Coaching for Personal Growth and Development

Rebirth in Adulthood

dougnau — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:55:00 +0000

Rebirth can mean a lot of different things to different people. A rebirth is loosely defined as a second birth, a renaissance, a revival, or an awakening. Characteristics of rebirth include a heightened sense of awareness of one’s current situation followed by a distinct decision to take action and thrust oneself into the world in a new and rejuvenated way. Its as though one chooses to be delivered again and to see the world with fresh eyes.

I’ve been inspired to write on the topic of rebirth in light of the recent ‘first birth’ of my son, just 9 days ago. I see how he opens his eyes up wide to the world, how he takes it all in. How he’s learning how this world works with every breath he takes. There are no preconceptions, all is new.

What are some examples of rebirth in adulthood?

Throughout our lives its likely that we’ll have a dozen or more times when we are faced with a potential rebirth. What you do when faced with this opportunity is up to you. A rebirth is when we have such a significant shift in our actions, routines, mentality, or environment that from this point forward our lives will be significantly different. In my adult life, I can think of several occasions in which my life was completely changed. Here’s a list of the most compelling I’ve encountered:

Deciding to go to school at the University of California Santa Barbara
Taking a job with a software company in the Silicon Valley
Entering an evening MBA program
Being diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia
Moving to the greater Sacramento region and buying a home with my wife
Starting a wellness coaching business
Having our first child

Each one of these events drastically changed the way that I approached and lived my life.

Why is this important?

Rebirth signifies change. It represents drastic, life altering shifts of monumental proportion. Once you’ve been birthed (or re-birthed), there’s really no going back. Its a leap of faith. As you might see by reading the examples I’ve provided above, most of my rebirth’s were consciously intended. In fact all were with the exception of #4 above which is arguably the largest rebirth that I’ve had as so many of my decisions following that date were significantly impacted by this diagnosis.

Rebirth is big. Its important because it raises awareness to the opportunities that are present to you at any point in life, and can provide a mentality towards life’s challenges that breeds optimism and potential. If my house is foreclosed on, when I choose to frame it as a rebirth, it allows me focus on the possibilities that life could afford me with a fresh start. If I have a health event, rebirth signifies the potential for me to become an expert in the area of my health and fitness. If I feel ‘stuck’ in life, being reborn provides a new world of opportunity. Withering away or figuratively speaking ‘a slow death’ would be the alternative approach that many people choose to embrace when faced with difficult situations.

A coaching exercise for you: Determine if you are prepared for a rebirth

If you are stuck, looking to make a change, uncertain of what to do next, frustrated or uncomfortable with where you currently are in any aspect of life, use this as a chance to shift your perspective from slow death to rebirth. Here’s an exercise you can do right now.

As I have done above, write out all of the events in your life that have drastically changed either your perception of yourself and how you act, or the way you live your life.
Identify which of these events were consciously intended and which were brought about by no action of your own
Answer the following questions:
- What observations do you have as you list these on paper?
- What aspects of previous rebirths would you like to avoid in the future?
- What elements of previous rebirths would you like to leverage in the future?
- What am I struggling with now and what am I considering as a potential path forward?
- What am I not considering because it seems silly, unrealistic or I am unwilling to do for other reasons?
- How would your perspective shift if you consciously considered the possibilities you’ve listed as a rebirth knowing that this means leaving all of the baggage of the past behind?
- What actions could you take today that would represent an actual rebirth (remember the definition of rebirth), rather than simply trying out something new?
- What’s the worst thing that could happen as a result of what you are considering? Is that worse than your current situation? Are you willing to move forward? Can you accept and celebrate in whatever consequence arises based on your decision?

Because of the monumental significance of a rebirth, its always a good idea to learn and be conscious of the choices you are making. Your reaction to the questions posed above will be a good indicator as to whether or not a rebirth may be right for you.

A rebirth in every day

In closing, I’d like to share some brief comments on perceptions, security and stability. In the natural cycle of the world, everything is in a continual process of birth, death, and rebirth. The sun rises every day, it sets every night. The flowers bloom each May and rescind in Fall. Humans are born, they reproduce, and pass. We fall asleep and wake each morning to a brand new day.

Rebirth is part of life. Naturally, we fight to hold on to what we’ve earned, what we’ve built and the past we’ve chosen that makes us who we are today. Another perspective is that each morning as we wake to a new day, we consciously choose to live the life that we’ve come to identify with. It would be just as easy for me to declare to my wife that we are moving tomorrow to Canada to be with her family, and from this point forward my life would look nothing like it did for the past 5 years.

When I read through the list of rebirth’s I’ve created above, I am startled by how many big things have happened in my life in what seems to be such a short time. I make a big deal of conscious rebirth, but as human beings we are constantly evolving, constantly changing, and continually faced with life altering events. I recognize that the less attached I am with my past, my possessions and my ego, the more excited I become. The more willing one is to open themselves up to the potential for rebirth, the more they will notice the ease with which change can be initiated, and the more it will be welcomed.

We’ve all got choices, some small, and some big and if you are looking to make a change, choose to embrace your changes with the open eyes of a newborn baby and wash away the preconceptions that you’ve decided to hold onto. Whether or not you see it now, an infinite set of possibilities will arise when you embrace this approach.

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well

Written by Doug Nau, The Wellness Coach, i-grow.net

Living in Balance – How to Consciously Shift from Stress to Success

dougnau — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:22:00 +0000

I am extremely pleased to announce the completion of my new e-book and audio book Living in Balance – How to Consciously Shift from Stress to Success. You may download your own free copy by following the link above.

Background

When I was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia in December 2003, I was living a life that was clearly out of balance. Furthermore, my actions were out of alignment with my priorities and personal values. My diagnosis, while I wish it on no one, was the wake up call that I needed to create balance in my life.

