Many of us may have defined our goals back in January, but still haven’t taken any steps to reach them.

I urge you this week to ask yourself the following:
What obstacles are standing between me and my goals?

Is it a lack of time, an insufficient amount of money, a high risk factor, personal insecurity, or our relationships?

Identifying potential obstacle(s) is the first step to making dreams come true. Creating a strategy to tackle those obstacles is the next.

Trying to attain a goal without acknowledging roadblocks, is like trying to write a book with a pen that has no ink. In order to write that book you will need to try to locate another pen, a pencil, a computer, or even a scribe…so that you can get down to the real work you want to be doing.

Good luck!

Through creative work, even if that work is sometimes dark or negative in content, one can still find beauty in it – because it is honest. For me, truth and beauty go hand in hand.

I think that when we decide to be honest with ourselves, even if the stories we harbor are scary, they become less frightening in telling them.

Personally, I have learned how important art is in my life. When I do not create, I feel lousy. My strategy to keep motivated has been a simple one: much like good food and exercise is a part of my routine to stay fit, creativity is part of my life to stay spiritually healthy. By creating, I am supporting myself through my journey on this planet. I am giving my spirit the space it needs to make sense of life…both its ups and downs.

In other words, the creative process supports the life process. I understand that supporting my need to create is crucial. This is certainly easier when I have others who can support me. But I know that such is not always the case so I also must keep myself motivated. As a coach, I hope to inspire and to teach my clients to do the same…while offering them support as well.

Curious?

Here’s twelve of Stunt Woman in a Pencil Skirt’s favorite companies to check out…have some to add? Post a comment on this blog!!!

The Fuchsia Factory
http://www.thefuchsiafactory.com

Heavens to Betsy (Nic Nac Bonanza)
1111 Wellington St. West

Homeready Home staging
http://www.homereadyhomestaging.ca

After the Harvest (Eat.Drink.Connect)
http://www.aftertheharvest.blogspot.com

The Magic Fridge
http://www.themagicfridge.com

hush
1-1440 Wellington St. West

MPhotography
http://www.m-photography.ca

The Flour Shoppe – a cupcakery
http://www.theflourshoppe.ca

Ignite Potentials Training
http://www.IgnitePotenials.com

VirtualEyeSee
http://www.virtualeyesee.com

Starfish
http://www.eventsbystarfish.com

Entrepreneurial Moms (Ottawa Chapter)
http://www.entrepreneurialmoms.org

According to Wikipedia, consulting is: “a professional who provides advice in a particular area of expertise.” Whereas coaching is: “a method of directing, instructing, and training.”

I would like to add another big difference between consulting and coaching: unlike consultants, in order to truly help clients evolve, coaches must not have a goal.

Coaches help clients to explore and to grow. If one becomes fixed on a desired outcome, how can they focus on the true task at hand…that is guiding, supporting, and encouraging their client to live the process, and discover something new?

Consultants provide solutions, and often do work for their clients.

Coaches mentor their clients to work on themselves.

As a creativity coach my objectives are to help, to lead, to motivate, to inspire, to support, to listen, to be truthful, and to accompany a client on their journey.

As Carl Rogers said: “The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.”

ONE:

Today was Ottawa’s first major blizzard and traffic was crawling. At first when I saw my OC Transpo bus parked at the stop, I wondered if it was stuck. When I got on the bus, I realized such was not the case. Rather, a passenger was completely drunk. He was falling in and out, of passing-out spells. The bus driver was waiting for OC Transpo emergency services to take the man to a hospital. He was also waiting for another bus to come and pick up the rest of the passengers who were waiting. As people waited on the bus to keep warm, some muttered that the driver ought to just throw the drunk off the bus and keep going. I think the driver did the right thing. He acted responsibly and took charge of the situation.

TWO:

A francophone friend of mine who is new to Canada and who just started learning English, was traveling on the last bus of the night. It was as cold as the Artic in Ottawa with frostbite warnings due to the wind chill. A newcomer, he was not very familiar with the bus route that he was on. So, in French, he asked the driver to let him know when he reached his stop. “No English”, was the drivers reply…even though the last time I checked, street names were not language sensitive. Needless to say, my friend missed his stop. When he arrived twenty minutes passed his destination, he realized he had gone to far. He asked the driver again for help, only to be let off at midnight in -30 degree weather with the wind. My friend walked for almost an hour in the dangerous cold that night.

THREE:

I was on a bus at rush hour in Ottawa’s downtown last week. There was a lot of traffic and a car almost sideswiped our bus. The driver managed to turn quickly enough and avoided a collision. The passengers all got a good jerk, and a startling wake up from the episode. Our driver pulled over at the next stop, stood up, and called out the following: “Is everyone okay? Nobody was hurt?” She acted responsibly, and then took it a step further.

