Why do we get so busy? There’s a variety of reasons:  Most of us find it hard to say no. We feel obligated. There are so many good things to do, and so many good causes to join. We see guilty about doing nothing. We don’t want to let others down. We don’t want to fail. In addition, we often keep ourselves busy in order to feel a sense of control, as a distraction to deep uncomfortable feelings inside, to avoid feeling not enough, or to feel useful, worthy and valued by others.   

Fifty years ago Thomas Merton wrote these words on busyness but I think they are relevant even today:

“The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence.” 

It’s easy to get lost in the doing rather than living. Being crazy busy can mean that we let ourselves get so overscheduled that we forget to live a life that is authentically important to our Divine Self. Take a moment and notice what you are really doing with your time. Is your life filled and fulfilled—or simply busy?  

If you are running from place to place and it seems like life is just passing you by, perhaps it’s a good idea to take a closer look at that largely self-imposed frenetic pace you’ve been keeping. Take a few deep breaths and look inside. What are the sensual things in life, the things that really make life worth living? 

Top 10 Tips to Get Off the Busyness Wheel

1. Make time to eat well and choose good food instead of eating from the vending machine
2. Read a novel instead of watching television
3. Take 1 minute in the morning to sit and breathe before heading out into the day
4. Unplug the noise and feed your soul with 10 minutes of quiet time every day
5. Sit in the sunshine at lunchtime and do nothing
6. Reflect on the questions, “When I’m not busy, who am I? What would I be doing with my time if I wasn’t so busy?”
7. Keep a journal to write down your dreams and desires. Are you doing the things that have value to you?
8. Take charge of your life and learn to say “no”
9. Set priorities and make sure your needs are at the top of your daily to-do list
10. Setup systems that help streamline your day, and then work your system

What are you going to do to stop feeling so busy or overwhelmed? Let us know your ideas in the comment section below!

A hero is an everyday person who goes beyond what he or she knows to face an unintended journey, and undergoes a catharsis during the process. A person does not start out as a hero—the journey reveals the characteristics of a hero. Throughout the journey, the hero may be frightened, may resist and rage, may falter repeatedly, and at times may collapse into near defeat. 

A hero slides slowly into the role. A hero may not see himself or herself as determined or courageous, yet with each fall, he or she finds a way to stand back up again. With each heartbreaking challenge, they find a way to dedicate themselves to a course of action. 

A hero does not necessarily take a cheerful, positive view of the setbacks, misfortunes, and fear incurred with the journey. Yet the hero finds a way to face the crisis that surrounds them. Despite a lack of hope, despite being afraid, and despite being unable to guarentee a future successful outcome, the hero acts when there is a need. The hero wakes up each day and somehow faces the challenges that lie in wait. 

Heroes are not born heroes. Little by little, throughout the journey they transform and grow. Only at the end of the journey do they awaken to become a new being. As the hero emerges, they re-enter life born anew. They are now wiser, with new strengths, knowledge, insights, and higher truths. The journey itself brought true success as the hero now possesses a raised consciousness, knowing who he or she really is, deep inside, and a willingness to be true to that person. 

If you are currently going through a difficult time in life–perhaps attempting to rise above a weight challenge, move beyond an addiciton,  overcome depression, or step into a higher position in life–consider yourself on your own Hero’s Journey.

Few people will see you as heroic as they witness your struggles, challenges, and failed attempts. They see the crying, the fear, and the exhausted overwhelm. They witness the panic and the belief that you really can’t handle your challenges.  

No matter what others think, facing your major life’s challenges puts you on your own “hero’s journey.” It is your determined and courageous journey to release weighty fears and evolve into new cycles. You may not yet see yourself as heroic, persistent, and courageous, but you will. The resources needed to navigate your difficult journey emerge moment by moment. With each step, emotional courage, fortitude, and spirit are waiting to show themselves in your life.   

No matter where you are on your journey, take a deep breath and know that your adventure is important. You are a hero…you just might not know it yet.

As long as you continue your course of daily-inspired action, you are moving forward. Begin every day with the question, “What can I do today to take action?” Look at your situation with curiosity and optimism, and allow yourself to discover an action that feels right for today. Check within and assess whether that action is something you can and will follow through. Actions that are not completed rob you of energy and motivation.