Since that date, my life has been focused on the conscious creation of a balanced, fulfilling and sustainable lifestyle. Furthermore, I’ve committed myself to supporting others as a life and wellness coach, in their pursuits of the balanced life. When I started writing the personal development articles found throughout this site, I decided to share tips, suggestions and ‘coaching’ on topics related to creating more balance in life. Each article averages 2-4 ‘book pages’, which provides substantially more detail than most blogs would provide on similar topics. Regardless, it’s difficult to cover a large topic like ‘how to consciously shift from stress to success’, without writing a ridiculously long entry or a series of blog articles packaged in a less than convenient reading format. This e-book is the response to providing timely content in an appropriate distribution format for all of my readers to enjoy.

E-Book Summary

Living in Balance – How to Consciously Shift from Stress to Success is a 42 page pdf file that is designed to be a quick read and reference guide to return to regularly. The focus of the book is to provide the ‘wakeup call’ for someone looking to shift their lifestyle, as well as to provide a strategy and proven methodology answering the question ‘how do I create change?’. Without providing too much detail, here are fundamental building blocks of the book:

Becoming aware and facing of your current situation truthfully with yourself
The power of the decision to change
How to consciously intend and create the situation you desire
Preparing oneself for action and success through challenges
Overcoming the momentum for maintaining old habits
Coming to your answers yourself
Powerful coaching questions provided throughout to invoke personal inquiry and inspiration

This book follows the format for what a coach might work through with a client focused on creating less stress and more life balance. Often clients need to hear themselves verbalize their situation, they need to listen to their inner wisdom, to have an ‘aha’ moment, and they need to come to terms with this themselves. The coach provides a safe place for a client to verbalize their desires, they ask questions to bring out what is truly important, and they build a compelling vision for what is to come. Lastly, a coach provides accountability in moving forward. This e-Book provides every step mentioned with the exception of the accountability. Should you embrace the vision you create by reading this book, you’ll be well on your way to defining your own accountability structure to successfully bring about a more balanced lifestyle.

Audio Book

I myself, love to listen to audio books while I am driving my car. What a great way to educate oneself during an otherwise mindless commute. For this reason, I’ve also recorded an audio version of the eBook which can be downloaded for just $9.99. Visit my eBook page if you’d like to purchase a copy. I encourage you to download the eBook first, read or browse through the content and if you like what you see, support this site by making the purchase. Don’t worry, there are no commitments when you download the eBook, and you will not be overwhelmed with marketing materials. I respect your email address and your privacy.

The audio format can be downloaded instantly and fits cleanly onto one CD (its just under 70 minutes). The content is identical to the print version of the book.

I am grateful for your support and am excited that this material is finally complete for distribution to all my readers for free. I encourage you to share your free eBook with others that may benefit as well!

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well

Written by Doug Nau, The Wellness Coach, i-grow.net

Growing a Blog Business – November 3, 2008

dougnau — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:26:00 +0000

I am very excited to have completed a milestone in the development of this website – this is the addition of my new eBook and audio book. I’ve been working on this for quite a while so its delivery brings about a new stage in the direction of this website. I’ve had lots of ideas on ‘what next’, but everything’s been on hold until the final adjustments and delivery were made with this project. Here’s a more detailed description of the accomplishments in October.

Updates for October

There are a few technology adjustments that I’ve made – specifically related to the delivery of the eBook. I’ve been looking for ways to allow people to download my book from a password secured page, and I played with some free source code that some programmers made available, but finally I figured out that the best way to do this was just to create a password secured folder on my website, and let the book reside in that directory. This was a nice free way for me to deliver the eBook. Since I am not charging for its download, this technology works very well. Here’s a summary of the accomplishments this month.

Completed and posted eBook
Completed recorded audio version of eBook & posted for sale on payloadz.com (they have a nice free service which works nice if you are uncertain of product sales volume).
Added 7 new blog posts to the website
Delivered monthly newsletter

Learnings/Observations

Even an eBook has a lot of steps for publishing. While there was no need to go through a publishing agency, creating the artwork, posting to the site, developing the content, editing/finalizing etc, are months and months of work. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process and am so excited that my readers may benefit from this materials. I know the topic is unique and has a high value it today’s ‘stressed out’ world.

Technically speaking, the website continues to have monthly gains in page views, unique visitors and ad revenues. While my aspirations are very high for future readership, I am very pleased where its at now. Since I just posted the book earlier today, I’ll share more learnings/observations on this addition next time around.

Here are detailed website results for the month of October:

According to Google Analytics, here is my unique visitor results for the past 3 months.

August - Unique Visitors

September - Unique Visitors

October - Unique Visitors

The traffic in the month of October was very steady ranging from 15-45 unique visitors per day. As you can see from the charts above, again, I’ve had another record month with a total of 714 unique visitors. Almost all of the traffic is coming from Google searches on the topic of wellness coaching or developing personal/corporate vision and mission statements.

Here are my AdSense Revenue’s

August- Ad Revenue

September - Ad Revenue

October - Ad Revenue

Despite only having a couple hundred more page impressions for my Google Adsense ad’s, my revenues increased substantially on a percentage basis. For the first time, this site could almost support me for a full dinner (for one), rather than just a snack this month. On a serious note, the click through rate increased to 3.29%, which is a real spike and it seems to be holding steady since October. Clicks more than doubled, but cost per click went down (perhaps with the down turning economy). I am hoping that the increased click through rate means that people are generally getting more value out of the articles I am writing and the ads are relevant to supporting them in finding what they need.

Alexa Ranking

As you’d expect with increased traffic, my Alexa rank continues to grow as well. The 3 month average went up another 110,000 spots – great to see, but again as I learn more about Alexa’s ranking system, it is not necessarily the best indicator of website popularity. Regardless, I’d like to see this site in the top 100,000 next year, and think that will be a significant accomplishment.

Google Page Rank

The Google page rank stays steady at 2. Again, this is not a typical metric for me to monitor, but its kept up with the gain from last month so its worth a mention.

