Out For Recess!

Out For Recess!

by | Apr 1, 2021 | Blog

Time To Take Play Seriously

Want to actualize your potential? Well, go out and play! More and more research is showing that the power of play is just as valuable for adults as it is for kids, opening us up to optimizing our potential in every area of our life. We give kids recess time to run around, blow off stem, and just be themselves, why don’t we treat ourselves the same way? There’s the obvious benefits of adding more fun in our lives, releasing stress and enhancing our relationships as often when we play we participate in games or fun activities with friends and family bringing us closer together. But the power of play goes well beyond that, stimulating our brain functioning, expanding our energy, promoting better sleep, boosting our confidence and creativity, all setting the stage for us to set more ambitious goals for ourselves. You see, play has a major ripple effect in our lives, having less to do with how we choose to play and more about it being a state of mind that encourages presence in the moment, a suspension of self-consciousness, and opening us up to new experiences.

Take it from a recovering serious minded adult, making more time for playfulness in my life has been a game changer. Gone are the days of feeling guilty for using my time only to check one more thing off my to do list. Truth is when I include more play in my life, I’m more inclined to get things done. I feel lighter and like myself more, feeling inspired to live my life more fully. With all that being said, as simple as the concept of play is, it’s actually really hard for most adults to practice.  But once you get in the habit of it, it’s just like riding a bike…

5 Pathways To Create More Play In Your Life

  1. Simple Delights: These are the little things we can do throughout our day that add a little boost of levity to it. Maybe having a private dance party listening to your favorite song, playing with your pet(s), watching a heart warming video, sharing a laugh with a friend, spouse, family member, or just getting outside to feel the sun on your face. What ever floats your boat, I highly suggest indulging in a minimum of two simple delights daily. 
  2. Purposeful Play: Here we actually schedule play on the calendar. Whether you join a weekly tennis league, attend a monthly bookclub, sign up for a cooking class, it’s a commitment you make to ensure you are getting out to play. Remember it’s not so much about the activity as it is your state of mind. Play can be anything that provides a sense of enjoyment, it’s self-motivating and makes you want to do it again. 
  3. Chore Play: This is where we try to bring some fun to those everyday tasks that need to get done. Dancing while we do the dishes, blasting some feel good music while we fold the laundry, creating some friendly competition around the house where family members can earn a “prize” for helping out, or building in our own special reward when at last that closet is cleaned out.
  4. Play Space: Let’s face it, they’ll be tons of reasons and excuses to back burner our fun so creating an environment that supports more play in our life will be key. Whether that be a wide open space where we can dance, roll out our yoga mat, hang a hammock in the sun, set up a crafting corner, or simply find a visible place where we can be keep our play gear easily accessible making it all that more easy to go out and play.
  5. Change It Up: Little or big, it’s about doing something radically different to embody a sense of playfulness in your life. On the smallest level it might be wearing that bold colored lipstick, eating lunch with your left hand if your right handed, or painting your nails different colors. On a bigger level, maybe you cut your hair short, register for an improv class, or go sky diving. Again it’s not about what you do as long as it’s something you normally wouldn’t do.

Best place to start would be to craft your own playlist. What makes you come alive, fill you up, make your heart sing? From reading a book to running a marathon, write it all down. Spring has sprung, summer is on its way, create a list and build more play time into your life. As it turns out, playing is way more than just fun and games, making it an important part of optimizing our growth.

Wishing You The Best Of Success

-Holly-

 

 

Prescription For Self-Love

Prescription For Self-Love

by | Feb 1, 2020 | Blog

Selfulness

The evidence is clear, research supports our social relationships are the most powerful predictor of happiness. Whether you consider yourself an extrovert or an introvert, there’s tons of evidence supporting that the common thread amongst “happy” people is that they all have broad social networks and positive relationships with those people in their networks. And to be clear here, we’re not talking about quantity but rather the quality of our social relationships in all areas of our life; work, community, personal, intimate and moreover with ourselves. As without love of self there is no basis to start from, self-love is the pre-condition to loving others. Understandably though for some, the act of practicing self-love can feel initially uncomfortable, and overly self-indulgent but self-love is not to be confused with self-centeredness. Rather self-love is more about thinking about the “me” so that you can build a strong “we”.

I was recently introduced to the word “selfulness”. As you can see it’s a play on words, it’s definition in the urban dictionary is used to describe a person that creates a balance between caring for themselves along with others. With contemporary western culture often plagued by the schism between love of self (egoism or selfishness) and love of others (altruistic or selflessness), the word selfulness I think is a great way to capture a way of being where we extend how we relate to ourselves towards others as well. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it, how can we have loving, positive relationships with others if we don’t practice a healthy relationship with ourselves? A great analogy for this is when we hear the infamous instructions of flight attendants reminding us to first put on our oxygen mask before helping others in case of an emergency landing. Why is this an important rule for ensuring everyone’s survival? Because if you run out of oxygen, you can’t help anyone else with their oxygen mask. This is a perfect metaphor to consider especially for women as we are notoriously known to put our self-care and needs on the back burner.

