A letter to an amazing woman

Dear sister,

    I am writing thisletter to share my thoughts and my feelings with you; you are the only one whocan understand what I think and how I feel. I know you go through a lot ofstruggles and fights every day like me. I want to share with you a greatexperience that I went through one day.

I live a life like yours; working,taking care of my family, giving birth to my lovely children, raising them,feeding them, looking after them, doing my best to make them feel comfortableand happy, taking a lot of responsibilities at work and at home. I am trying mybest to prove to everybody that I am a successful working person, a good wife,a good mother and a good daughter. I have done all that I can to pleaseeverybody. At work, I worked extra hours to get my work done on time. I alwaysfound the energy and the time to take my kids to their workouts, or take themout for some fun, even when I was very exhausted. I had to go see my parentsand tolerate their blame while I needed someone to give me a tap on the back. Igave up opportunities to travel— something that I really love and enjoy—to meetnever-ending project deadlines. I felt unsatisfied, unfulfilled andunhappy. My days and my life were a long list of tasks for everybody elsewith nothing for me, for my happiness, and my self-care. Although I have donemy best to please everybody, they were rarely pleased with whatI did; on the contrary, they criticized me more and more.

One day I realized that I couldn’tgo further. I needed to find a solution. I felt totally unhappy andunsatisfied. I needed to make a huge change but I didn’t know where to start orhow to start. At that time I thought it was a time management issue so I lookedfor books about time management. I came by a book that made me realize afterreading it that my problem was not about time; it was mainly a mindset issue.It’s my way of thinking, my way of living, my way of allowing unimportantthings to consume my time, leaving me unsatisfied and unhappy at the end of theday. I wasn’t putting myself and my happiness as a priority. The book thatI mentioned before made a huge change in my life. I had gotten the book in 2000.The author of the book is one of the most famous personal coaches in the world, andever since I read it, I started searching for and learning about coaching.Now that I became a coach myself I decided to offer my coaching to WOMEN allover the world and especially on the HAPPINESS aspect of life. 

Dear sister, 

    The amazing woman Iwant to address my message to is YOU, every woman all over the world. Yes, youare amazing. No one can tolerate what you are tolerating for your family, yourchildren, your parents, and your friends. The support you are offering everyonepassing your way is fantastic. No one can bring happiness to your family as youcan. No one cares about your children and fights to protect them as you do. Noone is giving up and denying their happiness for the happiness of others as youare.  I admit you are amazing, caring, tender, loving, courageous,sacrificing and strong. I admit you are great, but there is something I want towhisper in your ear “You can’t make others really happy unless you are“.Your happiness doesn’t mean you give up happiness of others. Your self-caredoesn’t mean you give up caring for others. Your self-love doesn’t mean yougive up loving others. Showing self-care and self-love and looking for yourhappiness means you appreciate, value, and respect who you are. Be sure that asmuch as you appreciate yourself, your family will appreciate you and what youdo. As much as you value yourself, your family will value you. As much as yourespect yourself, your family and the entire world will respect you. So just beproud of who you are and show enough self-care and self-love. You will feelhappier, more confident and you will shine. 

“Youeducate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate ageneration.”  ~ Brigham Young ~

Can you imagine that by taking careof your happiness, you are teaching others how to be happy and this is exactlywhat you aim for, don’t you do your best to make others happy? In thisworld, there are millions of stories of amazing women with achievements thatvaried from fighting for their families and their children to make their livesbetter to leading their countries and their people to greatness. In history,you can find plenty of such stories. Don’t you like to be one of these rolemodels? I am offering you a small secret, just learn to make yourselfhappy and you will be a role model for everyone else. You will shine andilluminate others lives, you will energize and inspire others. You will teachmany others how to be happy; something that all the humanity has been lookingfor for centuries.

Starting this week, I invite you todedicate only one hour daily for yourself to do something you like. Don’t say Idon’t have one hour per day, you have 24 hours a day and one hour is not toomuch for your happiness and your wellness. Listen to music, walk in the openair, meet a friend, have your hair cut, read a book, go to the movie, or attenda seminar. Do anything that you like; just relax and enjoy every minute ofthese sixty minutes and write down how you felt after this hour. You can havethe seven hours of the week organized in different ways, half a day once perweek, three and half hours twice a week, two hours and half every second day orone hour daily. Manage them the way that suits you. The important thing is tocommit to it as an important appointment in your week. Plan ahead for it, anddon’t give it up for any reason. You will feel the impact thishour will have on your life.

