Category: Life Coaching

One of the tools that I love to use with my clients is “reframing” which can be defined as changing your perspective or the meaning that you’ve attached to an experience.  That meaning that we’ve attached to our experiences significantly impacts how we respond to the situation. We can feel stuck in one perspective or we can create new conclusions, feelings and meanings by exploring potential shifts in perspective.

The point of reframing isn’t about pretending that everything is fine or even searching for silver linings in any experience. Reframing is actually about creating a shift in consciousness that allows us to find solutions we couldn’t see before. When we shift consciousness, we’re changing the energy associated with the situation and allowing us to see things differently than before the shift.

Sound like woowoo to you? How about a real life example to get a better grasp of the concept and see how it all works?

Recently during an intense conversation, someone said the following phrase to me: I’d do anything to protect my children. My first reaction was to interpret that statement: it was a gut wrenching, sinking feeling that someone important to me was judging me and calling me a bad mom who never protects her children. My inner nasty voice was repeating that I’m a terrible mom over and over while my irreverent humorous inner voice kept saying “That escalated quickly.”

So let’s take a side break to examine this. Someone else making a statement that they’d do anything to protect their children could have been meant to make me feel bad. It also could have been meant simply that the person would do anything to protect their children. Dare I challenge the thought that the intention behind the statement doesn’t even matter? It doesn’t matter what the intention was, because I can’t change someone else. I only have control over how I deal with anything presented to me. That being said, let’s get back to the example…

Awareness is the first step to being able to reframe. Lucky (?) for me, I have that irreverent voice inside me that tends to cue me to the fact that something is up. I knew once I heard “that escalated quickly” that I was having an intense emotional reaction to what was said to me. Oh hell yes, I felt attacked and then angry. But here’s the kicker. I didn’t want to stay in feeling like a victim and being angry all day (or longer). I wanted to move on. So it was time for some reframing. 

One of my favorite reframing questions to ask is “How true is that for you?” So I asked myself about what the nasty inner voice was telling me over and over again: How true is it that I’m a terrible mom who doesn’t protect her children? The magic is that I KNOW I protect my children in appropriate ways and I work hard to be a good mom. Why? Because I value being a good mom. I value doing my best to help my children be their best people. So, its not very true that I’m a terrible mom that doesn’t protect her children.

What does this question do to me? It makes the perceptive shift. It reminds me of my values and what I am continuously working toward. It makes me be aware that I am not perfect and I make mistakes, but that I’m doing the best I can and try to be better each day. 

That perspective shift of reminding myself these things changes my energy from being a victim and being angry to being back in the place of learning, growth, and more positive energy. Instead of running those nasty voices over and over in my head, I was able to consciously choose how I want to react to this situation. I choose not to remain in those negative feelings and move towards the positive feelings. Because answering that question allowed me to tap back into my values and see my truth, this isn’t a search for the silver lining, it actually changes my energy.

I wanted to bring this to you so when you’re in a situation that has your inner voice saying nasty things to you, one place to start shifting your energy is to ask “how true is this for me?” Allow yourself to tap into your truth and allow the shift to happy so you can find new perspective and create new ways of reacting to the situation.

If you need some help walking through a situation and applying the tool of reframing, I’d love to work with you. Click here to set up a free call.

I remember that dazed feeling of not knowing what to expect when I was going through my divorce. I felt like I was living in chaos, not knowing what was coming next, feeling like I was running to put out one fire after another. I am going to share with you how to create and use a routine while living in that chaos so you can start feeling more in control of your life.

Once you create a simple, personalized routine from following the steps in this blog post, you’re going to stop feeling as overwhelmed, no long wonder where to start, and you’ll be able to sit down to create a flexible routine that helps give you some structure even during chaos. Download the free worksheet to follow along and start creating your routine.

You’re going to find that once you have a personalized routine, you are going to seriously stop feeling as overwhelmed as you do right now. Your routine is going to help you:

• focus on the things that benefit you
• structure your time to do things in the way that is optimal for you
• maintain a sense of calm

Steps To Create A Personalized Routine

• Make a list of everything you need to get done daily, both in your home life and at work. This isn’t a to-do list, jot down everything you do every day and things you should get done.