Learning to love oneself is a key ingredient to greater happiness. Self-love is at the very core of well-being, joy and empowerment. If we don’t care for ourselves we limit our success in all aspects of our lives; experiencing burnout, fatigue, reduced mental effectiveness, health problems, anxiety, stress, and heightened frustration. It’s time to let go of the guilt and the excuses, put your oxygen mask on first and start practicing a little more self-love in your life.

 SELF-LOVE PRACTICES

 #1 Recognize Your Own Good Qualities– Many of us have the tendency to focus on what it is that we aren’t enough of. Defaulting to negative self-talk is one of the least loving things you can do for yourself. So today, right now, take a few minutes to make a list of all the things you like about yourself. Think of physical attributes, mental or emotional strengths, successes you’ve experienced, the way you support your friends and family, or anything else. Make your list as long as possible, and keep adding to it. Go to people you trust and ask them what they’d list as your positive characteristics. You may be surprised to find out that people see a lot more of your strengths than you realize.

#2 Treat Yourself With The Same Level Of Kindness & Respect You Do For Others You Love- You know how you treat someone you really care about, the way you love  and support that person and treat him or her with kindness and respect? Well, do that for yourself and just as you’d challenge a close friend who’s making bad decisions with his or her life, challenge yourself as well. Remind yourself just as you would a good friend of your worth as an individual and that you deserve great things in your life. Resist the tendency for settling for less, encourage yourself as you would someone you love to challenge yourself to achieve the best life possible.

#3 Give Attention To Your Needs And Desires– This may sound a bit silly, but some people really don’t know what they want and need. They can go through their entire adult lives never stopping to self-assess and check in with how they are truly doing. One of the best ways to love yourself is to carve out some time weekly to answer honestly how you are feeling physically, emotionally and spiritually. Some great questions to consider: 

  • Do you feel significant/loved/respected?
  • Are you allowing companionship to lift and enlighten your life?
  • Do you feel in control of how you react to situations in your life?
  • Are you treating your body well (i.e. sleep, diet, exercise, necessary doc apps, stress management)?
  • Do you feel a sense of inner-peace and calmness?
  • Do you have a sense of purpose and appreciation for your place in this world?

Now take it one step further and ask yourself, how can you, at this very moment, take better care of yourself, so that you have more to give instead of less?  Remember self-love may start with the “me” but it ends with a “we”. In the spirit of Valentines Day, a holiday many of us designate as time to express love to those near and dear to us, I’m going to ask you do the same for yourself!

 Happy Valentines Day Everyone!

-Holly-

 

Failing Is The New Black

Failing Is The New Black

by | Nov 1, 2019 | Blog

Learn To Fail Or Fail To Learn

Here I was thinking I had such a catchy title, “Failing Is The New Black”, but when I googled it, literally tons of articles with the same or similar title came up. Thus, my point…failing is in! As much as it hurts to fail, it is an important part of life. In fact, it’s an  absolute must if you want to be successful. Simply said, failure teaches us in ways success cannot. If you’re not failing you’re likely not growing. The time has come to starting failing more!

If you really want to understand what it takes to succeed, bottom-line you need to rethink your relationship with failure and start embracing it more. Because as anyone who’s achieved something great will tell you, the road to success, with very few exceptions, is anything but a straight line. Though we all have been conditioned since a young age to equate failing with weakness there now is another school of thought which teaches that the path to success goes through failure, and that it is almost necessary to stumble and fall on your path to getting what you want. So here are some reasons that you shouldn’t fear failure, but rather embrace it.

1. Failure helps you refine your process -As Thomas Edison said it best, “I have not failed I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Use your failures as stepping-stones to evolve to the next best version of yourself, becoming increasingly more equipped and skilled, so you get it better the next time.

2. Failure makes you resilient -Every time we overcome something that is challenging to us but where we ultimately prevail, we build our resilience a little bit more. As a result we become more strong, increasing our ability to then withstand even greater challenges. 

3. Failure is inevitable, perfection is impossible –If you research the stories of the most successful people of our time, you’ll find they, too, have failed. It was failure that produced the success stories of people like Michael Jordon, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, and Walt Disney, just to name a few. It’s all apart of the process, no one goes from 0 to 100 overnight.

4. Failure helps you reach your potential – Extraordinary things will only happen as a result of extraordinary efforts. Embracing failure rather than avoiding it creates the conditions we need to push ourselves out of our comfort zones. Otherwise, we will be more inclined to only work within them. To bring out the best in us-reach our greater potential-we must have a “no fear” attitude towards failure, allowing us to detach from the outcomes, knowing regardless of what comes, success is already in the works just by the sheer nature of trying.

