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Category: Stepping Forward

Take Charge of Your Life and Make this the Best Year Yet

Take charge of your life and make 2022 the best year ever“Make New Year’s goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you’re interested in fully living life in the year to come.” ~ Melody Beattie

Do you feel like you’re barely keeping up? That you’re not making any progress forward? It can be discouraging if  past attempts at changing something in your life have failed. If you’re wondering  how you can take charge of your life, this post is for you…

To begin with, does your usual list of New Year’s Resolutions look something like the following?

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Setting Personal Boundaries – 5 Steps that Build Strong and Supportive Relationships

Setting personal boundaries takes courage, but in the long run, you’ll be happier and the people in your life will love, respect and appreciate you more.“When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice.” ~ Brené Brown

”If I didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done!” Have you ever felt like that? It seems like most of the work falls on your shoulders when you have family gatherings. Relationships where you’re the one who does all the giving, while others do all the taking, are exhausting. How can you break this cycle? The answer lies in understanding the importance, and power, of setting personal boundaries. 

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Is Lowering Your Expectations the Way to Less Disappointment & More Happiness?

Lowering our expectations isn’t the best answer. Learn to manage the pain of unmet expectations and assess, then adjust your expectations really works!“People and events don’t disappoint us, our models of reality do. It is my model of reality that determines my happiness or disappointments.” ~ Stephan Zweig

Expectations are powerful. Yet they are often a hidden power, because we expect things, without being aware that we’re doing it. We need to bring our hidden, unhelpful expectations out into the open, so we can let them go before they limit our opportunities and damage our relationships. Then we can create space for helpful expectations that fuel our dreams and keep us motivated. However, lowering your expectations is NOT the answer to dealing with life’s disappointments. Here’s why…

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How to Let Go Of Unrealistic Expectations Before They Destroy Your Happiness

It takes courage to let go of unrealistic expectations, but once you identify them for what they are, as these 7 examples show, it becomes easier.Managing our expectations is one of life’s greatest challenges. Positive expectations can lead to positive results. Too often, however, we make ourselves unhappy because we have unrealistic expectations.

Unrealistic expectations can also have a ripple effect. For example, when you expect the best from someone, you’re more patient and supportive. You invest time and resources in them because you believe it’s worth it. On the other hand, when you expect the worst from someone, you downplay or dismiss their efforts. You don’t invest your emotions in them and you withhold time and attention that could help them do better.

What you expect becomes your reality, because the brain believes what you are thinking. Life is too short to let unrealistic expectations stand in the way of happiness. So from time to time it’s a good idea to assess our expectations and adjust to the way life really is, not the way you wish it to be. Because life isn’t a fairy tale where everything magically has a “happy ever after” ending.

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Trust Yourself — 7 Ways to Listen to Your Gut Instinct & Intuition

Learn to trust yourself and kick self-doubt to the curb.

If you often fail to trust yourself, second-guessing and doubting your gut or intuition, here are 7 ways to regain an unshakeable trust in yourself.“The intuitive mind is where our genius resides.” ~ A. Artemis

Has anyone ever chided you for making decisions based on gut instinct? In today’s technological world, isn’t it an asset to be more logical, more analytical? Perhaps you feel stuck at times between following your head or your heart, because you don’t trust yourself to make the right decision. Actually, I don’t think success is dependent on being one way or the other. As complex humans, we use both! They complement each other. Never would you want to silence one of your greatest strengths – your inner voice, your sixth sense, your gut, your intuition.

While many people think intuition is only the result of the brain drawing on past experiences and external cues to make a decision on an unconscious level, there’s more going on than that. There are neurotransmitters in your actual gut that send signals to your brain. They respond to real-time environmental stimuli and emotions. When those neurotransmitters fire you feel sensations of uneasiness. Scientists are calling the gut our second brain. You can know something, without knowing how you know it. You just have to learn to trust yourself!

We often speak of women’s intuition, but men can be powerfully intuitive too. Everyone can increase their intuition or gut instinct.

Here are seven ways you can learn to trust yourself by mindfully enhancing your logical side with your intuitive side…

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