11 Ways to Live in the Moment

2021-09-05 ~ adminlife

It’s impossible to enjoy life at the highest level without being fully aware of the present moment. Life can only be lived in the present. Often our minds are preoccupied with multiple things, none of which is occurring right now.

Our minds are very active and constantly attempting to break free to occupy themselves with the past, the future, and pure fantasy. While it’s good to prepare for the future and learn from the past, focusing primarily on the present has many benefits.

Try these ways to live in the moment and be present with your life:

Avoid worry. Worrying can only happen when you look to the future. Keep your thoughts on your environment and your current activity. You can’t worry if you leave the future alone.
Avoid regret. Regret arrives while thinking about the past. The past is over and no longer exists. You bring your past mistakes to life by thinking about them. Let them go.
Turn off electronic devices. Cell phones, computers, iPods, and gaming systems distract from the present moment. Find your enjoyment in your life rather than in an imaginary world or in frivolous communication.
Avoid multitasking. Try doing one task at a time. Current research is overwhelmingly in favour of single-tasking. You’ll find you perform the task faster and at a higher level. Let multitasking be a thing of the past. Single-tasking is much more conducive to living in the present.
Eliminate unnecessary items. Having too many possessions is more of a burden than an advantage. Owning too many things results in disorder that clutters both your physical environment and your mind. If you don’t need it, consider giving it away or selling it.
When you hold a grudge, the only one suffering is you! Anger is distracting and keeps you from enjoying the current moment.
Go slowly and deliberately. Rushing creates a unique type of anxiety. Give yourself the time you need to enjoy the current activity. Address one task at a time and give it your full attention.
If someone is speaking to you, give them your full attention and participate in the conversation to the best of your ability.
Spend 5 minutes of each hour describing your environment. Take 5 minutes and describe to yourself everything you see, hear, smell, and feel. It’s an easy way to bring your mind back to the present moment and keep it there. There’s no way to compete the exercise without being mindful.
Eat slowly and enjoy your food. By eating slower, you’ll have the chance to enjoy your food more. You’ll also eat less, which is a good thing for many of us. Try eating an entire orange one piece at a time. Go slowly and focus on the flavor of each section.
Under schedule. Too many obligations results in a crowded schedule and time concerns. It’s not easy to stay focused on the current task if you’re worried about being on time for the next one. Leave space between your obligations. Do less and experience more.

Avoid missing out on your life and losing so much time to the past and the future. Living in the moment is a habit and a skill. Indulging in worry and regret are also habits. While it’s not possible to live entirely in the moment, life is more enjoyable and meaningful when your focus is on the present.

Book a 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about how we can work together to get you started on focusing on how you can live in the present moment.

To your success

Michael

P.S. you know that living a life that is in balance is important. When you can balance your work, family, health, relationships, fitness and money, you feel better and can achieve your goals. You have the support of your family and friends which makes life worth living.

Check out my programs at Confidence and Life Coaching by clicking on the logo below:

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9 Signs That Your Life is on Track

2021-08-29 ~ adminlife

How can you know if you’re doing well? It’s not fair to yourself to compare your situation to that of your friends, family, or peers. There’s no set path for life, but there are clues that can let you know if you’re doing well.

It’s worth the time to assess your life once a year to ensure that things are moving forward. If they’re not, you’ll know that some changes are in order.

Look for these signs to ensure that you’re making progress with your life:

You have a clear vision for your life that appeals to you. If you’re over 18 and you haven’t decided on a direction for your life, you’re not on track. If you’re not working toward something, you’re slowly moving toward chaos. Choose something. You can always change your mind later.
- Consider the type of life you want to live. How do you want to live each day? Start making that happen.
- Have goals that you’re consistently making progress toward.
You are learning what you need to learn. What do you need to learn to live the life you want?
- For example, if you want to be a lawyer, you need to go to college and then attend law school. If you’re not in school and are working at The Burger Shack, your life isn’t on track.
- Many goals require knowledge. You might need to learn to speak Russian or how to play the piano. There’s so much you can learn on your own these days that there’s no reason not to be educating yourself as much as possible.
Your credit score is strong. If your credit score stinks, you’re not doing as well as you could be. You don’t need to be wealthy to have a good credit score. You primarily need to pay your bills on time and avoid using too much of your available credit.
You have a social life. No one is better off being alone 100% of the time. You need to interact with others. You may need a big social circle or a small one, but you need people in your life.
You have a place to sleep and food to eat. Keep in mind that much of the world’s population is without a bed, food, or water. If you have these things, you’re doing better than most.
You are able to take care of your health issues. Is your weight under control? Do you have access to the medical care that you require? Do you have the financial resources to pay for those services?
You have a sufficient income to pay for the necessities. Basically, can you pay your bills each month? Do you have food and clothes? Can you pay your heating bill? If you’re struggling to pay your bills each month, your life isn’t on track.
You’re doing better than you were last year. You might be struggling mightily, but if your life is improving, it’s a good sign that your life is on track.
You have the freedom to be yourself. If you feel compelled to be someone you’re not, you’re not on track. You might dream of riding a motorcycle across North America with a full sleeve of tattoos, but if you’re stuck in an office pretending you enjoy filing tax returns, you’re off track with your life.

