Category Archives: self help

asskickery, creativity, ecourse, inspirational, life, motivational, purpose, self help, transformation

Hard work is good when it’s the right kind of work.

 

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Many of us grew up with the belief that hard work is good, but no one ever mentioned that it should be the right kind of work.  It’s more like “keep your nose to the grindstone” and don’t question the situation.

All I ever did growing up was questioning my situation. When I was about nineteen I decided I wanted to be an artist. The hard work factor had not kicked in yet, so I gave up too soon when I failed to get into a prestigious art school. Also, people were always saying that you can’t make any money as an artist.

My dilemma was that I did not see a single career on the list of possible careers that I liked. It was horrible. The only one I could possibly get excited about was art therapist, but my math was weak in highschool so I could not get accepted into the education I needed.

I spent my twenties working all kinds of jobs, and that was sort of fun in that I learned a lot.  There were some things I hated and have always hated:

Getting up to an alarm clock

The 9-5 grind

The soul killing monotony of my days and no end in sight.

Next to no vacation, and then not enough money to do anything exciting.

Bosses who were jerks.

It was the Gulag of life, a life-long sentence, and I hated every day of that.  I did learn to work hard though, and be dependable. I met some nice people along the way.

In my youth I just upped and left when I’d had enough of the grind. I did some fun things like bicycling across the country and hitchhiking around Europe with NO money. Those are nice memories, but my parents called me irresponsible. I think I was more desperate to find some meaning.

I found meaning in spiritual awakening, but that will be another post.

My passion finally ignited when I realized I could be a writer and make money at it. I was thirty years old.  I started writing fiction and didn’t end until my writing career crashed while I was rehabilitating a knee injury many years later. It wasn’t fun.  Over the years I developed an ironclad discipline. (By the way, there is nothing like writing to hone your discipline.) My writing career has crashed three times, and I had to pick up other major skills along the way.

I also returned big time to my art passion. It has run like a red thread through my entire life. That is where I should have focused my energy all along.

The point of this post? Find what really excites you in life and work hard at it. Use your discipline to keep pushing through when things aren’t going right, and there will be many days like that, most of the days in fact.  Never give up. Keep working at it when there is no sign of success in sight. Don’t listen to others, listen to your heart. Your passion is a sign from the universe that you’re on the right path.

There are many many examples in history of people who worked themselves to the bone to launch wacky inventions into the world. One of the most famous is probably the flying machine. The Wright brothers must have been some kind of good crazy!

Why not you?  What is your good crazy? You have it in you, and only you can launch it into the world.

Then “nose to the grindstone” finally has a meaning that makes sense!

xo

Maria

P.S. I have some crazy cool ecourses you can check out HERE.

asskickery, fear, inspirational, life, motivational, process, self help, transformation

How to stand in your power.

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This post is about how to take charge of your life and stand in your power. I was talking to a lady and realized the paradigm of having someone “save you” is still alive and well in 2015.

Some women still expect a knight in shining armor to ride in on a white horse and save them. Though that would be cool, especially if he’s handsome and buff, but he is not the answer to your problems. He has his own problems to deal with, so why the need to put the pressure on someone else to support YOU?

How to stand in your power:

  1. Know that you are capable, no matter what the situation. You start where you are. If you’re penniless you find a job, and excuses be gone, excuses like “I don’t have the education,” “I haven’t worked in a long time,” “I have no skills.” Those are poisonous excuses. I think it was Carnegie who started his career selling newspapers on a street corner.  Where there is a will there is a way.
  2. If you are desperate find ANY job to tide you over for a time. Where you meet people there is a chance to meet new connections that can offer you more.  In other words, make sure to mingle.
  3. Decide to take charge of your life. That’s the point where you realize no knight is going to save you and you’re ok with that.
  4. Ditch the fear. Haven’t we all done things that scared us? All it takes is a determination to succeed, and the above decision to take charge of your life. Hold that decision as a sacred vow.
  5. You are capable of a lot more than you think.  Remember the friend who landed a job above their current skills? You say it’s luck? I say it’s “balls.” They believed in themselves, ditched the fear, and applied.
  6. Decide to think highly of yourself!  Yes, it’s a choice. You are worthy and confident and capable. Let that be your new mantra.
  7. Learn something new. Learning new things is a real confidence builder and it might spark new business ideas.
  8. Trust your intuition.  Intuition is a great tool to hone in your life. Don’t second guess yourself. Trust your gut!
  9. What is the best you could be? What seems impossible to achieve? Go for THAT goal. It’s a huge challenge, but challenges move us forward in life, and accomplishing a big goal is a superior confidence builder.
  10. If you have no idea what you want start where you are right now.  What step(s) can you take right now to improve your life?  Ask yourself that question every day and do the steps. Such steps include self-care, healthy choices, biz opportunities or steps to expand a current biz or job. Confidence speaks louder than words. Build your confidence one step at a time.

Write a new blueprint for you life and know that it is the best thing ever to stand in your power and accomplish your dreams, one step at a time.

