How Much Have You Changed?

Change Is Inevitable as We Grow

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of change in my life. Not necessarily change specifically in me, although I know that is lurking just around the corner. The changes seem to be all around me in people that I know or may work with as coaching clients.

I shouldn’t be surprised. In grad school, I minored in Developmental Psychology. That field encompasses much more than child development; its focus was on human development in the life span.

As some of you know, my mother is 94 and lives alone in The Villages of central Florida. I’ve known for some time that she was waning: losing stamina, having more difficulty with balance and walking speed. She still has a good mind, although now can’t remember as well, and occasionally gets confused. When she caught a cold just before Christmas, everything began to change in big ways. She’s now on oxygen, can’t (or shouldn’t) drive her car, and her life was become much more confined. She’s always been independent, and now must surrender a lot of that to depend on others.

I see the changes and know what they mean. My siblings and I are trying to come up with plans that she’ll accept, at the same time trying hard not to increase any stress associated with upcoming changes. Quite probably, there will be a move to Gainesville in the near future, so that she can be closer to family. But that means leaving the house she and my father built over 20 years ago, and leaving dear friends.

Watching her go through these changes has me thinking about all the different changes we go through in our lifespan.

As infants, we learn about the world around us. We learn to trust (or not). We gradually learn to speak and walk, and our experiences even at that young age helps shape who we will become in life.

We interact with the world and learn about self-control (that’s that potty-training stuff). Eventually we (hopefully) learn to express our needs without temper tantrums. We learn to interact with other children, maybe in our family, maybe in day care or nursery school.

Usually around the age of five or six, we start school. We learn about people who are different than we are, we learn to share. If we haven’t learned any yet, we begin to learn rules. As children we soak up knowledge, learning how to read, write, draw, and think. We begin to problem-solve in more sophisticated ways. We learn to differentiate emotions and their causes far beyond feeling “good” or “bad.” With luck, we learn to use our words. We develop friendships that may last our entire lives. We begin to suspect other families don’t do things the way ours does.

As we continue to grow and develop through adolescence, our bodies mature and we create or discover our identity. Friends become of overriding importance, and we learn how others may treat us. We begin to think about the future, even when it scares us. Gradually, we move towards greater independence. At some point, we’ll be ready to emancipate from our families and create a life of our own. Maybe this will be after high school; maybe it will be after college; maybe it will involve us getting married and starting families of our own.

As we develop, we move toward the work world, and finding ways to support ourselves. Currently, this stage poses difficulty for many young adults. They may exit college with massive debt and few prospects to work in the field they chose. Sometimes it’s necessary to move back in with their parents. Sometimes, to find a job, they have to move across country, away from their support systems.

Time marches on, and in the middle of life (whenever that is), you may develop a “mid-life crisis.” This is usually a dissatisfaction about how you are living. There may be a desire to change life circumstances—to leave a marriage, to move, to change jobs or even careers. This stage is about finding a way to live that will bring greater satisfaction. No matter what, this life stage usually requires change, whether big or small.

We continue to grow and develop throughout our whole lifespan, whether we’re aware of it or not. At some point, we reach the point where we’ve aged enough that we consider retirement or at least changing our work life in such a way that it is no longer central to our lives. When this is, and what form it takes often depends on a person’s financial situation. Have they saved enough to retire? Are they ready mentally, emotionally, and physically to change to a slower paced life. This can be an especially tough life stage, filled with changes in your daily life.

Grandparents may want to live closer and be involved in their children’s lives. Physical impairments may necessitate different living situations, such as living where there are minimal stairs. At this stage, there’s a lot of thought about what the future will bring. People facing the retirement stage will ultimately be making big changes, and may be anxious about the timing of their retirement decision as well as what their daily life will bring. They wonder: “What am I going to do with myself now?”

At some point, you’ll probably reach the stage that my mother faces. Feeling tired, worn out, or possibly sick. That’s when you may feel grateful for the good years, but ready to leave your fragile body as the quality of your life declines.

The timing of all the changes that occur in a lifespan isn’t always precise, and often happens when we aren’t ready for it. Illnesses can happen in midlife. Relationships can sour, changing your emotional well-being as well as your financial stability. Jobs may be lost as industries and businesses change to adapt to societal shifts.

Although there may be plenty of unpredictability, we always have the ability to change. It may take some time to accept the changes. It may take time to see how to create a different life that will be even more satisfying than the path you were on before.

