What’s Your Vision for 2018?

If you haven’t already done so, now is a perfect time of the year to create a vision for 2018. You don’t have to do it at the beginning of a new year, but you creating a vision—in other words, figuring out what you want this year to look like really can make or break your success.

When we create a vision, we’re creating a picture of what we want our life to look like. We usually think of a vision as a picture, but you can also create a vision using your other four senses. Here are the questions to ask:

•  What do I want 2018 to look like?

• What do I want 2018 to sound like? What do I want to hear others saying to me?  What do I want to say to myself this year?

•  What do I want to feel inside my body? What do I want to touch this year?

•  What do I want to smell in 2018? What scents help define what I want?

•  What do I want 2018 to taste like?

Some of these, like taste and smell, might seem unusual or far-fetched, but they really aren’t. For example, will you be socializing at your favorite restaurant, smelling and tasting your favorite meal? Will you be tasting champagne as you celebrate some goal completed? Will you be relaxing over a good meal with someone you love?

Our senses are important in defining our vision. When you’ve achieved your vision, what will you experience in all five senses? Thinking about this now will help you create the special outcome you’re seeking.

The whole purpose of having a vision is to be crystal-clear in your own mind what you want to happen, what you want to create, what you want to design, and what success in that looks like. When you have clarity about your vision, it allows you to utilize it to move you forward, and helps you minimize uncertainty. When you are faced with an opportunity, you can ask yourself: Does this fit my vision? If the answer is “not really,” you can say “no” and move on.

Just as someone building a house starts with blueprints or a description, your vision guides you. It allows you to ensure that you end up with exactly what you want, not a haphazard, slapped-together version. It sets a course for you to follow, or at the very least, provides direction in some or all areas of your life.

Your vision is important and unique to you. While others may give you some ideas, you ultimately decide what you want your results to look like. When you’ve personalized your vision by making it truly yours, you’ll know it fits you, and reflects what is most important to you.

The other thing it is important to realize about creating your vision, is that it can be context-dependent. What that means is that your vision may be specific to a certain context. When I’m thinking about what I want my coaching practice to look like, that may be different and unrelated to what I want my home life to look like.

I always recommend that you figure out your vision for all of your contexts:

·       ~Health—Physical and Emotional;

·       ~Work/Career;

·       ~Physical Environment;

·       ~Relationships;

·       ~Financial;

·       ~Spirituality;

~   ~Fun/Recreation;      

`   ~Personal Growth.

Why? Because you will want to integrate your vision for one area with the others. When your vision with one area is consistent with other areas, that vision creates an incredible unconscious power to move your forward in that direction. When they are in conflict, the chances of successfully achieving those visions diminishes. 

To create a vision for some area of your life, allow yourself to dream about what would make your life absolutely wonderful in 2018 in each area. Ask yourself what that would look like, sound like, feel like, taste like, and smell like. Write these things down or create a way to capture them. Some people like to create Vision Boards with pictures representing their vision. Sometimes people like to choose one word that will represent their vision for all areas for the whole year. Some people make a personal mix of songs that represent their vision. Use your imagination.

If you’d like help with this process, contact me at Linda@InnerResourceCenter.com or call me at (865) 983-7544. We can set up some time to work on determining your 2018 vision in each area of your life. If you’ve been feeling stuck or confused about where you want to go, determining your vision is definitely the most important first step.

(C) 2018 Linda S. Pucci, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

How to Get Clarity

How Do You Clean the Windows in Your Mind?

If only getting clarity were as easy as spraying yourself with a big bottle of window cleaner (Don’t try it; some of those cleaners are filled with chemicals). Last week I talked about why having clarity was so important. This week, I want to talk about HOW to get that clarity.

Finding clarity has to do with sorting through all the things that capture your attention to find what really counts. 