Goals Moving Forward

November

Write 8 blog articles
Craft a plan for the next addition to i-grow.net (potentially the addition of a forum)
Submit 2 articles to 3 article directories
Have a baby (yes my wife is pregnant and we are expecting in November, so I suspect it will be a busy month)

Long Term Goals

Continue writing at a pace of 6 articles per month (2008 goal of 100 articles)
Continue developing 1/2 podcast per month (2008 goal of 7 podcasts)
Continue writing one newsletter per month
Create a more user friendly archives page - filterable by category
Improve performance of database queries to pull up blog information
Optimize website to improve click through rate

Looking forward to providing another update in December!

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well

Written by Doug Nau, The Wellness Coach, i-grow.net

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Life Coaching: Getting Hours for Certification

dougnau — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:46:00 +0000

If you’ve read many of the articles on the internet about Life Coaching, you may be hearing things like - ‘This is the fastest growing high paid business’, or ‘Thousands rush into life coaching’, or ‘Work from home with great pay’. They display a picture of the potential of what coaching can become but do not necessarily represent the experience a new life coach will have the moment they open their doors.

Having gone through the process of getting certified with an ICF accredited program with essentially no life coaching, counseling, or consulting experience in the past, I approached my business growth with realistic expectations and a well defined plan for building a practice. After 1.5 years of building my coaching business, I eventually transitioned to working as a coach with a business (a salaried position), as my personal mission was so well aligned with this organization. Regardless, I’ve shared the path and held hands with numerous coaches working to get started, and one of the biggest challenges up front is simply getting hours for certification.

How Can I get Hours for Certification?

Currently, if you are looking to become a certified life coach with a program accredited the International Coach Federation, they’ll require that you obtain a minimum of 100 hours of practical coaching experience in addition to working with a mentor coach and going through the coach training course work. Its been my experience that it takes at at least 1 year to complete such a program realistically, and for most its closer to 1.5 to 2 years. The hardest part – getting the hours and building the business.

Most coaches starting their company are not established business owners. Because of this, they typically do not have a large network of referrals they can mine, and starting from scratch is no small undertaking. So how does one get these hard to come by hours when they are first starting?

Well, if you are working through a coach training program, you already know from your mentor coach the tips I am about to give:

Go to networking groups
Talk to all of your family and friends (many times) – ask for any lead you can garner
Speak publicly – get in front of any group that you can
Join all groups that represent the area of coaching you are interested in
Try online or print marketing (I never had any success with this until years later as my blog readership has grown – and now I am not looking for clients!)
Hand out cards to everyone
Hold booths, go to trade shows
Persist, persist, persist

I apologize if you can feel the cringe I am making as I think back to this process! It can be frustrating to promote a business model that resides in an industry that is clearly in its infancy stages. Despite some of the dazzling articles that the media publishes, building a life coaching business from the ground up can be a long and arduous process – particularly if you struggle to get the hours required for the initial certification. Those hours are so important in developing your skill set as well as your confidence (even if you are the best coach there ever was!).

What my Mentor Coach Doesn’t tell me about getting hours? Is there another way?

Everyone wants to get paid for the work they do – but most credential programs allow for a significant amount of your hours to come from ‘pro-bono’ or ‘free’ clients. Without pro-bono clients, many life coaches could never get started. If you are struggling to get hours, consider this option. You may even be struggling to get pro-bono clients, and if this is your case its a real shame because there are literally thousands of people (maybe millions) whom would love the services of a life coach, but either can’t afford it, or are relatively uncertain of what it is and are not yet willing to plunk down money given that uncertainty. The question - How do you find these people? Again, you need a network, or reach to talk to a lot of people. And I know it can be hard to offer one person free coaching while another is paying. That’s why the anonymity of the internet is so perfect.

Get Hours Now!

Here’s something that I am offering. This website gets thousands of visitors searching for the keywords of life coaching and wellness coaching. If you are looking to connect with a client, simply put a comment on this blog article with your name, contact info and the type of client you’d like to work with. Soon I’ll be shortly writing a blog article that refers people looking for free coaching to your listing. It will even get you a free link to your website from one of the most popular personal growth and coaching websites on the internet! If you are in this boat, there’s really nothing to lose.

I don’t know how many coaches will respond to this offer (Google analytics does not tell me how many coaches read this blog :O) ). Depending on the response, this is a potential goldmine for a coach looking for clients.

If happen to be a potential client looking for free coaching, understand that these are coaches in training, and you will be the best judge as to whether or not they are a match for you. Keep in mind, most coaches still have no certification whatsoever, so its likely these are some of the more genuine coaches out there and they are adhering to strict ethical guidelines. You’ll be the best judge by doing your homework.

No Strings Attached

There are no strings attached to this offer. I am simply trying to provide and match value in the world. I see it as a great win-win opportunity, and that there is a need for this sort of service (even better when its free). I hope it works out well for anyone getting involved. In the future, I’ll be looking for a more sophisticated way to match these sorts of services – perhaps through a forum, so I’ll keep you posted on any such developments in the future (sign up for my newsletter to be informed of new developments).

Again – coaches looking for pro-bono hours, post a comment below with your contact information, website, and/or any information that will support a client in knowing that you may fit your area of expertise. I hope this works out well for everyone involved!

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well

Written by Doug Nau, The Wellness Coach, i-grow.net

How do I create a Fitness State of Mind

dougnau — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 21:02:00 +0000

A client of mine recently read an article about the lifestyle of ‘fit’ individuals and in doing so, she provided me with a great coaching moment as it introduced me to a state of mind that was so different than my own. As she read the article, she mentioned that she really had no idea how much ‘fit’ (as opposed to healthy by medical terms) people actually worked out, how hard they worked out, and how engrained good nutrition was into their lifestyle. The article discussed specific workout regimes that a group of ‘normal’ people (ie: these were not professional athletes) had who kept themselves in good shape. It also listed the diet they typically stuck to. It was almost as if my client were telling me ‘wow, how can someone live this way?’