• Structure your day. Are you an early bird or a night owl? Make sure to group tasks into the time of day that makes the most sense for when you’re most productive.

• Get specific. Use your loosely created outline of tasks and get as specific as you want. For some this may look like an hour by hour list; for others, you may just divide your day into morning, midday and evening. Others give each day of the week a theme or focus like Monday is laundry day and Wednesday is errands day. This is YOUR schedule, so plan it accordingly.

• Schedule in time for flexibility. There will be days when tasks come up that aren’t part of your typical routine. A dentist appointment, for example. Make time in your schedule that can be flexible for unplanned tasks, and keep your most productive time scheduled with activities you need to be done daily.

• Test it out. Start with a week making tweaks as you go along. After a month, assess your routine to determine what’s working and what can be improved. How does your new routine make you feel? If you find you’re more stressed, then your routine needs some adjusting. The purpose is to make life easier for you.

Tips For Creating Your Routine

Remember that the point of having a routine is to have a system that makes daily life easier for you. So be sure that you:

• Don’t overcommit – keep in mind that things WILL come up that need taken care of right away
• Avoid perfection – focus on what works best for you NOW
• Take your time and adjust as needed – it doesn’t have to be right the first time through
• Make things fun – add in enjoyable activities to your routine to recharge and relax

Stay Flexible In Building Your Routine

Give yourself some grace. Sometimes we are in a time of just getting moment to moment. You may want to do all the the things (or more likely feeling like you “should” be doing all the things), but sometimes, that’s just not possible. Keep these ideas in mind if that’s the season you’re in right now:

• Pick your essentials, then add in other items as you find space for them.
• No need to track time like 5 minutes for brushing teeth, 5 minutes for washing face, 15 minutes for taking a shower, unless that makes you happy!
• The order of your items doesn’t particularly matter. Your routine should have flow, but when things come up, you need to be able to switch some things around. Build that flexibility into your schedule.

Conclusion

You’ll know when you’ve found a good routine when you’re feeling less stress and more self-confidence. You’re going to be saving time that would otherwise be spent on planning and decision making. You’re going to find that you need a lot less determination and will power since you’re having the make less decisions during the day.

Now that you know all the benefits and have all the tools you need, it’s time to get to work. Download the free worksheet that will help you create your personalized routine. 

Once you’ve had a chance to work on it, let me know if you need more help in creating a routine to suit your lifestyle. We can get laser focused on how to create a weekly or daily routine, or we can focus on creating a morning, evening, or self care routine. Click here to schedule a free consultation.

When I’m working with my clients, our focus is on starting where my client is right in this moment. All of the experiences, thoughts, and choices you’ve had have created who you are and where you are right now. You truly are exactly where you’re supposed to be now. 

But what about starting to make changes in your life? You know we’re going to start where you are right now, girl. So, where are you?

I’m offering you the same tool I use with my clients to help you gain clarity on your overall satisfaction in key areas of life. It’s called the Wheel of Life.

It allows you to physically see where you are in this moment and how balanced your life feels to you. Once you know where you are, easier to start making sustainable change in your life, step by step.

Download your free printable copy of the Wheel of Life tool here so you can follow along in the rest of the post:

How To Use The Wheel of Life Tool

Got your Wheel of Life tool printed out? Ok, good, now go grab some markers or colored pencils or crayons. (You can make this as simple or as fancy as you like – they can all be the same color or make them all different!)

You’ll see the Wheel of Life tool has all the significant ares of your life listed: personal development, spiritual awareness, fun and enjoyment, relationship, health and aging, personal finance, career and profession, and family and parenting.

Your job is to go through the Wheel of Life one pie piece at a time, rating your overall satisfaction in that area on a scale from 1 – 10. For example, when you consider your health and aging, how satisfied are you?

Find the line that corresponds to what you feel matches your amount of satisfaction and fill in the area on the Wheel of Life below that line. 

Continue to do this through each area of your life on the tool. Here’s an example of what a completed Wheel of Life can look like, although your Wheel won’t look like this since it will be specific to you:

Now that you have a visual representation of how you view your life satisfaction, let’s a take a look at it. Is it super balanced? Would it be able to roll down the road pretty smoothly?