Institutional Publisher Kellee Breen has worked overtime launching this new and exciting Performance Magazine edition. To learn more about this innovative magazine written for success minded women check out www.wowperformancemagazine.com.

Featured articles on money, success, business, and leadership are available online. In addition, I’m honored to be a contributing author in the upcoming Fall issue of WOW magazine.

Join me as we all send Kellee Breen and inspirational women across the world our support and well-wishes.

Congratulations to a successful launch of the life-changing WOW Performance Magazine!!

We’re all familiar with fear in one form or another.

Fear eats away at our clarity and vitality. It keeps us from experiencing who we truly are. It keeps us from expressing our truth. It keeps us hidden away not only from ourselves, but others as well.  

When it comes to fear, we all have our own special brand of something we’re afraid of. As for me, I’m no different. Currently, my biggest fear is stage fright. My heart clenches, my breathing shallows. But the worst thing is the worry and stress before an event. The heavy anticipation feelings are so painful that I often play ostrich and hide my head in the sand when offered public speaking opportunities.

I usually keep my fear a secret and do my best to find ways around it. The downside is that I never really feel secure and often end up turning down interviews, radio broadcast shows, and other opportunities to share my message. More often than not, my fearful emotions dictate my life choices when it comes to speaking before groups.

In anticipation of accepting an invitation to be interviewed on a web radio broadcast show, I posted a question to my friends and followers on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/annette.colby and Twitter http://www.Twitter.com/AnnetteColby asking, “What is the best way to overcome stage fright?”

Inspiration From Legendary Superstar Cher

Not too long ago I happened to tune into a television interview with Cher which was conducted immediately after one of her concerts. Cher was typical Cher… beautiful, confident, and shining with exuberance. The interview was mostly standard fluff until the end when the interviewer asked Cher if there was anything in her life that she regretted or would change. The answer was a solid genuine “no”

With one exception . . .

Cher expressed that her lifelong painful ordeal with stage fright was the one thing she truly wished she could change about herself.

Hearing her answer, my world stood still. I have always had stage fright and assumed that with enough age and wisdom that one day it would somehow just disappear. Now I was hearing Cher tells us of her struggles with stage fright throughout her entire career. Can you imagine? Creative, passionate, successful, beloved Cher was not immune to stage fright.

I immediately felt dual and contrasting emotions. First, I felt deflated. With all of Cher’s resources, connections, and wealth, she hadn’t found the miracle answer to wiping stage fright fear from her life. My mind chastised me saying that if Cher hadn’t found a way to overcome her stage fright fear, then what chance did I have of doing so?

But I also felt hopeful knowing that fear doesn’t have to dictate our life choices. We can still be authentic and follow our spirit even when fear does its best to keep us small and quiet. Cher was a living, breathing example of someone who truly did not let her fear stop her from creative expression.

Gathering some courage from Cher’s interview, I vowed to once again face my own stage fright. In anticipation of accepting an invitation to be interviewed on a web radio broadcast show, I posted a question to my friends and followers on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/annette.colby and Twitter http://www.Twitter.com/AnnetteColby asking, “What is the best way to overcome stage fright?”

All agree that while we would wish for a miracle cure to move us past what scares us, the best course of action is showing up.

Below are the responses from both Twitter and Facebook friends. While you may not have stage fright, the information shared proves valuable for most types of fear. 

Take a deep breath, enjoy the suggestions, and may you find the courage to overcome your fears.

Twitter Responses to the question, “What is the best way to fight fear?”

@carbru How about deep breathing and well-oxygenated lungs – always helps. Also try rescue remedy.

@MentalHygienx I don’t think an expert exists in that But the best thing you can do to fight fear is force relaxing and slow, deep breaths

@journeycoach I hear EFT can help. Haven’t used it for that purpose yet.

@JulieMcKown Not an expert, but I’ve done it – by letting go of the outcome. I only get stage fright if I think the performance IS me.

@JulieMcKown If I can accept that the outcome will be perfect no matter what & I don’t care about criticism or praise, I can just have fun.

@txmeep I guess picturing everyone naked isn’t an option! I know what works for me when I sing/speak, but I know you’ll find your way!

                      Facebook Responses to the question, “What is the best way to fight fear?”

Fern I second the EFT idea. I can’t always get it to work for me, but when it does, the results are unbeatable. EFT has changed my life. Also, lowering my expectations for the outcome relieves a lot of pressure!

