Discover your purpose by Adding Exercise

Is living a life of happiness and purpose related to your level of physical fitness?  Yes!  It gives you the energy and emotional desire to go out and do more, thus getting you healthier from just moving around more!  I am sure there are other ways that it also increases your physical fitness, but what I really want to look at is if you are not living a life of purpose and are unhappy can focusing on physical fitness help you find your life direction?  I believe it definitely helps and has big impacts on my journey!  There are three main reasons that participating in fitness helps you with your direction.

1. Self esteem
2. Clearing your mind
3. Reduce stress

First, when you are exercising you end up establishing a higher self esteem.  When you are surer of yourself it is easier to move in the direction of your true calling.  You have the confidence to make the right jump or confront the issues that are affecting you.

Second, when you exercise it helps to clear your mind.  It allows you to zone out.  This helps because sometimes it makes way for a break through to occur with no other thoughts in the way (you often hear that great ideas came through in the shower, this is the same phenomenon).  These break through can be realizations that you are at the wrong company, it is time to retire or that it is time to start your own business.

Finally, exercise reduces stress.  Stress blocks logical thoughts making it harder to think and feel in an organized non emotional manner.  The less stress you have the clearer you are able to think and determine what you want from life.

So are you ready to add physical fitness to your life so you can begin to discover your true dreams?  It is much easier than you think and you don’t need to become an athlete to achieve this either!  I recommend three basic ways to add easy (and inexpensive) exercise to your day (talk with a doctor first if you have not worked out in a while!)

1. Walk – super easy just put on some shoes and hit the road.  Start small if you need to by walking around the block, keeping adding more every week.
2. Yoga – I love yoga as a way to not only get physical activity but to also find mental clarity.  There are enough styles of yoga out there that finding one you like is just a matter of trying different classes!  Try a local studio; buy a DVD or my personal favorite the web!  www.yogatoday.com is full of great teachers and lots of classes.  You can even start with the free class to see if you like it!
3. FitDeck Playing Cards – these cards make working out at home incredibly easy.  I have multiple sets and am always amazed at how fun and easy these cards make exercise! Even my four year old loves to do these with me!

Don’t wait another day, add exercise to your life and find that discovering your happiness is much easier!

Too Long and What is your Niche

Sorry, it has been too long since I have blogged.  After vacation I did not quite jump right back into things!  Instead I took the time to work on my marketing plan since I had not updated it in a while.  It is always amazing to me the revelations that come about from going through the planning process.  Especially when you pay attention to the feelings that come about because of the planning.  Our feelings really are a hidden gem to the answers that we are looking for. 

What answers have I been looking for?  Mainly niche!  It is an easy concept to learn, but a very hard one to actually apply to your business.  Many of us solopraneuers/small business owners get caught in the but then I won’t make any money or I can work with all types trap!  Our emotions of fear take over the logical picking a niche, I see it time and time again with my clients!  Niching actually makes marketing easier as we can be more specific in who/what we are targeting and reduces the money spent on advertising to a generic community. 

So how do you move beyond the fear?  With my clients the number one thing I recommend they do is to experiment.  Try different elevator speeches based on different niches versus a generic approach.  See how the person listening to you reacts.  Does one feel better to you?  Are you more drawn to one of the conversations you have in follow up?  Another suggestion that I make is to pay attention to what customers you get the most excited about.  This can be a clue to what you should focus on for your business.  It really will help to narrow your market! 

So what did I figure out?  That my first instincts were right, that I want to help those that are trying to figure out the right path in life!  Especially those that are executives, new mothers, and/or start-up businesses!  And that through this process I typically end up covering all my other considerations – finances, life purpose and new businesses!

Afraid of the Risks of leaving your job?

Is taking the risk of leaving your job worth the chance to live your dream life?  YES, if you are prepared with a plan.  Leaving your job because you are burnt-out may solve an immediate issue of joy in your daily life, but when this is done without a detailed plan then your risk dramatically increases and your issues become greater.  When you leave with a plan you have already calculated your risks, assessed what to do to avoid them and made arrangements for what happens when they do occur. 

Risk is only relative to how much or little you planned and researched your next move.  If you jump into your own consulting business but have not done any form of business planning it makes it much harder for you to succeed.  Kind of like running around like a chicken with its head cut off!  Besides for planning your new business or career move you also need to plan your own personal finances and life situations.  Ignoring issues such as cash flow, insurance and day care makes it harder for your next step to be successful.   Why?  Because you are stressed and thus less productive.  So what do you need to do?  Make plans to prepare yourself, these include the following steps:

·         Plan and evaluate your family finances – if you can only make it two weeks without a job then that was a risky move.  Wouldn’t you rather discover that before you left your job?

·         Develop a business plan or life action plan – Even if you don’t know exactly what you are going to do if you have a plan of action to decide how you are going to decide then your days will be productive and not wasted time.

·         Discuss what factors would make you change direction and move back to a paid job – this is for those of you planning on jumping into your own business.  Decide where your end point is, give yourself a deadline. 

Once you have made adequate plans, jump!  You only have one life to live out your dreams and passions.  Make it a good one!

Live a Life of Passion

Many of my clients choose their next step in life based on where they believe the money is which would ultimately lead them to happiness. Please don’t do this, because if you pick a passion and build it into your next step the money will flow and happiness will be built in automatically. This does not mean if you love to play piano that you can hang up a sign and people will come walking in. You still need to plan accordingly to either turn it into a viable business or find an employer that will fit with your personality and needs. What it does mean is that as those people eventually come in, they will sense your passion and love and will become customers for life.

So how do you pick out this passion and turn it into your next step in life?

First you need to pick which of your passions you really want to grow into a career or lifestyle. Not all of your interests will make for a good business so you need to evaluate what you want to spend your time on and what will work in a business. I frequently ask my clients this question “If you could talk about one thing everyday what would it be?” I love reading about health and fitness, but I think after a week of talking about it I would need a week off! On the other hand talking about creating an ideal life and achieving it I see no reason to ever stop talking about!

As you are discovering where your passions can lead you consider these tips.

• If you need to make a list of all your interest so you can go through and eliminate them one by one go for it! Also, don’t be afraid to combine two of your passions. A great book to help you with this is “What color is your Parachute”. Get all into it and do the full flower exercise, no matter how cheesy you feel! (Get the workbook it makes it easier)

• Just because you are good at it does not mean you should create a business around it. This one is hard because we gravitate to what we know – that does not make for a passion based business. I was a great bookkeeper that did not make me happy doing it! Avoid the easy road of turning your current job into a business or slightly altering your position. It is easy to say if you switch from non-profit to for-profit you will be happy, you might be but really analyze what you dislike about where you are now and how that would or would not change.

Once you have narrowed it down to one or two the next step is to build a business or find a career around the interests. This part can be time consuming and it just may take some brain storming around it. Give yourself plenty of time and space to figure out what the right move is. Ask yourself these questions:

1. What can I do to make money with this? Would I pay for this?

2. Do I need training to do this?

3. If someone else is doing it is their still room in the market or is it saturated? Can I do it for them instead of working for myself?

4. Are the start-up costs reasonable for me?

5. Can I imagine spending my time on this for many years in the future? Really take the time to envision yourself 10 years down the road doing this.

Finally, once you have selected a business it is time to start building a business plan or begin your career search and chasing your life’s passions! Your soul will thank you!