Funny, If you had have told me recently that my way of coping with change was to distract myself to the point of avoiding what needs to be done, I would have said not me!

A few days ago while in a session with my coach, I became acutely aware that the obvious has been staring me in the face. The reason why I just don't seem  to get done what needs to be done, is that I consciously seek out distractions like TV, spending money, checking email, surfing the net, the list goes on, all to avoid facing what I need to be doing in my life. 

My coach asked my one question that stopped me in my tracks, what are you avoiding in your life? Such a simple question, with a huge impact.

I have embarked on reflecting on this question through 10 minutes contemplation each day, and I have to say that it brings life into technicolour. What I truly want, what I know deep down in my true being, is not what is being played out in my life. 

Human beings have the capacity to endure unhappiness.

We tolerate settling for a life that happens to us, rather than created by us. This idea that we are the the accumulative sum of our childhood experiences and all the choices we have made arriving at this point in time
After all if we start life with bad experiences, which then lead to bad choices, how can we expect to ever be happy, and content in our lives. 

This ability of ours to endure a life filled with bad choices, fear, anxiety, pocratination, self loathing...Is our lot in life, or at least that is what we convince ourselves to settle for. In reality after years of enduring this state it takes a lot less energy to keep enduring it, than making life changing choices. 

For many people they reach the tipping point where the pain of staying where they are becomes greater than the desire to transform there lives.

Lets say that you are at this point, ready to make different choices, you are searching, and searching for the right action, decision, or magic bullet that will end all those years of suffering. This desperate need to find happiness and contentment in your life often is doomed to fail , and ultimately reinforce that you will never be happier than you are now, in that you need to except your lot in life and that things will never change.

Such a depressing and tiring life to live. 

There comes a time when we need to be daring and bold and make such profound changes, that they completely contradict everything we know. We need to take action that is foreign to us, that will leave our negative subconcious  , redundant, without a job and role in our lives anymore. An action that confounds our reasoning and that lays down a challenge.

So what is this profound action, this game changing action? Great question! How will we know that it is game changing? This is where a life coach comes in. They help us to see the wood through the trees, to separate what is driven by our faulty view of the world, and what is truly a bold action that will begin to rewrite our destinies.

This action will require us to find and reconnect to the things that we may have given up on in the past, like persistence, trust, faith, and a belief that we can change. Most of all it will need to speak to that part of us, buried deep, that ignites when it meets that action. We need to persist in searching for what true lasting and sustainable happiness is for Me.

Let the journey towards your bold action begin! Take the first step and get thyself to a life coach! Better still book yourself in for a free complimentary session with LifeCoachingBydesign, and begin the journey.

Here I am sitting waiting to catch the ferry from picton to wellington. Its been a busy few days, first running a planning forum in greymouth and then hanging out with friends on the westcoast.

Taking stock of the last couple of days, a few things have stood out, firstly the amazing stories I have heard from travelers and friends about where they have come from, how they arrived at this point in time, and where they are heading.

Lately I have been reading a lot about the power of stories and how they define, shape, and inform our lives.

Talking to various people, and listening to their stories made me realise that we are all part of the stories of the people around us. For example after listening and sharing my story with others, I was hit by a profound thought. When the conversations are over and people go their own ways, their stories have new characters. It may seem that meeting people fleetingly has little significance, but here's the thing, they go home with you now part of their unfolding story, and they part of yours.

A thought..who are all the people who have come into your life, fleetingly, and have been lost in the noise of your life story? If you were to look back, what gems, or hidden stories are waiting to be refound? And what can be learnt from revisiting those moments.

Just a thought while I wait to get back to the main part of my story.


Gino Maresca

Interested in the power of stories? Check out the work of Micheal Meade at  http://www.mosaicvoices.org 

Mosaic Multicultural Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. As a network of artists, healers, social activists, and community builders. Mosaic formed to create cross-cultural alliances, creative mentoring relationships, and educational projects. Mosaic actively seeks to encourage greater understanding between people with diverse and divergent backgrounds and experiences. Projects include mentoring youth and developing elders, finding common ground between those in opposition, and shaping community events that unite people of various cultural and spiritual backgrounds. Mosaic means putting essential pieces together; shaping new social forms from separate, divided, even estranged parts. The creative process of finding, fitting, and weaving together divergent, yet necessary elements of a diverse culture involves making new social fabrics from existing ethnic, spiritual, psychological, and political threads.

