Thursday, February 3, 2011

Happiness is a Choice- 1B

Hi everyone,

I first of all want to thank everyone that has viewed my blog and all of you that have joined as followers.  Also, thanks for all of the supportive comments.  I really appreciate hearing those and it encourages me so much!  I hope to create a community that pulls together to help each of you create something special in your life.  I hope you will continue to come back read my blog, make comments and truly participate. 

On Monday I wrote about happiness being a choice.  If you read the blog, answered the questions and worked on the fieldwork hopefully you were able to see how your thoughts can affect your life.  If you have started to listen to the messages you send yourself and if they are negative, hopefully you have switched the dialog to something more positive.  Continue to be aware of this even when you move on to other topics.

If this is your first time viewing the blog, you can start here or if you want to go back and look at 1A first, you can come back when you are ready.  So if happiness is a choice, why aren't we all happy?  Once we make the choice to be happy, how do we find happiness?   

I think many of us have forgotten what makes us happy.  We get caught up in work, kids or life in general and we seldom go back and check in to see where we are.  What made us happy 5 years ago may not be the same now so we need to check in pretty regularly to make sure we are still on the right path.  Sometimes it is hard to take time for yourself, but if you are able to define what makes you happy and you work at creating that for yourself, think of the gift you are giving yourself and the ones you love.

Making a choice to be happy does not mean you never get frustrated or you never have things that happen in your life that are challenging.  It just makes it easier to put things in perspective when negative things do show up.  You can say, my life is happy and this is happening to me, but it is not going to change my overall level of happiness.  You may even begin to approach the challenging situations by asking what lesson they are providing for you.  What are you supposed to learn and how can you get something positive from the negative.

If you have decided you want to be happy,  let's figure out what truly makes you happy and what it will take for you to smile each day and love your life even when any trials or tribulations come your way.

Questions:  You can journal about these questions or you can spend some time thinking about the answers.  Do what works best for you and your life!

- What do you enjoy doing? reading, yoga, crafts, spending time on the computer, getting a manicure.....
- What puts a smile on your face?
- If you could be doing anything right now, what would it be?
- How much time do you spend doing the things that make you happy?
- Is there a way to incorporate more of what you love into your life right now?
- What would it take to make you happy?
- What do you spend most of your time doing?
- Do you enjoy doing that?
- If not, and it is something you have to do, can you find one thing you love about that task?
- Can you take a few minutes each day to do one thing that makes you happy?
- When you take time to do what you enjoy, how does it make you feel?
- What will you spend time doing tomorrow to make you smile?

I hope that each of you will begin to look at what makes you happy and I hope you will each implement more of that into your life (obviously within reason).  Figure out what will make you happy right now and create that for yourself.  What are you waiting for?

Fieldwork:
Do something that brings you happiness each day.  Think about how it feels to take time for yourself and to do something you enjoy!

Next week, the topic will be Balance!  I hope you will join me to work on creating a healthy, balanced life for yourself.

Thanks for reading!!
Coach Gaye

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

A little about me....

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all of the support for my blog!  I really appreciate hearing your feedback!  Normally I won't be blogging in between the Monday and Thursday topic posts but this week I thought I would share some of my history with you and also provide you a little background about coaching so you understand my journey here.  If this is your first visit, check out the blog before this one to get questions and information about happiness being a choice!

In 2002 I was laid off from my IT sales job and I knew I did not want to go back into sales.  I did not enjoy the sales process and I did not enjoy making cold calls.  So, not a perfect fit right??  At that time, I decided if I was going to work, I wanted to really like my job.  I did tons of research (gotta love the internet) and I finally found life coaching.  When I read about life coaching, I knew it was the perfect fit for me!!  Helping others has always been something very important to me and what could be better than helping others achieve the most out of life!  Also, the premise that everyone has the answers inside themselves rang very true to me.  I love to help clients draw out those answers and find their unique voice. 

I began classes at Coach U and shortly after found out I was pregnant.  In January 2003 I had my first daughter.  I continued my coaching classes and graduated from Coach U in October of 2003.  Once I had my daughter, my life changed dramatically.  I was not expecting such a change and we were living in Colorado with no family nearby.  No one told me how hard it would be and I struggled to find myself in the midst of being a new Mom.  At that time, I knew I wanted to help other mothers have an easier transition and my niche of guiding other mothers to create their perfect balance was born.