Living from the inside out gives you instant confidence and gives you the authority to choose what is best for you. Don’t listen to the naysayers. They are coming from the perspective of their own fears.

Remember, you are your own best authority, but you are also your greatest naysayer. Positive action is the way to silence the inner naysayer. Excuses be gone!

xo

Maria

P.S. If you want to check out my available ecourses, click HERE.

art, inspirational, life, motivational, process, purpose, self help, success, transformation, unstuck

Begin anywhere and anyway!

 

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Hello friends,

Begin anywhere and anyway; have you heard it before?  I’m sure you have. I have, many times, and I’ve told myself to “just do it” many times, and I do, BUT the tendency is to always fall back to the status quo of mediocrity.  I could call that laziness, but that word is like a bog of negative possibilities, all not supportive of life.  The solution to this is to strengthen the muscle of resolve.

So many TV programs and self-help books are dedicated to bettering yourself in some way, like losing those 30 lbs, or becoming a better parent. We get lost in the possibilities and the result is inaction, or in my case, boredom.

Let’s talk about the muscle of resolve. When you decide to stop smoking or losing weight for instance, you must have resolve, or that busy little devil on your shoulder will soon talk you into starting the new habit tomorrow, always tomorrow.

So, any time we take on a challenge we have to face making a decision. If you want to start exercising or stop a bad habit, you make that decision. There is usually a threat involved, like bad health that propels a person into action, but not always. I have seen people with stage 4 lung cancer wheel their drip bag stand out to the smoking room at the hospital and puff away. That is what I call giving up. The little devil won.

How hard is it to make a decision?  It’s hard unless you’re so fed up with status quo, or as Anthony Robbins says, “you’re in so much pain you have to change.” The old is no longer an option.  It’s something to pray for. Pain is good because it forces us to change, but why go that far?

That’s where the headline of this post comes in: Begin anywhere and anyway.  Say you have a dream of accomplishing something great in your life. It’s that thing that’s always bugging you at the back of your mind.  A deep desire for change.

I’m appalled at how stuck we are in the ruts and routines and the FEARS of change. But if you truly want to change, to create something new for yourself, start NOW.  You don’t need fancy equipment (well, you might at some point but not now,) you don’t need extra time, you don’t need a block of 2 days of me-time to get things straightened out.

All you need is to make that decision, and make it over and over when you fall of the wagon. As you keep dedicating yourself you build the resolve muscle you will have to re-make your decision. The trick to staying on the wagon is to get some excitement going about your project. It makes the decision easy every time.

Start with ONE thing to forward your dream. It could be as little as a phone call or email.

What can you do this week, Monday-Friday, to make strides? Make a short list of doable steps. Only you know what is needed. As you take small actions every day, your excitement will grow, and so will your commitment.

Then you fall off the wagon again…  and again.

BUT the tool is simple. Make tiny goals each day and accomplish them, and as you follow this path, your to-do list will grow because you can see the progress, and you want to get THERE, so you delve more deeply into the dream and find more possibilities for expansion.  One step can reveal a big revelation. One email can open doors to connections you only dreamed of in the past.

What do I do every day? I am an artist and writer, and those are the subjects I keep delving into every day. My morning looks like this pretty much every morning:

Cup of tea in my back yard.

Meditate to get in the flow.

Walk 20 minutes. Hot as hell sometimes in FL. I slacked with my exercise for years, but I used to be committed to keeping in shape, and I discovered that muscle memory still works! Now I’m addicted to walking.

Write 750 word in my online journal at 750words.com. I usually write more than that since writing is in my blood and I like to blog as well.

Have a green smoothie for breakfast, and after that I feel out what I want to focus on that day. It’s not always easy. The little devil will always sit there and jabber away, but he can be trained!

When I was a fulltime writer I made up my mind to write ten pages a day, and I have followed that for forever. The writing isn’t always glowing. It rarely is, but I keep going.  I have no fears around showing up on the page. Crappy writing can always be fixed.

Art is a different animal altogether. That muscle has a mind of its own… I have never been able to tame it, but my challenge is to show up at the art journal page or the canvas. I can do that, but the resistance is powerful most of the time. They say to push through the resistance and I do, and I find myself happy on the other side. The other kind of resistance is the one that says “this is not good for you.” It has a different feel, like facing a brick wall. Then I listen to that, and every day has a forward flow of small positive increments.

When I fall off the wagon I get so uncomfortable in my skin that I have to get back on, or DIE, (not really, but there is no compromise.)

To accomplish something worthwhile, start tiny and grow from there. Make that decision, dedicate yourself, kick the fears to the curb, take small action steps, and soon you’ll have something new and wonderful in your life. Grow your awesome self via the muscle of resolve!!!  🙂

asskickery, inspirational, life, motivational, purpose, self help

Stop if your heart is not on fire.

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Stop if your heart is not on fire for something. I have been kind of in a slump lately and I’m pretty much re-evaluating everything. My friend and writer, Laura Probert, wrote an excellent post for Huffington Post, (link at the end.) She was inspired by Marie Forleo who said if it’s not a “hell yeah,” then don’t do it. It got me thinking about my own life and it’s been a while since I truly felt a “hell yeah” about anything.  Life is more like “meh.”

