Imagine Your Reality

Welcome to the New Year. I recently did a teleclass on goal setting for 2009 and when I noticed how much everyone else seemed to be benefiting from it, I thought I’d also apply the exercises to myself. As a coach, it sometimes is easy to get so caught up in helping other people out, that you forget to help yourself out, and yet if I don’t help myself, I can’t be as present or helpful to other people who come to me for help. Below, in one of my other experiments with raising my business I present to you my vision board for 2009.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGHussJcJwU]

My latest Article on How to Automate Your business to live your life can be found on Biznik.

I wish all of you a happy new year. On Thursday January 8th, I’ll be doing an interview with Angela Wilkinson, the intimacy coach.

Image Vs Authenticity

As an author and a life coach one challenge I’ve consistently dealt with for myself and also encountered with my clients is the conflict that can occur between the image you present and the authenticity you have. An image is the face you present to the world around you, the branding you use for your company, and also sometimes how you present yourself to others. The authentic you, however, is someone who could be somewhat different from the image you present. And when people who have only encountered the image see who you really are, things can get ugly really quick. Just look at the lives of actors and politicians to see examples of what happens when a carefully cultivated image is revealed to be false compared to the reality of the person underneath.

However the authentic you and the image of you doesn’t have to be at odds. In fact, they can be one and the same. By choosing to be authentic, you can show people who you are and still cultivate an image for your company. That image is based on your authenticity…your ability to be true about who you are, as well as showing that to others. It isn’t always easy. I can definitely say that sometimes I’ve stumbled in trying to be authentic. And yet where we stumble is where we learn. Authenticity really occurs when we can admit we have stumbled and then can choose to accept the consequences and learn from them. People who try to cultivate an image of being perfect won’t be in touch with being authentic because they won’t know how to handle those moments when they made mistakes and the image was revealed to be an illusion.

The image of authenticity is the choice to be true to yourself and let that shine so others can see it. Image and authenticity aren’t incompatible with each other. Sometimes they go hand in hand and can help us be true with each other and ourselves.

How to publish, market and promote your book

Want to learn how to get a book published, market and promoted? This is the class. You’ll hear how Taylor Ellwood, the Creativity and Wealth Coach and a published author, got started in the publishing industry, made mistakes, learned from them, and how you can take that experience and apply it to your own writing and the marketing and promoting of it.

TELECLASS How to publish, market and promote your book

INSTRUCTOR: Taylor Ellwood, The Creativity and Wealth coach

DATE & TIME: Tuesday, July 15, 2008, from 5 – 6 P.M..

PLACE: from the comfort and convenience of your own phone

TUITION: Free!

REGISTRATION: Sign up at http://www.imagineyourreality.com/schedule.html

So WHO is this teleclass for? Anyone who is writing a nook or is a published author who wants more insight about the publishing industry.

WHY would anyone attend this class? Because this is a chance to hear
exactly how the publishing industry works and what you need to know in order to effectively promote and market your books.

WHAT will you learn if you show up?

* Insider knowledge about how the publishing industry works
* The importance of word to mouth marketing and promotion.
* The reason most authors struggle with making their book a success-and how
to avoid it completely!
* And more!

Is this class a good use of your precious time? You’ve got Taylor’s
famous “Three Cups of Coffee Guarantee”: If you don’t feel that this
is the most profitable hour you’ve spent on publishing, marketing, and promoting your book so far this year, he will gladly buy you (and two friends) a cup of
coffee.

Register at Imagine your Reality

NewsLetter April 14, 2008

Table of Contents

How to Plant Change in your Life

Subscribe to this Blog by Email!

Learning to Market: My Adventures as a New Life Coach

Book Review: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill!

FREE Teleclass – April 30th 7pm to 9pm Making your Financial Attitude Work for You

How To Plant Change in Your Life

On Saturday, at 9 AM I started planting bushes and tree saplings in Camas county. I had to clear aside some brush and long grass so that there would be sunlight for the saplings. I had to carefully dig the earth out. Once I had dug to a sufficient depth, I had to put a small mound of the Earth back in the hole, and then place the plant roots on the mound, spreading them out so that the plant would be able to grow the roots into the earth and not get tangled in its other roots. I then put my hands in the other dirt I had shoveled up and started packing it in around the plant. I had to make sure the Earth was evenly placed, in order to make sure the plant wasn’t washed away whenever it rained there next.

On Sunday, at home, I also did some gardening. We bought topsoil and manure. I placed two handfuls of topsoil and one handful of manure into a pot and then repeated until the pot was nearly filled. I then needed to create several holes where I placed seeds. I placed more soil on top of the seeds and then put the pots out on the roof, where we keep our garden. The plants will get lots of sun and water.