In 2005, I had my second daughter and we moved back to NC.  To be true to my perfect balance, my coaching practice took a backseat for a few years.  I began working on a book to walk moms through the process of creating balance after having children and I continued to work a bit but my children were definitely my focus.  Now, my youngest is in preschool 5 days a week and she heads to kindergarten in July so now I am ready to pick up coaching full force again.

My decision to start this blog is two-fold.  First and foremost I want to reach more people than I can with my regular fee based coaching practice.  While I still have some clients, I decided I could reach more people and really help others by doing a blog.  If this blog is not giving you everything you need and you want one on one coaching email me at coachgaye@redefinebalance.com and I can give you more details and we can set up a free 30 minute coaching phone call.  Second, I want to actually get my blog to make money by having sponsors and down the road, I want to get my book published.  You can help me do this by becoming a follower so I can show there is a market for this type of information.

In creating this blog, I want it to become a community of like minded people that want the best from their lives.  I want you to give me feedback about how I can cater the site to your needs and I want to hear what you are struggling with and I want to hear when you make a shift in your life!  One of the biggest rewards for me as a coach is seeing a client make positive changes in their life!  That will be hard to get from the blog, so I really do want to hear from you!  Either post comments at the end of the blog telling how the questions and fieldwork went or email me to let me know.

I also want to know how you think the blog can be improved.  If you were to rate the blog on a scale of 1-10 what would you rate it?  If it is not a 10 what do I need to do to make it a 10?  Email me at coachgaye@redefinebalance.com to let me know.

Also, don't forget I answer a question from one of my readers each Friday.  Do you have any questions about finding your happiness or do you have something else you would like some clarity on?  I would love to hear from you!!

I really hope you enjoy the blog and the process of creating your perfect life!!

Thanks for listening!
Coach Gaye

Monday, January 31, 2011

Happiness is a Choice- 1A

Hi everyone,

I am so excited to start this blog!  I hope you really get something out of it and if you do, I hope you will share it with your friends.  I want to make an impact on your life and guide you to find your unique voice and your perfect balance in a simple and easy way! 

Each week I will have a new topic and I will divide the topic up into two sections so you can do as much or as little as you see fit.  Picking which topic to put first has been one of my hardest decisions, there are just so many things I want to share.  My hope is that you will visit my blog several times each week, take the information you need, apply it to your life and in turn find your true happiness! 

On that note, I thought a good first topic would be Happiness Is A Choice.  We decide each day how we let our life, our interactions, our hopes and our dreams affect us.  Listen to the messages you tell yourself each day.  Do they promote happiness or dissatisfaction?  Begin to hear what you tell yourself over and over again throughout the day.  Do you feel sorry for yourself and say "poor me", or do you beat yourself up and say "I am stupid"?  If so, I bet this is how life treats you.  You don't feel like you deserve better and you don't get better.   

What if you were to change that message to "I love my life"?  How do you think life would treat you?  By doing something as simple as changing our perspective and our message, we can change our whole day, our whole life!  Our minds work to make the statements we tell ourselves true.  What do you want to be true in your life?  Tell yourself that message and that is what you will begin to create.

With kids, I sometimes find myself asking if it is them or me?  When something frustrates me is it because I am on edge or are they really being unreasonable or extra trying?  Sometimes all it takes is for me to approach the situation with humor and it changes everything.  See how it is my approach that is causing my reaction and if I make a change, I can change the whole situation.

Your outlook and approach have a huge impact on your life.  Choose to be positive!  Change the message you send yourself.

QUESTIONS-my suggestion is to start a journal and begin to work through the questions I will pose after each blog.  If that seems too daunting, allow yourself a few minutes to work through the questions in your mind.
-What do you think your life is like? hard, sad ,unfullfilling, wonderful, amazing....
-How would you feel each day if you were happy?  What are you waiting for?
-What is preventing you from being happy?
-How can you change that?  Can you shift how you think about this aspect of your life if you can't change it right now?
-What would your perfect life look like?
-Can you take one small step each day to create your perfect life?
-What will you do today to change your perspective about something in your life that is negatively impacting your?
-What will you do tomorrow?

Check out the schedule on the right so you can see when new topics and updates will show up each week.  I hope you follow my blog and keep coming back so you can create your perfect life!

Fieldwork:
What messages do you tell yourself each day?  Be aware of the things you say to yourself and if they are negative, work on changing them to something positive.

Coach Gaye