Morning Glory

by LINDA COLEMAN-WILLIS
Finding Your Purpose and Living it with Passion
We have crossed over into a New Year slamming the door on the old one and opening the door to a new millennium. We are facing a whole new century of possibilities. For some people this is a scary thought because they have not discovered their life's purpose. If you are wondering through life without goals, vision or purpose, you are simply passing time.

For those of us who have discovered our purpose and are living it this represents a new beginning, renewed commitment and focused energy. It is the letting go of the old and moving on to something new. It is recreating, recommitting and rediscovering our selves. It is a time for exploring new possibilities, creating new opportunities and preparing for a wonderful, dynamic, successful future.

I certainly hope you are one of those people who have discovered your purpose and is living it with passion and power. We all need something to be passionate about. For those of you who may not know your purpose, don't worry it is not hopeless. You can discover your purpose and live it with passion and power, but first you have to examine your life and yourself. Spend some quiet time thinking about what it is you want from life. Then you must ask some very hard questions. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? What is the purpose for my life? Am I living that purpose?

To help identify your gifts and find your purpose answer the following questions and write the answers down:

1. What am I good at?

2. What are my greatest talents?

3. What do I love to do?

4. What gives me the greatest joy?

5. What is unique about me?

6. What do I want to accomplish before I die?

7. If I could have any kind of job, what would it be?

Thinking positively about your life helps you understand that there is a purpose for your life. Purpose gives our lives meaning, and having meaningful lives motivates us to do well. The more we know about ourselves, the better equipped we are to make decisions about what we want to do with our lives, both personally and professionally.

The Magic Of Believing
How many times have you heard it said, “ believe you can do it and you can?� “If you believe it you can achieve it?� These clichés are used often. But, have you ever stopped to really think about what they mean? Can you really achieve simply because you believe you can?

My experience in the motivation and personal development field has taught me that we can achieve if we believe. It is the act of believing that is the starting point of achievement. People, who don’t believe they can accomplish, will not try, or they try half heatedly and at the first sign of trouble they give up. They find excuses for not doing what they want to do and are always looking for someone else to blame.

But, people who believe they can achieve, try harder, they do more. When you believe in yourself you are not easily discouraged. When challenges come, you see this as an opportunity to grow, to do more, to try harder, to ask for help, if needed. Believers take personal responsibility. They focus on solutions instead of problems. Believers make things happen, instead of waiting for things to happen.

To strengthen your belief:
Get absolutely clear on what it is you want in your life.
Develop a plan on how to achieve it.
Develop affirmations—positive statements, and
visualizations—mental pictures, for achieving your goals. If you can see it you can be it.
Use your imagination to project your thoughts and turn them into achievements—act as if you have already achieved it.
Think successes don’t think failure. Say “I will win�, not “I will probably lose.�
Remind yourself regularly that you are better than you think you are. Successful people are ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Take Action. Nothing happens until you do something. Do it on a massive scale. There is nothing that strengthens belief than acting on your goals or dreams.
When your beliefs are strong enough, it is possible to make yourself more competent in your business, more influential in your personal affairs and more successful in life.

Conceive it, believe it, and take steps to achieve it, then leave it to GOD and prepare to receive it.

Are You A Risk Taker?
We take risk every day. Some common risks are: walking across a crowded intersection, driving your car; or speaking out on issues you believe in. Most of us can handle these risks with little or no problem. Why, because we are taught to handle these types of risk. But, what about the risk we need to take to move ahead in our personal and professional lives? How do we typically view these types of risk? Lots of people view risk taking negatively.

Achieving your goals, both lifetime and immediate, requires you to take risks. But, to be effective, you must enhance your ability to take risks rationally and appropriately. You need a positive attitude toward risk taking that allows you to learn and grow from them.

To build such an attitude, ask yourself what you might gain, as well as, lose by taking a risk. Determine how the risk might affect your long-term personal and professional goals. Become fully aware of the facts surrounding the risk. Remove any blinders. Increase the number of well thought-out, calculated risk you take. Develop confidence in your ability to deal with the results and learn from the experience.