Linda W. I used to be terrified to speak in front of people. One thing that helped me tremendously was Toastmasters, the other was “just doing it.”

M.P. Years ago when I began singing in public (church), I was obviously very nervous. Beginning with the very first time I sang a duet with a friend, I prayed that my voice would not be what was heard. I didn’t want it to have anything to do with me because I couldn’t sing. I prayed that only God’s voice and message would be heard. I completely disconnected myself from the outcome. For all the years I sang, I prayed that same prayer every single time…that MY voice and message would not be the one heard, only GOD’S voice and message.
 
For the longest time (about 12 years) I never knew if it really was happening that way even though I felt as if it was. Then one day, a man came up to me in church and said that he loved it when I sang. He said, “You can tell in the first couple of notes that you’re a bit nervous, but then it’s like someone else takes over and it’s not you singing anymore.” Right then and there, I knew that my prayers were answered and it was coming across the way I wanted it to when I sang.

Meg S. I used to give a lot of presentations to big groups, and thought I’d share my 2 cents in case it could help at all. 

One thing that really helps me is to have the first couple of thoughts and the closing thoughts totally down cold, word for word what I will say. Generally I don’t like to speak that way and prefer to be more ‘off the cuff’ or from the heart, but it helps to get me over those first minutes of fright so I can focus on slowing down, staying calm, breathing while I’m talking, etc. and don’t have to even think about the words I’ll be using. And then the ending is good to have nailed so any point when I feel too stressed to continue I can launch right into that.  I also make notes in big bullet format so they are easy to spot quickly as I’m talking and can glance down.

I try to remember that my listeners are human and many of them share a fear of speaking in front of groups so they will likely be very compassionate and forgiving if I do stumble at all. That also helps me laugh at myself and acknowledge to the group any issues and they will generally laugh along with me and then that helps release any tension. And also, I try to remember that the listeners are more interested in the information I’m trying to share than they are in me so I don’t need to be so personally invested in the process, I’m just the vehicle.

One other thought…come from a place of love. Meaning, instead of focusing on the fear focus on delivering love to the audience.

And, like that famous book, feel the fear and do it anyway!

Mackie Schaars and the Paper Street Band http://www.facebook.com/l/;www.myspace.com/mackieandpaperstreet 

Just got your question about stage fright. Expert in it!! I’ll just pass on some things that work for me. Even though I’m singing a LOT these days, I get stage fright before I’m actually up and going.

1. Go through all the scenarios in your mind before you get on stage…both of failure and success.  If you picture yourself blanking out on lyrics or a speech…and then recovering and how you would do it..it’s easier!  You see yourself as rising above whatever could go wrong.  (And I guarantee—having been a public speaker and a singer—99% of the time you are the only one who knows there was a mistake.)

2. Either stay really really busy or take the day off and chill…whichever way works better for you.  You just have to test it out. I spend the day working on my music before a gig. Some people don’t think about it until it’s show time!

3. Pick a time to STOP having nerves and anxiety.  Allow yourself to be nervous up until a certain time before the performance….after that, time to move on!

 4. Practice! Practice your speech, your song, whatever in front of the mirror….out loud.  Know how you look and sound.  Feel it!  You will be more comfortable in your body when you are on stage.

5. If possible, tape yourself during an actual speech/performance.  I learned that one of the ways I moved my arms during a song made it look as though I was about to take off in flight! Haha 

6. On the other hand….DON’T watch/listen to yourself TOO much.  Enough to see what you can improve…enough to pat yourself on the back for what you do well.  But not enough to where you hear/see every single thing under a microscope. No one else is looking at you like that and neither should you.

 7. I heard this somewhere and loved it…(related to singing)  “It’s only music. Nobody died!”  Great to remember. 

Go out there and enjoy being in the spotlight, being the show, being the expert, being the best at what you do!

If you have any true stories or advice you would like to share, please leave your comments below!

What role does imagination play in your life? How does it relate to the problems you want to solve?

imag•i•na•tion (n) creative ability to confront and deal with a problem; resourcefulness.

Imagination isn’t structured thoughts or a visual picture of what you want. It is an experience of wandering anywhere your heart and soul choose to go. Imagination is a living relationship with what you want. It’s a new potential for a completely new way of experiencing living life, imagined right here in this present moment.

Here’s what Albert Einstein had to say… “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there will ever be to know and understand.”