What I am starting to understand is that there are two types of people, those that know where they are heading and what they want to achieve in their lives. For these people it is less about the question what is my goal? and more about what is the best way to get there. The second type of person is the, I not know what I want from life. This type of person is acutely aware of what they don't want in their lives, but when asked the question, what are your goals?, come up blank.

I have been pondering the situation facing the second group. How can you apply the success formula if you don't actually know what success looks like? How can you move towards something better if you don't know what better looks like in detail.

We know the age old wisdom to change a behavior you need to practice a new one daily for at least 29 days. Simple really! If it was so simple then we would all be where we want to be now! 

I listened to a talk the other day where the speaker sumed up making new behaviours stick. He talks of two important factors, enthusiasm for change and persistance. Enthusiasm according to him is like rocket fuel. It creates great thrust and propels us skywards. Problem is that many of us see this is the only key to success. Like a rocket, the fuel of enthusiam only gets us halfway there. It gets us into orbit, then, when that fuel is expended, something else needs to take over. Persistance is the thrust that moves us through space, making corrections and keeping us moving towards the object that we are aiming for.

Enthusiasm equals- dream creation
Persistence equals-daily visualisation, refocusing, faith

This got me me thinking, what is my rocket fuel and what is my thrust?

Almost every self help book I have looked at works on this simple formula. The secret to fulfillment and success is having goals and following through, persisting, visualizing and attracting what you want and where you want to be,  believing in yourself no matter what.

 Brilliant formula, if you actually know what your goals are. I have found for myself and many of my clients, that identifying and setting goals is a difficult and gradual process of self reflection, exploration, and trialing until a true goal emerges. 

There are many tools out there on goal setting, just google and see. What they all tend to assume is that you are at a place where you know what steps you want or need to take in order to move forward towards something. The formula involves, identifing, unpacking the steps required, and implementing. Now if you are already aware of your purpose, or are on a path, be it career or other areas of your life, setting goals is second nature, and it could be just a matter of working with a personal coach to refine and accelerate the process.

For those of us who are feeling lost or lacking direction, then working with a personal coach takes on a different feel. The role of the coach here is to work with you to explore and identify potential areas where you want to change, create or recreate your life. Left to our own devices we risk running around in circles, arriving at the same place, like an mp3 on repeat. Having a personal coach will take us off the repeat setting and get things back on track. 

The biggest mistake that people make is seeing the coach as the 'magic fix'. If I work with a coach for 12 weeks I will know and have what I want from life. For those who come into coaching with a goal already defined, then this will be the case. For those who come to coaching because they are feeling lost, stuck, wanting to change but not knowing where to start, the reality is likely to be different. 

If you are feeling lost, stuck, not knowing where to start, lets start by setting realistic expectations for ourselves. How many times have you placed all your hopes on reaching a place that others have achieved in the same space of time? When you fail to reach that place, or benchmark , how do you feel? 

Take a moment to reflect.. do you know what you want in your life right now? do you know how to identify what you actually want? do you know the steps to get there, do you understand what motivates you and keeps you motivated to reach goals?

Does this change the expectations you may have for the use of a personal coach? Imagine if at the end of 12 sessions you had more clarity than you have now and have glimpses of what is possible for you? Would it then be possible to begin setting some real goals in your life? The role of the coach becomes one of co-creator, like rocket fuel to get you to a place where real change can begin. When the first stage of coaching is complete, then setting goals and acheiving them will become exhilarating, life changing and lasting. It becomes validation that you are on a path that is right for you. 



 





 

Do you feel that you have spent your whole life being driven by events or choices that you have no control over? Do you constantly find yourself freezing when you need to make a decision in your personal life, or even if that decision is the right one? Do you allow decisions to be made for you, either by circumstances or other people? Maybe you’ve reached the midpoint of your working career and you are realising that you haven’t done all the things you told yourself you would do when you were in your 20’s? Maybe you were to scared, or gave up because life kept getting in the way? Maybe you just didn’t know how to get there? Or even what goals to set?

If any of these resonate with you, take a deep breath and know that you are not alone. In fact a large majority of people who hit mid career are in the same boat. What separates those who live with purpose from those who live at the mercy of life, is the clarity and certainty that their decisions are right for them.

Give me a call and we can begin the journey  to pinpoint exactly what you want to being doing with your life. We can work together to take your life by the horns and be proactive in creating the life you truly want moving forward from today. 