Whatever life stage changes occur for you, you can make it. You may not be able to change your circumstances, but you definitely can change your reaction to those changes.

It’s definitely helpful to have support in the process. Whether you get this support from family or friends, or whether you seek out someone to help you find your new path, I think it’s important to get support.

I also think it’s vitally important to realize that we’re all in the same boat. Change happens to all of us, and when we help each other through the changes that life brings us, we help others as well as ourselves.

If you need help with the life stage changes you’re facing, feel free to contact me at 865-983-7544 or email me at Linda@InnerResourceCenter.com. We can put our heads together and figure out how you can best get the support you need, even if it isn’t from coaching with me. I’m committed to helping people find the resources to change their lives in positive ways. That’s why I call my business the Inner Resource Center, LLC. We all have resources to help us weather inevitable life stage changes. We just have to figure out what they are. I’m happy to help.

© 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.

Find the Place Inside You Where Nothing Is Impossible

"You must find the place inside yourself 

where nothing is impossible."

~Deepak Chopra

We are all capable of so much more than we believe is possible.  We limit ourselves by our thoughts that we don't have the skills, don't have the capabilities to achieve what we'd like to dream.  In order to really succeed, we each need to find that place within ourselves where nothing is impossible.  If you can conceive of something, you can find the way to achieve it.  But you have to let go of the beliefs and the mindset that limit you.

This week:  Imagine what you would do if you knew that you could not fail.  If you knew that anything was not only possible, but you could achieve it, what would you do?  This connects you not only with what is really most important to you, but also where you've put limitations.  Spend some time this week considering whether those limitations are really true, or have you imagined them.  Understand that anything you can imagine can be changed to something less limiting.  Take time to imagine what you would need in order to have a mindset that "I can do it; anything is possible."  What do you need to do in order to make that a reality?  Write down the steps and commit yourself to taking at least one step this week.

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and expert and helping people achieve goals they had not thought possible using a variety of solution focused methods.  She believes that you CAN achieve anything if you have the right tools, and at the Inner Resource Center, LLC helps people find the resources necessary to transform their lives.  For more information, go to http://www.InnerResourceCenter.com . 

Change Your Thoughts and Beliefs to Change Your Perception of the World

"Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see. It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed."

~A Course in Miracles

Our thoughts are very powerful.  We each view the world in terms of our thoughts, feelings and perceptions, which have been based upon our experiences in life.  We act as if our thoughts are true, when, in fact, they may be distortions filtered through our experiences.  If the world is not as you would like it to be, and if your life is not the way you would like it to be, you first need to examine your thoughts, your beliefs and your feelings.  You can change your perceptions if you choose, but you need to be willing to look at what you think and believe. 

This week:  Challenge yourself to examine your thoughts and beliefs. Are there things you think or believe that limit you?  Write these down.  You don't have to change them right now, but understand clearly how they limit your success and happiness.  What would you be able to do if you thought or believed something different?  If this is too difficult to consider, look at how the beliefs and thoughts others have limit them.  It is often easier to see limitations in others than in ourselves.  Notice how the way people think impacts their perceptions of the world and their experiences.  This week, identify ONE limiting belief or thought that you would like to change.  Write it down.  Every time it comes up, challenge it.  Ask yourself, "Is this really true?"  Ask yourself, "What would I need to believe instead that would empower me?" 

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and expert at helping people change limiting beliefs quickly and easily with her solution-focused techniques.  Her business, the Inner Resource Center, LLC helps people find the best resources to help them transform their lives and move forward toward greater success, meaning and happiness.  For more information, go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/ or http://www.emotionalclutter.com/ 

Allow Yourself to Find the Most Valuable Use of Your Time

"Perhaps the very best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, 'what is the most valuable use of my time right now?'"

~ Brian Tracy

Putting your focus on what is the most valuable use of your time allows you to make choices about how you will live your life.  It allows you to live with intention and purpose, congruent with what is most important to you.  Too often we allow ourselves to get distracted by demands on our time that are not meaningful, that don't take us in the direction we want to go.  Those demands may seem urgent, but they are not important; in fact, they distract us from what is most important.  When you focus on what is the most valuable use of your time, you will be paying attention to what matters most.

