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Maria Connolly, LPC Facebook Facebook Facebook

Category: Spirituality

Why Resourceful Life Routines and Systems Are Better Than Resolutions

When you use life routines and systems instead of resolutions, there’s never failure and you can be happy because your process is how you want to live.Have you noticed how many goals and resolutions are based on not liking yourself? Most New Year’s Resolutions are approached from a scarcity mentality based upon negative thinking…”I’m not skinny enough; I’m not smart enough; I don’t have enough money; I don’t have the life I want to live”. This can be so discouraging! The thing you dislike about yourself can easily overshadow all of the wonderful things you are.

A far superior way of creating change is implementing life routines and systems that support the change you desire. After all, a resolution or goal is a closed-end objective that may occur sometime in the future. It works outside of the reality of who you are today because if you were that person, you wouldn’t be making that goal. A life routine, on the other hand, is something that you practice until it becomes automatic.

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How is Your Spirituality Helping you Find Greater Enjoyment & Motivation in Life?

How is your spirituality — assess how harmonizing your mind, body and spirit leads you to breakthroughs that take you beyond what you imagined possibleWhat makes you feel whole? Do you love your life, your career, and yourself? Do you feel satisfied and fully alive, with a sense of meaning and purpose? Do you feel connected and engaged with the world around you and with something greater than yourself? If you’ve got a nagging feeling like something’s missing, you’re not alone. It’s not always easy to figure out what’s missing from our lives. That’s the time to consider this question: How is your spirituality?

Why is your spirituality an important point to ponder? We know that when we’re hungry we need food. If we’re thirsty we need water. But sometimes we even get those things confused… we think we’re hungry when we actually need to drink more water. It’s no wonder, then, that we confuse signals from our emotions, minds, and bodies. 

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These Essential Life Skills Aren’t Taught In K–12 School. Are You Using Them?

We must use our influence to spotlight some vital, yet under-utilized, essential life skills that truly make a difference in our quality of life. You are you, in part, because of what you were taught. While genetics play a huge role, our growth environment cannot be discounted. We learned basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills in K-12 school. Beyond learning essential life skills, such as hygiene and lawfulness, we were educated by how people (family, friends, authority figures, local community, and even the ruling government)  treated us — their words, actions, and attitudes created our map of the world and taught us how to be. 

If the sources for our education are sound, we flourish, even under adversity. However, if we’re not exposed to the following essential life skills, we’ll be overly anxious and won’t cope well. However, let’s acknowledge this…

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How to Increase Self-Understanding? Use This Powerful Mindfulness Exercise

The beginning of self-understanding starts with mindful awareness of your world and how you respond to it, only then you can make responsible choices.“Why did I do that? Sometimes I don’t understand myself.” During a coaching session, has your client ever said that to you? Or perhaps you’ve felt that way yourself. If so, you’re not alone. Even though we live with ourselves 24/7, we don’t automatically possess total self-understanding. Just as it takes work to understand someone else, it takes time and effort to understand ourselves.

Oftentimes, we’re so busy and our lives and thoughts become so cluttered we get into a reactive mode rather than staying in a calm place of choice. This mindlessness makes us forgetful and causes us to feel separation from self, which creates a sense of merely existing rather than living a full and purposeful life. So how can harmony be restored? The answer lies in developing the skill of mindfulness. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. explains that 

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How to Build Rapport with Clients So They Feel Safe & Trust You

Easily build rapport with clients (or anyone), without manipulation, by caring about them, SEEING them and using NLP’s mirroring, pacing and leading.“I feel so comfortable with her. She really gets me.” “I just met her, but it feels like we’re old friends already.” Have you ever felt this way about someone? Maybe it was with a coach, therapist or mentor? They instantly put you at ease and you’re sharing things you never thought you would with a relative stranger. How do they do it? This skill is called building rapport. You can learn to build rapport with clients (or anyone else!) by mastering the NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) techniques mentioned below. They’re easy, but they do take practice. 

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