Everyone’s life veers off the chosen path now and then. What’s important is to recognize it and take the appropriate steps to get things back on course. If you have goals, you’re making progress with those goals, you can pay your bills, and you’re happy and healthy, you’re doing great!

Otherwise, get busy making a few changes to move toward a life that fulfills you.

You can book your 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about where you are in life and review your plans to keep you on track for success

To your success

Michael

Check out my programs at Confidence and Life Coaching by clicking on the logo below:

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Leverage Your Past for Greater Success in Your Future

2021-08-22 ~ adminlife

Life is easy if you get a little better each day at living it. Unfortunately, few of us make the small enhancements that could make our life more fulfilling. We tend to do things a certain way and stick with them.

Consider that, if you were to learn something each day that you could apply to tomorrow, your life would be much different. You would be different. You would be smarter, wiser, and looking forward to a bright future.

Your past is a goldmine of information about yourself and how life works. It would be a shame to allow this information to go to waste.

So, what if you did it a little differently? What if you learned from your experiences and made small adjustments along the way? Imagine how powerful you could become!

Use your past to your advantage with this process:

Review your life from the very beginning. Start with your earliest memories and work your way forward. Think about your family, friends, and schooling. What are your strongest memories? Pay particular attention to your fondest and worst memories. They will be the most important.
Review the pivotal points in your life. Pay particular attention to the most important decisions and transitions in your life so far.
- Did you go to college? Where? How did you make that decision? What was your major? How did you decide on that? What would have happened if you had chosen something different? If you didn’t go to college, how did that impact your life?
- Choosing a partner. Did you choose wisely? What was your criteria for choosing this person? Did you choose to be alone? Why?
- Choosing a job. How did you choose your first real job? In retrospect, was it a smart choice? What were the ramifications of choosing that career and job over the long term?

- Having children. If you have children, how have they impacted your life? Could you enhance your parenting skills? If you chose not to have kids, why did you decide this? Do you still agree with this decision? Why or why not?

What were your mistakes? After all of that pondering, what were your mistakes? What were the causes of those mistakes? Let’s consider a few examples.
- Maybe you chose accounting as your major and career, because you thought it was a path that led to stable employment. However, you don’t really like accounting. Your real interest was in botany. You now know it was a mistake, because you’re miserable.
- You might conclude that your mistake was placing too much importance on security, and too little importance on your natural likes and dislikes.
- Maybe you chose your partner because they were rich or incredibly good looking. But, now you’re unhappy. You might decide that there are other, more important, criteria for making this type of decision.
What were your successes? There’s more to your past than just your mistakes. There were successes, too. Consider why you were successful and apply that information consistently.
Examine your life in the present. What could you be doing differently based on what you learned from examining your past?
- Go through your current challenges and choices. Now, relate your present to your past mistakes and successes. Can you resolve a current challenge with a lesson from your past?
Make some changes to enhance your life. Make some new decisions that are based on your past experiences.

Continue this basic process for the rest of your life, only with one small change. Instead of reviewing your failures and successes from 20 years ago, stick to just the last week.

Choose a day where you look back over the last week and follow the above process. What did you do well? What did you do poorly? How can you learn from the past week and apply it to the present and future?

Leverage your past to create the future you desire. You already have all the information you need.

Book a 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about how you can learn from your past to create the successful future you desire

To your success

Michael

P.S. if you have always thought that you should have a Life Coach on your personal team to help you create the best year of your life but were put off by the cost and the time requirement, I have created a Self-paced course that covers what we would do when working together.

While not the same as working one-on-one with a Life Coach, this self-paced course can help you to understand your present situation, how you got there and how to set goals that will move you forwards to success.

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5 Steps to Overcome the Fear of Success

2021-08-15 ~ adminlife

Fear of success? Most people don’t believe they fear success, but most of them would be incorrect. Our lives rarely change because we become comfortable with our situation. We might not like it, but it’s comfortable. We know what to expect. We might be unhappy, but we know we can deal with it.

In a nutshell, we don’t like change. We also don’t like the prospect of failing or of standing out.

You might fear success if you:

Consistently make plans for your life, but fail to follow through on them. Whether it’s to start a business, read a book a month, or hit the gym five days a week, you just can’t seem to make it happen.
You leave projects uncompleted. This includes at work and in your personal life.
You’re all talk. You rarely take action.
You struggle to make decisions.
Your life never changes for the better.
You self-sabotage, especially when you’re nearing success.

This probably describes most of the people you know. Does it describe you accurately?

