spiral of happiness that keeps spreading everywhere. A simple smile or a shared laugh can change the mood of an entire group of people. That’s pretty powerful stuff.

Start to pay attention to the mood and be aware that feelings of both happiness and sadness can be contagious. Use what we’ve talked about in this post to your advantage and where appropriate, change the mood in the room by sharing happiness. You don’t have to be exploding with joy to make a difference. Instead, take a moment to focus on a happy memory, or think about what you’re grateful for. Then show and share the happiness you’ve created and watch it travel around the room. Smile, have an encouraging conversation and work towards making the world a happier place.

Filed Under: Happiness

Calling Me for a Date with Me.

September 3, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Me time—time spent purposely alone is different than loneliness. Sometimes you need to treat yourself and carve out some “me time.” It is a pretty awesome idea! Don’t feel guilty about it. In the end, it will make you a better spouse, a better parent, a better colleague, and a better friend. We all need to recharge and we need to do something just for ourselves on a regular basis.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just plan to do something that you enjoy and that relaxes you. If you are already doing this, congratulations! If not, you have the delightful task of figuring out what you may want to do. Maybe it’s reading a good book or watching your favorite TV show. Maybe it’s getting back into a hobby you used to enjoy. Maybe it’s taking a nap. Maybe it’s a simple as having 10 minutes to sit by yourself and think, or thumb through a magazine.

Like I said, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time and it doesn’t have to involve anything complicated. Sure, a trip to the beach by yourself for a week would be great, but curling up on the couch with a nice cup of tea or a glass of wine and a good book will do. Maybe there is a movie you want to see or a new coffee shop you would love to try.

Treating yourself to a new haircut, a pretty dress, a new gadget, or something that will help you enjoy your hobby more is another great option. Or keep it super simple, and pick up a favorite treat that you don’t have to share while you’re out doing the grocery shopping.

The point I’m trying to make is that it’s ok to treat yourself and do something for the sole purpose of making yourself happy. While a piece of fancy chocolate may not seem like that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, treating yourself well and caring for yourself can have a huge impact on the quality of your life. Give it a try—schedule a date with yourself right now! Then do something nice for yourself—be happy.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Day 25 – Good Nutrition–Good Mood

September 2, 2017 By Leave a Comment

The simplest solution to increasing happiness may be to change what we eat. It is interesting to learn how much the food we eat can affect our mood. I think it’s no accident that since the arrival of lots of easily obtainable processed food with added sugar in the Western diet, depression and other mood disorders have dramatically risen. A quick look at a couple of key ingredients and nutrients that have been shown to directly affect our mood.

Omega 3 Fatty Acids

Omega-3 is a fatty acid that’s found in fatty fish and certain seeds and nuts. There’s another fatty acid called Omega 6 which is found in the corn oil and vegetable oils used in so much American food.  There’s an important balance between omega 3 and omega 6 that needs to happen. If you end up with way more omega 6 than omega 3 (which is often the case in a diet that consists of lots of processed foods), one of the side effects is depression. Here’s an article about the importance of Omega balance.

Vitamin D

We tend to get the blues more in winter when we can’t get outside and get some sun. A big reason for this drop in mood is a lack of vitamin D. With the advent of strong sunscreen and a global health policy that warns us of sun exposure and cautions us to cover up or wear sunscreen, it’s no wonder that vitamin d deficiency has become major problem that also happens to negatively affect our mood.

B Vitamins

Being happy takes energy and a key ingredient in making sure we get the energy we need from our foods are B vitamins. This whole group of micronutrients is crucial in how energized we feel. Make sure you get plenty to feel your best.

Magnesium

Magnesium is starting to become increasingly an issue as our soils are magnesium depleted and less of this mineral makes it into our food. Lack of magnesium can cause insomnia and you already know how important a good night sleep is to your overall well-being.

While you may want to consider supplementing with some of these nutrients to quickly fill the gap your diet is leaving, a much better long-term strategy is to work on cleaning up your diet. The more processed foods you can cut out and replace with fresh fruits and vegetables, quality meats (or other non-meat protein), and healthy fats the better. In other words, eat real foods!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Day 25 – Stop Complaining. Act.

September 1, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Since starting this 30 Day Happiness Challenge here on the blog and via email, I’ve been a lot more aware of the happiness of the people around me. I’m sure you’ve experienced the same thing. It is causing me to look at people more closely and pay attention to their actions, their feelings, and how that seems to connect. It’s has given me some fresh perspectives on this whole happiness thing.

Something that’s stood out in the past few weeks is that the people that seem the most unsatisfied with their life and the least happy are the ones who spend a lot of their time and energy complaining. Do you have a few of those people in your life? They are too busy talking about how horrible their life is that they don’t have any time left to do something about it. Or maybe they’d rather complain than change things. Either way, the solution seems to be simple. Stop complaining and start doing something about it!

We all have times when we complain about one thing or another. Sometimes we do it in our heads, sometimes we vent with a close friend or family member. We grumble, get it off our chest. That’s fine, provided complaining isn’t all we do. Sure, there are times when we complain, feel a little better, and the situation resolves itself. But there are other times when things won’t get better and we won’t feel happier unless we do something.

So what do you need to do? If you’re not happy in your job, start looking for a different position or even change companies. If you’re not happy with your salary, work towards that promotion, take some classes, and do whatever it takes to start earning more. If you are stuck in a relationship that makes you unhappy, work on it, or take the action to move on. If you’re not happy with how your kids are acting, work on your parenting skills, and work with your kids to make things better. If you’re not happy with the way you look and feel, start eating healthier and get outside for some fresh air and exercise.

It’s truly amazing how much you can shape your life for the better once you stop complaining and start taking action. What are you going to do today to make your life better and increase your long-term happiness?

Filed Under: Happiness
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