Personally, as someone that has lived that way for all but about 2 years of my life (the exception being at the time I was working full time and going through an evening MBA, and possibly when I was a toddler), my paradigm is the absolute opposite. How could someone not take care of their body with exercise and by eating nutritious foods? Don’t they feel terrible when they don’t work out for a week? Well, I suspect my paradigm is probably less common then hers.

How come its difficult to have a Fitness State of Mind

Here’s the dilemma. On one side of the spectrum, we’ve got the uber-athlete nutrition fanatics (which taken to the extreme may not actually be healthy either). On the other end, we’ve got the nonchalant group of people that eat whatever and however much they want with absolutely no consciousness or discretion and have no motivation whatsoever to exercise. Most people lie in the middle between these two spectrums – imagine your typical statistical bell curve. The problem is that optimal health is not found in the middle of this spectrum. To really be healthy in today’s world you’ve got to be better (and much better at that) than average. The average diet and average workout routine is insufficient. That’s why 2/3 of Americans are either overweight or obese.

As creatures of convenience and habit, we have an enormous tendency to compare ourselves with everyone else, but in doing so we’re comparing ourselves with an overall unhealthy society. Is this where our aspirations lie? We’ve become so used to seeing lack of physical health in society today that my client – who was technically obese – didn’t really feel that weight was something to be concerned about. In fact, she wasn’t really that much heavier than most people around! Why would she want to change?

How do you shift to create a ‘Fitness State of Mind’

A fitness state of mind is one in which a person has a conscious and compelling focus on their physical health and well being. Its more than just a state of mind, however, its a mindset which compels one to action. Furthermore, a true fitness state of mind has been engrained for so long, its second nature. Its easy. Isn’t that what we all want?

As a wellness coach and consultant, when I coach my clients, the first thing we look at his how to create a fitness state of mind. Here’s the process I work through with them, and I encourage you to look at these questions for yourself if you are wondering how to make the lifestyle changes that will support you in doing the same. As you’ll see below, these have nothing to do with the question ‘how do I become fit’ – any personal trainer or even a good friend can give you tips and suggestions. Rather this looks at how do you get into a mindset such that you want to become fit. That’s the real question, and the answer is the one that will see you to sustaining long term fitness. Please note, the words I will use in an actual conversation with a client may be different, but the message is the same. These are worded in a way for you to do this exercise on your own:

What do you want to accomplish? - and whatever you do, don’t sugar coat this response. ie: Telling me you want to exercise more and eat better may be the right answer, but that’s surface level b.s. What do you really want? Dig deep.
Why do you want what you just told me you want? Again, get real. Has that reason compelled you to action before? What does this tell you? Dig deeper.
How important is it to you (by the way, very important doesn’t cut it for a response")? Where does this stand in relation to all of the other priorities that life requires? Write down the most important things for you in life – rate in order of importance and tell me again, how important is it to you?
When do you see yourself making changes? If its right now – what makes now different than last week, last month, last year? If its in one month, what makes that different than today?
What would you be willing to do to get you closer to that which you wish to accomplish? Is that enough? Are you being realistic that what you anticipate doing will garner the results you desire? Are you being overly ambitious with what you can actually do?
Recap all the questions of self inquiry that you’ve gone through here. What are you seeing now as you have begun to craft a plan? Are you excited, are you feeling overwhelmed? Notice and sit with your emotional state right now as that will be a good indication of whether or not you are getting into a ‘Fitness State of Mind’. You’re probably thinking, yes I can do this, or man this is going to be tough. The later will mean you’ll need to re-examine this whole series of questions.

Someone in a fitness state of mind, is 100% confident of their plan and routine. They have no doubt that they will continue because its engrained into their lifestyle. Furthermore, if they slip one day, this has no effect on their confidence to continue because they don’t care if they slip because they KNOW it is not their norm. That’s the fitness state of mind.

I am comfortable having gone through the questions – what now?

So you’ve got yourself in the right state of mind to start. How do you keep it up for the long term? With my clients, I’ve had the opportunity to observe lifestyles spanning the whole spectrum of fitness. Many of the people engrained in a fit lifestyle have been that way their whole lives. They have an advantage because this norm is built into their DNA at this point (figuratively speaking). In addition, many of my clients have developed this lifestyle in their adult years and here’s what I’ve noticed.

Creating the lifestyle for the long term takes time. Never mind the stories you hear about taking 4 weeks to create a habit. Try 2 years. This is not a scientific study that I am referencing, but rather something I am inferring from discussions with hundreds of clients that have designed and maintained a long term healthy approach to nutrition and exercise. It seems that after about 2 years of ‘working’ at the lifestyle, it becomes engrained. So ask yourself – what can I do such that I can be successful for 2 years? Your answer will be unique to you.

Joining teams, having accountability, hiring a trainer, buying a treadmill for home, these can all be actions that will support you in creating a lifestyle for the long term. If you are becoming squeamish about the duration I’ve thrown out there, notice your thoughts and re-ask yourself ‘how important is this to me’? Perhaps what you’ve told yourself you want to accomplish is not really true or not a strong enough motivator to pull you through the more difficult times. Perhaps you are still working with yourself on the surface level.

I am not saying that there is a right or wrong lifestyle, if you want to be living what society would deem a ‘less healthy’ lifestyle, its your choice. If you feel your combination of genetics and luck is good enough to see you to a happy and healthy age, then great – more power to you. But if you’d like to hedge your bets and you are considering making some changes, then get real with yourself by answering and examining the questions above before setting silly goals that are too easily broken. If you are lying to yourself now by setting unrealistic expectations, you’re just creating frustration, you’ll be causing internal contradiction, and you are setting yourself up for poor self esteem. With today’s studies in stress management, happiness and longevity, you’ll probably experience worse health in the long term if you create these internal struggles. So get real and decide what you truly want as you create the personal fitness state of mind which is empowering and meaningful for you.

