Category Archives: motivation

Getting Ready to Get Ready

September 28, 2012 – 9:54 pm

Ready, Set, Go! What happened? Why didn’t you go? Oh, you weren’t ready? You need a little bit more time. Some research needs to be done. It’s not perfect. It doesn’t look the way you want it to. It’s summer, people are on vacation. The holidays are approaching, people are busy. People might not like it, they might not like you, you might fail.

I’ve been there so many times, I could kick myself for every second I wasted getting ready to get ready. You know what I got from doing that? Older.

I’m all for a good plan, a thought-out strategy, being well-prepared, vetting an idea, practicing prudence, and calculated risks. I am not for making up excuses as to why now is not a good time. If you think later might be better, it’s not, that’s just your fear talking. Guess what? Later is going to be just as scary, inconvenient, and busy as now. No matter what, you are going to face the same fears. The only thing that is going to get you ready to do that thing, is making yourself do it. And it’s pretty much guaranteed that after you do it, you’ll think of ways you could have done it better, different, more effectively but none of that matters because you did it. You get to smile, and know that you did it, you get to feel proud of yourself, and you get to learn from the experience so that next time you can do it even better. No amount of preparation will teach you as much as the actual experience. I’ve learned from getting out of the spin cycle of getting ready to get ready, and then falling on my face, that the good feeling of actually doing something far outweighs the feeling of failure. That when I dusted myself off, the experience was actually worth it, and because I moved forward I was presented with a whole new set of opportunities that wouldn’t be there for me if I was still standing in the same place – getting ready to get ready.

Permalink | Comments (4)

accountability groups growth motivation self worth

A little story about self-worth

September 20, 2012 – 7:50 pm

I was walking with a friend earlier this week and through our conversation I was reminded of this incident that happened when I was just getting traction in my real estate career. I was working with a young couple with two small children that had outgrown their current home. One day I decided to take them to a new home community thinking that they might find something there that they liked. They found a home they loved and went back a few days later and put in an offer. Their offer was not accepted and they were told unofficially that it was because they had a realtor, if they wanted the house they should ask me to waive my rights to the commission, and if I agreed, the deal would be done. I was dumbstruck. On the one hand, I really liked this family a lot and we had been working together for long enough that I knew how perfect this house was for them and their needs. On the other hand, I felt angry that the builder would tell my clients to ask me to step aside and that my clients would do it. The wife said she was very sorry to ask, but was I really going to prevent them from getting the home they wanted? I acquiesced, yup, I know, dumb right? She was so grateful and happy. I, on the other hand felt terrible. You might think, why didn’t I just call the salesperson and negotiate? Well, that’s the thing about feeling “less than”, you are not at your best or smartest, you believe you are not worthy, and it’s like your brain stops working to help and instead reinforces the whole idea. When someone I was working very hard for saw my work as having so little value, I took their perception and made it my own. When my husband got home that night and I told him what happened, he simply said, “absolutely not.” He pointed out that I did my job, and I did it well, and that if I didn’t value my work then no one else would. It was a light bulb moment for me. I realized I let someone say that my work didn’t matter and I agreed! The next morning I called back my clients and explained I couldn’t waive my rights, even if it meant them not getting the house, because it would be like declaring that what I did for a living wasn’t of value. I knew for myself and all the other high-integrity hard working realtors out there that that was just plain wrong. But I did promise to do everything I could to get them the house anyway. The thing is, as soon as I realized my own value and stood up for it, I got creative and I could see my solution. I used my connections to bypass the salesperson and was able to escalate it to the VP of Sales. He agreed that this was not an ethical request, and they got their price and their house and I got paid. More importantly, I got that when you stand up for yourself, the dynamics of the situation change. You stop being the victim and your intelligence and creativity begin to work to help you. It’s not about being selfish or selfless, when you acknowledge the value of your work, everyone benefits.

Tags real estate career | Permalink | Comments (2)

happiness inspiration motivation

Serendipity, Preparation, or Both?

August 5, 2012 – 9:24 pm

I love that the word serendipity keeps coming up in my world, for one it’s fun to say, it’s positive and light and reminds me of the children’s series I used to read as a kid. But mostly I love the way it comes out of someone who is feeling bright and happy. Last week a girlfriend of mine used it to describe meeting a handsome stranger who it turns out she had met years before. Yesterday a friendly man that was shopping in the same aisle at Home Depot as my husband and I used it to describe our meeting.

Here’s one definition of serendipity: The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

So as the word was floating around in my mind, I casually used it in conversation with a friend and he quickly fired back with the Louis Pasteur quote, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

Hmmm…that got me thinking.

The first time my friend met her handsome stranger she was not at all open to a relationship, now years have passed, she’s figured out a lot about her self and life, and this time when he shows up she really sees him. The prepared mind.

