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Insert Appropriate Inspiration Here

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Inspiration. We all need it. We all want it. We also roll our eyes at it when we are not feeling in the mood for it.

There are days when a Whim, a Meme or inspiration picture floats across my Facebook feed and I’m moved to tears. Then there are days when a similar inspirational thought (or even the same one) floats across my feed and I roll my eyes and grunt. We all have days that are a tougher go than others. Sometimes it’s not days, it’s weeks, months and even years.

Sometimes when our dreams, our goals and desires get foiled we feel lost, confused and bewildered. We can’t quite figure out which way is up anymore and what we should do next. Up until this moment we knew exactly what needed to be done, in what order and when. We knew the next step. We knew the plan. We knew the goal. Now everything seems to be changing and we just don’t know what to do next. It’s very disorienting.

For the last four years I knew exactly what I was doing, how I was doing it and what the outcome was to be. I had the goal in front of me. I knew how this goal fit into my life and how it would pave the way for the next step. I was in business not because I so believed in the business I was in I couldn’t help myself. I was in business because it aligned with my goals, dreams, values and visions and it was a vehicle to get me to where I wanted to go. It was a means to an end and not an end in itself.

Then over the last few months something so sure, so certain, so predictable felt like it was unraveling all around me. It wasn’t really, it was just shifting, but to me it felt like everything I saw for my future was coming apart. Lots of soul searching. Lots of questions. Lots of wisdom sought, counsel requested. Lots of talking it through, thinking, praying, wondering.

In the middle of it all a little thread began to appear. The thread that seemed so insignificant at first I almost ignored it. Answers weren’t forthcoming to my questions so I decided to focus on this little thread and see where it would lead. As I wound the thread into a little ball, the yarn grew and the path became clearer. An epiphany!

In the midst of what looked like a pause on the future I longed for was actually an opportunity! The business and the dream weren’t two sides of the same coin. They were, and are, two mutually beneficial parts, each whole and separate from the other. What looked like disappointment became fulfillment and redirection. One didn’t lead into the other. They are meant to work together, independently but cooperatively side by side.

Sometimes what looks like a delay, a disappointment or a step backwards is really a huge leap forward toward your dream and your destiny. Sometimes what looks like a delay is really a short cut.

Be brave!

What’s Holding You Back

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Starting something new, something you’ve dreamed about can be intimidating. It’s very easy to talk yourself out of taking those first steps toward your dream. After all you don’t know what you don’t know and you realize that others will quickly realize you don’t know what you don’t know and… the spiral begins. Fear of failure, of looking like a fool, of ruining the possibility of fulfilling your dream begins to take over.

Everyone starts somewhere. You don’t know what you don’t know, but there are lots of people who are willing to come alongside you and help you find out what you need to know. Living in the information age has its benefits. A quick Google search and you are bound to find out at least a little something about what you don’t know yet.

Taking little steps forward is empowering, exciting and exhilarating. Little stabs of doubt and fear will try to deflate your excitement and steal your dream. Don’t listen to them.  They’re only afraid they will be expelled from your life for good. So what if you fail? Everyone makes mistakes. It’s almost cliche to remind you that Thomas Edison found 10,000 ways that light bulbs wouldn’t work before he found one way that would. Yes, you’ll probably make mistakes. That’s okay. If you wait till you know everything you need to know you’ll never begin.

There is something raw, beautiful and attractive about ignorance on fire. Just begin taking steps toward your dream. You never know, you might just succeed!

Waiting for the Magic Bullet

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So this morning I came across a book review of Dr. Don Colbert’s “I Can Do This Diet” book. The reviewer’s basic gripe was the book talked about sensible eating, eliminating foods that were high on the glycemic index but low in nutritional value and regular activity for balance, but Dr. Colbert didn’t have anything new to say. So what was the reviewer expecting? A top secret magic bullet to solve the weight issue without having to live a healthy life?

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, a few pounds or a ton (figuratively of course) you know that it takes dedication, work and there simply are no short cuts. Even if you seem to find a quick way to lose the weight it comes back on just as quickly because there really is no way around having to change your lifestyle from being solution oriented (go on a diet to lose some weight) to one of being results oriented (eat better, exercise more, become healthier resulting in weight loss).

As a child I never struggled with weight because I was active and food just provided fuel for my activities. But in the tween years food became a means of numbing pain and the added weight a buffer between me and the source of pain. That’s another blog at another time. The effect of that period of my life was that as an adult maintaining my healthy weight has been challenging at times, especially after having two babies within 18 months in my mid 30’s.

Believe me when I say I’ve looked for the magic bullet, the quick fix, the easy to follow system that didn’t take too long and wouldn’t be too complicated. I’ve tried a lot of things. And yes some of them seemed to work quickly but as soon as I stopped following the plan the weight came back on and brought an extra friend or two for good measure.  Deep down I knew that what needed addressing was my using food to soothe myself and a commitment to eating healthy, exercising regularly and choosing health.

At the end of the day I realized no magic bullet exists and never will. There never will really be anything other than healthy eating and regular physical activity – in other words a healthy and active lifestyle. Yet our generation seems determined to find a magic bullet for weight loss and everything else. Fad diets come and go and get recycled under new names. There’s the ketone-, the liquid-, low-carb, no-carb, low-fat, high-protein-, chips & salsa- (I kid you not), detox-, soup- diet and they all work for a little while but when we go back to eating the way we did in order to gain the weight in the first place the results are predictable. As I’ve said before if we focus on solving problems rather than outcomes from the process we end up in this predictable cycle of gain and loss and gain some more.

You know people who keep looking for the magic weight loss bullet. They keep hoping they can have their cake and eat it too. There’s also people looking for the magic debt reduction bullet, the wealth creation bullet, the great relationship bullet, the parenting bullet, the fame and fortune bullet. We all want to snap our fingers and have all our dreams come true without the effort. Guess what, it just doesn’t happen that way. Ask those who have won the lottery in the past. How many of them kept the wealth? Life just doesn’t happen that way. There are no magic bullets but anything is possible if you are willing to work at it, learn, change and grow.

So are you looking for any magic bullets?