change

Get Something Done With This Hot Technique

Have you ever looked at your life and realized something needed to change? It’s like you’re at a standstill. You’re not moving forward. I looked at my life and I realized I wasn’t happy. It seemed that nothing was happening. See, I just officially broke up with the guy I was dating for two years and it’s been on again, off again for the last three month. The extra ten pounds are still hanging on since Christmas and now it’s April. My big goals weren’t getting done and the house is full of clutter. My life is a mess. It’s time for a change. Have you ever felt that way?

I decided to put myself on a 30 Day Productivity Challenge. The two areas of my life I wanted to change were my business and my eating habits. I spoke with a good friend who said she also needed to spice up her life and said she would do it with me.

 

Here’s the challenge I designed.

Wake up 5:30 am and meditate

7am check-in call.

Where I share what I’m eating that day and what type of exercise I’m going to do. Since I don’t exercise, my goal is to do 10 minutes of something. I’m deleting sugar, flour, dairy, alcohol, peanuts, beans and grains from my diet. Once a week is treat day and we are to share our successes.

7:15am ride my stationary bike or stretch

7:30am shower and breakfast

8am in the office- productive things

12:30 lunch

1pm in the office-productive things

3pm do unproductive things- errands, read, paint, housework, etc.

5pm walk

6pm dinner

7pm office- easy, no brain projects

8pm relax

9:30/10pm bed

To keep myself motivated I asked myself, “Why are you doing this?” I made a list of all the benefits. One list for my business and one list for my health. Sounds like a good plan doesn’t it.

Day 1: I woke up at 5:25am meditated and had my 7 am check-in call. I was in the office by 8:30am. Half hour late, not bad for the first day. I tracked my time all day and notice a simple errand took me 2 hours. A few Facebook post took an hour. My biggest observation was when I was procrastinating. I asked myself, “Why?” After a little talk with myself I buckled down and started working. I felt very successful about my day.

Day 2: I woke up at 6:45am feeling tired. 7am call we readjusted our program to wake up at 6am and sleep in on week-ends but still have 7 am call every day. I was in the office at 8am but by 9am I took a nap. I was too tired to work. Back in the office at 10:30 reminding myself why I chose to do this. What am I crazy? Why am I doing this to myself? I made it to lunch and after lunch I had to take another nap. By 4pm I was done for the day. Observation for the day: I was really tired and not feeling well. Took two naps and noticed it took longer to do things than I thought.

Day 7: Observation: I noticed I am going strong in the morning and get a lot of stuff done in the office. In the afternoon I’m tired and my energy is not as strong. I push myself to declutter the shelf in the bedroom or go through a pile of papers in the office. I’ve got to stop writing every down on little pieces of paper. Went out and bought a few notebooks to write in. One for ideas, one for projects, one for podcast, and one for blogs. Now it’s all contained and no more piles of paper. Yeah!

Day 10: Observation: I’m not getting up at 6am its more like 6:10-6:20am I’ve shorten my mediation time for sleep. I notice when I’m working on a project in the office and when it gets hard, I get distracted with something else like Facebook. I’m not putting in the productive hours to succeed. I notice that I’m stuck and now I’m able to get out of it faster.

Day 15: Observation: Wow! I’m half way through. I’ve definitely have been more productive. I just finished writing a sales page for my new program called Create Your Abundance Mindset. It’s a huge project and I just knocked a big hunk of it down. I’m so proud of myself. Funny thing is even the art work I’m painting for my son is ridged. He wants a painting like Piet Mondrian who paints in red, yellow, white and blue squares all trimmed in black.

The art world says its abstract, which I wonder about, because how can squares be abstract? Now I have to paint in straight lines. I don’t like straight lines. I like curves. I’m looking forward to the day I can go back to painting tall, breezy palm trees on the sandy beach of the beautiful blue ocean.

Well that’s it for now. I’ll have to keep you posted for the next fifteen day and how my 30 day challenge ended. If you find there is an area in your life that isn’t working I invite you to a 30 day challenge. Who know what you can accomplish. Just look at what I’ve done.

When is enough, enough?

When is enough, enough? How long do you want to struggle? How long do you want to suffer, stay stuck and unhappy? These were the questions, I asked myself.

See my life was bobbing along, nothing great was going on. As a matter of fact, I was gaining weight, just broke up with my boyfriend after two years. I was over working and not having any fun in life. It seemed like I was just getting by, making just enough money to pay the bills and some months I had to dip into my savings just to make ends meet. My biggest fear was that my saving would get used up and I’d run out of money. Have you ever had that thought or feeling?

When is enough, enough? How much longer do you want to live this way? I pondered these questions.

Then one night I had a dream. Now typically, I don’t remember my dreams, but this one I did. I think because it had a message at the end of it. Here’s the dream: My son and I were talking to a good looking man in the store. Next scene-my son and I were in the driver’s seat of the car, turned around smiling, waving and laughing to the man in the store. I noticed the car was rolling backwards down a curvy, windy road and picking up speed. I realized I had better drive.

The car was going around the corner to fast as I pump the breaks, nothing. I pumped the breaks and gain, still nothing. I down shifted to slow the car down.  The car spun around and now there was a fork in the road. The road ahead was long and smooth. The road to the right was up a mountain. I saw a car on that road, so I decided to take the mountain road.