So, who’s bus would you prefer to ride on? If all the drivers were like the one in story number two, environment or not… I think I would seriously consider buying a car!

Change requires breaking patterns. You could take the intense route and demolish everything, as you know it in one blow. People often do this after muffling their true voice for years, and then one day, snap! (Example: I QUIT!)

Another way may be to try to make small changes everyday. These alterations may not lead you closer to your goal, but they will act as practice runs for implementing change. Over time, change may become less scary.

But how?

Start with your daily routine. Switch the route you take to work in the morning and try a new road everyday for a week.

Rearrange the furniture in one of your rooms. Even if you prefer it the old way, ask yourself why?

Change your favorite shampoo and use another brand. If it does not work for you, ask yourself: is it that it doesn’t work, or that it just isn’t what I am used to?

Listen to a different radio station in the morning when you wake up. Get your coffee at a different shop everyday for a week. Find a word in the dictionary that you have never heard and implement it into your vocabulary as many times as you can for a day.

Indeed, you will be challenged. Plus, you will discover just how much you are a creature of habit. The main point of the exercises however is to realize the following: you have got what it takes to make changes. You just need to do it! (And you just proved that you can!)

We all express ourselves differently. Often when something or someone is really unlike what we are used to, we pass judgment.

A new immigrant who is learning English may speak very slowly. Communicating with them requires patience. A person from West Africa may speak with many more tonalities, and appear expressive to Canadian ears. A table of Brazilian people may appear heated and rowdy to conservative diners in Ottawa. The Arabic language may sound hard to an English speaker, due to its distinct sounds.

How we experience the other depends on our own point of reference. We judge everything and everybody from our own experience, of what is normal. The funny thing is that they are probably doing the same.

To a new immigrant, us Canadians perhaps speak to fast and are always rushed. The West African may think that our monotone speech is cold and without expression. The Brazilians at the restaurant may see us as ultra conservative, and reserved…while the Arabic may describe our language as sounding soft and without power.

I have some advice for the next time you come across someone or something that challenges your idea of normal. Rather than focusing on the differences, why not see the experience as an opportunity? You may just broaden your understanding of how diverse our world actually is. As Harold Rothbart said: “before he can create, man must have a deep awareness of the world about him.”

When things go wrong, often, we try to right them by changing the people or the conditions in our environment. We focus on the external rather than the internal.

This never works!

A friend told me the other week that if you pack a jackass into a box in Ottawa, and mail the box to Vancouver, when you open it – there will still be a jackass in the box!

So what to do?

According to the ancient wisdom of Rumi, the Sufi poet, “your task is not to seek for love,
but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Regardless of what happens in the workplace, in your company, in your family life, in your job hunting efforts, in your schooling, or in your relationships…the only control you have is how you choose to react, and to act, in each situation.

If we all did this, imagine how different our world could be?

Being logical usually includes entertaining conventional thoughts. Thinking is a skill that utilizes and combines intelligence, contemplation, and creativity.

Logic is useful in life when we need to make judgments calls such as: “if I run a red light, I increase my chances of getting to my destination more quickly, but I may also get a ticket, or hit another car or pedestrian.

Relying on logic all of the time though, can kill new ideas, such as: “if I pursue my dream, I could have hard time paying my rent, so I better stay in my dead end job.”

Thinking involves risk. Logic involves safety. Obviously, both have their time and place.

Not thinking, equates to a non-creative life. Never let logic kill your great ideas. Rather, use logic to help plan your ideas and make them a reality.

After all, “only through their union can knowledge arise.” (Kant)

Everyday we are confronted with life choices. Many of us may feel clueless however as to what our life mission actually is. With no clearly defined purpose, it becomes difficult to move ahead. This is when procrastination often kicks in. Before we know it, time passes on. Still, we have done nothing to create the life we should be living.

North American’s are seriously privileged. (Or as a good friend said to me last week, “we are fat cats.”) Consequently, many of our problems are minimal when compared to other people’s on the planet.

We have the freedom and time to discover and to define our values and purpose in life. We have choices (albeit sometimes too many), but nonetheless they are practically limitless.

Imagine life in Haiti right now. Survival and faith are its only sticks and stones.

How about in Niger, where the life expectancy is 50?

My stunt sisters, aren’t you happy to not be living in Saudi Arabia or the Vatican City, where women do not have the right to vote?

I can go on and on, but I think my point is pretty clear:

We are fortunate and pretty darn free!

People everywhere in the world have dreams. However many of us “fat cats” occupy the unique position of actually being able to try and make our dreams reality.

Where to begin?

How about identifying what you value most in life?

Once you have this part defined…you will know exactly where to invest meaning. In no time, you will be on the path towards (as Dr Maisel wrote), “turning your meaning potential into a rich and meaningful life.”