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2011 Word of the Year

by EvieBurke, posted in engaged, Word of the Year

In my last post I wrote about my 2010 word of the year.  In this post I’m going to share how and why I picked my 2011 word.

I started my 2011 word of the year search by looking at a list of possibilities and picking out the ones that grabbed my attention.  Those words were: growth, presence, attention, focus, present and engaged.  After thinking about the list for a bit I narrowed it down to three: presence, present and engaged.

I thought about how the words are similar for me.  They all demand that I am fully involved in whatever activity I’m doing.  This is something really want to work on this year.  After my first month working from home I realized how much time I spend jumping from one task to another without really focusing.  I also tend to multi-task, which doesn’t always work out for me, neither item gets what it really needs: my full attention.

The word I selected is “engaged”.  It speaks to me the most.

This word will challenge me a bit this year.  You see, I have a tendency to withdraw into myself when I’m in a new or uncomfortable setting.  I like to get a lay of the land before I participate and that can take a while.  This word challenges me to be involved in any setting I’m in.

This also means I need to stop multi-tasking and jumping from one task to another.  It challenges me to focus on whatever I’m currently doing.

Being “engaged” also means letting go of or saying no to activities I don’t find myself fully engaged in.  This allows me to say no, or not now, to at least one thing I’m currently involved in.  It also gives me a new lens to look at other possible activities through.  If I don’t think it’s something I will be fully engaged in, then I won’t participate.  This doesn’t mean that I get to say no to all activities outside my comfort zone!  Instead, I’ll look for activities that I am excited about (regardless of my comfort zone).

I like setting myself up for success whenever possible, so I came up with some strategies.  They are:

  • Set an intention for each meeting/event/outing I attend
  • Only attend meetings/events/outings that I have a high potential to feel fully engaged in.
  • Set an intention for each day
  • Meditate daily
  • Set goals for each week
  • Set goals at the beginning of each day (or the end of the previous one)

I’m excited to see how “engaged” will focus and challenge me this year.

Have you selected a word of the year?  If so, let me know about it in the comments!

Intention

by EvieBurke, posted in Word of the Year

This post is a little different than my others.  Last year I picked a word for the year instead of New Year resolutions.  This is how my 2010 word wound itself through my year.

Last year when I started to think about what my word for 2010 would be, the word “intention” kept popping up.  Initially, I thought this meant I needed to set an intention to find my word.  The more I thought about my word, the more I heard “intention”, but that just couldn’t be my word, it was too big.

So, I looked up “intention” to find a word that was similar, but felt smaller. Nothing I found felt right.  I kept coming back to “intention” and in January realized that “intention” was my word for 2010.  I heard somewhere that if you’re not growing, you’re dying.  I think there’s a lot of truth to that and I wanted to keep growing.

It was a year of big changes for me.  Over the course of the year I tackled many fears and learned to trust my intuition.

I hired a life coach to help me find a new career.  Anyone from the outside looking in would have said I had a good career and great job.  They would have been right too, I did have a great job, and I really enjoyed it, but it wasn’t right for me anymore.  So, I set an intention to find something that was right for me.

I made the biggest change while working with my coach: I decided to become a life coach.

This decision was an extremely scary step for me.  Who was I to think that I could successfully be a life coach?  After all, I’m a left brained analytical person! My inner critic was especially loud one day while I was driving.  It told me that if I took this step I was going to be a huge failure.  Identifying that voice as a fear, and NOT reality, helped me handle the situation. I do have the skills to be a life coach; I just wasn’t using most of those skills at my job.

From the outside, the biggest change was leaving my job at the beginning of December to focus on my life coach training and to start my own business. This was going to happen in February, after my training completed, but my intuition told me that it needed to happen sooner (and that voice wouldn’t go away no matter how many times I asked it to).  So, I trusted my intuition and made it happen three months earlier.

Intention was a really powerful word for me this year.  Without being conscious of it I evaluated where I was to where I wanted to be and, most importantly, took steps to get there.

I continue to set intentions and take steps to make my life what I want it to be.  It might not be perfect, but I’m enjoying the process.

The First Week

by EvieBurke, posted in Uncategorized

Last week was my first week of self employment.  I had a long list of things that I wanted to get done and an entire week free to do them.  Well, except for those couple of meetings that I wanted to go to.  Oh, and those tele-classes I signed up for and the calls and meetings that I do for my iPEC (Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching) classes. Do you see where this is going?

I had all these good intentions and thought I had sooo much time to get all these things done and I didn’t schedule any time for down time.  Do you know what happens when I don’t schedule time for me?  I take it in 15 minutes here and a half hour there of unstructured, unsatisfied time.

So, how did I feel when it was Friday morning and realized that I didn’t accomplish absolutely everything that I wanted to during the week?  Well, I was a little disappointed with myself and decided I could do it on Saturday morning!  Great idea right?!  Well, it might have been if I had set my alarm clock to get up, but I didn’t.  So, Saturday morning I decided that it was Okay that I didn’t get everything done that I thought I could and realized I probably needed to be a bit more reasonable with my schedule.

In the past when a situation like this occurred I would be upset and beat myself up about it.  This time I sat down, looked at my schedule for this week and tried to more reasonable about what I can accomplish.  I left plenty of time to get each task done and plan to reward myself with shopping trip for new shoes.

Next time you’re beating yourself up for something, take that energy to look at why you didn’t accomplish what you wanted to and how you can adjust for next time.

Arriving

by EvieBurke, posted in Arriving, Thank You

Have you ever said to yourself, I’ll do that when this other thing happens?  I found myself doing that today.  I was thinking about the progress I’ve made since I was at a retreat 11 months ago and that I should share this with the retreat leader and thank her for her part, but I’ll do it after I’ve reached my goal of becoming a certified coach.

I know why I did that.  I want to know I’ve arrived somewhere and I can only do that by having something completed, or a big goal met.  That goal is about five months away.  Why should I wait five more months to thank this person?  Why is the progress I’ve already made not enough?

The person we’re hardest on sometimes is ourselves.  In my case, I want to make sure that I’ve really accomplished something, when I’ve really already accomplished a lot.  As for arriving, one of the definitions from Merriam-Webster is “to make an appearance”.  So, everyday I spend working toward my goal and not going into autopilot (which is so easy to do) is a day that I’ve arrived in my life.

I’m going to go write a thank you email now!

You Are Powerful and Strong

by EvieBurke, posted in inspiration, Miracles

You are powerful and strong. Yes, you are. I hear you denying it, telling me I’m wrong, that I don’t know you and can’t really say that with certainty.  But you’re wrong.  I don’t have to know you to know that you are both powerful and strong, I can feel it.

You’re reading this because you’re searching for answers, you’re searching for something more. You don’t know exactly what it is you’re searching for, but you know it’s out there. You are powerful and strong because you are seeking your answers. You’re taking a first step into change and that makes you powerful and strong.

Keep looking for your answers and don’t forget to look into yourself for those answers.  Take time to recharge your batteries and breath.  Sometimes answers come when you give yourself space to have them.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help and accept help when you need it.  Realize that the answers you want might not come in the way you expect, keep your eyes, heart and mind open.

I have faith that you will find what you are looking for.