Tagged: Goals

She Said Her Dream Was Ridiculous

She Said Her Dream Was Ridiculous

This week I met a wonderful and smart college girl who said her dream of being a food writer was ridiculous. I hate when people say that!  What that tells me is somebody told them it was ridiculous to follow their dreams.

Do not call your dream ridiculous!

The scary thing is I hear this way more often from women than from men. Women are somehow trained to believe that their out-of-the-box ideas are ridiculous. They should be more conservative and practical about what they want to do with their lives.

Unfortunately too many women follow this and people please when choosing [...]

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The Number One Thing That Is Zapping Your Energy

The Number One Thing That Is Zapping Your Energy

Don’t waste your time and energy asking everyone for their opinion on your life.

I was a couple of credits shy of finishing my masters degree, but really wasn’t interested in the field of study. I was just doing it because I would get an increase in pay at my job. I kept asking people “Should I go back to school to finish my masters?”, “Should I get a degree in something else, but I don’t know what I want to do…” and on and on. I let everyone weigh in on decisions about my life. It got to a [...]

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When It's All or Nothing

When It's All or Nothing

I used to be an all or nothing person and I have to admit that it was pretty painful. All of that pressure, stress, and intense effort put into one thing is a great recipe for exhaustion and burnout. Only I didn’t know that, I just thought if you wanted something bad enough you just pushed yourself as hard as possible. After years of this, I realized that though I was getting things accomplished, I felt like crap. I was also measuring myself with a level of intense perfection. Not a pretty scene and it became clear to me [...]

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Choose Your Words Carefully

Choose Your Words Carefully

Here we are again at the very beginning of a New Year and this time, a new decade. Every January I would spend hours assessing the previous year, coming up with new goals, and of course criticizing myself for not meeting every expectation I had of myself in a very neat, perfect, and measured way. I don’t know about you, but to me that stopped feeling like a productive use of my time and became a total energy drain. For many years I believed that was the way it had to be done. Until I realized it wasn’t and [...]

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Focusing on the "Controllables"

Focusing on the "Controllables"

If you’re like many of my clients you’ve probably found yourself in career situations where you are trying to control things that are entirely out of your control. You find yourself trying to do things in just the right way and are overly concerned with how your work compares with others. At times, you perceive a feeling of impending doom if just the slightest thing goes wrong with a project. Talk about pressure! It is in that moment that you have reached a level of control that is actually sabotaging [...]

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Turning Your Career into a Mission

Turning Your Career into a Mission

I recently saw a video about Daniel Pink’s new book “Drive”. For those of you unfamiliar with Daniel Pink he is the author of several best selling books about the changing world of work and focuses on human motivation. In this short video titled “Two Simple Questions That Can Change Your Life”, which can be found at www.danpink.com, Pink discusses the importance of having a mission statement about your career and what you want to accomplish. He says that if you really focus on what you want to accomplish, you can use your sentence to navigate your life. His [...]

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Want to Start A Business this Year? Do Your Research

Want to Start A Business this Year? Do Your Research

     You know who you are: that out of the box thinker who constantly has a million ideas going around in your head and ready to jump on each one. “If only there were enough hours in the day” is your mantra. Though I can relate to the too many ideas epidemic of the entrepreneur, I am going to ask you to put the brakes on. My first word of advice, take one project at a time. Pick the one that speaks to you loudest. Then, and this is the important part for the quick start entrepreneurs out there, do [...]

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How Smart Entrepreneurs Handle New Ideas

How Smart Entrepreneurs Handle New Ideas

     As Entrepreneurs, we are known for being idea people. That’s the most exciting part, the ideas. But this can be a hindrance when starting a new business. In order to be a smart entrepreneur, you need to be aware of what is the best idea that will fit into your overall vision for your company. Without this knowledge you are wasting your business’s productivity, time, and money.

      It’s easy to get excited about a new product or marketing tool that has the potential to take you to the “sweet spot” in your business plan. It seems so right at [...]

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In a Goal Rut? Creating Goals That Work For You

In a Goal Rut? Creating Goals That Work For You

     It’s December again: the beginning of the end of the year. At this time of year a lot of my clients start to assess if they have achieved the goals they set back in the beginning of the New Year. Some people are celebrating the success of 2009 while others are trying to figure out why couldn’t quite meet their goals again this year. If you are in the latter category, don’t fret. There is always a chance to repair a broken goal.

       The trick in meeting a goal is to always be conscious of how it is working [...]

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The Importance of Good Advice

The Importance of Good Advice

     Advice is a tricky thing for most of us, whether we are giving or receiving it. We often seek out advice from others, but its questionable how many of us actually take the advice we are given. I was reminded of how important advice can be while reading the July 6, 2009 issue of Forbes magazine. The issue focused on influential leaders in various professions and the advice they received that “changed their lives and careers forever”.

     Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, discussed the importance of learning the opinions of others first and how to carry [...]

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