Whether it is a risk in your personal or professional life, the idea is to plan. Planning organizes the process into manageable steps, reduces anxiety, and increases your chance of success.

Write down a risk you are currently facing, or anticipate facing in the near future, and answer these questions:

1. What level of risk is it (low, moderate or high)?

2. What do I want the results to be?

3. What concerns do I have about taking this risk?

4. What will I gain; lose; if I take this risk?

5. How can I minimize my losses?

6. What options do I have in taking this risk?

7. How can I move the risk from a high level to a moderate level?


How To CREATE The Life You Want

I train and coach many people over the course of a year. And most of the people I speak with seem to believe that they are stuck with the way they are. They also seem to believe that their lives are always going to be the way it is. Even when they are unhappy with the way things are. I often hear “That’s just the way I am.� Or “that’s the way I have always been.� Or “That’s life and there is nothing I can do about it.�

Some things are “just life,� but so many more are within our control if we will only take the time to examine our beliefs. How they were formed and how they affect us whether we are aware of it or not.

If you want to take control and create the life you deserve and want you must:

1. Get rid of old worn-out ideas that are not working.

We are governing our lives today by ideas and beliefs that we learned in the past. Other people gave most of these ideas and beliefs to us. We did not challenge them then, but we must challenge them now. Reexamine your beliefs. Ask questions?

a. Is this belief or idea still true today?

b. Was it ever fact or someone’s opinion?

c. Is it working for me?

d. What new belief or idea can I replace it with that will serve me better?

2. Take a Look at how you interpret events.

We experience things by how we interpret them. If we want to change our ideas and beliefs, we must look at how we interpret events. Don’t make hasty judgments. If we hastily assign negative explanations, we are creating a negative attitude, mood or outlook for ourselves.

a. Think about an incident, one that you would usually assign an explanation to without thinking about it. Try looking at it from a different perspective.

b. Use logic and facts instead of reverting back to using past judgments and feelings.

c. Record what you initially felt, or your initial reaction to the event, and how you want to react or feel about the event.

3. Decide what ideas, values, beliefs and information you want and need to “create� a happy, healthy, productive life. Make sure you are not using old excuses and feelings to make current decisions.

Identify the areas in your life in which you are experiencing the most difficulty and ask the following questions:

a. What ideas do I need to change or adopt?

b. What attitudes do I need to change?

c. What new information do I need to get?

d. What can “I� do differently?

e. What resources do I need?

f. Who can help?

When we change how and what we think, we change how we feel. When we change how we feel we change what we do. Changing what we do helps us to change who we are and how we live our lives.

Attitude Makes The Difference
Attitude: The way we think, act and feel. We create our own lives with our ideas and actions, and they can lead to great success or to frustration and disappointment. We all want success in our lives. And we can have it with the right attitude. Attitude encompasses our actions, feelings and moods. We can control our actions, feelings and moods; therefore, we can control our attitude.

Most people believe attitudes just happen. They don't. Attitudes are formed by the thoughts we hold in our minds over a period of time. These attitudes become the blueprints for our lives. Negative attitudes, full of fear, doubt and worry, reinforce negative behavior. But thinking positively creates positive attitudes, responses and feelings.

It's not easy to change our negative attitudes. It takes time, practice and it requires stepping out of our comfort zone, and allowing our selves to be uncomfortable. But the joy and success we experience when we act instead of react, when we see opportunity instead of problems, when we see possibility instead of impossibilities, is the greatest gift we can give ourselves and the people around us.

The ability to choose our thoughts, and thereby control our attitude, is one of our greatest assets. Positive thoughts produce a positive attitude thereby producing positive results. Negative thoughts produce a negative attitude thereby producing negative results. It is not so important that we have negative thoughts. That is natural. The long-lasting, harmful effect is our tendency to hang on and justify those thoughts. There is no negative attitude that the human mind cannot justify as being right. Fear, doubt, worry and hate are the basis of just about every negative attitude.