This week:  Decide to put your focus on what is the most valuable use of your time.  Ask yourself this question repeatedly several times a day.  Find the answer, and act accordingly.  Notice how this feels.  Notice what things get pushed into the background.  Paying attention to what is most important may be difficult, especially with the demands others make on your time.  Find ways to direct your focus away from those less important demands.  If necessary, tell others, "I have something else I have to do first."  Then do what is most important.  At the end of the week, notice how you feel about how you have used your time. 

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and expert in helping people overcome obstacles to their success and happiness, including difficulties with time management and organization.  She believes strongly in helping people live meaningful, authentic lives, and helps them find the resources to do that.  For more information about her business, the Inner Resource Center, LLC, go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/ .

The Expression of Your Power Requires Relaxation

"Your power is proportional to your ability to relax."

~ David Allen

When you have the ability to relax, you allow yourself to replenish.  You build an environment that nurtures your power and your creativity.  You allow yourself to reflect, to think more clearly, and to relate to others more authentically.  You are able to relax you can really allow yourself to be most yourself--and in doing that, you allow your power to shine through.

This week:  Take time to relax each day.  Allow yourself to center yourself, to escape cares and worries just for a short period of time.  Make sure you allow yourself at least 20 minutes when you can focus on your breathing, focus on turning within.  Acknowledge your wise self.  Acknowledge what is right in your world.  Do this each day for at least a week.  Notice at the end of the week how you feel.  Do you feel more connected to YOURSELF?  Has there been an increase in your calmness?  Acknowledge yourself for taking the time to connect with yourself through this relaxation. 

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and expert in helping people maximize their results.  She utilizes step by step approaches to make complicated things feel easy, and specializes in helping people develop their inner resouces for transformaton.  For more information on her approach, go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/

The Real Key to Authenticity

 "Become who you are."

~Nietzsche

We hear a lot about being "authentic."  The key to authenticity is to be who you really are.  So many people put on masks to disguise who they really are with their coworkers, peers and even with their loved ones.  All of us have a core identity composed of who we really are and are intended to be.  To "become who you are" you must allow that real you to peek out and begin to act in ways that are congruent with that "you."  This means living in accordance to your values, sharing who you are with others--warts and all.  Often it means living in accordance with your life's true purpose, even if it isn't the popular way of doing things.  As you become who you really are, you really begin to live authentically and people will be attracted to that authenticity.

This week:  Think about who you really are.  Think about what you've tried to hide about yourself from the world.  Just for this ONE WEEK, practice being who you really are with at least one person.  You can pick a complete stranger or someone close to you.  Notice how it feels when the mask is down.  Do you feel vulnerable?  Uncertain?  Fearful of rejection?  Or do you feel free?  Unleashed?  Maybe a combination of all of these feelings?  Notice the reaction of that person to you being who you really are.  At the end of the week evaluate whether you chose wisely the person to share yourself with authentically.  What would you do differently next time?  Use this information to make decisions about trusting others with "the real you."  

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and trainer at the Inner Resource Center in Maryville, TN.  She is an expert at helping people uncover their authentic selves, including discovering their life's purpose.  She specializes in helping people make transformational changes quickly through intensive break-through sessions.  For more information about resources to help you make big changes in your life, go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/  



Use The Power of Your Thoughts and Move Beyond Negativity

"If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought."

~Peace Pilgrim

When we are caught up in negative thinking, we create that negative experience for ourselves.  We end up feeling anger or discouraged or hopless or despairing.   Those negative thoughts become our assessment of our experience and take on a reality before we even realize it.  Our brains try to find what we are thinking about, so if you are thinking about how bad things are, your brain tries to find you more bad things.  That isn't to say that you need to be a Pollyanna to the point of delusion.  There is  a middle ground where you can acknowledge that things are not the way you want them--yet.  At the same time you can hold out the vision of how you would like it to be (expressed as positive thoughts).  When you focus on the outcome you want, you help create the power to make it so.

This week:  Focus on your thoughts.  Notice when your thoughts are negative.  Change the negative thought to something more positive, more in line with what you want you your outcome to be.  Do this all week and notice how it feels. 

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and trainer at the Inner Resource Center, LLC in Maryville, TN.  She helps people find the resources to help them transform their lives.  For more information go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/ .

Things Worth Having Are Worth Some Effort

Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?