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well

Written by Doug Nau, The Wellness Coach, i-grow.net

Why do I act the way I do? How can I change this?

dougnau — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:40:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered ‘Why’ you act the way you do when your actions seem to contradict what you feel you really want? If so, you are definitely not alone. As a life coach and wellness coach, I hear this comment on a regular and frequent basis. I’ll admit to you up front that in this article, I’ve got no intention of answering this question for you, however I will offer some food for thought and self exploration that may help you move past this question and onto a more meaningful question - how.

Answering the question why

Isn’t the human brain amazing? In the past couple of centuries, our advancements in science and technology have been so miraculous, that we feel as if we can decipher and understand just about anything – given the right tools and time for study. Our incredible brains have opened up the world to levels of comprehension that were unthinkable even 100 years ago. Asking the question ‘why’ has brought about many solutions and has led us to believe that we can solve just about any question.

With respect to understanding the answer to the question ‘why’ when it comes to human behavior, the limited mathematical algorhythms we have access to simply are not yet sophisticated enough to accurately provide a response. We have only empirical evidence that evaluates the trends of stimulus and response we see in the most commonly evaluated situations (ie: relationships, finances, homicide etc).

The answer to the question ‘why do I act the way I do’ is as unique as all the life experiences that forged, inherent traits you’ve developed, and chemical makeup that have created who you are. When you ask someone else to solve the questions relating to your own life you are surrendering your ownership of those actions. You are seeking an explanation outside of yourself. You might think that if there is a ‘reason’ it must be OK.

Sometimes that surrender is the best way to move forward, and the explanation someone else gives you may resonate with you enough that you are able to take the advice, make it yours, and move on accepting what that person has told you. Other times, you see more clearly that you are unique, and that even an experts advice might not fit with what you are thinking.

Regardless of how you approach finding the answer to the question ‘why’, notice where the focus of your attention is as you are pondering these thoughts. Are you stuck in the past or poised and ready to move forward to the future? How will it improve your life or the life of others to know the answer to the question why? If your answer sounds like some variation of ‘it gives me an excuse for what I’ve done or what others have done’, then you are trudging down a dark and lonely path.

Moving past why and on to how

Sometimes, when something big has happened, we find it impossible to move on if the event we are pondering is too big for us to comprehend. We need support, and simply having friends, family, a shoulder to lean on is enough to help us move past why. A professional psychologist can help you out if you feel that you simply can not move on given the actions that have taken place.

If, however, your persistence with the question why is more of an infatuation rather than a problem, consider how a life coach would move your forward and subtly shift your attention to a more meaningful question. Replace and reform any sentence including the words ‘why do I’, with the words ‘how can I’. Immediately this changes the game. Rather than thinking why do I act the way I do, you can consider ‘How can I change the way I act?’. Shift your perspective from digging up the muck of the past, to resolving the problems of the future.

You’re going to be spending energy thinking about either question – why not make that energy expenditure productive. Use the key phrase ‘How can I’ to turn around any seemingly dark and detrimental thought process.

The I don’t understand bucket

I recently heard an author speak about a mental bucket that he maintained called the ‘I don’t understand bucket’. It was a sort of filing system he kept in his brain that he simply decided not to expend energy on. I like the idea and think we can all benefit by keeping an I don’t understand bucket in our cerebral cortex that we can quickly discard items with no seeming resolution for in.

I don’t understand all of the technical details of my website, and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will not figure out why some of my page layouts don’t appear right in firefox while they do in internet explorer. I am not committed enough to take the potential years that it may take for understanding these subtleties, so this question has been delegated to my I don’t understand bucket. I can defer this question to an expert when I decide to hire someone. Similarly, I don’t understand why my family acts so differently than I in so many ways, but its not causing any family despair, so I’ll chalk that up to the I don’t understand bucket. Its just not worth the effort of pursuing something that will bring no apparent resolution.

Some ‘bigger’ topics also get chalked up in this bucket. I could ask why did I get cancer at 29 and why are so many people starving? Consider though – isn’t it more interesting to know how I can prevent cancer from re-occurring, and how could I help out at least one starving family? These are the questions I choose to empower.

Our capacity to answer the question ‘why’ for so many difficult and challenging questions has done its part to take away an aspect of our naiveté. We are less imaginative, creative, and willing to accept that we can’t always have the answer that we want. We feel as if we are entitled to an answer, when the answer simply is that there are still mysteries of life we can choose to embrace and move forward with, or potentially allow to overwhelm us. You get to choose which path to pick.

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well

Written by Doug Nau, The Wellness Coach, i-grow.net

How to Write a Vision Statement

dougnau — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:52:00 +0000

If you’ve read my articles before you may be wondering why I have written at such length on the topic of writing a personal vision statement. This is my fifth direct article on this specific topic and many of my ancillary articles refer to the vision as a starting point for creating ‘more’ in life. Why do I write at such length on the topic? Simply put, this is the single most empowering step you can take to consciously creating the life of your dreams.

Over the years, I’ve been introduced to a variety of vision development methods and I’ve never given full exposure in this blog to the different strategies that people have deployed – perhaps because I’ve always felt that the diary format (see below) is the most empowering. With some self inquiry, I’ve come to realize that this is a personal bias and is not necessarily the right media for all people. Just because I’ve seen such powerful results with so many people using this format does not mean it is correct for everyone, so this article offers additional ways people have used to create their personal life vision.

Formats for writing your vision statement

I assume that you know what a vision statement is if you’ve found this article – if not, refer to my article Developing the Vision. Lets discuss some of the different formats that people have used in creating their vision. Since most people like to scan these articles, here’s a bullet list of some of the most common ways that people can develop their vision followed by their description:

Diary Format
Vision Board
Vision Book
Artistic Drawings
Poetry/Music/Creative
Meditative

Diary Format: The Diary format for writing a vision statement is the most common method that I have come across for both individuals and organizations. When writing a diary format vision statement, you pick a date in the future, and describe what life looks like on that day. You don’t need to speak of how you got there (that is the place of goal setting), you simply write in detail what you would like life to be in the future. You get to choose the date that is the most empowering for you. If you’d like sample questions to get the creative juices flowing, or if you’d like a detailed description of how my clients write out their vision statements, again I’ll refer you to the article Developing the Vision. The key is that you read this vision diary entry regularly!