We can change our negative attitudes to positive ones and we can learn to control our reactions to life's situations by:

Controlling our thinking in a positive way. We can deliberately feed our minds with positive information. Replace fear with faith, doubt with determination, worry with work and hate with love.
Read positive books, listen to tapes, take classes, go to seminars, and surround yourself with positive people.
When you catch yourself putting yourself or others down, stop yourself immediately. Remember whatever you say to or about others, effects you because, whether they hear you or not there is one person that will always hear what you say and that person is you.
Use positive, uplifting words and affirmations. The way you verbalize effects the way you think and act. Our minds and bodies react to words. Either we control our words or they control us.
So, since we know that a positive attitude empowers us and we know that we have a choice why not choose a positive, optimistic attitude?

How To Overcome The Fear of Change
C H A N G E -- Why does this 5 letter word strike fear in the hearts of so many people? Why do we fear change so much? Change requires us to venture into the unknown, to do something different, to step outside of our comfort zone, to take risks and to change a habit or several habits.

Fear of change is usually wrapped up in the fear of something else.

When you are facing change in your life and the fear starts to over take you, isolate the fear. Ask yourself "What is it that I am really afraid of?" and "What can I do about it?" When you answer these two questions it empowers you. You take the power away from the fear and you reclaim it. We fear change. What is it we really fear? The fear of failure; the fear of criticism; the fear of the unknown; the fear of loss; the fear of rejection.

No matter what you determine the fear to be the only way to control it and get on with your life is to face it. Ask yourself "What is the worse thing that could happen if I did this?"

Mastering The Fear of Change requires that you:

1. Be open to new ideas. Where there is change there is opportunity.

2. Live in the present. This keeps you anchored in "what is" rather than "what if".

3. Use imagination to predict success. Athletes do this all the time.
They imagine in their own minds the outcome they want. You can do it too.

4. Expect success. If you assume all your doubts are wrong, you will work at creating success.

5. Maintain some anchor points. When you are in the midst of change try to keep some points stable. If you are having career problems don't decide to lose weight.

6. Be Flexible. Nothing is written in stone. Know the only constant is change. If one strategy doesn't work, try something else.

7. Commit to a Plan of Action. Commitment takes you from the thinking and planning stages to the doing stage! A plan of action takes you from wanting to do it to determining how you are going to do it.

Set goals that you can achieve.

After all Goals are dreams with a deadline. Goals should cover four areas: 1. Career, 2. Personal Development (who you are committed to becoming. emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually), 3. Material and 4. Financial.

Take a blank sheet of paper, write as fast as you can. Keep the pen moving for ten minutes. Write down anything that you would like to do, be or have. What would you like to master? What are your career goals? Social goals? Spiritual goals? Get creative. What fears do you want to conquer? What weight or energy level would you like to achieve? You may not know how you are going to do it, but that is not important right now.

Go through each goal and put a time line on it. A one if it's something you're committed to accomplishing in the next year. A three, if next three years; a five if next five years; a 10 if next 10 years, etc.

Go through the list and select your one-year goals that you are absolutely committed to achieving within the next year. Write a paragraph as to why you are absolutely committed to achieving these goals. The Reasons come first. The answers come second. Your reason should be strong enough to compel you to achieve your goals. If not, you need stronger reasons or better goals.

Now, you have a list of goals you are absolutely committed to achieving and the timeline for achieving them. You know why you want them and that's the power. You should be thoroughly inspired and motivated to achieve them. If you are, you will achieve them. If not, you need better goals.

Take your top priority, one year goals and your why for achieving them and put them someplace where you can see them every day. Develop an action plan-the steps you need to take, to achieve your goals. Happy New Life!

A New Beginning

Everyday is a new beginning. Every night the slate is wiped clean and when the sun rises we have an opportunity to start all over again. We don't have to wait for the beginning of a New Year to begin anew. We don't have to make New Year's resolutions. But we do have to make a commitment to take the necessary action. We must make a conscious decision every day to take control of our thoughts, actions and attitudes. We can create a new beginning by:

1. Releasing the past and living in the present. Whatever happened or didn't happen last year--let it go. Let go of past hurts, failures and disappointments and look forward to a new, exciting beginning filled with endless possibilities. If you accomplished everything you set out to, and you had a wonderful year, prepare to go to the next step. Focus on your current goals. Create a vision for your work and your life.