Starting free of expectations, past experiences, existing knowledge of life and creating something new and inspiring from our inner muse, our artist.

True creativity starts from a place of unknowing, where everything is brand new, full of possibilities, waiting to be discovered.

A short reflection by Gino Maresca

Creators of any kind must find their voice.

We are writers, musicians, designers, programmers, parents, builders of anything. But we are not truly expressing ourselves, and speaking the truth, until we’ve found our voice: the tone, style, tenor, pitch, personality we use to express ourselves.

Our voice is our essence, writ plain for the world to see.

A reader and fellow writer asked me how I found my voice. And I have no easy answer — I’m not even sure I can say I’ve fully found my voice yet. It’s a quest that doesn’t seem to end — not a Grail quest, really, but a constant retuning as the essence of who I am neverendingly changes.

But I feel I’ve found something that has the texture of truth, even if only a tactile approximation. I’ll share some of my thoughts, but keep in mind I don’t hold the answers firmly at all.

I’m learning, and I hope my learning helps yours. This is written for writers, but the ideas are the same for anyone who creates anything.

Write a lot. This is almost all I need to say, as nothing else matters without the constant practice of writing a lot. Write blog posts and letters, booklets and diatribes, letters to the editor and book reviews, love poems and short stories, novellas and manifestos. The sheer mass of your writing becomes the raw matter from which to chisel your voice.

Experiment boldly. Rip off the greats, and the goods as well. Mimick and make it your own. Try and err.

Learn to hear yourself. My writing voice is really the voice in my head. It’s not how I talk aloud, but how I talk to myself, in the noisy cavern of my skull. I listen to myself talk, inside, and that’s the voice I try to get down in writing.

Getting that voice from your head to the virtual paper — that’s the trick. It’s not easy, but again, do it often, and you’ll get proficient at it. It’s a rewiring of the synapses, so that your head-thoughts shoot down into your fingertips and come out as typing motions, as bits and pixels. Most people don’t do this enough to get good at it, and so there is low fidelity.

Find what feels true. You’ll write a lot, and most of it will be bullshit. You need the bullshit if you want to find the truth. Sort through the bullshit until you learn to recognize the truth, by feel, not by any logical criteria. The truth looks remarkably like bullshit.

Find clarity. Good writing, it’s been said often, is clear thinking. If your thinking is muddled, your writing will be. I’d recommend a self-taught course on logic, but really I’ve found it’s a matter of simplifying. Practice removing extraneous ideas and words until you have only what’s needed to express a simple thought.

Remove the noise. It’s a process of subtraction more than addition. Most people end up with too many words, because they never subtract. The noise gets in the way of your voice, so pare it down, trimming the noise from the bush until you’re left with truth. I subtract in my head, these days, but that’s from years of practice. After you write, edit, and remove the noise.

Most people also have too much noise in their lives to hear their own thinking. Too much is going on around them, and online, and they have no time for solitude. You can’t hear your thoughts, your voice, without solitude. Remove the noise in your life as well.

Use your voice. You don’t embark on a quest for your voice just for the sake of beauty — a noble pursuit, but it’s not enough.

You must use your voice. Use it to express yourself, to help others, to change the world.

I write of simplicity in a world that’s needlessly complicated.

I write of minimalism to stem the tide of consumerism.

I write of contentment because too many feel a lacking.

I write of veganism because my heart breaks at the cruelty of our food system.

I write of unschooling to show kids they need no teacher but themselves.

I write of anarchism in a world increasingly totalitarian, especially in the growing private sector.

This is how I use my voice. How will you use yours?

Permission to re-post kindly given by  Leo Babauta  of Zen Habits. 

In my search for great resources, I have uncovered this real gem, Buddha In Blue Jeans An Extremely Short Simple Zen Guide to Sitting Quietly by Tai Sheridan. 

I love how it has been created with the intent to enrich the lives of people, completely free of charge.
It is so beautifully simple, easy to apply and uplifting. I hope you find it as inspiring as I have. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------From the AuthorThis is an extremely short, simple, and straight forward book.


It is a universal guide to the practice of sitting quietly and being yourself, which is the same as being Buddha. Sitting quietly can teach you many ways to accept life, meet pain, age gracefully, and die without regret.

I wrote this book for one reason: to encourage you to sit quietly every day.

Please enjoy being Buddha in Blue Jeans: a person of presence, openness, love, and benefit.

Tai SheridanKentfield, California 2011

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