~Frank Scully



Sometimes you have to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone in order to get meaningful rewards.  Often things that are the most valuable require effort, risk and action.  If you are not willing to put yourself out to reach your goal, you are not very invested in your results.   Sitting at the bottom of the tree and wishing the fruit would fall into your lap is not an effective way to get something that is important to you.  All things DON'T come to those who wait.  You have to take action.  You have to stretch yourself.  You have to put out the effort.  And you sometimes have to take a risk.  What are you willing to do to achieve your results?

This week:  Take a look at something you really want.  How much do you want it?  Are you willing to take some action this week to move closer to having it?  If you really went after it, what would you need to do?  How would you do it?  What risks would be involved?  How can you minimize those risks?  By answering these questions, you can put together a plan for reaching that goal.  Then, step-by-step, inch-by-inch, you can begin to move toward it.  

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and certified trainer at the Inner Resource Center, LLC in Maryville, TN.  She is an expert at helping people reach goals they had not thought even possible, using her solution focused approaches and a bag of tools and techniques she has both learned and developed over the past 32 years.  For more information go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/ .

When Adversity Hits, It is What Is Inside That Counts

"When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out — because that's what's inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside."

~Dr. Wayne Dyer

All of us are "squeezed" at some point in our lives.  Adversity hits and it is in those times that we demonstrate what we are made of inside.  Do we respond with courage?  Do we respond with integrity?  What do we do to rise above it?  How you respond in times of adversity can say a lot about your character and values.  For some people, adversity brings out the best in them; in others, it brings out the worst.   What is inside you?

This week:  Examine this question by remembering a time when you faced some sort of adversity.  Remember how you handled it.  What would you want to change about how you handled it?  How would you handle that same situation if it happened to you today, knowing what you know now and having all the resources you currently have?  How do you feel about how you would handle the situation today?  If there is something you would want to change, look carefully at what that is.  What would you need to be able to do differently?  How can you get to the point where you would be able to do it?  Is there something you need to learn?  A skill you need to develop?  A value you need to keep in mind?  Assistance you need from others?  How can you become more congruent in your responses so that you would be able to respond to adversity in a way that demonstrates who you are (and who you want to be)?   Begin to develop those resources, a little at a time. 

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and certified trainer at the Inner Resource Center, LLC.  She is an expert at helping people develop the resources they need to transform their life.  For more information about her services, including some free resources, go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/.

Learn to Do What You Cannot Do By Doing It Your Own Way

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

~Pablo Picasso

There may be many things that you believe you cannot do because you have not yet learned to do them.  When we think that we cannot, we make that outcome true.  If you can tell yourself that you simply need to learn how to do it, that can change the outcome from impossible to possible. 

This week:  Think of something you don't know how to do--yet.  Pick something that you would like to be able to do.  Ask yourself if it would be possible to learn to do it if you were really committed to learning and mastery.  What would it take?  How much time?  How much practice?  Would the expertise of someone else help you learn?  Is there someone you can model?  Think about Picasso.  He didn't do things the ways others did.  Was that because he hadn't learned to do it their way, and needed to learn his OWN way?  How can you apply this in your life--to learn to do things your own way?

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and trainer at the Inner Resource Center, LLC.  She believes that all people carry within themselves the resources to meet their life's challenges, they just need to access them.  She is an expert at helping people identify their resources and utilize them to stretch farther than they had thought possible.  For more information about how she does it, got to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/

Make Things Happen

"My father instilled in me that if you don't see things happening the way you want them to, you get out there and make them happen."

~ Susan Powter

Many people are good at recognizing when things are not going the way they would like.  They identify all the things that are wrong--in politics, in business, in the economy, in their relationships, in their life.  But too few take action and responsibility for making changes.  If you find yourself complaining about things not happening the way you want them to, get out there and make them happen.

This week:  Identify something that is not going the way you would like, one specific thing.  Now, think about what change you would like to see.  What could YOU personally do to help make that change?  What action could you take?  Brainstorm solutions and write down your ideas.  Then go back and pick ONE thing you can do this week to begin to change the situation.  Although you might think that your action "won't count," recognize that if everybody took some small action, there would begin to be a solution.  Do something, just for this week. 

Linda Pucci, Ph.D. is a psychologist, life coach and trainer at the Inner Resource Center, LLC.  She is an expert in helping people take actions toward their goals, and at her clients create transformational change quickly.  She specializes in helping people overcome the limiting beliefs that sabotages their success and happiness.  For more information, go to http://www.innerresourcecenter.com/ .