Vision Board: Over the years, many people have embraced the action of developing a vision board. On a large poster board, find images that represent your long term vision. This may include images alone, or words found in magazines and newspapers that call out to you. The process of creating a vision board is both forward thinking and extremely personal. Remember, when you are choosing your images and words, make sure they call out to you and compel you towards the ultimate step of taking action. After you develop the vision board, post it in a location that you view regularly.

Vision Book: I worked with one client that really impressed me with how she took the concept of the vision and turned it into a living book. Similar to the vision board, she filled each page of a book with a theme that was important to her. Finance, Career, Health, Relationships among many others each filled one or more pages each of her vision book. The book itself was bound and just like the vision board, it contained clippings from newspapers and magazines that filled her with passion. Again, make sure that the book is in a location that you refer to frequently.

Artistic Drawings: Personally, I am far from an accomplished artist, however I’ve always like to draw small inaccurate sketches that had meaning and value for me. For example, I’ve a sketch of my ‘dream house’ on my ‘dream property’ in a personal development binder that I keep. Artistic drawings are a phenomenal way to bring the vision in our mind into the physical world. The more the artistic vision is refined, the more leverage it has in inspiring us to create it. Similar to any of these media, it may be difficult to capture everything we want in one image (page, board, or diary entry), so feel free to create an artistic vision that is more than one picture.

Poetry/Music/Creative: As you are likely seeing, all of the processes above require you to invoke your own personal creative skill sets. To be frank with you, I do not know anyone that has personally crafted their vision statement as a poem or scripted it to music. However, if you are skilled with such talents, I am certain that these are extremely effective ways to inspire change as they contain both the message and a powerful media that can invoke emotion and ultimately action. I am sure I’ve missed some creative methods in the list above, hopefully this list is giving you an idea that there is no right or wrong way to create a vision, and that building and reviewing your vision regularly is the true model.

Meditative: Athletes in particular are very aware of the process of visualization. As a young tennis player, I’d be encouraged to visualize the perfect match before I would play it. What did my volleys look like, how did my serve feel, what was it like to win? Developing your personal vision is just that – a personal process. While I am biased towards having a referenceable document of some sort, I am certain that people can create results with conscious and regular reflection upon the life that they desire. For example, I doubt that all top athletes have written out a vision statement to be the best in their sport. I am certain, however, that best in each sport has thought about it relentlessly throughout their life. If you elect to use a meditative approach towards developing your life vision, make sure that you plan it such that it is a regular and frequent topic of thought and meditation.

What is the purpose of a personal vision statement?

As you may be seeing from the commentary above, a vision statement is fundamentally there to bring clarity to your life. We’ve all got some areas we are very clear of (ie: perhaps you want children, or you are seeking a promotion), and others that are, well, uncertain at best. Sometimes, we are quite comfortable with a lack of clarity (ie: I could care less what kind of car I drive in 10 years), however other times we are simply frustrated that we have no direction.

The purpose of the vision statement is provide us with insight into an outcome of life that is so compelling that we are inspired to take action – now. Whatever format does that for you is the right way to write your vision. If you are not sure – just try any of these listed above out. If it isn’t the right format for you, its one step closer to the one that fits.

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well

Written by Doug Nau, The Wellness Coach, i-grow.net

Book Review – Personal Development for SMART PEOPLE

dougnau — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:09:00 +0000

Background

Steve Pavlina is one of the most recognized bloggers in the field of personal growth and development. I’ve got no hesitation admitting that when I began to develop the i-grow.net blog and website at the end of 2007 that his was one of the most influential as I considered websites to model for a starting point. His success blogging has been widely noted and Personal Development for SMART PEOPLE is his introduction into the world of being a published author. Steve is also an accomplished speaker.

Personal Development for SMART PEOPLE was officially released in October 2008 and I’ve been very fortunate to be one of the first round of recipients of the book. Steve, I know you are a strong presence on the blogosphere, so if you get a chance to provide a comment to this entry – that would be fantastic!

Book Review & Commentary

Personal Development for SMART people is organized around three fundamental principles of personal development. These are Truth, Power and Love. Steve also presents what he considers to be derivatives of these three fundamental principles, those of oneness, courage, authority and intelligence. Each of these principles has been dedicated a chapter of explanation and Steve really focuses on providing a number of personal examples relevant to the topics mentioned. If you are not a reader of Steve’s blog (which I encourage you to check out at www.stevepavlina.com), by the time you complete this book you’ll get a good background on who he is along with the framework for personal development he provides in this book. The book is intended for a reader of any level of experience in the field of personal growth.

As someone that reads numerous books on the topics of self help, personal growth, life coaching and development, I am always looking to get something ‘new’ out of the materials that I am reading. For the most part, the work that Steve presents is written in piecemeal by much of the literature currently found in self help and personal development section of your local Barnes and Nobles. It is however, packaged uniquely in a very clean manner manner which is presented well and easy to read. His guidance is based on spiritual principles that provide sound tips and coaching towards living a happy, healthy, and bountiful life. In fact, his writing is very well aligned with materials provided on this website – a testament to the principle he writes about at length of ‘oneness’.

Now, I mentioned that much of the material, while uniquely packaged, discusses principles widely delivered in other media. I do this not to discount the value of this book, but rather to emphasize that there are very precise ways in which to bring wealth and abundance into your life (and I am speaking of wealth in a much greater sense than monetary wealth), and that if you become a student of life, you’ll begin to see that the great minds of self growth think and act in a very common way. The labels for the framework that leaders in this field present may be different (ie: truth, power and love might be called something else in another spiritual model – and as I mentioned I write on a number of these topics under different headings), but the underlying principles are indeed quite similar and in fact easy to understand at an intellectual level. Steve Pavlina offers an intellectual understanding of these principles in a way that is very easy to understand, the challenge in life comes at the application of these principles rather than the comprehension of them. I do appreciate that Steve acts as a coach rather than a mentor, and asks you to explore your own application of these principles yourself.

