Designing a Passionate Life

What is Success?

Designing a passionate life requires that you define what success means to you. As I work with people I find that many have ideas about what success looks like based on the culture they live in, family beliefs, or listening to other outside influences. All of these outside influences can cause you to put unnecessary pressure on yourself. What society or other people see as successful may not be how you define it at all. Therefore, in your eyes you may feel like a "failure". It's time to question your ideas about what success means to you.

What to do when life feels hard

Designing a passionate life includes spots when life just doesn't seem to work out at all or the way you had it planned. It is the nature of life to have ups and downs. The secret is to know when you are in the down times and have a number of tools to help you move through that down time and to keep you moving forward back into the flow and high times.

In a recent conversation with a fellow coach we were talking about how some of our clients have been going through some really tough times right now. As a result of this conversation we decided to talk about it and come up with some suggestions on how to make it through the times when life feels hard and you really don't have a lot of hope.

To hear our conversation click the link below:

When life feels hard

Saying Thank You

Designing a passionate life includes gratitude. Since we are in the week for Thanksgiving here in the United States I thought it would be appropriate to talk about gratitude.  I do believe that living in gratitude is key to living a passionate life because gratitude is saying 'yes' to your life. It opens you up to the possibilities and the energy flow of action and abundance. I don't think we celebrate gratitude just one time a year and then we're done with it. It's a way of life, of opening and letting Source flow through you.

What Does Love Look Like?

Designing a passionate life includes giving and receiving love. I thought I had a pretty good handle on what love looks like and I was blown away and humbled by a video that I saw for the first time today. This video has been around for two years so you may have seen it but it's worth another watch.

It is the story of a father's love for his son. It shows us that when you are passionate about something that comes from your heart, you will find a way and it will happen. One action step at a time. The accomplishments of father and son are incredible and I'm sure they took a lot of planning, hard work, and passion. I can't even begin to imagine the obstacles that they confronted and worked through. 

I don't need to say more. Watch and witness what Love looks like. Click the link below to view the video.

What Love Looks Like

Both Sides of the Argument

Designing a passionate life with balance includes writing down all the ya-buts that come up after you identify your passions. After you identify what you absolutely love and what makes your heart sing, often the self-doubt arises. Your self-doubt can arise in a variety of ways but one common way is what I call the choir or those voices in your head that just won't stop listing all of the reasons why following your passions won't work. There are usually two sides to the chatter, the voice coming from your heart that states all of the reasons why it's a good idea. Then there is the negative choir made up of multiple voices of naysayers. These voices are often a combination of your own self-doubts as well as the doubts of family members and friends.

Stopping the Hiccups

Designing a passionate life includes stopping the hiccups. Let me explain. I'm talking about the actual physical hiccups that you can get and what I'm calling the hiccups of life. Stay with me here. I will connect the dots. I got the hiccups today and I expressed my frustration with having them to a friend of mine. My friend's face lit up and he said, as people often do when you have the hiccups, "I have the perfect solution and it really works, just try it!" I don't know how many times I've heard different solutions for stopping the hiccups but I humored him and listened. What he said resonated with me and I knew it would work and I wanted to prove it to myself.

How to Stay Inspired

Designing a passionate life includes living from inspiration. I'd like to define inspiration before I talk more about it.  Inspiration is acting or moving either your intellect or emotions. I see working from inspiration different than working from motivation. Motivation is defined as a need or desire to take action. To me inspiration comes from a place of power, creativity, and connection from deep inside of you and you feel the desire to take action. To me, inspiration is a lighter energy than motivation. Motivation feels like "willing or forcing" myself to take action rather than being moved to take action. Both inspiration and motivation move you forward but from a different type of energy. Right now, I'm focused on inspiration.

Developing Daily Practices

Designing a passionate life includes developing daily practices that move you towards your life vision. After you are clear about your passions, you need to take action towards living your passions. The actions come with the clarity of vision. You also need to develop daily practices that become habits that strengthen you and continue to move you towards living your passions.

Dialog with Your Life

Designing a passionate life and life balance requires a clear vision of what this means to you. There are lots of different exercises that can help you and I've done many of them and they work. I want to introduce you to a different point of view that has given me a different perspective on how to gain clarity about what I want my life to look like. This technique is to have a conversation or dialog with your life.

Overcoming Negative Head-Talk

Designing a passionate life includes eliminating negative head-talk. I've also heard it referred to as negative self-talk, negative chatter, or what ever name you give it. The end result is the same, self-sabotage. You may not only experience negative head-talk but also depression, lack of energy, and other behaviors that keep you from moving forward, taking action, and enjoying life. So what can you do about it?