If you don’t know where you are going you will end up some place else!

That’s a mouthful!! So you are probably wondering what the heck that means…..This is one of my favorite workshops that I do and almost everyone gets a “aha moment” out of it. It is centered around what do I want for my life, my career, my soul mate, or what is my life purpose? You pick. We put more time into planning a family vacation than our own lives. If we were going to drive from California to New York for vacation we wouldn’t just hop in a car and hope we get there. We would look at a map, we would plan our route, we would figure out how much it is going to cost for food, gas and site seeing, what hotels we would stay in along our journey, what sites we want to see, how many days we want to plan on driving, how many days we want to have in New York, what clothes to bring for the weather, and many other details. If you have ever worked for a major corporation you have undoubtedly had to write a business plan detailing how you would increase your business and grow sales.

Interestingly for our lives, and for some of the most important areas in our lives, we have no clue what we want and what we are looking for. So many times we just fall into things and then wake up one morning and realize, hey I am not happy and how in the heck did I get here!!

So how do we even know what we want, what we are looking for, where the heck do I even start?? Well I will give you some assignments that will help you figure that out. First of all you need two pieces of paper, one boring and one colorful, attractive or even pretty. You need the second piece of paper to be appealing because on that piece of paper you are in the process of beginning to CREATE what you want in your life. Now let’s take for instance a very common problem of career or job choice. On the plain piece of paper write down all the things that you dislike in any job you have ever had, bullet points. Just write your heart out and put it in detail. Once you are done with that take the attractive piece of paper and let’s now begin to CREATE. Take your first bullet point, as an example; I don’t want to sit in an office from 8 to 5. So if you don’t want to sit in an office from 8 to 5 what do you want? For me I would write I want a job that I control my own hours, so you would write that out on the creating piece of paper. And so on. Now let’s take it one step further. Say you write my job is not fulfilling, so the opposite of that is that you want a fulfilling job. Now taking it one step further, what do you mean by “fulfilling?” How I define fulfilling and how you would define it may be two entirely different ways. Sometimes this requires some hard thinking and exploration. It should be spelled out so that if someone else was reading it they would know exactly what you are talking about. As an example as you start to examine further the issue of unfulfilling as it relates to your current situation, you begin realize you don’t like working with the public, you are doing the same thing every day. You want variety; you want to make a difference in someone’s life so that at the end of the day you have some sense of accomplishment. Of course to go even deeper or further into what you are trying to create for yourself, define accomplishment, what does it look like, what does it feel like, what situations have you been in that have given you that feeling of accomplishment?

The purpose of creating this list is for it to become your frame work, much like a framework of a house. We don’t know yet what color the house will be, or even the size of the rooms but the frame work is in place. These are the bones of what you are trying to create for yourself. Once you do that all of a sudden you are more aware of what you are looking for, more likely to recognize it when it crosses your path, and you begin to have a much better sense of where you want to go instead of ending up some place else!!

Please let me know if this was helpful to you or if you have any questions.
Where thought goes energy flows, have a great day,
joni

Hello to you and thank you for checking back in with my blog!! Much is going on now with kids going back to school, and in addition, for myself, I am getting ready to head to NC to put the finishing touches on our program for our Women’s Retreat in France coming up in Oct.
So I have been thinking of topics to discuss here and one that keeps coming up is centered on emotional eating. We are heading into the holiday season, (I actually saw Christmas decorations when I was out the other day and it is not even September!!), which is of course the season of eating!! Yum, yum. So I thought maybe this would be a good time to provide an opportunity to “let’s talk” about food and the holidays. Let’s start an early dialog with ideas and helpful hints to get through this time period more successfully than we have in the past. We don’t have to be perfect, enjoy it, and you set the pace, not “it” setting the pace for you. Also know if you didn’t do as well as you would of hoped that January gives you a time to get back on track and get back to the good habits that may have left you during this time of the year. I know for myself that I tend to slip as it get closer to the holidays, but once the new year comes I can once again be back in the zone!!
So some questions to consider for yourself, do you know the difference between emotional eating and real physical hunger. Physical hunger is gradual and you feel satisfied once you have eaten. Emotional hunger is more of an immediate need, and you may eat, and eat, and still not feel satisfied. You first eat a cookie, no that wasn’t it, then chips, no that wasn’t it, an apple, no that wasn’t it either. Most times after emotional eating you feel shame or unhappy with what you just did. The first step is just being aware of what you are doing, is it emotional hunger or is it physical hunger? If you realize it is emotional, what is it that you are really wanting? What are you really hungry for? Are you mad, bored, frustrated, or sad? What is another possible way to fill that void? Talking to a friend, taking a walk (oh no, not that one!!). Awareness is the first key step. I will share with you many practical steps you can take to help yourself during these times. It is a fun topic and lots of ways to approach it. The choice is always in your hands, and you don’t have to suffer, unless of course you want to…..hee hee. Feel free to click on the word comment below to share your thoughts or questions.