Use these strategies to defeat your fear of success and make real changes in your life:

Imagine being ultra successful. Imagine yourself being even more successful than you want to be. If your goal is to make $100,000 per year, imagine making $1 million. If you want to lose 25 pounds, imagine getting lean enough that you can see your abs. Do this each night and morning in bed.
- Make the visualization as vivid as possible. Include all of your senses. When it feels uncomfortable, stick with it and just relax.
- In time, it will feel natural. When that happens, achieving your goal will be much easier.
Practice standing out. Many of us fear success because we don’t want to stand out in any way. Somewhere along the way, we learned or decided that it’s better to keep our head down than to be noticed.
- There are a variety of ways you can practice standing out in your everyday life. You can dress differently. You might even put on a pair of pink mittens and walk around the mall in the middle of the summer. Or you could wear your best clothes to the store.
- You could go out in public with your hair dishevelled.
- You can do something in public that you’re either really good or really bad at, like bowling.
Reframe failure. Fear of success might actually be a fear of failure. Keep in mind that failure is just an undesired result. It says nothing about you. It simply means that you need more practice, more time, or a better approach. When you can view failure in this manner, there’s nothing to fear.
Focus on action over thought. We can’t fear success if we don’t think. If you need to send 100 cold emails to find clients for your business, just sit down and get busy. The longer you think about it, the harder it becomes. Just decide and take action.
Have a real vision for the future. Enough motivation can overcome any fear. Create a possible future in your mind that is worth overcoming any obstacle. Fear doesn’t matter if you have a very compelling future in mind.

Do you fear success? It seems counter-intuitive to fear success, but it’s a common obstacle to making sustained progress in life. Success brings attention, the unknown, and the possibility of failure.

Create a vision for the future that will pull you through any fears you might have. Learn to deal with discomfort. Remember, you only have one life to live. Avoid allowing fear to limit your life.

Book a 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about how you can overcome your fear of success

To your success

Michael

Click on the logo below to find out more about the course

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Stopping Self-Sabotage: How to Get Out of Your Own Way

2021-08-08 ~ adminlife

There’s a lot of truth to the quote, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” We get in our own way far more than life, other people, or bad luck sabotage our success. We really are our own worst enemy. You’d be amazed by how much easier your life would be if you weren’t constantly sabotaging your success.

It boggles the mind why we stand in our own way, but we do. Understanding that fact is half the battle to overcoming it.

Try these techniques to stop sabotaging yourself:

Let go of the past. Mistakes from the past don’t mean that you’re doomed to failure in the future. The past should be used as educational material, not as a predictor of the future. Leave your past in the past and create the future you desire.
Avoid talking to yourself unless you’re going to say something nice. You spend too much time saying negative things to yourself. Eventually, you begin to believe them. Such negative input gives you an incorrect opinion of yourself and your capabilities. Ensure that your self-talk is supportive and positive.
Notice your habits that sabotage your success. Think about what you want to be successful at and notice your habits that stand in your way. For example, if you want to lose weight, but you eat a bag of chips every time you’re stressed, that habit is sabotaging your success.
- Make a list of all the habits that sabotage your success. Write down all the ways in which those habits inhibit your success. What is the cost of each of those habits? Being aware of the damage these habits cause can make it easier to change them.
Define your fear. All self-sabotage is rooted in fear. What exactly are you afraid of? Are you afraid of embarrassing yourself? Are you afraid of finding out that you’re not capable? Are you afraid of success? Are you afraid of how people will view you?
- Understand the basic fear that is causing you to sabotage yourself. Unless you can either get over that fear or remove it, you’ll continue to get in your own way.
Know your ceiling. Notice how far you can go before you begin sabotaging yourself. For example, perhaps you’re stuck at a particular income level. What income level do you get stuck at? If you’re trying to lose weight, at what point do you begin sabotaging yourself? We all have a ceiling for each part of our lives. Understand yours and seek to understand why.
Identify and change your beliefs. What are the beliefs that stand in your way? For example, do you believe that you’re naturally a chubby person that can never get below a certain weight? Do you believe that you can never be a successful writer because you failed high school English?
- Look at all of your beliefs related to the part of your life you want to be more successful in. Which of those beliefs are getting in your way?
Notice the people that get in your way. Sometimes, we allow people into our lives that don’t really want the best for us. You’ll find that few people are truly interested in seeing you live up to your full potential.
- Avoid believing that it’s acceptable to allow someone to get in your way. If they choose to be an obstacle, consider removing them from your life.

The good news is that easier to control yourself than it is to control others or circumstances outside of yourself. Since you are the source of your challenges, you also have the power to eliminate them. Never underestimate how much you’re standing in your own way!

Book a 15-minute “Get to know you” call by clicking on the blue button below

and we can talk about how getting rid of self-sabotage in your life moves you toward success

To your success

Michael

Click on the logo below to find out more about the course

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