6 Strategies to Transform Your Professional Life

Transform Your Professional Life with Chris Gardner - The Pursuit of Happyness Links Website Blog Life & Business Coaching Young Adult Coaching Past Newsletters Press Purchase a Copy Welcome to May! In May, we are focused on moving past what holds you back from living your most full life! As your coaching I want to encourage you to dream wildly, love wholeheartedly, persevere relentlessly, believe in yourself unwaveringly and give abundantly! If you are new this week...welcome...let's make 2010 your best year yet! For a recap of what we've covered so far visit the ARCHIVES. God Bless, Margaret. This Week's Topic: Transform Your Professional Life with Chris Gardner - The Pursuit of Happyness Dear Friend, "Baby steps count, as long as you are going forward. You add them all up, and one day you look back and you'll be surprised at where you might get to." ~Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness During the month of May we are focused on transforming your life -- making changes that you never thought you could make. Now I'm not suggesting that your changes will be over night, but rather with some preparation and diligence changes will occur! This week we are going to look at your job and how you can transform your professional life. Who better for us to learn from than someone who did it himself? Chris Gardner, the man whose real life story inspired the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness. Below are six key pieces of advice he offers. You Must Have a Strong Passion for the Work You Do When we don't love what we do our job becomes drudgery. If we have a passion for what we do it makes it easier to become an expert and therefore easier to be better. Those most successful in their field love spending free time researching, analyzing and learning more about what they do during the week. You Must Focus You can't be an expert on everything, but if you narrow your focus you can be an expert. Get clear on your focus. And once you get clear, focus your time and focus your energy. You Must Set Goals Without goals how do we know where we are going? The truth is we don't! Daily, weekly and monthly tasks lead us to annual goals. You can't accomplish everything you want in a day or even in a week, but with diligence many of your goals can be achieved in a year. Studies reveal we underestimate the compounding effect of daily activities. Do a little over a long period and you get big results! Career Change Means Sacrifice Nothing that is ever worth accomplishing comes without cost and sacrifice. If you want to make a change realize there will be sacrifice. Create a plan so that you know exactly what you are sacrificing and you can better manage it. Keep Asking Questions, Keep Learning Be curious, open and ask questions. Take classes, read books and magazines, befriend experts - do whatever it takes to learn as much as possible, from as many angles as possible. When we stay in a state of learning - opportunities and ideas have a way of finding us. Just Keep Moving Forward When Everything Looks Bad It difficult times it is easy to become like a dear in headlights and freeze. Resist that temptation - move forward powerfully. Remember, perserverence and character are built in the midst of challenges. Make It Happen This week review Gardner's six ideas. Select one tip to focus on this week. Think about what you need to do to build this area of your life. Begin to create a plan to build the skills you need for success. May you be blessed, for you are a blessing! Encourage your friends, family and colleagues by sharing this newsletter with them and invite them to subscribe! Direct them to www.MargaretPundmann.com where they can sign up. The "Powerful Living, Powerful You" newsletter is written and distributed by Emerge Enterprise, LLC. Copyright © 2010 Margaret Pundmann Fortner. All rights reserved. www.MargaretPundmann.com.

Tranform Your Life with Byron Katie's Four Questions

Transform Your Life with Byron Katie's Four Questions Links Website Blog Life & Business Coaching Young Adult Coaching Past Newsletters Press Purchase a Copy Welcome to May! In May, we are focused on moving past what holds you back from living your most full life! As your coaching I want to encourage you to dream wildly, love wholeheartedly, persevere relentlessly, believe in yourself unwaveringly and give abundantly! If you are new this week...welcome...let's make 2010 your best year yet! For a recap of what we've covered so far visit the ARCHIVES. God Bless, Margaret. This Week's Topic: Transform Your Life with Byron Katie's Four Questions Dear Friend, "An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering." ~Byron Katie During the month of May we are going to focus on moving past what holds us back - at work, at home, in relationships, in our health -- in every single area of your life! To kick start our month of exploration I want to share Byron Katie's four extremely powerful questions with you. These questions if applied correctly have the ability to change your life, perhaps in an instant. Give your self a private, quite space to perform this exercise. If you don't find answers immediately allow yourself the entire week to practice When you are stuck on a negative thought or limiting thought use this exercise to transform the way you view your thoughts. Here are several points of departure: I'm not good enough. I can't succeed. I will never be financially secure. I'm a terrible parent. It is my genes that keep me from a healthy weight. ________ (event or experience) was entirely my fault. I don't deserve a significant other. My marriage is doomed for failure. I don't deserve it all. Once you identify your thought or feeling, write down your thought or feeling on a piece of paper. Question 1: Is it true? Be still, review what you wrote down and ask yourself if the thought you wrote down is true. Question 2: Can you absolutely know it's true? Open your mind and go deeper into the unknown, to find the answers that live beneath our initial reactions and thoughts. Let go of what you think you know and truly reexamine what is on your piece of paper. Question 3: How do you react-what happens-when you believe that thought? This question is designed to help you begin to notice internal cause and effect. You can see that when you believe the thought, there is a disturbance that can range from mild discomfort to fear or panic. What do you feel when you believe that thought? How do you treat yourself, when you believe that thought? Make a list and be specific. Question 4: Who would you be without the thought? Imagine yourself in that situation without believing the thought. How would your life be different if that thought had no validity? How would you feel? Which do you prefer-life with or without the thought? Which feels kinder, more peaceful? Turn the thought around: The "turnaround" gives you an opportunity to experience the opposite of what you believe. Develop two or three turnarounds to your initial statement. In other words write down two or three statements that are the opposite of what you initially wrote. Now that you have found several turnarounds to your initial statement find three specific, authentic examples of how each turnaround is true in your life. Make It Happen This week take time to practice the exercise above with negative, non nourishing thoughts that invade your consciousness. Remember there is no sense in suffering over thoughts that you haven't fully questioned and examined. May you be blessed, for you are a blessing! Encourage your friends, family and colleagues by sharing this newsletter with them and invite them to subscribe! Direct them to www.MargaretPundmann.com where they can sign up. The "Powerful Living, Powerful You" newsletter is written and distributed by Emerge Enterprise, LLC. Copyright © 2010 Margaret Pundmann Fortner. All rights reserved. www.MargaretPundmann.com.