To create change in your world, imagination is the most important ingredient. If you are having a difficult day, if you are stuck and don’t know what to do next, if you have depression and darkness, it can be so easy to get sucked down into despair and hopelessness.

Don’t struggle to get out. Take a deep breath and activate your imagination. Imagination is your greatest tool and it’s with you right now. Imagination unlocks the creative energy within that adds spark to your life, along with purpose, new direction, and confidence.

At first you may feel foolish playing with your imagination. However, imagination helps you explore grand potentials of what could be. Imagination lifts you out of the tangled tentacles of worried stressful emotions and elevates you above the despair of dead-end situations into the world of possibility. You begin to take control of your own growth process as you imagine yourself already in a new situation, living the type of positive outcome you want to be living.

Imagination involves being at choice, deciding what a better life would feel like to you, and what that life would look like. For example, if you are depressed, imagine yourself living life full of energy, engaged in creative activities that are enjoyable to you. Imagine what that would feel like, and then what that would look like. If you are experiencing financial poverty, imagine yourself having multiple streams of income, enjoying the positive flow of money. Again, how would the experience of abundant flow feel to you, and then what would it look like? If you are dealing with excess body weight, imagine yourself already living your perfect life. How would you feel in your body? What would your relationship with food feel like? What actions would those feelings allow you to choose?

Not all our imagination outcomes turn into reality. But it is the process of imagination that allows new potentials to form and take shape. Those potentials provide insight that more is possible – there is more to life, and to you, than currently meets the eye. Your imagination is how you say that you, and your dreams, are important.

One of the greatest gifts that you already have is your imagination. It will take you to grand places and it will align your desires with love. Your imagination will allow new potentials to form about how you want to live your days on Earth, about how much joy you want to have, and how much abundance. Each day make the effort to not focus so intently on the lack of what you most want, but on imagining the potential of, “I can have what I want.”

Author Resource: Want to learn more about how to live consciously, love deeply, and laugh often? Come along with Annette Colby and learn the secrets to creating the life you’ve always wanted to live! Subscribe to her blog Divine Self! today.

You have a creative spirit inside of you. It wants to shine, express itself, and make your life an amazing experience. Can you feel it wanting to get out? Creative energy adds spark to your life, along with purpose, and new direction. You feel “alive” when you look inside and discover new ways of breaking out of old habits. Creative energy is how your passion comes out, along with your true love of life. Indeed, inviting more of your creative spirit into your life is a powerful act of self-love.

Your creative spirit is your infinite capacity to search for – and find – imaginative solutions for your challenges and your life. Instead of going about things in the same old tried and true ways, creativity gets you into considering fresh approaches and new ways of doing things. Tapping into your creative intelligence, you feel renewed passion for living returning as you explore creative potentials for manifesting desired outcomes.

Even if you have not been accustomed to listening to your creative spirit, or acting in creative ways, you already have this amazing ability within you! Here’s why creativity matters – and how to bring more of it back into your everyday world.

1. Pay Attention

Creative insight is your higher perspective and guidance. Since it is your higher self, the god within you, creativity holds your best interests for generating a fulfilling and meaningful life. To get your inspiration flowing, first make a decision to allow your creative spirit to get involved in your life. Then pay attention to the many different ways your creative mind communicates with you. You may hear actual words, see a clear image, or have a deep inner knowingness. Your creative spirit may communicate with you in the form of hunches, insights, Aha! moments, a feeling, a sixth sense, or various types of body sensations. You may also experience creative insight by noticing synchronicities. Begin paying attention and your creativity will rise exponentially!

2. Embrace Quietness

Creative inspiration is initially often a quiet, gentle nudge. It generally does not shout loud enough to be heard over your stress, upset, frustration, anger, or judgment. Spending some quiet contemplative time each day is good way to strengthen your creative ability. Simply sit in a quiet place every day for about 1 to 20 minutes. There are no hard and fast rules about how to sit, how long to sit, or what specific steps to take. Simply take a deep breath, and ask, “What is it I need to know about this situation?” or, “What will move me one step closer to a more fulfilling and meaningful life.” Then be willing to trust that yourself and open to receiving the quiet guidance of your own creative spirit.

