Love, Live, Serve
Blogs | Wellness, Mindset, & Personal Growth 💖
Join the Growing Community
How to Be a Better Leader
Are you a leader?
Whether you realize it or not, chances are that you’re a leader in your work, home, or community.
Leadership roles cover many areas.
Not all have fancy titles or are given accolades. Leaders provide a path to action and innovation. It could be a parent role, an employer, sports leadership, managing clients and projects, church groups, volunteer non-profit associations, or even recognizing and finding solutions to workplace problems.
Leaders have that innate ability to help, and they jump in to do just that!
We know not everyone has the desire to lead. But to lead simply means to have at least one follower.
So how can you become a better leader? One that is more intentional?
I Got Fired from the C-Suite: Here’s How I Recovered
"Embrace the suck!"
The first time I heard this term, I thought it was crass.
Then I realized it was a military term defined as "to consciously accept or appreciate something extremely unpleasant or unavoidable."
To me, embracing the suck means acknowledging a problematic or difficult situation by adopting the required mental toughness, standing tall with integrity, and staying positive despite 'the suck.'
How To Do S.M.A.R.T. Goal Setting
Have you ever set goals and not accomplished them?
Most of us have.
That's because, without the right framework, your goals will be impossible to measure or achieve.
The problem with most goals is that they're:
Not written down
Poorly worded or framed
Vague
Too aggressive
I've made every one of those goal-setting mistakes!
And you probably have too. But once I figured out how to set better goals, I saw myself actually achieving them.
Why You Should Start Setting Impossible Goals
What would make your life meaningful?
That is our life's question!
You'd probably like to feel that you're living a vibrant and fulfilling life of love, happiness and purpose.
When we dream an impossible dream, can it be whittled down to a Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely goal? Can you fit your biggest most treasured dreams into the itty bit box of a S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting framework?
That's like asking if you can store a live fireworks display in your purse. It doesn't make sense.
Perhaps over a lifetime— as your targets and goals are broken down into meaningful tasks.
But if it weren't for the trailblazers in history who have set impossible goals for themselves, where would we be today?
Are You Living Your Personal Values?
Are You Living Your Personal Values Every Single Day?
To say that values are important is an understatement.
They are our guiding light, our North Star.
I began focusing my recent blogs on personal values by sharing how you can define your own values and use them to make better decisions.
But I have to ask you this: Are you living your personal values?
How to Make Better Decisions in Work and Life
Each day, we choose to stay in our current mindset, circumstance, or environment because we feel either joy or we feel stuck.
Joy is where I wish everyone to be.
If you're contemplating a change in your life, your values are a great place to start. If you're facing a difficult decision, your values are where you MUST start.
Life feeds us lots of noise, which adds to the confusion and overwhelm in our lives.
Unless we make deliberate plans for ourselves, other people's ideas get into our heads and hijack our best efforts. I want to help you gain clarity around your values so you can make better decisions in your work and life.
What Are Your Values?
Do your values guide everything you do?
For years, my values have been what I lean into when times get tough.
Even if I have the worst day ever, I know that I've been successful if I've lived my values.
But what is the definition of "values?" A value is a way of being or believing that we hold most important.
Brene Brown says this in her book Dare to Lead: "living into our values means that we do more than profess our values, we practice them. We walk our talk--we are clear about what we believe and hold important, and we take care that our intentions, words, thoughts, and behaviours align with those beliefs."
I want to help you determine your values if you haven't taken this necessary step.
What is Happiness?
What is happiness?
This seemingly straightforward question has bewildered the human race forever. We all seem to have our own perception and definition of happiness, but surprisingly the determinants of our happiness transition with time, place and surrounding.
Happiness is a virtue and an attribute of nature and all the living beings.
It is unconditional and internal. Does this mean that we should disregard all our emotions of anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, and so forth? No, we do not need to disregard those feelings because ignoring an issue is never a good solution.
Disregarding our emotions and feelings and their underlying causes and effects is nothing less than self-violence.
How to Create a New Habit That’ll Stick
Does habit creation actually matter?
It sure does.
In fact, much of your life is made up of habits you never even intended to create.
Today I find myself delving into this topic because I know it's an area that is gaining more traction as neuroscience evolves.
It's also critical for anyone who wants to achieve important goals and build a more successful life.
3 Good Daily Routines for a Boost in Positive Energy
Did you know that it's easy for us to have our brains automatically follow routines and habits?
We automate mundane tasks such as brushing our teeth, preparing coffee, walking, and driving a car. And we can automate positive habits as well.
According to The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg, a Duke University researcher found that "more than 40 percent of the actions people performed each day weren't actual decisions, but habits."
So what kind of routines and habits should you be automating?
How to Stick to a Daily Routine No Matter What
Wondering how to stick to a routine?
So you’ve created a daily routine…but now how are you going to stick with it?
This is a particularly exciting topic for me as I am going through my own transformation while establishing a new daily routine.
Here’s the thing: you can create the greatest daily or morning routine of all times, but if you don’t keep at it, you won’t see the results.
You need to stick with it long enough to make it automatic.
How to Create the Best Daily Routine for a Healthy Life!
Intentionality by design is making yourself, your dreams, desires and goals a reality by focusing on what is most important to you.
Each day you must be in the mindset to invite happiness into your life. Determine what happiness is for you.
What makes your heart sing and why? Knowing this will set you up for small daily wins.
Love yourself and breathe belief into YOU.
When you have quiet time to think about your priorities (usually after the kids are in bed!), close your eyes and visualize what matters most to you.
10 Growth Mindset Tips I Learned from My Kids
Living in a household with boys finds me stretching the limits of my parental comfort zone daily.
I often stop dead in my tracks and have to grit my teeth to not shriek in horror as my children jump off high objects. They do this both indoors and outdoors, naturally. My boys bike ride and go-cart at Mach speed down the sidewalks, climb mountainous rock piles as if they were invincible, and do what young boys do when tempted by the good ole outdoors. All the while I'm trying to stay calm.
As parents, there's a lot we can learn from our kids.
5 Essential Growth Mindset Strategies
Life always presents us with the unexpected. Change is inevitable!
I didn't realize I would be delving into the path I'm on today as I write to you from my newly designed blog. But here I am, living the unexpected and facing new challenges each day. As my previous career as the CEO of an independent school had me working at all hours, I hadn't considered the toll it took on all aspects of my life. It turns out that a lot was missing in terms of self-care. Now, I get to explore that area again.
But while the job of a CEO combined with being a mother of two lively boys was a huge undertaking, it's something that I managed to do because of my mindset.
If it hadn't been for the five strategies I'm about to share with you, I would never have made it through my first year of being a CEO.
How You Can Develop a Growth Mindset in 3 Easy Steps
You might have a growth mindset and not even know it.
Or you might be like many people who struggle in certain areas of their life because they lack the fundamental belief that they can grow and change. Growth, change, improvement, and success all stem from one thing: belief.
Do you believe that you can succeed?
Do you believe that you can learn and do better? What you believe will come true. The stronger you believe something, the more likely it is to come true.
This week I've been applying a growth mindset to my own barriers around technology.
Work-Life Balance…Is It Even Possible?
How many times have you told yourself that you need to find more balance in your life?
Somehow you need to figure out a way to balance work life and your personal life.
Maybe you’re like many women who say this to themselves every single week. Usually on Friday at 6 pm when you’re still in front of a computer or at a meeting that’s run late.
Maybe you’ve even been saying it to yourself for years.