Let’s face it, the sweetest victories are the ones that are the most difficult. When things come too easily, we don’t appreciate our achievements. You deserve to be proud of what you’ve done, and unfortunately that pride comes in no small part from the knowledge that you’ve overcome challenges and failures to arrive there. Don’t be afraid to fail, be afraid of not trying!

Wishing You the Very Best Of Success

-Holly-

 

Finding Your Sweet Spot

Finding Your Sweet Spot

by | Sep 25, 2019 | Blog

Striving vs. Straining

We live in a “do more” culture — one that prides ourselves on how busy and full our lives can be.  A culture that endlessly encourages us to take on new goals and pile on task after task. But what happens when our to-do list starts to feel overwhelming…we burnout! Listen, I’m a leadership coach, I’m all about goals and pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone to tap into our greater potential. But there’s a fine line between striving and straining. 

Think of it this way, when we work out we purposely stress our muscles and cardiovascular system to overtax our bodies in order to build ourselves up. But it is in the recovery where we make the most gains.  When our body repairs and replaces damaged muscle fibers through a cellular process to fuse muscle fibers together to form new muscle protein strands. These new muscle protein strands enable us to get stronger and leaner improving our performance the next time we workout. The same holds true with our performance in life, there’s nothing wrong with “stressing” or “pushing” ourselves for a period of time just not all the time.

Truth is some stress in our lives is actually good for us. We learn how to be resilient, and get things done, our body primes us with an increase in blood flow and a healthy dose of adrenaline, making us more alert and attentive. However, chronic levels of stress, that is stress without reprieve for long periods of time, works against us, which hinders our performance and our wellbeing.  But as you can see stress isn’t the culprit here, it’s the lack of recovery.  More is not always better,  periods of recovery are necessary.  The key to high performance lies in both these actions where we push ourselves for periods of time to tap into greater potential yet factor in R& R.

Whether it be on a small level like a coffee break or stepping outside for a breath of fresh air, or even better yet a day off and a good night sleep, and of course on a bigger level through vacations, long weekends, and holidays to enjoy.  

I encourage you to find the sweet spot between striving and straining, know your tipping points and embrace pushing yourself out of your comfort zone as long as you are sure to factor in recovery!

Wishing You The Best Of Success

-Holly-

 

Coaching vs. Therapy

Coaching vs. Therapy

by | Oct 8, 2018 | Blog

What’s The Difference?

Having been a practicing psychotherapist for over 10 years I get asked a lot…what’s really the difference between what you do now as a women’s leadership coach opposed to what you did as a therapist? The answer is a lot! Though a big advocate of anything that results in greater self awareness and wellbeing, coaching to me has proven to be a more effective approach to supporting others who are ready to create change. Different then therapy, coaching doesn’t attempt to label someone and have them work well within that label (i.e depressed, anxious) rather it’s a discovery-based process of human potential, taking clients to the highest levels of performance and life satisfaction.

Don’t get me wrong, as a coach it’s not all “rah-rah sis boom bah”, goal driven work. There is still a ton of powerful emotions expressed, tears and frustrations all show up. Sadness and anxiety are all a part of the coaching experience. As with therapy, delving into the past is a part of the coaching process as well, but more as a means to provide understanding as to what may be holding one back. And let’s face it, creating more of what we want in and for our lives can be scary stuff so naturally we will feel vulnerable. That’s where wearing my therapist hat still comes in handy, I’m super comfortable with the uncomfortable and there’s likely nothing anyone can say that will surprise or unnerve me. But regardless, now as a coach I believe emotions serve more to educate us rather than define us. So my focus is on self-exploration and self-knowledge in order to enhance life satisfaction and performance. Whereas as a therapist my role primarily was to assist clients in feeling less pain through healing emotional wounds or manage a mental health diagnosis. 

Now, as a coach I work collaboratively with clients. I don’t assume an authoritative role. Yes, I do educate women on many coaching concepts and tools they likely have never been exposed to. But it is a partnership where we design a program/plan based on each woman’s agenda and desired objectives. Rather then telling clients what they should do, I ask thought provoking questions that provide insights serving as a guide to help simplify how they will chose to move forward personally and/or professionally. My sole purpose is to be a complete objective party, that both challenges and supports clients. For me, it’s no longer about “curing” or “healing” clients but rather advancing their potential.

Bottomline, coaching serves a purpose therapy cannot as therapy serves a purpose coaching will not. One does not replace the other. Certainly, there have been times I have meet with people when I suggest therapy likely being a better fit for them at this time of their lives despite knowing I could easily rely on my 10 plus years as a therapist to work with them. But I firmly believe there shouldn’t be a crossover, there’s a time and a place for each profession. So if you’re trying to figure out which path would be best for you, don’t hesitate to reach out for a quick connect call. No strings attached, I will gladly help you figure that out.

Wishing You Always The Best Of Success

-Holly-