3. Open to New Possibilities

Try this experiment. When something is troubling you, just sit with it. Don’t do anything to logically fix or solve the problem. Instead, just sit, place your intention on allowing the best possible outcome, and breathe. See if you can step away from the negative thoughts circling with frenzy within your head. Allow your creative self to offer new insights and potential solutions to your situation. Your job is to stop fretting and stressing with the problem, and instead place your focus on being open to amazing new possibilities.

4. Ask Positive Outcome Questions

“What can I do to move forward into my desired outcome?” “What is the best step for the level of energy I have right now?” “What action will allow me to feel full, satisfied, and more confident?” One of the best ways to get your creative juices flowing is by asking these types of forward moving, outcome focused, searching questions. Ask questions that lead you forward into positive solutions. Ask clearly formed questions that allow clear answers. For example, instead of asking, “Why me? What have I done wrong to deserve this?” you might ask, “What is the next step I could take that would bring a positive outcome to this situation?”

5. Be Open to New Ideas

Creativity is by its very definition inventive and full of new possibilities. It can bring you down paths you hadn’t considered before. This means that you won’t know ahead of time if a creative solution will work. Be aware that your logical self won’t want to experiment with new ideas because logic desires safety and assurance of success. Your creative spirit is different because it is willing to risk failure to gain knowledge and wisdom through direct experience.

6. Trust Your Creative Insights

Once you get a creative idea, write it down, make a note of it, and decide to take action. Most creative inspirations do not involve any immediate drastic life changing actions. Instead, creative insights are typically one small, comfortable step in the direction of your desired outcome. They allow you to open up to feeling more joy, more confident, more fulfilled, on a day-to-day basis. Decide to allow your creative self to play a bigger role in your life. If you have a sense to take a left turn instead of a right turn, follow through and go left. If you are grocery shopping and the broccoli somehow calls to you instead of the carrots you had intended to purchase, buy the broccoli. You don’t need to logically question “why” you turned left or bought broccoli. Your goal is to create a bond of trust between your logical self and your creative self.

7. Strengthen Your Creative Spirit

All of us have had the experience of failing to listen to, or follow through, with our creative spirit. We know when that happens we often feel heavy, disappointed, and realize we “should” have listened. It’s easy to get mad and be critical of ourselves for not paying better attention.

However, if you truly want to increase the amount of creative guidance in your life, then a failed opportunity is the perfect time to strengthen your overall desire. For instance, if you “heard” your creative intuition, but failed to follow your creative ideas, hunches and gut feelings, talk to your creative side. Tell it that it did a fine job of providing useful information. Let it know that yes, it would have been wise to follow through with the creative suggestions or actions, but this time you choose not to. However, let your creative self know that you’re in a process of developing trust, and that this experience showed you something important. Let your creativity know that you appreciate the input even though you might not always listen.

Creativity is your urge to play with life, to see what is possible, to create your most fulfilling and meaningful life, and enjoy all that is good and beautiful. Utilize these seven suggestions to awaken and sharpen your creative spirit and you will be surprised at how often it will give you a short cut to the life and outcomes you want.

Create a beautiful day!

Author Resource: Want to learn more about how to live consciously, love deeply, and laugh often? Come along with Annette Colby and learn the secrets to creating the life you’ve always wanted to live! Subscribe to her blog Divine Self! today.

• Mope and sulk?
• Give up interest in your goal?
• Get into a foul mood?
• Punish yourself for your difficulty?
• Eat to stuff your sorrows?
• Drink to escape?
• Get addicted to stuff?
• Cry?

These and many more are options we take when we reach an obstacle or our goal becomes difficult to achieve. One way to move beyond emotions and self-doubt is to learn how to make and manage agreements.

In business management circles, there is a saying that you cannot manage people you can only manage agreements. Great business leaders are compassionate and attempt to understand the feelings of their employees, but they do not try to manage other people’s emotions and personalities. Instead, great leaders get great results from their people by managing agreements.   

With self-leadership, you are not managing people outside of yourself, but you are managing emotional opposition and internal resistance. Learning how to manage agreements with yourself leads to increased motivation, and a higher degree of confidence.  

Avoiding the Should Trap

Many people approach goals as something someone else is making us do. For example, “I should be eating healthy.” “I should be following my diet. “I should exercise today.” Should statements may seem motivating, but in truth they lead to unnecessary emotional turmoil, resistance, and defiance. When you say you “should” be losing weight, you are shouting, “I should, but I don’t want to.” And at the first opportunity, you won’t.