We didn’t just happen into Home Depot. We were shopping for a minor kitchen remodel (big item on my Freedom List) when we ran into the friendly man who it turned out fixes up and then sells homes in our area. I had consulted with a designer, two contractors, and done research online and still he made great suggestions that would save us money overall and were in keeping with the style and era of our home. The prepared mind.

At first when my friend mentioned the quote, I wasn’t that happy about the whole prepared mind thing, I thought it made the whole idea of serendipity less fun. But then I started thinking I love it. It’s actually more fun. It makes me feel like doing more of the upfront work and worrying less about outcomes.

I know that if you start, if you just begin, you’ll get the information, meet the right person, be presented with the opportunity. Because it’s not just serendipity, or luck, or chance, or coincidence, it’s you making the movement in the direction that you want to go, and the universe rising up and saying yes, keep going, I’ve been waiting for you.

Permalink | Comments (4)

accountability inspiration motivation

Accountability Feels Good

June 20, 2012 – 9:43 pm

ACCOUNTABILITY FEELS GOOD. It’s so simple it’s almost silly, but guess what, if I do the things that I say I am going to do, I feel good, I feel powerful. When I feel good about myself, my energy is amazing. I love that feeling of sitting in my powerful place, of knowing who I am, of having confidence in myself. That’s when things really start to get interesting, it’s my favorite place to operate from. I just went through a long phase of having no accountability in my life. I had a new baby and I knew it was not “my” time it was “our” time, so I put aside my commitment worksheets, gave up my personal accountability group, and put my entrepreneurial pursuits on the backburner. For awhile, it was a much needed break from my “normal” life, from being productive to being present, from creating to allowing, but it turns out there is a rhythm to it all. I need to push myself, I need to have the feeling of accomplishment and purpose to feel like myself – to feel I am contributing and that I am a creative force. I want to make choices and decisions, I want timelines and tension. As soon as I reintroduced accountability into my life after the long hiatus, it felt amazing! Having even one person to provide that accountability makes it so much easier to get critical decisions made and to get rid of procrastination. Accountability makes me make my intentions real, and that feels so good.

Tags accountability, accountability group, energy, entrepreneur, mastermind, mastermind group, self confidence, self esteem | Permalink | Comment (0)

accountability inspiration motivation

Keeping it Fresh

June 19, 2012 – 6:13 pm

I am absolutely phobic about old food. I’m constantly checking expiration dates, I am not a fan of leftovers, I just don’t like things to sit and get old. Gross. Sad too. All that stuff was once good, healthy, fresh, full of vitality. Energy wasted.

I recently realized I was letting things sit too long in my life. I was letting my dreams get stale. I needed to declare myself! I needed to take action fast!

Step 1: Find some people to tell my plans to. I’ve learned that telling myself I’m going to do something only works sometimes, telling someone else I’m going to do something works better, telling a lot of people I’m going to do something works best.

Step 2: Put an expiration date. I can’t say I’m just going to do something, I have to say I’m going to do something by x time.

Step 3: Get it done. Whether it’s one week, one day, one minute before x, I will finally do that thing, I will get it done. Why? Because that’s what fear does to me, it makes me procrastinate until I have a choice, let people down or do the thing that I’ve been dreading, afraid of, avoiding, whatever. Ninety-nine percent of the time I’ll choose to do that thing rather than let people down.

Today, I sent out a survey to get feedback on a new training idea. I wrote the survey last week. I finalized it several days ago. I revisited it this morning. Why did I finally send it out? I actually told myself I’d have it out last week (clearly, I talked myself out of that one) but I told somebody else it would be out today by 1pm. It feels great to have it done and out there.

Making your dreams real requires action. What action do you need to take? Who are you going to tell? What’s the expiration date?

Permalink | Comment (0)

inspiration motivation

Go for it.

May 23, 2012 – 7:16 pm

I was reflecting on a happy time in my early 20′s. I was just graduating college. I was on fire. You know the feeling, one of those times in life when you are showing up as your full self and you feel how powerful you are. This was not a typical feeling for me in my early 20′s. I had a huge challenge in front of me. I was afraid of letting go of the past and facing my future. There was a moment of hesitation and then I made my decision and took action. I went for it and it changed everything in my life. I think we all have these life changers waiting out there for us, windows of opportunity, but we don’t always go for it. Maybe because we aren’t feeling particularly powerful, or maybe because it’s scary, or impractical, but I think it’s also because we have to give something up, which is really hard to do, even if the thing we have to give up no longer serves us. Not only do we have to face fears to get through a new challenge but each opportunity we take advantage of will exact a price, it could be a relationship, a job, a career, an idea, or belief about ourselves. On the other side lies what could be, our potential, so exciting, and so worth it.

I can definitely look back and see the windows in my life, the trick is being open to the ones that are right here, right now. Being in my power so that I’m brave enough to go for it. Look around, is there an opportunity, a change, something that both calls and scares you? What the price? What do you need to let go of? Be brave. Go for it.