Life Coaches Blog

Most of us know chef Gordon Ramsay from his TV appearances; giving hell to contestants on Hell’s Kitchen or roasting restaurateurs on Kitchen Nightmares. Watching either show is a stark example of schadenfreude – German for ‘enjoyment taken from the misfortune of someone else’ – it’s painful sometimes but you can’t tear yourself away.

Ever since 37signals introduced me to Gordon and his show, I’ve enjoyed watching Kitchen Nightmares, not just because it’s entertaining, but because you can learn so much from it. Gordon’s not just a one-trick pony who’s getting famous on being egotistical, loud and overbearing, he’s also a great chef and entrepreneur.

Wanting to learn more about why Gordon does what he does, I bought his autobiography Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen: Temper Tantrums, F Words, and the Pursuit of Perfection. After reading it, my respect for Ramsay increased ten-fold – he’s gone through a lot to get where he is today but most people won’t see that in his TV shows.

I had always prided myself on my ability to make good choices and I thought this was one of them. A lifelong quest for the secrets of happiness; the years of studying and reading about attaining goals, human behavior, spirituality and psychology, had helped prepare me for this moment. And yet, I still did not have an answer.

I decided to sit at one of the beachside cafés and ponder the question. It occurred to me that a book I had recently purchased called Practicing the Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, was in my bag. I took it out and flipped through the pages, hoping it would give me a clue. I came upon this passage:

“Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. The only place where you can experience the flow of life is the Now, so to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation. It is to relinquish inner resistance to what is.”

The fantasy soon faded as the viciousness of this crime forced me to recognize the polarities of Dominican Republic. Everyone was talking about this senseless act and adding their own incidences they had either experienced or heard about; robberies at gunpoint, misconduct by the police, medical mistreatment and others.

My perspective on my new country was rapidly shifting from positive to negative. This new reality was hitting me like an oncoming train. The six-month honeymoon with my new home was now over. My dark feelings were self-perpetuating, and what’s worse, I didn’t know how to stop them. It was a downward spiral, as each negative thought attached to the next negative thought like links on a chain. The more links, the heavier the chain and before I knew it, I was a prisoner, captive of my own feelings.

A memorial was held at my daughter’s school to honor the short life of one of her schoolmates, a fourteen-year-old boy named Marc El Wafi, who was shot in the head while defending his friends. The memorial described a child who sounded like a living angel. Friends and teachers shared their stories about his acts of kindness, his wonderful sense of humor, and his jovial spirit.

In just eight months at the school, he had touched their hearts deeply and made an imprint that would last a lifetime.

After the shooting, I began to question our recent move to the Dominican Republic where this terrible tragedy took place. This was a move that my husband and I had envisioned for many years.

It had taken a lot of hard work and effort to finally realize the dream of living in what I thought would be paradise. I’d naively assumed that once our vision became a reality, life would be perfect; vacation bliss a permanent mindset.

After this great run of posts by guest blogger Carey Powell, I’m very pleased to introduce Karen Parsons, President of Successful Solutions Life Coaching who will be sharing a beautiful true story with us next week.

Be sure to read it!

Running around like a chicken on fire greased with Tabasco is actually the easier thing.

The harder thing is to freeze, not do anything and have a Zen moment.

But the Zen moments are quintessentially important.

Piling on more miles with that burning chicken makes you feel like you’re getting places, touching base, getting things done. It’s medal to the metal efficiency.

But it’s the Zen moments that tell you if you’re running in the right direction. In the Zen moments you get to think. You’re looking at the map. And you might just dare to change course as a result.

To stretch a seriously cuckoo metaphor further, Fire Chickens run faster, further, while carrying more and more on their shoulders. Zen Chickens pack light, carry a compass and have a map marked with the destination.

Namasté.

You’ve met your goal – congratulations!

To get to this place, you had to make many changes. Some were small, some were large, some were trivial and some were absolutely life altering.

Now comes the job of maintaining those changes and keeping that goal alive in your life. You’re riding high right now, but what will happen when real life creeps back in (bad habits included)? What will you do when day-to-day pressures or complacency threaten your new found habits and lifestyle? You can plan ahead and come up with a maintenance strategy that will meet those challenges head on.

Hopefully you’ve already had some time to reflect upon what you’ve accomplished and what it took to get you here. Staying in touch with both of those things is crucial to maintaining your goal.

While on my recent 2-week journey across Japan, I had the chance to read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. And because I underestimated how much time I’d have on the trains, I ended up reading it not just once, but twice. And yet, I enjoyed it as much the second time round as the first.

Eat, Pray, Love is the story of Elizabeth’s travels through Italy, India and Bali as she struggles out of a recent divorce and turbulent love affair, in search of the three things she has been missing in her life: pleasure, devotion and balance.

Eating through Italy

She first travels to Italy, where she learns Italian and gains twenty-five pounds from pampering herself with the delicious local food. I lived voraciously through her delicious accounts of Italian pasta, cappuccinos, pizzas, and her wanton exploration of the local delights inspired me to try out as many eats as I could while in Japan.

I don’t claim to have all the answers on how to create a successful blog – in fact, I’d be wary of anyone who’d say he does. I don’t claim to have a wildly successful blog either, so investigate what I say. But there have been lessons along the way, running Life Coaches Blog for near 3 years now. And these 9 points are how I’d summarize them.

1. Know What You Want Out of It

To be successful, you have to define how you’re going to measure it, or you’ll always be chasing after rainbows.

2. Money Goes Second

Profit is a worthwhile and practical goal, but if you don’t make something worthwhile first no one will ever pay for it.

3. Be Original

There really is no use opening another candy store along a street of candy stores. Don’t copy. Stretch. Create original.

How are you standing in the way of your dreams and goals?

It’s time to stop telling yourself lies, stop making excuses and (gulp) take a long hard look at what role you are playing in your current situation.

If you’re willing to ask yourself the hard questions now, you can save yourself from facing them as even bigger roadblocks in the future. But if you skip this step, you’ll keep coming up against these same issues over and over again, no matter how hard you work.

If you can:

1) See things as they really are, and

2) Accept responsibility for your role in making them that way,

Then you can regain your power and fully claim the fearless life you deserve.

The good news is that by doing this essential work, you can clear most of what’s been stopping you from living your dreams.