Something New with Goal Setting – Have I been wrong all along?

As I mentioned, I always like to pull new ideas out of any material I read or listen to. While reading his book, Steve got me thinking about articles I’ve written on goal setting. Specifically Developing Lifestyle Change Goals , 10 Steps to Success - Step 4 Set Goals and Striving But Never Arriving – Creating Long Term Goals. When I went through my life coach training program, a model for setting SMART goals was pounded into my head. I shared this model in my blog article Developing Lifestyle Change Goals, but if you’ve read my progression of articles on the topic, you’ll note that Striving But Never Arriving – Creating Long Term Goals discusses the problems with SMART goals. Steve talks about goal setting, and how a goal need not be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time based, but rather something empowering that drives you to action. Essentially he’s taken the SMAT out and left the relevance as the driving factor for setting goals.

As I pondered this writing I looked for examples in my own life where I’ve made strides as a human being physically, spiritually, intellectually, with relationships, career and finance, and how my life coaching and wellness coaching clients have done the same without necessarily having a SMART goal developed. What’s driven action? It was a burning desire to do something which may not have necessarily had a SMART goal attached to it. Having a vision towards which you are headed is an element I feel is key – and that vision is typically the same driver which inspires you to take action.

While there are numerous other aspects of the book that got me thinking (ie: what type of 30 day trial could enhance my life), this was one that struck me as particularly insightful and has been seldom written in such a way on in the past (at least, I’ve not come across a lot of people that present it this way).

Who is this book for?

The book is written for anyone of any experience in the field of personal development. Its a great book to get started if you are a newbie, and it frames many ever-living concepts in a new way if you are an old hat in this arena. The simple writing style lends itself to any reader. For people that come from a technology background that are looking for a starting point in this type of self help literature, this would be a particularly fun book for you. While I am quite certain Steve does not want his message to be spread only to those with a background in IT, I suspect that those with this background will appreciate the anecdotal stories of personal change that Steve shares.

Paper Format: Personal Development for SMART PEOPLE

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well

Written by Doug Nau, The Wellness Coach, i-grow.net

How to Choose a Life Coach Training Program

dougnau — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 20:02:00 +0000

So you’ve been thinking about becoming a life coach and you are wondering where you can go to get a proper education. Perhaps you’re even wondering if you ‘need’ an education. This article is written to best support you in answering the question ‘How do I choose a Life Coach Training program’, so if you are interested in more basic questions like what is a life coach, or how do I become a life coach, I highly suggest you read through the articles I’ve written on these topic before addressing the program you wish to attend. The article on how to become a life coach also discusses what credentials etc., someone needs for starting up a business in this field.

What should I consider in picking the right life coach training program

When I became certified as a life coach I had the luxury of having a relatively small pool of coach training programs available. In the past 5 years, the growth of the coach training industry has been phenomenal. Today you have more choices as for program formats, locations, and focus of specialty then at any other time in our history. While this is fantastic, its also made making the decision of which coach training program to enter much more difficult. Here are the questions you should consider when deciding which coach training program to enter:

How do I best learn? Do I learn best in person, over the phone, online, as an individual or in groups?
Am I willing to travel to coach training classes and if so, how far am I willing to travel?
How much time can I commit to the coach training process?
How much money do I want to spend on a coach training program?
Is it important to me to be accredited in the field of life coaching?
What area do I believe I will focus on when I begin coaching?
Do I need a program with a strong reputation for supporting its graduates in building their practice?
Am I looking for a program which best supports me in coaching within my business environment?
Am I looking to participate in a fully designed program, or simply personal development classes?

I encourage you to write out the answers to each of these questions on a sheet of paper such that you can get a visual picture of what your ideal program looks like. There’s a good chance that one exists that meets the requirements you are considering.

What’s the first question I should consider?

Unless you’ve got a huge network of friends in the coaching industry and you actually know of enough life coach training programs to be able to pick a few to learn more about (and I’d be very surprised if you did), the best way to learn about the programs available is through an internet search. Before burning a lot of time browsing through training programs, I do suggest that you answer question #5 above first. Is it important for your training to be accredited?

The #1 accrediting agency for life coaches is the International Coach Federation. At this point in time, there is no requirement for ‘life coaches’ to be certified (and this goes for business coaches, relationship coaches, wellness coaches etc.), and depending on who your intended clients are, they may or may not care. Corporations hiring coaches may ask for background/accreditation, but my experience has shown me that the certification is a nice to have, and that practical experience can easily satisfy a clients needs. I’ve had very few private clients ask anything about education – quite honestly most probably don’t know that any such certification program exists!

Regardless, this is a big question as many feel that this field will be monitored and licensed such as the field of psychiatry within the next decade. I personally believe that would be very difficult to do seeing that coaches span a huge variety of niches and industries, and since ‘life coaching’ is just one of many fields of coaching, it will be difficult to differentiate the life coach from the ADHD coach. Would a small business or career coach need accreditation? How about a sports coach (they share the same title)? Tough questions to answer.

If you are wondering, I did elect to participate in a certified coach training program that could provide accreditation. I felt that it minimized any risk should accreditation be required in the future (and my training program was quite expensive). But more important, it gave me some sense of assurance that the program was a legitimate organization that would reliably see me through to graduation. In essence, the International Coach Federation (ICF) has audited this group and they must adhere to pretty strict guidelines in order to keep their stature as an accredited coach training program.

Accreditation is not important to me – what should I do?