22 tips to keep yourself motivated (continued)

On my post of last week I shared eleven tips to getand keep you motivated while you are going through life and in this post Ishare the rest.

12-  Ask what’s the worst thatcould happen if you give up your goal?

       Visualize how you will be;how will your life look if you give up your goal, and what are the results ofgiving up your goal. Visualizing the outcomes can keep you motivated to work onyour goal especially if the image you visualized is not the one you desire ofyourself or your life.

13- What’s holding you back? 

       Discovering why you arestuck or unable to take action is the first step to solve the issue? To find asolution you need a clear vision of the problem before being able to handle it.Is it a fear? Is it a lack of self-confidence? Is it a belief? What can you doto deal with it? Sometimes you may need the support of a professional coach todeal with it and get rid of the reason for good.

14- If not now, when? 

      If you don’t start working onyour goal now, when will you?  Most probably you will keep procrastinatingfor good. If you aren’t able to take action on your goal now, this means thatyou are stuck and need to find out the reason. Find out the simplest action youcan take to start, do it, and you will feel the difference. 

15- Fear is normal.

       Do you feel fearful ofdoing something new although you badly want to do it or fearful of taking anyactions toward a goal?  Who of us didn’tfeel fearful when we started doing something new? Every one of us feels fear;the difference is there are people who take action despite their fears andothers who allow fear to hold them back. Always remind yourself that fear isnormal and that every one of us experiences it at one point or another in ourlives. Your support group or a professional coach can help you to deal withyour fears.

16- Put structures in place to remindyourself.

      We tend to forget the change wewant to make or the goal we want to achieve. Putting structures in place to remind us of our goal can be so helpful.A structure can be an affirmation written on a piece of paper and kept indifferent places in your home and office. Inspiring pictures, reminders on yourcell phone or any other ideas can be used. What is essential is to find the ones that work best for you.

17- Keep quiet. 

       Learn when to talk aboutyour goals and with whom. Some people can be a great source of support and motivationwhile others may resent your improvement, so it’s better to keep quiet. Keepyour goals and your success to yourself in presence of the latter.

18- Failure is normal. 

      Fear of failure is one of themost common reasons people are stuck and unable to move forward. However, failureis essential for our learning. To reach any destination there are several options,and to know which one is the right path we may have to go through several untilwe reach the right one. All of us have failed at a certain point in our lives,and our reaction toward this failure determined where we are now. Justaccepting failure as a part of the journey can make a great difference in yourlife.

19- What inspires you?

       Keep inspiring resourcesnearby. Find what works for you, movies, songs, books, affirmations, quotationsor anything that inspires you, and refer back to them when you need amotivation boost. You may set a daily time for reflecting on one of theseresources to bring you motivation, or do it when needed.

20- Create strategy and reusewhat worked for you. 

      Knowing what you want to do isthe first step, and knowing how you will reach it is the second one. To getsomewhere you need to know very clearly what your destination is and how youwill get there. Make your plan. What obstacles might you face? How will youovercome these obstacles? Who can help you or support you along your way? Whatresources do you have? What strategies worked for you before that you can reuse?A clear vision of how you will reach your goal is crucial to your successin reaching your goal.

21- Timeline.

       Be very specific when youexpect to achieve your goal and every sub-goal.  A plan with veryspecific dates brings more clarity and momentum, it helps keep you accountableand avoid procrastinating. Specific start dates and end dates are veryimportant.

22- Enjoy the journey and celebrate.

      Focusing on the end result andbeing attached to it can be frustrating because achieving a goal may take along time.  Forgetting a while about theend result and focusing on the actions you are taking, the momentum created andthe sense of achievement you feel with every step you take can be soempowering. Enjoy the journey, the learning, the achievement and celebrate yoursuccesses.

Bonus Tip: Acknowledgement. Acknowledge yourself foryour achievements. Acknowledge others for their achievements. Sometimesacknowledgement is all we need to keep going. It brings you and yoursurroundings great energy, motivation and love.

Hope you find these tips helpful and I welcome yourthoughts, your questions and your comments.