Make self-respectful decisions about the direction you are moving toward, and follow through with those decisions. When you make an agreement with yourself, you own that your goal is self-chosen and important. Every time you hear yourself saying, “I should…” replace your statement with a conscious choice and say, “I made an agreement with myself to pursue this goal.” When you honor your agreements you’ll feel happier and have more energy for long-term motivation.  

Choose the Right Agreement

Let’s say you’re a writer and your goal is to write for one hour each morning. You agree to get up at 5:00 AM each morning so that you can write before everyone else gets out of bed. When you are in the process of choosing this action, ask yourself, “Can I count on myself to follow through with this commitment, with 100-percent compliance? Will I follow through with this promise to myself?” If the answer is “Yes” then you have an agreement. If the answer is “No” then make a different agreement.

Modify Agreements

Change your agreement as soon as you notice it is not working. For example, if experience shows you that getting up at 5:00 AM seven days a week is unrealistic, be honest with yourself. Breaking your promise, making excuses, or ignoring your agreement is energetically draining to your motivation. In addition, you lose trust within yourself and you lose hope about being able to achieve success. Modify your agreements and fine-tune them as often as necessary. Let yourself know that inaction is not an option, but your action is modifiable. What alternate action can you take right now? Agree to take that alternate action, and then follow through.

Your Word to Yourself is Important

Making an agreement with yourself frees up energy and allows you to maintain integrity within yourself. Integrity means that you are the same on the inside as you are on the outside. When you say you’re going to take a specific action today, and then you follow through to complete those actions you build faith that you are a trustworthy person, and you are worthy of having what you want.

Managing agreements allows you to move forward through inner resistance or emotional obstacles, without becoming trapped in sticky emotions. The more you honor your agreements to yourself, the more likely it is you will achieve both personal success and self-respect.

Author Resource: Want to learn more about how to live consciously, love deeply, and laugh often? Come along with Annette Colby and learn the secrets to creating the life you’ve always wanted to live! Subscribe to her blog Divine Self! today.

Do you aspire to change something about your life or yourself? If so, your journey of self-improvement requires leadership. Change needs to be led, and like it or not, you are the leader!

Yet, rarely have we learned effective successful self-leadership. While some great leaders are naturally born that way, most of us have to learn the fine art of accepting personal responsibility to identify a meaningful direction for life, and then leading with compassion and commitment toward that destination.

Developing effective self-leadership is probably the most important work you have during your lifetime. Typically, we are unaccustomed to leading ourselves through the process of goal achieving with love. Instead, we use force and power to battle and conquer what is not wanted. We set forth on missions to defeat the enemy, and crush the aspects of ourselves we despise. We push ourselves into action, thinking that if we conquer and overpower, then victory will be ours. We wage war within ourselves and use power to force our way to success.

Being successful requires a different approach.

Instead of trying to get rid of something, an effective self-leader puts action into expanding the feeling of what he or she desires. Even when the journey is most difficult, there is still love of self for having a dream. Care is taken to continuously nurture the positive expectation that you will have what you want. You may not be sure exactly how or when your desire will manifest, but you decide to stay committed good nonetheless. In addition, being an effective self-leader means reaching into your depths and knowing that while emotional ups and downs are part of every journey, suffering and self-cruelty are unacceptable. 

Consider for a moment your individual self-leadership style. Is your approach: 

• Verbally punishing and aggressive, or quietly effective and assertive
• Energetically pushy or open to creative solutions
• Immobilized by inaction and lack of definition, or committed to daily action
• Weakened by fear and self-doubt, or strengthened with excitement and love
• Chaotic and unstructured, or steadfast and consistent in overall direction
• Punishing because your best is never good enough, or filled with celebration for your efforts and accomplishments
• Critical and self-abusive, or filled with praise and encouragement

During every journey of great personal change, you will encounter many situations where you do not know what to do or you are uncertain of yourself. It is precisely during those times that compassionate self-leadership must prevail. Use every opportunity, challenge, and obstacle to pause and consciously shift into a self-leadership stance. You’re worth it! 

Adapted from Your Highest Potential: The New Psychology of Understanding and Working with Self by Dr. Annette Colby

Author Resource: Want to learn more about how to live consciously, love deeply, and laugh often? Come along with Annette Colby and learn the secrets to creating the life you’ve always wanted to live! Subscribe to her blog Divine Self! today.