2. Focusing on Solutions. We all have problems and challenges, but we do not have to allow them to overtake us. Identify the problem, but focus on solutions. We create our lives by what we focus on. Whatever we focus on we give power to. If we spend most of our time focusing on the problem we tend to become overwhelmed and create feelings of hopelessness. Focusing on solutions gives us feelings of power and helps us believe we can overcome any obstacle and handle our problems effectively.

3. Understanding our own personal power and strength. We all have something we are good at. We have strengths, talents, and skills that we can use to create the kind of life we want. Creating a life gives us personal power. Utilizing our strengths gives us confidence in our abilities. When we have personal power and self-confidence we can accomplish almost anything.

4. Expressing emotions in a positive way. Learn to respond instead of react. When we take control of our emotions, we take control of our lives. Emotions can take us on a roller coaster ride. They can take us down to the depths of depression and despair or up to heights of overwhelming joy and excitement. When we take control we will be up much more often than down. Learning to respond rather than react helps us take control. . Responding requires thought, logic, and reasoning. When we react we are out of control, but when we respond we are in control.

5. Reinterpret and redefine who you are and what you want. Do not allow others to define who you are, who you should be or what you should do. Now is the time to reinterpret your life. What do you want? Do you have it? Are you willing to do what is necessary to achieve it? Do you have a dream team that will support your efforts? Examine information before you accept it as fact. Because it is the norm doesn't mean its right for you. Decide for yourself how you want to live, work and play. Discover your innermost desires and make a commitment to your own dreams and goals. Who you are is important and worth discovering. Self-discovery is the first step to a new beginning.

The Power of Focus

Here we are at the end of the year 2000. Did you accomplish all of your goals? Are you feeling empowered by the events of this year or are you feeling powerless? Are you looking forward to the New Year with excitement and anticipation or are you looking back with anxiety and regret? Have you established new goals for 2001? Or, are you beating yourself up for not achieving all the goals you set for this year?

However you answer these questions, I can assure you there are thousands of people feeling the same way. Most people focus on what they did not accomplish rather than what they did accomplish. Most of us spend valuable time sulking over things we have little or no control over. We always regret the one that "got away." The things in your life right now that you think are difficult or impossible to accomplish are difficult or impossible because of the way you are focusing on them. The focus is on how it can't be done instead of how it can be done.

Achieving your goals and gaining personal power begins with focus. You have to decide what you want to focus on. Since we are facing a New Year that brings with it new opportunity lets begin now to refocus on what we want to happen in our lives. This kind of focus empowers us. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is it that I really need to focus on to move to the next level in my business life? In my personal life?

2. What do I need to improve? To change?

3. What kind of support do I need personally? Professionally?

4. What can I do right now to begin moving in that direction?

5. What are the benefits of being focused in this way?

Chances are you will have more than one answer to these questions. If so, make a list and prioritize them. Begin working on number one, two, three, and so on until you have completed everything on your list. By the time you complete the list you should not only be focused on what you need and want, but you should have accomplished some of them. Remember: whatever you focus on is what you get.

How will you feel when you accomplish your goals? Concentrate on that feeling because it can motivate you to stay focused and take the necessary steps. Remember to let go of the things that are behind you, and grab hold of the things that are before you.


Faith

We can begin to live again, we can dream, and we can rebuild, but it requires faith. Faith is knowing in your heart, in your spirit, and in your mind that in your darkest hour—you are not alone. In the midst of the storm—the wind will be rebuked and the sea will be calm. (Mark 4:37-41)

If we are going to survive these perilous times, we need to have a faith that knows, a faith that grows, and a faith that is rooted in spirituality. When everything is going wrong, we must have faith that it will be right again. When it appears to be hopeless, we must expect a miracle. When we feel like giving up, we must remember God’s promise—I will never leave you or forsake you. Faith gives hope and hope is what we need right now.

I say to each of you, in spite of the overwhelming circumstances, in spite of what we are experiencing, in spite of what we are going through right now, God is able. Repeat this prayer—“Lord you have been taking care of me all my life and this is no different.� When you have faith, you will be in good spirit because you know this has not come to stay but this too shall pass.