professional development Archives

Your New BFF

by Holly Boxenhorn | Dec 2, 2021 | Blog

Dear Future Me…

Want to boost your mood, improve your outlook on life, pinpoint where your greatest efforts might be served, and create some accountability along the way. Imagine your future self! Picture yourself, thriving and living a full, happy life. Researchers call this your BPS-Best Possible Self and study after study say it packs a powerful punch.

Personally, I’m a big fan of this exercise. For so many of us in midlife who question what’s next and where to go from here, it’s a simple yet highly informative way to start fleshing out a new path leading the way into the second half of our lives.

Getting To Know Your Future Self

Carve out undistracted time – find a place where you’ll have limited to no interruptions.
Select a time in your future – anywhere between one year from now to no more than five.
Spend a few moments visualizing your best future self, consider your –
Personal Life including your interests, hobbies, health preferences, and any accomplishments you’d like to go after. Professional Success this includes your career and job, what brings you a sense of purpose, any educational pursuits, your income bracket, and what you’d like for your retirement. Social Life your romantic or dating life, the friends you seek and keep, your relationship with your family, and any regular social activities.
Describe your future self at that time – imagine you’ve invested the time and energy to actualize your best self. What does your life look like? What are you doing personally, professionally, and socially? How do you feel? Think? Experience Life?

Note: It’s important to remember that the purpose of this exercise is not to visualize your greatest fantasy, but rather your best possible, attainable future.

From this identity you can then start to take action. Asking yourself what would my future best self do right now in this moment. This way of thinking can help you restructure your priorities and serve as a roadmap. So that when you wake up first thing in the morning and throughout your day your BPS can now be your BFF encouraging you to align with those actions that you know support your end game.

With the new year around the corner, this is a perfect exercise to take advantage of so you can hit the ground running in 2022!

Wishing You The Best Of Success

-Holly-

2020…Setting The Stage!

by Holly Boxenhorn | Jan 1, 2020 | Blog

The Power Of Visualization

Alright everyone…here we are, HELLO 2020! So what’s it gonna be this year? Though I’m not a big fan of new year resolutions, I am a huge advocate for setting the stage and believe immensely in the power of positive visualization. In fact every morning, upon awakening I take the first 15 minutes of my day to envision the next 24 hours. Literally, going hour by hour, imagining and designing action steps that align with how I want to show up and experience the day. Naturally, some days are harder then others. But the second part of this two step visualization process-designing the action steps of the day-give me the clarity and direction I need to build in the greatest likelihood for success. Of course, there are plenty of days when I’m feeling more overwhelmed or rather uninspired by what lies ahead. But make no mistake the power of suggestion goes a long way, it is now a well known fact that we stimulate the same brain regions when we visualize an action and when we actually perform that same action. Brain studies have shown that positive mental imagery “primes” our brains for success.

On a bigger level, every new year I take pen to paper and return to one of my most trusted practices I learned back in 2010 when I was first just a student at iPEC (Institute of Professional Excellence in Coaching) pursuing my coaching certification. It is a visualization exercise in which I imagine it is one year from now (Dec 31, 2020) and what I aspire for is actually occurring. I then proceed to consider all aspects of my life; personal development, career, health/wellness, intimate/social/professional relationships, parenting, fun/enjoyment, even spiritual wellbeing and paint a picture of what I like to see. Essentially, I design a vision that is exciting, purposeful and fulfilling, one that I find inspiring. I ask myself:

What am I doing? (In all the above stated aspects of life)
With whom am I doing it with?
What am I feeling?
How much income am I earning?
How much fun am I having?
What difference am I making, personally and professionally, in the world?

Ultimately, using this exercise to create a vision of what I aspire to be, feel, and experience in the new coming year. This process, of seeing and even feeling a new improved self in all aspects of my life allows me to then develop life objectives that support this vision, helping me break it all down into specific goals that lead me to my desired destination by years end. This exercise has become one of the most favored amongst my clients, not only promoting clarity in their goal setting but accountability as we use it as a tool to check in with to help them stay on track and develop necessary action plans and task driven work in order they be able to obtain what it is they want in and for their lives.

The most important thing to remember when doing this exercise is that not everything is written in stone, there needs to be some level of flexibility, however, not at the risk of losing sight of our vision. Remember, there is never an end state to self-development, greater success and happiness is always a work in progress but without a vision it is very hard to find direction. As the most revered book states “Where There Is No Vision The People Perish.” PROVERBS 29:18

Wishing Everyone A Very Happy New Year

-Holly-

Failing Is The New Black

by Holly Boxenhorn | 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-

Live Life More Sanely & Successfully

by Holly Boxenhorn | Sep 18, 2018 | Blog

Discover Your Interanl Compass

September 2018 Insights

Let’s face it, life is challenging! The path to professional and personal fulfillment is rarely simple or straightforward. We all experience bumps, detours, and hardships along the way. On top of it, the pace of the world is crazy fast and forever changing. We are inundated with people’s opinions and information telling us what we “should” be doing to live our lives more successfully. And while some of what is being shared can actually be of value and support, figuring out where to put our attention can be daunting. We only have so much time, money, and energy. The struggle is real, so how do we make decisions for ourselves that support our personal and professional best? (more…)