The first step to finding clarity is to capture the things that are on your mind so that you can do that sorting. You can do this in a number of different ways, depending upon your preference. You can use a pad of paper, a flipchart, create a file on your computer, or find a big white board to write or draw on. You’re going to do a Brain Dump. Find a time when you can sit uninterrupted for 15 or 20 minutes. Write, draw, or somehow capture the things that are racing around in your head. If you want, you can set up categories if that fits what’s coming out. You might have a category for business ideas, things you want to fix in your home, things you want to do or have in your relationships, etc. When I do this process, I often break things into the following categories:

·       Health

·       Work/Career

·       Physical Environment

·       Relationships

·       Spirituality

·       Fun/Recreation

·       Financial

Within each category, I may have subcategories. For instance, my work is to coach people, but I also write fiction and non-fiction. I can break the Work category into Coaching and Writing since they tend to be pretty different. I’m doing them both, and both matter to me.

Essentially, what you’re doing is brainstorming in order dump what’s taking up space and energy in your life. You may want to keep this list around for a week or so, and add to it as soon as other ideas pop into your head.

Once you’ve captured most of it, the next step is to sort through it. Put a star next to the things that are most important to you. You can even use different colors to highlight levels of importance, or use multiple stars to indicate what is most important to you. Once you’ve done that, take a look at it. What comes out as most important for you? Hopefully, that will bring you some clarity about what you need to put first.

Here are some examples:

One woman I coached discovered that her relationship with God was most important. When she felt connected spiritually, everything else flowed more easily. What became clear to her was that she needed to plan her life in such a way that she always took the time to stay connected.

Another woman did this with her husband, and they discovered that financial issues, specifically their debt, affected every other area of their lives, and especially their relationship. It now became clear that they needed to come up with a plan to reduce the amount they owed.

A man I worked with discovered that he was so focused on his job that he didn’t make time for his family. Weekends were taken up with maintaining the house and car. He wanted to make his relationships more important. Once he was clear that he wanted his family to be most important, he carved out time during the evenings and weekends to spend with them. He discovered that a simple reallocation of his time made a huge difference. A half hour playing a video game with his son and special time with his daughter helping her rearrange her room left time to spend with his wife as well.

Having clarity doesn’t mean you have to give up everything else you do. It is about making sure you focus attention on what is most important to you. It is about making your time and energy count. When you do that, most likely your life will begin to feel more fulfilling. You’ll feel less like you’re wasting your time and energy on tasks that seem meaningless.

If you want help with this process, feel free to call me at (865) 983-7544 or email me at Linda@InnerResourceCenter.com. We can set up some time to talk about your situation, and if you’d like, we can set up a Strategy Session to help you sort things out. When you find clarity, it makes things so much simpler. Decisions become much easier to make because you can determine whether an opportunity or project brings you closer to reaching your main goal or not.

Let Go of the "Struggle"

I've always been a pretty hard worker. Even as a kid I was driven to achieve. As a youngest child, I had two older sisters to live up to and with whom to compete.  I used to have a belief that work had to be difficult in order to qualify as "work." After all, that's why it's called "work," right? You needed to always put out your best effort, and you needed to sustain those efforts until you succeeded. "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" was my guiding principle back then.

Work involved lots of effort, lots of time, and lots of energy to be successful. I learned how all the labor-saving devices that had been invented to try to help us manage our lives more easily had, instead, somehow created more demands on our time. Even so, I knew that having the right tools could make the task easier, whether it was cutting wood or changing a habit. That sometimes meant training and studying to learn new skills. If you weren't good at something, you spent time developing that skill.

And then, everything shifted. The new paradigm became utilizing your strengths and outsourcing the other tasks, whether they were hiring a bookkeeper, or someone to design your business cards, or someone to clean your house. Along with it came shocking ideas such as "If at first you don't succeed, try something different;" and "Don't push the river, it flows by itself;" and "Not everything worth doing is worth doing well." I had a hard time wrapping my arms around those concepts.

But I began to imagine: What if things didn't have to be so difficult? What if everything didn't have to be a struggle? That idea really intrigued me. As I began to unpack it, I realized that despite what I'd always believed, things that were difficult weren't necessarily more valuable. What was valuable was the outcome. Something didn't increase in value because I'd suffered, struggled and slaved over it. Maybe I put some greater value on it because of all the time and effort I'd invested, but really, that was more about valuing the process and my efforts, rather than the outcome.