Both experiences can be used as a metaphor to examine the changes that we want to make in our lives. First we recognize that a change needs to occur. We clear out the underbrush of behaviors that could obscure or stop the change from occurring. We dig into ourselves until we reach the depth where the change needs to occur. We prepare ourselves for the change and then we plant it, making sure that we imprint on ourselves the necessity of the change. Then we pack in additional behaviors that can help us incorporate the change into our lives, and also make sure the change isn’t washed out by the occasional storm that hits a person’s life. Finally we support the change by giving it the sufficient stimulus and nutrients needed for it to grow and consequently allow us to manifest that change and bring us the health and wealth we deserve. Purposeful changes time and effort to implement. The payoff, seeing that change bloom and manifest results into our lives can only occur if we put the necessary effort into recognizing the need for the change as well as how to effectively incorporate it into our lives.

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Subscribe to this Blog by Email!

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Learning to Market: My Adventures as a New Life Coach

Now that I’m a certified life coach, my next challenge has become how do I market myself to potential clients. The last couple weeks have been good for me, in terms of laying down some of the groundwork for doing that, but this last weekend I got to thinking about how I am marketing myself and what’s really important to me. And of course how am I going to really market that? I can’t have too broad of a focus…and right now it’s fair to say my website does display a fairly broad approach.

At the same time, I do have varied interests and I think it’s important to play to my strengths. I’ve been thinking about those strengths and I’ve boiled them down to three areas: Creativity, Wealth, and Health. And I can tie all three of those areas together, because not only do I believe in living life creatively, I also think its essential to manifesting health and wealth in a person’s life. Be on the lookout for some changes to my website in the near future, as I plan to do some revamping to reflect a closer focus on how I can help people creatively change their lives to bring in the wealth they deserve and the health to enjoy that wealth!

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Book Review: Think and Grow Rich! by Napoleon Hill

This is a classic book written originally in the late twenties. It’s an excellent book to read if you want to learn some essential skills for growing a business or just learning how much your internal attitude effects the wealth you attract to your life. This book is probably one of my favorites on financial and wealth advice, because the author clearly demonstrate how so much of that potential for wealth depends on the person and how the person approaches not just wealth, but life in general. The author also explains the thirteen principles essential to success as well as how to implement them in your life. A must read for any entrepeneur!

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FREE Teleclass – April 30th 7pm to 9pm Making your Financial Attitude Work for You

Financial management is treated by many as an intimidating task to be dealt with as little as possible. However it doesn’t have to be that way. In this workshop, we explore some common attitudes people have about money and financial attitudes and then I show you techniques and strategies you can use to organize your finances and actually have fun learning about how to make your money work for you, instead of working for it. We’ll explore the role of individual choice and show that individual choice plays a larger role in how you handle finances than the broad economic trends. To Register click here or call Taylor at 503-869-0163

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Taylor Ellwood

The Creative Health and Wealth Life Coach

Schedule a FREE half-hour Consultation that could change your life!
http://www.imagineyourreality.com/schedule.html

In a conversation yesterday, a friend asked me if I knew the difference between honesty and authenticity. I had to mull it over for a while, but all my experiences with life coaching provided me an answer.

Honesty is really about being true to yourself and with yourself and from there extending that to other people. Honesty involves being responsible for how you feel, what you want, and how you act, but also the consequences of all of those. Honesty is learning to face who you are and accept that person and then grow.

Authenticity is how you present that honesty to the world. Being authentic does mean being in touch with yourself, but it also means living that truth in your thoughts, actions and words, hopefully in a way that honors both yourself and others. When you authentic you are re-presenting the honesty you have with yourself to others.

The difference is fine. A person can be honest, but not authentic. For example you know you hate your job, but instead of looking at all the options you stay at that job anyway. That’s honest, but inauthentic, because you are denying that honesty…and ignoring it’s effects on you and others around you.

 Taylor Ellwood

www.Imagineyourreality.com

I just finished my fifth weekend of life coach training. One more weekend to go, which will happen in March. This weekend was intense. It was actually the final weekend for most of my cohort, who graduated. I’ll graduate next month, because I started the program a month later. This happens occasionally and I had a really good reason for not being there. The graduation ceremony was moving in its own way. I was asked what I had had gotten from life coaching, what I had given up as a result of life coaching, and what I planned to offer to life coaching.

What I’ve gotten: A lot more honesty and openness with myself and other people. I feel like I know a lot more of what I want for my life because of life coaching.

What I’ve given up: The dishonesty with myself and others.

What I plan to offer: Continued participation in my community and continuing to build my community.

I learned a process this weekend, where the client tells a story about a particualr pattern, as well as the thoughts that motivate the actiosn in the story…and then the client figures out how to break the pattern. I thought this was really an insightful process. I had it used with a pattern in my life, which has bothered me for a while and when the process was finished I felt like I had definite steps and a plan of action to use that could help me create a new and healthier pattern.

