Nice and Easy Does It Every Time

At my first home, I proudly built a garden box next to our tool shed. I was bound and determined to experience grand success as an agricultural novice. So, in my 8 x 8 foot patch, I planted lettuce, strawberries, carrots, eggplant, pumpkins, tomato plants and  a grapevine. Yes, I decided that perhaps I could start a vineyard on the chicken wire surrounding the patch and really optimize the space and make wine, too!

My new boss, a veteran gardener, just laughed and laughed when she came over to our house for a party and I proudly showed her my farm in the yard. I’m sure that my pack-it-all-in approach to gardening offered her some early insight into my approach to life and work. In fact, my business coach today often has to work with me to narrow my focus.

You may want a ranch in Arizona, with a kitchen/dining area where you can entertain, with a pond out behind your patio, a studio where you write for 6 hours three days a week to achieve your lucrative publishing career and a fulfilling relationship with a life partner who has wonderful grandchildren so that you can experience a houseful of children since you didn’t have any yourself, you want to fly to New York twice a year for a great theater and shopping experience and to enjoy the change in seasons since you have left the Midwest to move to a beautiful dry climate, and on and on and on.

While you want all of those things, if may be effective to take your goals one vibration or one vision board at a time.

My recommendations for gaining focus by simplifying are as follows:

1: Give yourself the luxury of indulging in some solitary thinking. Pick the thing you most want to have or have change in your life as your vision board project for the week. You can make a big board, or a deck of vision cards, or dedicate a few pages in a journal to some pictures with captions. Just whittle your focus to one topic.

2: Write a statement about how you’d like this topic to be present in your work and/or life in 180 days.

3: Lose yourself in your topic on the internet for 45 minutes. Set a timer and go scavenger hunting on your topic. Use your favorite search engine to find pictures and quotes related to your topic. Print as you go. Don’t spend more than 1.5 minutes on any one site, unless it’s a gold mine. Even if it is, move on after 5 minutes.

4: At the 45 minute point, review what you’ve compiled on your topic. Then, assemble your materials on your board, on your cards or in your journal. Make a mental note of how it feels to have focused on changing focus on aspect of your life for a full 45 minute.

5: Enjoy your compilation. Notice your clarity, confidence level and gut reaction to having your mind filled with possibilities for the single topic on which you’ve been focusing.

6: Make some notes about what you’ve observed about your goal/vision.

7: Write the date on your project.

8. Visit your “S.P.O.C.” (Single Point of Concentration) project for 3-5 minutes for a week.

9. Repeat with a new topic!

Have a great week, and enjoy skipping through your garden of life!

Tess

Copyright 2010 Destiny Rising, LLC

Order In!

Restaurant owners Dan and Tess at "Cafe on the Park" with Holly and Andrea, super servers

I spent a fair number of years working in the restaurant industry while pursuing degrees and dreams. Long before owning a restaurant In addition to owning a restaurant I was a waitress and short order cook.

Restaurants are rather magical. As a server, you ask your customer what they want, they tell you. You write the order on your pad and clip the order on the “wheel”. You then holler “Order In!”.

As the waitress, it’s your responsibility to gather the specifics of the order so that it comes out in a manner that will make the customer happy.  You need to ask for temperature, dressings, side items, etc. If you get that right and write-up the order in the correct way, there’s no confusion for the cook and satisfaction for the customer.

It’s been my experience that life is the same way. When you ask for what you want in life be specific. State  “Order In!” and let the great Cook in the Sky serve up a banquet for you.

Here are a few ideas for filling out your order:

1. Back in the day, many restaurants offered Meat and Three  – a main course and three side items. Think about what you’re looking to have in your life and treat it as such.  Figure out what is the meat of your life and what three areas you’d like to accompany your main course.

2. Enjoy your surroundings. One of the joys of dining out is the ambiance, the atmosphere and the experience of being served. Once you’ve decided what you’re asking for, sit back and soak in your experience.

3. Leave a generous tip. Identify something that you can give back to the Universe in exchange for its being an outstanding server of life’s bounties.

Have a delicious week!