The process of achieving a goal--the work involved--isn't really the same as the outcome itself. What if you could achieve the outcome without the suffering and struggle? Hmm. That idea became very appealing. I realized that I didn't get extra brownie points because I worked hard. The reward and value was in the end result.

Climbing over obstacles to your success was necessary, but it didn't have to take so long. It didn't have to be so difficult. I studied and found some tools that made things easier. I learned techniques and experimented with others until I created resources that allowed my clients to make big changes without the struggle and huge expenditure of time, energy and money.

The first step is making the decision that something needs to change.

The second step is figuring out what that "something that needs to change" really is. For most of us, it has to do with how we've allowed our history to affect us. We've held onto negative emotions from past experiences. We've created identities based on some of those experiences, and we cling to them because they are familiar, not because they're working for us. We've formed or held on to beliefs that limit us, rather than empower us. We've allowed ourselves to believe that the struggle is part of life. Sometimes, we've allowed toxic people and situations to take over our lives. We've developed and held onto habits that don't serve us well.

The third step is to imagine, yes, imagine how things could be different. What would your life be like if you didn't have to struggle? What if it just flowed. Easily. Effortlessly. Taking you where you want to go, rather than where you think you must go. Create the vision of what your life could be like. Don't worry yet about how you're going to get there. Just imagine. Fill in all the details of what that life would be like. Would there be challenges? Probably, but imagine that you just handled them without stressing about it. What if you lived your life, whatever that means to you and those you love. What if you decided what you wanted and made it happen?

You can. Having the right tools helps make it easier. Call me and let's talk about what you imagine, as well as what stands in the way. Together we can figure out what needs to happen to get there, even if you decide not to work with me. You can reach me at Linda@InnerResourceCenter.com or call me at 865-983-7544.

 © 2016. Linda S. Pucci, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

Linda Pucci is a personal/business coach and trainer at the Inner Resource Center, LLC in Maryville, TN. She helps her clients get rid of the struggle and overcome obstacles to their success. Her specialty is helping people get rid of the mindset issues that lead to self-sabotage. For more information on letting go of the struggle in YOUR life, contact her at Linda@InnerResourceCenter.com

It All Begins With Your Imagination

"First comes thought; 

then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; 

then transformation of those plans into reality. 

The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination."

~Napoleon Hill

Sometimes people wonder about how to do strategic planning.   It isn't something magical.  It involves following these steps to create the plan for your organization or for your life.   First comes thought--the vision--what you imagine things could be like.  Then you break down that vision into ideas and plans, then begin to take action steps to make those plans comes true.  The beginning, though, is in your imagination.  It is the vision, the passion, the idea that "I really WANT this."  The magic is in the compelling vision, because that is what drives it all.

This week:  Do you have a vision of something you'd like to have happen in your life or career?  Is it compelling?  Do you feel passionately about it?  If not, play with it until you can experience those emotions that tell you it is a must have. If so, create a plan to make it happen.  Then break that plan into smaller steps and take action.  Do at least one small action today.  And at least once a day, reconnect with that vision, that passion, that compelling future that emerged from your imagination.  Stay connected to it because that is what will keep you moving forward toward achieving it.  

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and expert in helping people identify their vision, mission and life purpose.  She specializes in helping people figure out HOW, to access their resources and to create the steps to easily achieve their goals.  For more information, go to http://www.InnerResourceCenter.com. 

Before You Start, Envision Your End Result

"We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end in mind."

~Stephen Covey

Knowing where you are going, having a vision of your desired outcome, starting with the end in mind is key to really being effective at achieving your goals.   Without knowing where we are going, we tend to waste our resources of time, energy and money.  We meander around trying to figure out what we want.  We start and stop, going down blind alleys, focusing on things that are irrelevant to our end result.  Taking the time to envision your end result will ultimately save you time and energy, and allow you to pursue your goals most effectively. 

This week:  Identify some area of your life that is not working the way you would like it to.  Take time to think about how you would like things to be instead.  Be very specific.  How will you know you are successful at changing it?   What will that end result look like, sound like, and feel like?  Really envision your end result.  Now ask yourself, "What is the first step I need to take in order to get there?"  Take that first step.  What is the next step?  Keep moving toward that goal until you get that end result you had envisioned.  Notice how much more quickly you made progress toward that outcome by being clear about where you wanted to end up.

