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Tag: Personal Growth – Professional Growth

Anchor Your Values, Vision, Mission to Live an Inspired Life

Written by rogue-admin. Posted in Change Your Life, Self-Leadership Skills, Stepping Forward.

Fundamental to defining your life is defining your values, vision, mission and developing plans for how to actualize them. Without an anchor, a ship is dashed against the shoreline and broken to pieces. Even in calm weather, an anchor prevents you from drifting away from your intended safe haven.

What anchors you? What keeps you stable during life’s storms? What is it that you have on board that gives you a sense of security, when you’re moving full steam ahead — that special something you continually refer back to for balance and strength? Your anchor is made up of three elements: your values, vision and mission, in a combination that will be unique to you. 

Are you still asking these questions: “Why am I here?” “How can I find meaning in my life?” Do you have nagging feelings of purposelessness, lack of fulfillment and meaninglessness?

Perhaps you’ve been so busy doing things that you haven’t taken the time to reflect on whether or not the things you’re doing really matter in the big picture. 

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Follow Your Own Path — How to Step Forward with Confidence, Despite Fears

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Fearless Mindset, Stepping Forward.

As you follow your own path, you will experience internal and external resistance, but you can learn to tolerate fear and turn it to your advantage… As you follow your own path, you will experience internal and external resistance, but you can learn to tolerate fear and turn it to your advantage…“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.” ~ Joseph Campbell.

Do you have a strong urge to follow your own path? It’s an innate desire to express ourselves as individuals. And, in fact, your family and community need you to show up as your authentic self. However, is it sometimes a struggle? Can you relate to this woman’s experience…

“By the time I was 35, I expected, as did my mama, that I would be married, working a part-time job and raising a family. Instead I’m living with a cat, trying to make a living as a self-employed life coach and I absolutely love it! I didn’t take the path all of my siblings did. I didn’t follow in daddy’s footsteps. I didn’t go to college. All those were someone else’s dreams, not mine. Did I meet resistance from family and friends? YES! Did I experience terror at times? YES! But that fear was exhilarating to me, not a roadblock.”  

Whoa…did you come to a screeching halt at the last sentence, “fear exhilarated me”? Can fears be exciting? Aren’t fears always scary? What can you do if your fears stop you from stepping forward because they feel insurmountable?

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Afraid to Choose Your Path? The Surprisingly Easy Way to Embrace It Is…

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Stepping Forward.

Learn to be comfortable in your own skin as you choose your own path using the Stepping Forward Program.“We’re not lost. We’re just headed somewhere different.” ~ Emily X.R. Pan

Who am I, where am I. and how did I get here? These are questions we ask when we begin Stepping Forward into the life we want to create. However, I have to be honest with you… it’s likely you’ve been conditioned by your stories and limiting beliefs to believe in an inauthentic version of yourself. Yes, your true self may be buried so deeply she’s a total stranger to you. That’s why I want to share with you a way for you to .choose your path, while still maintaining a feeling of control and anticipation. And I promise it’s going to be easier than you think.

First off, know that it’s normal to feel resistance, because you’re leaving a path that you’ve been on for possibly decades. For some this will be very difficult. I”m happy to see that the women I’ve been working with lately have a little bit of a RENEGADE in them. Is that true of you, too?

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15 Lessons to be Learned from Life Challenges in Your Path to Self-Discovery

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

Every experience in life provides you with invaluable information, if you listen carefully for the lessons to be learned. Here’s how to do it.“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~ Bernice Johnson Reagon

What has life taught you? Have those life lessons made you hold back from experiencing life to the full? Painful experiences can cause us to withdraw from exposing ourselves to that kind of hurt again.  But there is a way to process the hurt and turn it into a stepping stone that leads you to a full, meaningful and rewarding life. 

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To Improve Your Deep Listening Skills, Open Your Heart

Written by Maria Connolly. Posted in Life Skills.

If you want to develop deep listening skills, don’t focus solely on listening techniques; you master deep listening only when you open your heart.“Listen with your eyes as well as your ears.” ~ Graham Speechley

You might think that deep listening skills are mainly between your ears and brain. While that’s part of the process, more crucial is what’s going on in your heart — your inner person that’s powered by motives, desires, values and your way of operating in the world. If you’re tired of superficial conversations, read on…

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