This month we are diving into self care. And as the title suggests, it is SO much more than massages and bubble baths, although those are nice too and will play a part. My business coach, Elizabeth Tollis has developed a self care paradigm, and I give her credit for much of this month’s content. I also feel that in order to be a good, solid coach, you have to truly believe in the value of coaching, so of course — I have my own coach:)

I don’t know about you all, but I know I feel a certain energy in the Spring. The world around us is literally sprouting anew! I want to be outside more (luckily I am not an allergy sufferer), I want to move more, I want to do all the things. While December/January planning for the new year is important, I feel like this time of year, when we are all emerging from our cozy winter cocoons, is an even better time to create new habits that align with our vision and goals.

I have decided to not add anything new to this month’s content, and instead pull it all together in a cohesive several steps. I feel like I have thrown a lot at all of you over the past few months — I have been excitedly researching and wanted to share what I’m learning! So I wanted to pause and make sure we are all caught up in what I intend for you all.

This week we are focusing on putting it all together to live a coherent life. What does that mean. When you can take your life view and your work view and put it together to live a life on purpose. According to Burnett and Evans in Designing Your Life , there a lot of powerful voices in the world telling us how we should live and what we should be doing. We also have competing, but equally as powerful voices in our own heads telling us what to do and who to be. The voices fro

I hope you took the time to write out your Life View last week. If not, go ahead and do that (I’ll wait). This week we will focus on your Work View. This is NOT a job description. Your assignment is NOT to write out what you want to do in your work. We aren’t focusing on daily tasks and activities.

Last week I asked you to revisit the values activity. That was a precursor to our work this week on building your Life View. Knowing what you value in life will help guide you in making setting goals and making choices that are aligned with those values. According to Burnett and Evans in Designing Your Life,  your Life View is your ideas about the world and how it works. What is your place in the world and how do you want to contribute? What makes life worthwhile?

This month we are essentially doing another book study, loosely based on a book by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans called Designing Your Life . I have based a lot of my coaching strategies on this book, and have read it a few times. The authors are professors of engineering at Stanford, who teach students how to design their lives using engineering principals — curiosity, problem-solving, prototyping (trying stuff).

In our habit forming sequence of

The next step in the four-step process of habit formation is Craving. James Clear in Atomic Habits continues by saying that habits are fed by a dopamine-driven feedback loop. Highly addictive behaviors, like drugs, social media, smoking, junk food, etc. are associated with high levels of dopamine. Oddly enough, researchers have shown that you not only get a dopamine hit when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate (crave) it. This anticipation, or craving, of pl

As we progress through our work this month on creating habits, systems and routines, make sure you have done the vision work (if you need to do this, visit resources and choose Wish List Vision Exercise ). You want to make sure that the habits you are creating for yourself align with WHO you want to become. Remember when I talked last week about the 3 layers of habits - outcomes, processes, and identity? Well, that wish list vision exercise is the start to figuring it all out

I love discussing behavior change and habits, and James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits  gives us the best framework I’ve found to discuss it in an easily digestible way. I want to start with discussing his overarching idea that there are 3 layers of habits (with the last one being at the center; at the core - so picture it like peeling back and onion):

Optimism. What comes to mind for you when I say that word? Is it picturing someone who is always happy, always cheerful, ready to shower you with their constant positivity? No one can really, truly feel that way all the time, right? It doesn’t seem real. My plan for this month is to shatter that image and teach you about true optimism. And maybe even challenge you to think more optimistically yourself.

The ABC Method (created by Martin Seligman) will help you take a look at the thought patterns that may be causing you to think more pessimistically. These steps will help you to frame your thoughts to promote a more optimistic outlook. Just a reminder – I’m not promoting a head-in-the-sand approach to life where you pretend that everything is fine when it’s not. I advocate both/and thinking. Thinking that allows you to feel the “bad stuff” that we often can’t avoid, while at

I’m not a proponent of New Year’s Resolutions. You know the ones where you set a random self-improvement goal and completely forget about it three weeks into the new year.