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach, author and expert in helping people achieve their goals.  She specializes in helping people get rid of self sabotage--those things we often do unconsciously that block our success and happiness.  For more information about her services, go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/

Your Visions and Your Dreams Guide You

"Cherish your visions and your dreams. They are the children of your soul and the blueprints of your ultimate achievements."

~Napolean Hill

Sometimes people act as if their dreams and visions aren't important. They act as if they are some far-away, unreachable, imaginary thing that will never happen. In fact, your dreams and visions guide you unconsciously. They create that blueprint for the future you'd like to have. Appreciate them!

This week: Get in touch with your dreams and your vision. What would you like to be doing? What or who would you like to have in your life? What would be the first step in making this happen? Begin to design a plan for making your visions and dreams into a blueprint. It all begins with a small step toward that big dream!

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach, certified trainer and expert in helping people reach their dreams. She specializes in helping people get rid of the emotional clutter that often blocks happiness and success. For more information about her and her 7 Step Program to Discover Your Life's Purpose, go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/ .

Your Vision Reflects What Is In Your Heart

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.

~Carl Jung

Your vision is closely linked which who you REALLY are in your heart of hearts. Your vision needs to reflect your values--what is most important to you. You can only know this by connecting with the wise part of you, inside yourself. Too often we try to set our vision according to what someone else wants, whether it is a member of our family, close friend or even our target market. When you focus on what others want and make that your vision, you can lose the authenticity of that vision. The more the vision reflect what is inside YOU, the more it awakens your passion and becomes clearly expressed in everything you do.

This week: Spend some time connecting with YOUR vision. Look inside yourself and connect with that wise part of you that knows what is most important to you. As you think about your vision for your life or business, allow yourself to allow the passion you feel INSIDE to awaken and express itself. Capture it in words or pictures.

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and expert in helping people create lives of meaning and authenticity. She encourages people to connect with the inner resources inside themselves, and, in fact, the name of her company is Inner Resource Center, LLC. She has spent the past 30 years helping her clients grow--in their lives and in their businesses. For more information go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/

Get What You Want in Life by Deciding What That Is

The first step to getting what you want out of life is this:

Decide what you want.

~Ben Stein

It is so true that you need to DECIDE what you want your outcome to be. So many of us go through life complaining that it isn't what we want it to be. But the first step has to be not only to envision what you want, but to DECIDE that you will pursue it.

This week: Think about the outcome you would like to have in your life. How do you want to be living right now? Get a clear picture, and fill in the details--what you will see, what you will hear, what you will feel, even what you will smell and taste. Make it vivid in all of your 5 senses. Then, take the first step: DECIDE what you are going to do to get there.

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and expert at helping people create lives that express their purpose. She is the owner of Inner Resource Center, LLC in Maryville, TN. She specializes in helping people overcome the "emotional clutter" that often blocks success and happiness. For more information or to sign up for free monthly coaching challenges, go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/ .

The Relationship Between Vision and Action

"Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world."

~Joel Barker

In order to have the sort of results that are meaningful, we need to combine both vision and action. When you combine a vision--how you would like things to be--with action to make it happen, the sky is the limit. And when that vision and action are powered by passion, we really can change the world.

This week: Pay attention to the vision you'd like to achieve. Develop a plan and begin to take some small action. Make sure that both your vision and action come from a space of excitement, anticipation and passion. Imagine what would happen if you continue to take actions toward this vision. Also imagine others who share your vision taking action and driven by that same passion. See how powerful this "movement" becomes?

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach, speaker and author at Inner Resource Center, LLC in Maryville, TN. She helps people create meaningful, authentic lives by getting rid of "emotional clutter" from the past, and helping them discover the resources necessary to transform their lives. She is the creator and author of Discover Your Life's Purpose: 7 Steps to a Life of Meaning & Authenticity. Find out more at her website: http://www.InnerResourceCenter.com .