We also wrote testimonials for each other. Both writing those testimonials and receiving them was very affirming. I learned a lot from the people I worked with and evidently they learned a lot from me as well. I’ll be getting some of those testimonials posted on my website: http://www.imagineyourreality.com

At the after graduation dinner party, Feroshia asked all of us what we were before we became a life. Before I was a life coach I was a lot less honest with myself.

I’ve got one more weekend, in March, and then I’m a certified Life coach, but my learning won’t be finished. The relationships may change, the situation may be different, but I will continue growing and networking. But this weekend made me feel hopeful for my future as a person and that’s a good step to make.

If life coaching is about helping a person recognize that s/he has resources available to hir that weren’t recognized before, I also think that sometimes it’s about recognizing what you are really attached to, resources as it were that others have shown you that aren’t always as useful because they represent the “shoulds”…what other people feel you should be as opposed to who you really want to show up as.

What I’m getting at is that a life coaching relationship involves not just helping a client realize what s/he wants, but also helping a client recognize what s/he does not want in hir life. I use help, because it’s not for the life coach to tell the client what doesn’t work…The client has to figure out what resources aren’t useful, or what patterns of behavior hinder the realization of a success. The coach asks questions, helps the client realize well-formed outcomes and effects that changes will have on the client and other people, but the client, in the end, has to choose to act. The coach can help the client realize steps, even set up an acocuntability structure, but the client has to make the ultimate choice and follow through on what s/he wants to do, but also recognize what s/he does not need to accomplish those goals.

When I show a client a process, and we do the steps in the process, what is really happening is that the client is using the process to identify both the useful and not useful resources and then making a choice about what to do with those resources. Once the client knows what resources to use, then the client can make effective changes.

It’s an important distinction to remember. I’m not ust helping the client access resources, but also providing the client an opportunity to choose the resources that will help hir manifest hir imagination into reality.

One of the books I’ve been reading made an interesting point when it suggested that when a person is truely aligned with the values of his/her life this allows him/her to take the path of least resistance and avoid unnecessary suffering.

I find this to be a remarkably simple, but true principle. The more a person deviates from his/her calling, the more miserable s/he becomes. I’ve been that person and I’ve seen it in many people.

One benefit of life coaching, for me, is that it’s had me asking tough questions to myself that has helped me start recognizing who I want show up as and in the specific contexts I want to show up in. I’ve had to ask myself what my values really are and whether I’ve really lived true to those values or wandered on a path with more resistance than I wanted.

 When you live your life aligned to your values you will decrease the amount of suffering you encounter. the reason is simple. You have mindfully chosen to recognize what is important to you and how to go about manifesting it. You are choosing to be true to yourself. when you do that the challenges decrease. they don’t go away, but they do decrease. In fact, you only encoutner as much suffering as you need to encounter. Sound odd? Perhaps, but consider a situation in your life where you’ve encountered difficulties. Once you learned how to get around those difficulties, the suffering stopped. You learned what you needed to learn to deal with the situation.

Now imagine living your life according to YOUR values, where you listened to your innermost self and pursued those goals and dreams in your imagination that are essential to you. I’m willing to bet that you’d encounter the path of least resistance, a path where you lived a life of luminosity, where you were at ease with how you handled situations, even if the situations weren’t easy in and of themselves.

What will it take you to live a life aligned to your values? And what will be thei mpact of living that life?

Good questions to ask…but also if I could live a life where I was on the path of least resistance, how would that feel to you?

This weekend, I began life coaching training. It was one of the most dynamic weekends of my life. I’m still processing it, but I thought I would write this post as a way of beginning to put words to some of my experiences.

Friday: I started training with the Baraka Institute: Http://www.barakainstitute.com

We met two trainers. Both were very nice people and very engaged. I also met my fellow cohorts. All of them were nice people and seemed really committed to manifesting this change into their lives. I must admit I want into the training with slight reservations. I had paid the initial fee back in August, and it had been two months since then. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but within those first four hours, any uncertainty I had melted away very quickly. I quickly began to see the benefits of going through this training and within a short time was already beginning to think not only about life coaching, but about how I communicated and related to people in general. I learned constructive communication skills and I have to admit I began to reevaluate my own skills in those four hours. I knew I wanted to be more constructive than I was. I also liked the idea that coaching is about helping people manifest awareness and change within their lives.  I walked home that night, my head filled with ideas and my heart content with a recognition that what I could do with life coaching was much more fulfilling than what I had been doing with my life. I also came away with an assignment of sorts, which I’ll be posting up here in a day or two, after I’ve thought it over further.

Saturday: I woke up early in the morning and after doing morning meditations, walked over to the center (which just happens to be near where I live). After doing a wake up exercise or two, we began learning about the systems approach to life coaching. The systems approach recognizes that everything is interrelated, part of a system. Each goal a person wants to manifest necessarily impacts the system that person lives in and engages with.