All of a sudden I was traveling over huge grey granite boulders and the road disappears at the tip, top of the huge mountain. I’m hanging on to the steering wheel sitting with nothing but blue sky around me and grey granite boulders below. I scream out, “911, help!”

Next scene-there’s a room with three police 911 dispatcher’s, each one was sitting and looking at their computer screen. On the screen it looked like google maps with a red dot marking the location. They seem to be tracking the people and their location. One of the police says, “I’ve got a 911 cry for help.” The dispatcher’s chat among themselves and the next thing I know I’m being picked up and put on the smooth road and I drive off. End of dream.

Conclusion-it is my opinion from this dream that we are always being watched after. We have a choice to where we want to go in life. We can take the scary road full of rocks, boulders, struggle and hardship or we can take the easy, smooth road that is free sailing.  The choice is yours.

If you choose the hard road full of struggle. You will travel on this road until you call out for help. Saying, “I’ve had enough.” To me the 911 dispatcher were our guides watching over us. They can’t interfere with our lives until we ask for help. Usually we get into this mess only to realize that we can’t get out of it alone and that is when we turn to Spirit and ask for help. But what if we could ask for help along the way? Wouldn’t our lives be easier? Our life would be smoother and you would be living in the flow of ease and grace. It is all about choice and how you want to live your life. Today, I ask you, “When is enough, enough?” “How long do you want to struggle before you ask for help?”

Embrace Your Struggle

Do you have a desire for Success or happiness in your life? But, right now you find yourself struggling through your life with tons of obstacles.

You may even feel stuck and find yourself procrastinating. You feel like an island with no support, abandoned, it’s you against the world. Or maybe you feel like you are moving backwards instead of forward, there’s not momentum. It’s like you are wallowing in the mud. Have you ever felt like that? I know I have. As a matter of fact, that is how I’m feeling right now as I’m writing this.

I’ve been working on launching my podcast for the last eight months. I’ve ran into technical problems, then my website got into a war between two hosting companies when I went to move it from the old hosting company to the new one.  I couldn’t get my logo right or my cover art. The list goes on and on.

Then the mental and emotional struggles started. The old ‘not good enough’ button was pushed. My self-talk was really defeating. I said stuff like “Who’s going to listen to the podcast?” “You’re not any good.” “No one will like it.” “It’s not very good.”  “I don’t know what I’m doing, who am I kidding.”  “I don’t know what I’m talking about.” To top it I started having panic attacks in the morning when I woke up and no one knew what I was going through because I went into hiding.

I had to get control of my mind and emotions. I gave myself a good talking to. I’ve been through this before and came out the other end. I’m a fighter. I made it through cancer twice, custody suit with no income. I’ll be dam if I’ll let this podcast get the best of me. I asked myself an important question, “What did I do to get threw it before?” I made a decision, enough is enough. Then what did I do? I got my mind and emotions under control. Okay I can do that again. I went into my program I teach my clients and started using the tools I used before to pull myself out of depression, cancer, custody suit, court.

I started embracing my struggles, so that I could move through them and come out the other side stronger. I looked at my struggles as the steps to getting to the other side of my dream. It was like a test from the universe asking, “How bad do you want this?” Are you willing to go through your doubts and fears to accomplish your dreams? I ask you, “What do you want and are you willing to go through the struggle to reach your desire?” It’s really a choice. How you want to live? For me I realized the key is to embrace your problems as you grow. Give it a try and let me know how it goes. If you need help I’m here for you. Just send me an email jolen@jolenphilbrook.com

Feeling Bad About Yourself? Maybe It’s Not Guilt, But Shame.

A lot of people think when they feel bad about themselves its low self-esteem or maybe its guilt, but then again it could be shame and we just don’t know it. Do You Have Hidden Shame? What is it and why do we have it?

Shame is an intense painful feeling of believing that we are flawed and unworthy of love and belonging. What is surprising is that this is a universal feeling among most people, except those who can’t show empathy or connection. They don’t experience shame. Shame is not the same thing as self-esteem or guilt. Shame is I am bad. I’m a total loser. I’m stupid. This is where you focus on yourself.

Shame is a feeling where self-esteem is a thought. If I asked you what are your strengths? Who are you? What are your limitations? We would take a moment to think about ourselves and assess where we are in relation to the question. The difference is we feel shame and we think self-esteem.

Guilty is I did something bad. Oh, my gosh! Why did I do that? That was a really stupid thing to do. Guilt is you have done something that is not compatible with your values. This is where you focus on your behavior. Shame is a feeling. Self-esteem is a thought and guilt is a behavior.

Shame leaves us feeling unlovable. Being loved and feeling we belong is a core need. We are wired for love and connection. We need to feel we belong. When we don’t have love, connection or belonging we will suffer with an emotional hurt. This is where one could use money to feel better or buy the love and connection that they so deeply desire.

Most people have shame, but they don’t want to talk about it. They may know that they have shame, but they like to keep it hidden. The problem is that the more you keep it hidden, the more you have it. Shame can’t survive when it is spoken about. Shame only works when we think we are alone in the pain. The moment you reach out and talk about what you are experience you have just brought shame up to the surface to be released. This is one way to heal your money worries.

 

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