Tess

Copyright 2010 Destiny Rising, LLC

Claim the Headlines!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it…Entrepreneur’s career goes to from blah to brilliant…

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. They’re right, but words hold a place of their own in a powerful vision board. The words and phrases on your vision board are a powerful statement. Words add “technicolor” and punch to your board.

Do you remember doing sentence diagrams in grade school? I may have mentioned this in a long ago post.  A simple sentence might read: “Jane took a trip”. A more vivid and adjective filled sentence might read: “Jane took an exciting plane trip to Rio for her 40th birthday”. I don’t know about you, but the trip Jane took seems more interesting and colorful when you add colorful and descriptive words. I’m not an English teacher and don’t have my Gregg Manual nearby, but I think you get the point.

This week, let’s keep it simple. As you think about how words can enhance your board, select words and phrases that complete the statement “I am…”  A few examples: Creative, Dynamic, Successful,  Wealthy, Beyond Compare, Limitless, Headed for Success.

If you’re still working your list of things you want in your life, see if the items of your list are colorfully descriptive. If so, you have a powerful list on your hands, and one that you likely want to revisit, as well as an itch to get to the creation of your vision board.

Enjoy the week and let your imagination run wild! It costs nothing and makes the day more interesting.

Tess

Copyright 2010 Destiny Rising, LLC

Next Stop…. Chicago

Mark your calendars for June 19th and share with your friends. The next Destiny Rising “Building A Powerful Vision Board” workshop is at Clubhouse Inn on Ogden in Westmont, IL.

If you or someone you know would enjoy spending an afternoon setting their vision meter on “WOW” for business or personal advancement, let please share this information. The price for this workshop is a blog subscriber’s Summer Special. $89 is a value that just can’t be beat. E-mail tess@destinyrising.com for more information. This workshop is perfect for those in professional transition, small business owners, entrepreneurs and those navigating change 🙂

Once upon a Notebook

Growing up, I had the pleasure of being read to at night by my parents or by my older brothers and sisters. There are advantages to being the fifth in line.  To this day, I love to read aloud and to tell stories. They transport you to a place far far away, or make you laugh or open your mind to new possibilities and horizons.

As a lover of the Fairy Tale, I believe that a person’s vision for their Once Upon a Future should be just as home in a notebook as on a billboard sized poster board up for all the world to see. After all, it’s a storybook.

Whether you shout your plans and hopes and aspirations from a mountaintop or where you keep them contained in a notebook is a personal preference. As is true with personality, we are all different.

If you’re just getting started clarifying where you’d like your life to lead (or if you’d like to add another dimension to your vision work, here are two ideas for you.

1. Head to Big Lots, The Dollar Tree or Barnes and Noble. Find a notebook that you can fit into your briefcase or purse and buy it.

2. Immediately take 10 minutes in your car, at the subway station or at a coffee shop to initiate your notebook. Name your notebook/journal. I might name mine Tess’ financial freedom journal or Tess’ path to$280,000 annual income diary or Tess’ Emancipation Documentation.  Once you’ve given your journal a name, write a brief statement of what you want to have happen for you in the next 90 days.

3. Date your first future entry, and name the topic on which you’ll write on that next entry date. By doing this, you are creating a sense of importance and making an appointment for some “you” time, and giving yourself something to ponder between your first and second journal entry.

4. Put your notebook/journal into your briefcase or purse. Knowing it’s in there will be a reminder of your appointment and a reminder to think about your next writing topic. I pre-name my blog topics so that I don’t experience writer’s block. If I give myself the direction of a topic to write on, I’m more likely to get right to it. My edits may be many, but putting the pen to paper is easy.

5. Reread and review your journal entries during the specified 90 day period. You’ll come to enjoy reading your hopes and aspirations and plans  as much as you enjoy reading the hopes and plans of characters from your childhood treasures.

6. Finally, go to a local bookstore and spend an hour in a children’s book section. Reacquaint yourself with “Once upon a time…” so that you can get in touch with your imagination and help write your own story.

Enjoy!

Tess

Copyright 2010 Destiny Rising, LLC