Category: Life Skills

Learn how to focus on the soft skills, the people skills like good communication, effective leadership, positive motivation, and managing your emotions.

How to Find YOUR Inner Voice and Quiet the Noise

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Life Skills, Mindfulness, Self-Leadership Skills.

“Somewhere in there, among the worries, questions, advice and advertising jingles, lives your intuition, your true 'inner voice.' You can hear it to the extent that you give it your attention.” ~ Martha Beck

There are times when I still hear my mother’s voice in my head. That’s not surprising since she’s been there my whole life. Sometimes I find her voice helpful; sometimes that voice is trying to keep me safe and not take risks. Over the years, the voices of authority — parents, teachers, mentors — became part of my inner voice, and they weren’t always speaking MY truth. This illustrates why it’s so important to know how to find YOUR inner voice — and learn to listen to it and trust it. Then you’ll be able to quiet the noise from everyone else.

The Ultimate Meaning of Life Reveals Itself if You Listen

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Life Skills, Self-Leadership Skills.

“The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.” ~ Joseph Campbell

After suffering a severe crisis, people often contemplate the ultimate meaning of life. After surviving the holocaust, Victor Frankl wrote Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything. After a different pandemic claimed two of her children, Mary Shelley wrote The Last Man which explored what makes life worth living. Walt Whitman wrote of this same question, after he suffered a paralyzing stroke.

These people knew suffering intimately. They didn’t try to forget. They didn’t try to pretend it never happened. They didn’t become embittered. Each one emerged from their crisis, with a valuable gift for the world. After allowing themselves time to fully experience their life, including the pain, they derived a sense of meaning from it. Then they bared their souls and we benefit today from their insights.

Be Ready for Change — How Virtual Coaching Makes Us More Adaptable

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Handling Change, Self-Leadership Skills.

Doesn’t it feel like changes have been rolling in fast and furious, like the surf in a storm. If you work as a coach, no doubt you want to help your clients cope and be ready for change. How do you feel about change? As a coach, you most likely embrace it as a chance to experience something new and venture out past your comfort zone.

But what happens when something comes crashing out of left field, completely blindsiding us? We may be left floundering ourselves. How can we not only embrace change but be ready to make the most of it? If we’re not able to do this, how can we possibly help our clients? These are the questions we can not afford to ignore.

How to Set Mindful Intentions — Make Your Goals Successful and Achievable

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Life Skills, Mindfulness, Self-Leadership Skills.

We all know that every year people set goals, yet relatively few of them actually make significant changes in their lives. Why is that? I’ll let you in on a secret…when you’re setting goals you’re not fully engaging your power. Learning how to set mindful intentions instead allows you to tune into your innate superpower! And here are the reasons why I say that…

Goal setting is often based on a negative premise…”I’m not skinny enough,” “I’m not rich enough,” or “I’m not organized enough”. Do you see how each of these thoughts tells you that you’re “not enough”? How could something that says you’re a failure result in anything good? It just can’t.

Recovering From Emotional Exhaustion? Wholeheartedness, Not Rest, Will Heal You!

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Emotional Intelligence, Life Skills, Mindfulness.

“Burnout is a state of emptiness, to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have: it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.” ~ Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

We have all been through some pretty hard times, and the world isn’t getting any rosier. There are so many ways to describe how people are feeling today — burnout, emotional exhaustion, mental exhaustion, mentally drained, emotional burnout, nervous exhaustion, overworked, over-stressed, over-committed, over-stimulated, and now we even have Zoom fatigue! And some of the tried-and-true methods for recovering from emotional exhaustion aren’t working.

Category: Life Skills

How to Find YOUR Inner Voice and Quiet the Noise

The Ultimate Meaning of Life Reveals Itself if You Listen

Be Ready for Change — How Virtual Coaching Makes Us More Adaptable

How to Set Mindful Intentions — Make Your Goals Successful and Achievable

Recovering From Emotional Exhaustion? Wholeheartedness, Not Rest, Will Heal You!

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