Or maybe it’s a bumpy Wheel? Is there an obvious imbalance?

How do you feel about the way your Wheel looks? Have you gained some clarity about where you might like to start optimizing your life?

How You Do One Thing Is How You Do Everything

One of the big things to remember about the Wheel of Life is that all of these areas are interconnected and impact all the other areas. As you make changes in one area, you will find the other parts of your life adjusting.

The truth is that how you show up in one area of your life is exactly how you show up in all the other areas. 

That being said, don’t try to change everything in your life at once. Choose one area that you feel is most important for you to focus on.

Create a very specific goal of what you want that area to look like, and take one small step toward making that goal a reality. The more specific you are here, the faster you will reach your goals.

This is the just the tip of the iceberg in exploring the Wheel of Life to determine where you are, but its so incredibly powerful, especially for such and easy and fast tool to use!

Did You Download The Wheel of Life Tool Yet?

Now, listen, girl. If you still haven’t downloaded your free printable Wheel of Life tool, go get it now. Once you’ve filled it out, I’d love to hear what you’ve discovered by using this tool. Leave a comment below.

Conclusion

Download the free Wheel of Life tool here, assign a value that reflects your level of satisfaction in each area of the Wheel of Life, and check out your results. When you’re done, you’ll be able to clearly see which areas of life you’re feeling the least satisfied and determine where you’d like to take action to feel more fulfillment.

And, if you want to explore the Wheel of Life tool further and see if I can help you reach your goals, click here to schedule a free call with me. We’ll drink some tea or coffee while we work together to figure out where you want to start making changes in your life. AND, there’s no obligation to sign up for private coaching – this isn’t a sales call, its just a quick chat to help get you moving toward your dream life.

This blog post contains my interpretation of the copyrighted work of Bruce D Schneider and the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC).

Self care is a conscious act you take to promote your physical, mental, and emotional health. Engaging in activities that promote your wellness helps build resilience when you’re in stressful situations that you can’t eliminate. This means (and please read this twice, girl) self care is a priority, not a luxury, to enable you to be as well-equipped as possible to handle the challenges life brings your way.

Physical Self Care

Physical self care covers everything from what you’re eating, how much exercise you’re doing, how much sleep you’re getting, and staying in charge of your physical health by taking any required medications and visiting your doctors on a regular basis. Reviewing these specific areas of your daily routines can give you a roadmap of how to engage in more physical self care.

Mental Self Care

Mental self care covers keeping your brain engaged with learning, staying mentally healthy, and even maintaining a positive mindset. Making time for the things that stimulate your mind and practicing the things that create good mental health (gratitude, compassion, self-acceptance, forgiveness, etc) can increase your ability to deal with life’s challenges. Examine these areas to decide what you can improved upon to engage in more mental self care.

Emotional Self Care

Emotional self care covers the things that create a stronger emotional intelligence such as having healthy coping skills to deal with strong or difficult emotions, as well as being able to express your emotions in a healthy way. Setting time aside to process your emotions in a healthy way can help you build your emotional self care practice.

Creating A Personalized Self Care Plan

Everyone should be practicing self care to enhance their well-being, especially during stressful times. The key is to create a plan that best serves you and your needs. What I do for self care may not resonate with you – and that’s ok! You may also find that as your situation changes, your self care needs will change also.

Take time to review your life, starting with the physical, mental, and emotional aspects listed above. Where do you need to incorporate more attention in your life? Go for it – rely on your gut for this one, girl.

Just choose one small step towards change. There’s no need to change everything at once – that’s way too overwhelming! The important thing is to choose one thing that make you feel good. Make the time to do that one thing on a regular basis. As you incorporate that one self care item into your daily life, you’ll find your ability to deal with everyday challenges and stressful situations much easier.

I’d love to hear what you normally do for your own self care, as well as what you’re planning to incorporate into your life over the next few weeks. Please leave a comment below.

P.S. If you’re looking for some specific self care ideas, fill out this form to download a free cheat sheet of examples: