Personal Growth & Transformation

Don’t Take Vacation From Your Good Habits

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Consider these scenarios and the similarities in them: You keep eating healthy food during the week but when the weekend comes, you diet mainly consists of junk food; You wake up early during the weekdays, but on weekends you tend to wake up late, thus losing your productivity; You have implemented a healthy habit of drinking water while you work, but you “forget” this habit when it’s the weekend.

If this is you, then welcome to the club! I have experienced these same things myself. In fact, I felt I wasn’t honest to myself. I was living with the productive and healthy habits only 80% at a time. I knew I had to change. Otherwise the remainder 20% of the time would ruin my good habits and the benefits I got from them.

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8 Teachers for Navigating Change

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navigating change

As a recovering type A personality, I wish control worked. And it does, sometimes. But there’s always at least one area of life that cannot be tamed. You’re happily married but have health issues. Or you’re financially stable but struggling with fertility. You have fulfilling work but no life partner. Nothing ever goes our way entirely, and that can become a great doorway for transformation.

The heart of transformation involves facing change. Here, change makes us feel vulnerable because it means engaging new unknowns. We’ve been taught to rely on control to deal with uncertainty. The challenge is that control boxes us into viewing reality as good versus bad. So if a change arrives that fits into our perception about what life should look like, we’re happy. But what happens if a change arrives that doesn’t fit into our box? Either we can’t recognize it or we push it away (hello, denial). And what if life throws us a curveball? Then the box crumbles and we’re left feeling overwhelmed.

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Getting Comfortable With the Uncomfortable: My Journey to Being Who I Always Wanted to Be

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my journey

I’m not old by any means but one thing I have learned from my 31 years and 8 months in this world is that each of us is unique. There is not one single person out there that looks like me, thinks like me, has the same circumstances as me, or the same thought process as me. So it doesn’t really make much sense to follow the same life course as anyone else.

Much like there is no one size fits all approach to fitness and nutrition, there is no one size fits all approach to how you should live your life. This is the story of my journey to being who I always wanted to be. It includes why I quit my job, sold my car and gave away $45,000. I hope you enjoy.

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5 Tips For Being Productive When Working From Home

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Here’s the thing. The grass is always greener on the other side. It looks easier than your grass, it seems so much softer than your grass and if only you could have ‘that’ grass, how much nicer your life would be. You could probably come up with at least a dozen things that you would do with that grass. Then it happens. You finally have your chance to take ownership of that fantastically greener, softer version of your own grass and what do you know? You’re sitting on the couch in your pajamas watching the 5thepisode of that insatiable reality show that you have a love/hate relationship with.

It happened to me. I worked for 15 years in Corporate America before I had the opportunity to work from home. Like many people working in Corporate America, I’ve always thought that living the life of an entrepreneur would be a piece of cake compared to working for a billion dollar corporation where conformity was the norm and creative freedom was a hobby. In 2010, the opportunity of a lifetime unfolded right before my eyes and for the first time, I was given a chance to step over to the other side of the grass.

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5 Ways Working Abroad Helped Me Grow

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working abroad

Can you pinpoint the pivotal time in your life when you became an adult? For me, it was when I finally left my home to go traveling.

I took a working holiday in New Zealand for six months and while I was there I met my English boyfriend and lived in England with him for 14 months. During these 20 months of travel I grew more than I ever could have if I had stayed in Canada.

When I left Canada at the age of 22 I was confused and conflicted. I wondered what my future would bring and I had only a slight inkling that there was so much more to see and do in the great big world out there. When I returned to Canada at age 24 after having worked and lived abroad in New Zealand and England for two years I was a strong and confident adult with a plan for my future. Here are five of the ways that working abroad helped me to grow up:

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5 Lessons Learned from a Toddler

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If I could summarize my world for you in one sentence, it would be: chasing my toddler. I know the back of my daughter’s scruffy blonde head anywhere: dashing across the living room, making a break for the next grocery aisle, or attempting to go up the slide (much more fun than going down). My old day job required me to attend meetings and sit in front of a computer most of the day. Now, I’m lucky if I get 10 minutes to sit down for a breather before my girl has me running to catch up with her.

I’ve never raised a child before, and given my personality, I decided to read about it. All the toddler self-help books talk about what you need to teach them: how to play with others, learn language, go potty. These books contain great advice for child rearing, but none discuss the things parents learn from toddlers. I have learned at least as much from my daughter as she has learned from me. So here are some tips for living from someone who just started her life journey:

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How to Use Lucid Dreaming As a Catalyst For Personal Change

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lucid dream

In today’s society, everyone is trying to either make more money, lose a few pounds around the waist, or simply just get ahead of the pack. It seems we’re always striving for some sort of new goal. But in many cases, what is lacking is one vital element…the inner confidence to do it.

In the real world, we face numerous obstacles that can set us back from reaching our goals, our dreams, and our most cherished desires in life. There is never a shortage of mental or physical hurdles that tend to stand in our way.

But what if you could change your level of confidence from the inside out, through your dreams?

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Release and Move Forward

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release and move forward

Things happen that continually shape our way of thinking and perception of our world. Whatever it may be has a direct impact on our opinions and the way we decide to carry ourselves through.

I remember the day I lost my best friend – he passed away after a week in the intensive unit at the hospital from a car crash. That day shaped the next 11 years of my life. His death seemed unfair – he was bright, good and had so much going for him. The good kid, the sweet one. I went to the hospital every single day for that week, wishing he’d pull through. That never happened.

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Let’s Talk About Change

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talk about change

Have you ever been excited about making a change in your life … only to feel completely deflated by someone’s reaction?

Or have you ever faced a difficult change … and had it made worse by someone else’s reaction?

The people around us – friends, family, colleagues – aren’t always as supportive as we might wish, especially in times of change. They might offer lots of advice – you know they mean well, but it drives you crazy. They might be very negative about the change, telling you it’ll never work out – and that’s often the last thing you need.

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Your Passion Is Closer Than You Think

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passion

Once you’ve discovered your passion (so we are told) your life will become drenched in meaning and purpose. When you know what your life is about, you can face each morning with energy and vigour. You’ll no longer procrastinate. All your bad habits will fall away. Not even rainy days or Mondays will get you down.

So we are told.

For a long time, I believed my passion would strike me in a moment of inspiration, like a bolt of lightening. My passion would descend from the heavens in a blaze of glory, and I would suddenly know the purpose of my life. A booming Hollywood trailer voiceover would tell me exactly what I should be doing and when. From that moment, my life would have meaning and my problems would disappear.

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