Tag: awareness

Just Push Play – Live Your Life Now

On By April HugheyIn Goal Setting, Meaningful Existence, PrioritiesLeave a comment

Are you waiting for some great event for you to be happy? Do you have the fantasy that life will be better if only you…. lost 10 pounds, found a better partner, made more money, had more free time?

Stop existing with your life on pause. Hit Play and enjoy your life now. Wear the bathing suit now and chase your kids in the surf. Search for a new job now if the current one makes you miserable. Ask out the attractive man in accounting.

Life will never be perfect and the planets will not align themselves so go live your life now! I am not suggesting an existence without moral or ethical boundaries – you can have fun while being true to yourself.

If you want to have a happier life, take the steps needed now. Push play and stop waiting.

A Goal Must Be Specific To Be Achievable

On By April HugheyIn Goal Setting, Meaningful Existence, Priorities, ReflectionLeave a comment

It’s that time of year – we are nearing the end of January and some of our New Year’s Resolutions have fallen by the wayside. This has led some researchers to conclude that this is the most depressing time of year; the temperatures have dropped and we haven’t kept our resolutions.

I don’t make resolutions and I do not suggest my clients do so because resolution implies “re-solving” a problem. My clients are not broken, they do not need to be fixed. There is nothing to resolve. I do encourage clients and friends to set goals.

Goals must be specific and timely. Specific means the goal must have a finite and tangible outcome. A desire to be healthy is not a goal – it is a hope or wish. It is blue-sky and birds singing joyously. It is dancing forest animals and warm ocean breezes.  It is a nice fantasy. The goal to lose 10 pounds in two months by eating smaller portions of carbohydrates and adding two servings of fruit a day is a goal – time bound and specific.

I love it when a plan comes together and I love helping my clients formulate a plan for success. As the example above shows, getting healthy is a lofty desire and losing ten pounds in four months is a goal that is specific and time-bound.

Making a plan can be tough. I suggest that to develop a plan for success, you need to set the stage for planning. I suggest my clients set aside 30 minutes a day and have the following tools on hand:

  • notepad or notebook
  • yearly overview calendar
  • timer

When you have the stage set, write down your first thought of your goal, In our example, Get Healthy. After that, ask yourself these questions:

  • What does this mean for me?
  • How will I feel if I accomplish this goal?
  • What do I have to change to attain this goal?
  • Can this goal be more specific?
  • What is the alternative?
  • How will I feel if I cannot achieve this goal in the time I have allotted for myself?

As you answer these questions, you may develop new goals or refine the original. I suggest going through at least three iterations of these questions and refining the goals. Using our original goal of getting healthy, here is how the questions maybe answered.

GOAL: Get Healthy

  • What does this mean for me? Losing weight
  • How will I feel if I accomplish this goal? Better about myself
  • What do I have to change to attain this goal? Eat better
  • Can this goal be more specific? Specific amount of weight?
  • What is the alternative? Continue on as I have been
  • How will I feel if I cannot achieve this goal in the time I have allotted for myself? Depends -did I lose weight?

Refined Goal: Lose 10 pounds

  • What does this mean for me? Feeling more comfortable in my clothes
  • How will I feel if I accomplish this goal? Proud
  • What do I have to change to attain this goal? Eat less snack food
  • Can this goal be more specific? What is a realistic time-frame for losing this weight?
  • What is the alternative? I do nothing
  • How will I feel if I cannot achieve this goal in the time I have allotted for myself? Frustrated

Do not spend more than three sessions refining your goals. You may get caught in the Paralysis of Analysis; you spend so much time analyzing that you fail to act. Once you have a realistic and time-bound goal, we will make a plan.

To be continued….

Amplifying Our Inner Voice

On By April HugheyIn Meaningful Existence, Priorities, ReflectionLeave a comment

Are you listening to your inner voice? Are you listening to it like it is a Siren’s call? Or are you ignoring it; hoping that it will be quiet and leave you be? We all have that inner voice. We have heard it since about the age of 5. Remember when you wanted to be a policeman, ballerina, princess or astronaut?

That young voice made us fearless – we believed we could conquer the world or the tall slide at the park. As we aged, that voice changed goals – we realized we would need to have a job to buy things so our dream changed. We now wanted to be a doctor, lawyer, boss, secretary or teacher. We saw these people and they had an impact on our lives – our mothers or fathers may have had these jobs and we wanted to emulate our parents.

In our adolescence this inner voice became our moral compass. It told us when to help a stranger cross the street and not to hurt animals. It also helped us stand up for others when we saw injustice. That voice may have gotten muffled in our teens when peer pressure became louder. It would still roar at times when we saw an injustice that shook us to the core. It was still there, it was just not as loud as the noise around us.

In our twenties that voice screams at us to do what is right but we are so used to ignoring it, that we tune it out to have fun. How many chose a major suggested by parents or guidance counselors because it offered a good career track rather than following our passions. We got our degree, found a job and started a career. Life was flowing as it “should” and we were satisfied being normal.

As we get older and start taking stock of our lives, that inner voice starts grumbling, it is not happy, wants to be heard. Something is lacking. We feel unfulfilled and notice that something is missing in our lives. Have we missed our calling? Are we just getting by? Living by someone else’s rules?

What is your inner voice trying to tell you? Can you hear it? What needs to change so that you can feel fulfilled?

Punctuality – A Sign of Respect

On By April HugheyIn Meaningful Existence, PrioritiesLeave a comment

When did we start celebrating tardiness? We wear it like a badge of honor; as if being overscheduled and in-demand is a sign of success. This is what I hear when my habitually late friends apologizes yet again for being more than 15 minutes late to lunch or dinner, ” so sorry I am late but I had something more important to do than be on time for you.”

And it Is interesting to see when we are tardy. We are punctual for job interviews but not for lunch with a dear friend. We are on time for the game so that we don’t miss kick off but we miss our child’s performance in their school recital. We are on time for standardized tests but late to Thanksgiving Dinner.

We can be on time when the penalty is in real time and may include an economic or social cost. But what about the costs to our loved ones and relationships? Have you considered the message you are sending when you are habitually late to important events? You may think the school play in silly but to your child, it is their big day to show off their talents – and you weren’t there.

Or Thanksgiving Dinner when Aunt Belle has been up since 5 AM preparing the turkey and trimmings. Lunch is set for Noon and you show up at 12:30 because you forgot to buy the cranberry sauce and had to go to the market across town. Everyone has been waiting and now the turkey is cold.

How about that time when you agreed to meet a girlfriend for shopping at 1 PM on a Sunday afternoon. She leaves to be there on time and you text her at 1:15 to say you are on your way…. And then when you get there, you are disappointed when she has to leave at 3 PM because she already had plans but rearranged them so that she could see you?

I know, I know. Things happen all the time. Sometimes there is traffic or the dog throws up as you are grabbing your keys, your toddler has a meltdown or you teenager chooses that moment to talk to you about a problem. Your friends will forgive you for those – its the perfect blue sky days when the kids are at camp and you are habitually 20 minutes late that really irritate your friends and makes them wonder if they are a priority for you.

When a boss is always late for meetings, it is seen as a power play. When an employee is always late for meetings, it is seen as ineptitude. When a friend is always late, it is felt as nonchalance. When a parent is always late, it is felt as uncaring. All of these are rooted in respect – for the individual and their time.