If program accreditation is not important to you, then you’ll find literally hundreds (if not, perhaps thousands) of training classes available to you. You can start with a Google search on ‘Life Coach Training’ – here’s a link that will bring you there (Google Results). Use the questions above to narrow your search – like ‘online life coach training’ or ‘life coach training Sacramento’. Once you’ve answered the questions above, you’ll be able to effectively narrow your searches using your favorite search engine. You’ll likely find a few potential programs advertising throughout this website. Write out the potential programs and call them up. Believe me, you do want to contact any program you’ll be taking classes with to make sure they align with what your expectations are. Most will allow you to audit a class before needing to join a whole program.

One thing you do need to ask yourself is whether or not you want to go through a program or simply a class (or series of classes). Even certified coach training programs will typically let students enter some classes without deciding to go through the entire training. If you are just looking to take a class here and there (which can be a valid approach since no accreditation is required), then focus on specific content of the courses provided. Many of the unaccredited programs still offer a certification or degree through their program – the only issue is whether any authorizing agency recognizes it. Again, ask yourself if that degree/certification is important to you (even if its not recognized by a certifying body – most clients at this point in time wouldn’t know the difference).

What if Accreditation is important to me?

If going through an ICF accredited program is important to you there will be a pretty standard structure that your program must adhere to. There will be a specific number of contact hours that you’ll need to go through and you’ll also be required to work with a mentor coach throughout your program. Again, costs vary widely.

One other thing you’ll need for accreditation is to complete a certain number of life coaching hours with clients. Check the ICF website for specific details, but the last time I checked, you’ll need 150 hours to graduate from your program and earn a status of ACC (Associate Certified Coach). You’ll need to apply for your ACC through the ICF after completing your coach training program which will be an additional fee but should go extremely smoothly when you complete your program with an ICF accredited coach training program.

To find accredited programs, visit the ICF website coach training program page. You’ll be able to filter the results of accredited coach training programs by language, location, niche, and program format.

Can I still get certified if I did not attend a coach training program?

To the best of my understanding it is possible to get certified with the ICF even if you did not attend a specific coach training program, however it requires that you pass a test as well as to provide documentation of education that you have been involved with. You’ll also need to prove your coaching hours. I do not know anyone personally that has taken this route so I can’t comment on how easy it is, you can get the full details on the requirements of accreditation here.

Summary

Picking a life coach training program is a personal choice and has as much to do with the format and content of the program you are considering as with your intentions of taking the classes. Individuals in my courses varied from business executives looking to incorporate coaching into the business environment, to personal growth enthusiasts, to coaches looking to build a business from the ground up.

Understand what your personal purpose is of taking the coach training program and the parameters under which your training program operates and you’ll see yourself quickly pointed in the right direction.

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well

Written by Doug Nau, The Wellness Coach, i-grow.net

Growing a Blog Business – October 4, 2008

dougnau — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:39:00 +0000

September brought about a couple setbacks in recording my audio book – essentially my microphone went on the fritz and I had to get a new one. Setbacks cleared away now and I am on target for an October release of both the e-book and audio book. Here’s a quick update on growing the blog business.

Updates for September

Again no new technology updates for the website – as I look to release the e-book, I anticipate quite a few additions to be made in the month of October. I’ll be taking a number of days off from the Wellness Coaching day job to complete the website improvements to make the delivery of this product possible. Here are some accomplishments this month.

Added 8 new blog posts to the website
Delivered monthly newsletter
Registered and posted 2 articles on (Striving But Never Arriving – Creating Long Term Goals and Working through Deflections) to four article submission directories (EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, SelfGrowth.com and AccomplishLife.com)
Completed recording three chapters of audio book

Learnings/Observations

i-grow.net now has 2 articles in the top 10 of Google for searches with the keywords wellness coach and wellness coaching. This has started pushing quite a bit more traffic to the site in the month of October. A personal goal of mine is to be the #1 Wellness Coaching resource on the web as well as the #1 Life Coaching Resource on the web, so this is a great move in that direction.

Here are detailed website results from August:

According to Google Analytics, here is my unique visitor results for the past 3 months.

July - Unique Visitors

August - Unique Visitors

September - Unique Visitors

September showed my largest gain in traffic for any month to date. It jumped about 250 visitors. Right now the site seems to be averaging between 20 and 30 visitors per day. Compared to 2-3 per day about 6 months ago, I’ll take these results!

Here are my AdSense Revenue’s

July - Ad Revenue

August- Ad Revenue

September - Ad Revenue

Again click through rates seem to be consistent at 1.3%. I am certainly not making a living off $14.50/month but its almost double what I was making 2 months ago. Google pays out at $100 – I am expecting to make $100 this year – not bad for about 1000 hours of work!

Alexa Ranking

My Alexa rank continues to grow as well – as you’d expect with the increased traffic. Its jumped up over another 100k spots as my previous months ranking was 763,712. At this point I am not sure how many visitors are needed to break into the 500k mark, 600k seems to be around 550 unique visitors/month.

Google Page Rank

I usually don’t mention this but my Google page rank finally moved up to 2. I am not sure what did it, its been steady at 1 pretty much since I started the site – Perhaps a few more inbound links are coming to my website.

Goals Moving Forward

October

Record Audio Book
Complete final draft revisions of e-book with cover
Post audio book and e-book to website
Redesign home page and ancillary pages
Submit 2 articles to 3 article directories

Long Term Goals

Continue writing at a pace of 6 articles per month (2008 goal of 100 articles)
Continue developing 1/2 podcast per month (2008 goal of 7 podcasts)
Continue writing one newsletter per month
Create a more user friendly archives page - filterable by category
develop a free e-book to give out to people as an incentive for subscribing to my newsletter
Deliver audio version of free e-book
Improve performance of database queries to pull up blog information
Optimize website to improve click through rate

Looking forward to providing another update in October!

“If you’ve found this site useful, please link to it so that others can benefit!”

Be Well

Written by Doug Nau, The Wellness Coach, i-grow.net

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