When I do things I don’t like to do to earn money (and that is the only reason,) I feel like a vague shearing sensation in my chest. It occurred to me that’s what people do; they spend a lifetime doing stuff they don’t like and then end up with heart disease. What is the greatest killer today: heart disease. I don’t know the statistics on how many people hate their jobs, but I suspect it’s a hefty percentage.

We created this mess. The kids are funneled like cows to slaughter through a school systems that does not work, to learn stuff they will never use. But stay in the fold for when you grow up, kiddo, you will or must have a job or you will be an outsider, and you will be poor.

I suppose a boring job is not the only cause for heart disease, and doctor’s will tell you it’s the food you eat, but I believe it’s a lot more than  that. It is based on deep misaligned emotion.

When we force ourselves into a shoe that doesn’t fit, we feel uncomfortable.  We know it’s wrong for us, but we force ourselves out of fear or out of lack of ideas for something better. School never encouraged you to think for yourself.

The forced and unhappy behavior will create disease in the body. You’ve heard it before.

People sometimes say that whatever disaster they went through was the best thing that ever happened to them, because it changed the course of their life. People who have had an awakening can’t go back to the old  mindset. It’s like society in general hypnotizes us into a humdrum existence and it takes something drastic to shake us up enough to see that we act like sheep.  We work like sheep and play like sheep. It gets very old.

My point here: What gives you fire in the belly? There is no time to waste. Screw humdrum, screw fear. It’s time to wake up and do it!

I have done a lot of passion inspired things in my life but right now I feel kind of “meh.”  I’m hoping life is taking a new turn soon, because the sense of “been there done that” is overwhelming. I can’t wait to get excited again. I don’t like that shearing feeling in my chest when I force myself to do things I don’t like. Hello anxiety.

What to do? Take stock of your emotions and pains in your body.  When you think of your job do you feel excited or full of dread? If you have no clue what makes you fired up with excitement, do some excavating of dreams and desires, the ones you shoved under the carpet, maybe?  It will take action to get out of the status quo, but everyone can do it with some effort. I know it’s possible.

For more ideas, read Laura’s article HERE.

xo

Maria

P.S. for some free art how to videos, check out my YouTube channel HERE.

ecourse, inspirational, life, motivational, self help, transformation

Hating self-help questionnaires.

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Why would I write such a title, “hating self-help questionnaires?” If you’re reading this you have read and filled out many worksheets, or skipped them altogether.  I know you all hate them.  I know I do.  They are boring, a thorn in the side.

I’m working on an e-course that is about finding your inner true north using your intuition. It’s about making choices that are healthy for you. The question is, do we want health?  I mean health in every sense of the word.

We do and we don’t. The side of us that wants a healthy balanced life answers the deep  inquiries and works on the issues or try to. The other side flings the dang workbook across the room as the inner rebel rears up, refusing to reply to any  questions that might overturn the status quo. Heaven forbid we would change!  We don’t need to change, right?

What is the wall that comes up and says “stop,  do not move any further.” It has many names but the most common name is resistance. If you dig deeper you come across fear and all sorts of unworthiness issues hiding behind resistance.

Most people avoid those uncomfortable feelings at all cost.

Questions are what start us on the road to inner discovery.

Writing on a workbook right now, I’m struggling with how to make the questions less confronting and more acceptable.  What would make people look forward to going in deep and releasing the beliefs and trapped feelings within?  What would make them actually finish the course and work through the issues?

There is a need for structured questions for sure, but what if another person asked them?  No writing down answers, just discussing what comes up and looking for “aha” moments. A lively interaction between two people who trust each other  might make going through a workbook desirable.

A bottle of wine, some yummy snacks, and a deep discussion based on the workbook could very well be the answer!

I don’t know how many times I have read a great self-help book, but when I reached the questions I  skimmed over them or ignored them altogether.

How many self-help books have your bought and never finished?

We like the IDEA of changing ourselves for the better, but when it comes to the actual work we often balk.

Workbooks and questionnaires might be out of style in this fast-paced world.

What if it became a more dynamic process?

I believe it’s more important to be open to the signs around us, accept that the world mirrors our states of mind. If there is a traffic jam maybe it’s a sign to slow down. If we keep making the same mistakes over and over, what belief / feeling INSIDE of us makes that happen?  If we can be aware and open in the now, all our shi*t will be revealed, and then we have to choose whether to work with it, or keep living in denial.  Denial will inevitably create more difficulties.

Some people do not believe in a world that mirrors your inner stuff, but if you do, it can be a hugely beneficial “school room.”

Life can be smoother, easier to accept with its ups and downs if we agree to work on our shi*t.  As you create peace with yourself, you create peace in the world.

My suggestion is, have a party with one or two friends, off-line or online, who are on the same path, or working on the same workbook. Get the stuff behind the resistance out into the open and decide to deal with it.

That is one way past resistance and into a life of fresh perception.