Another thing I learned was the value of asking permission before sharing feedback that could be considered harsh, or negative.  I have to admit that I can be very blunt and direct and while that can be useful, it can also have impacts that aren’t as good. By asking permission, I allow the person who would receive the feedback to determine if s/he is ready for it. I let the choice reside in that person’s hands, empowering that person, whether or not s/he chooses to accept that feedback. This particular principle has given me a lot of food for thought, in considering how I communicate with people in general and I believe it will help me be more conscientious in how I bring subjects up.

We also learned some NLP techniques. While I was already familiar with some of the concepts and even the practice, I must admit actually having it demonstrated really gave me a much more practical understanding of how those techniques work. I’m looking forward to trying them out in the near future, both in my daily life, and in my interactions with potential clients.

Sunday: Today was the last day of the first weekend and I have to admit I was a little glad it was. While I definitely enjoyed learning about life coaching, my head was stuffed full to the brim. It really helped that today involved much less theory and a lot more practice. We learned more about systems theory, and different stages of life coaching and then…we tried life coaching each other!!!

I got a session which helped me put into some perspective some communication issues that I have with my wife. My life coach did a bit of role playing and helped me try to recognize my wife’s perspectives when it came to communicating with her. And I also did a life coaching session. I have to admit, I felt really good about the session. I was comfortable using the techniques and it felt good to engage in a dialog that could help the other person realize the goal that the person wanted to manifest.

When I left today, I felt good about this change in my life…and now I still feel great. I really feel it fits my authentic spirit and offers to me an opportunity to grow both as an individual and a professional.

So that was my first weekend at life coach training. There will be more posts to come though, I’m sure.

Over the last three years, I have engaged in a radical approach to change my life. I woke up three years ago and realized my life was a train wreck. I did not know myself, did not know what I wanted, and I was in a career I hated, because it made me feel powerless. And I also had a big problem with communication and boundaries. In fact, I was unable to recognize the impact that my actions had on myself or on other people.

Even three years later, with a much better sense of awareness about myself and the impact my intent can have on myself and other people, I still find myself sometimes making mistakes. Just the other day I crossed the boundaries of two people I love very much. I didn’t mean to. The intention was positive, but the impact was not so positive.

The reason it happened was because the communication wasn’t clear. I hadn’t taken the time to check with either person about certain statements I had made. Instead I had made assumptions. I had not taken the time to balance my intent with a recognition of impact.  Fortunately the situation was worked out, but it also highlights how even with best of intentions we can still hurt the people we love, as well as ourselves.

Intention with impact can be a very powerful, but unbalancing force. While it sets a direction for us, it can also block out awareness of other factors that need to be considered. We learn awareness of impact in several ways:

• By stopping and taking a few moments to think about why we are making the choices, actions, etc that we are making. Ask yourself, if this is really what you want and what the consequences are for getting what you want.
• Sometimes stopping isn’t enough. Talk with the people in your life. Ask them, “If such and such a situation happened how would you feel?” By taking the time to check with other people before following through on an action you can weigh the consequences carefully. This doesn’t mean you can’t pursue an action if people don’t agree, but you’ll also know what the potential consequences are, and how those consequences manifest in your life.
• Finally recognize that consequences always happen. There is no such as an action without a consequence. Even if the consequence is positive, its still important to evaluate whether you really want that impact in your life.

Communication is part of how you recognize impact. Another part is boundaries, both the boundaries of others and the boundaries of yourself.

Three years ago I had very few boundaries and I had trouble recognizing the boundaries that other people had. I simply wasn’t aware of them on a conscious level. And you might how that could be, but it’s rather simple, really. If you are never provided structure or taught what boundaries are, you can’t recognize them because they aren’t a part of your life. I only recognized them three years ago, after it was made very clear to me that I had crossed some boundaries that I shouldn’t have crossed. Once I was fully aware of the impact of my choices, I realized I had to figure out what my boundaries were.

I learned to recognize my boundaries by actually starting to work on feeling my emotions as opposed to thinking about them. I realized I had never taken the time to feel my emotions in a way that recognized them. Instead I had thought about them, analyzed them, dissected them, but in the end also ignored the actual feeling. Until I felt the emotions I couldn’t really deal with them, but once I did, I began to recognize situations where I had felt compromised and because I could recognize that, I also began to recognize where I had compromised other peoples’ boundaries.

It was not easy to feel those emotions. There was shame, anger, embarrassment, depression many days…and occasionally there still is. But by acknowledging those emotions, I could be present with them and gradually forgive myself for crossing boundaries, while also firming up my own boundaries.

In fact, I found that in forgiving myself I could empower myself to recognize boundaries. Remember that no matter what has happened in the past, as long as you are willing to face it and be present with it, you can forgive yourself and move forward with a better awareness that won’t let the same mistakes be made each time.