by ColoradoCoach.

Success can be defined as breaking through your personal barriers.

When you set a goal say it out loud. Say it with conviction–emotion. Stay focused.  Celebrate your achievements and appreciate your efforts. Smile to show yourself you are celebrating and truly appreciative of all your efforts.

Do you even know what your personal barriers are? I believe that your #1 personal barrier that is preventing you from success is that you are FINE! Stop being fine.  Choose to be honest with others and yourself and start being amazing!

Mel Robbins covers this exact topic of breaking through the F*@% barrier here at Tedx SF

Make today the day you stop being fine! What will you resolve to stop being fine with in 2012?
Post your comments below. Make a public declaration to STOP being FINE!

Posted in success, expectations, Coaching, goal setting, mindset, perspective | No Comments »

by ColoradoCoach.

A large part of Living the Solution is taking time to live fully.  Participating in community events and getting to know your neighbors becomes an important part of feeling fully alive.

In that spirit I want to share for my local readers info about a fun community event.

Snow Sculpture in the Dark Event and Street Festival to be held in Downtown Loveland December 9 & 10th

Activities include a parade of lights, snow sculpting competition, an artisan show, entertainment, horse drawn wagon rides for the family and more! Snow Sculptors who have competed internationally will magically transform 4th Street into a winter wonderland.

The below clip is from the Snow Stomping Event that took place in Downtown Loveland to start the whole week off!

Six 8-foot-square molds were set up along Fourth Street and community stompers jumped, kicked, and stomped to pack the snow down. Six teams of artists willcreate one-of-a-kind works of art our of the snow blocks.

Friday, December 9 

• 10 a.m. - all night (weather permitting): Snow Sculpting Competition
  
• 5 - 9 p.m.:
  • Artisan Show with handmade items @ The Majestic Gathering Place, 315 E. 4th Street, Loveland, CO
  • People’s Choice voting for their favorite snow sculpture
  • FREE Ice Bowling complimented with S’mores and hot apple cider for purchase

• 5:30 - 10 p.m.: Liquid Arts Festival, a ticketed spirits tasting at the Bonnell Building 
• 6 - 9 p.m.: Horse drawn carriage rides . 

Saturday, December 10

• 8 - 11 a.m. : Snow Sculpting Competition
• 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.: People’s Choice voting of Snow Sculptures 
• 10 a.m. - 7 p.m.: Artisan Show continues
• 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.: Live entertainment
  

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by ColoradoCoach.

“Don’t limit yourself.  Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do.  You can go as far as your mind lets you.  What you believe, remember, you can achieve.“ —Mary Kay Ash

Do you know what thoughts limit you?  Are you aware of the beliefs you hold dear that hold you back?

Over time many people get too comfortable being comfortable.  They become afraid to challenge their own limits.

Elephants are extremely powerful creatures, yet if you have seen them in a circus, you have seen they stand quietly, leashed only to a small chain and metal stake. These powerful creatures could easily break free, yet they don’t.  Why?

When elephants are young (and not quite as powerful), they are tied to a heavy chain and immovable metal stake. They quickly  discover that no matter how hard they try, they can’t break free.  As elephants grow  and become strong, they still believe they can’t escape as long as they are wearing a chain connected to a stake in the ground.

Much like elephants, people learn to feel constrained and don’t stretch beyond their self-imposed limitations.  They rarely test the weak chains that hold them prisoner.

When was the last time you really pushed yourself to your own limit?  Do you know what you are capable of?

What area of your life would you like to live more fully?

Self-imposed limits are a result of our own beliefs based on past conditioning. They are boundaries we have agreed to in our minds about what we cannot be, do, have or achieve. These limits are not real, they have not been tested; they only exist in our minds.

If you’re frustrated with self-imposed boundaries and feel fully ready to expand your life, I encourage you to identify your self-imposed limits. Look deeply at the cage you keep yourself in.  The same cage that is designed to protect you, serves as your own prison that confines you. Once you know what they are, you can free yourself from restrictions. You will also experience something amazing – your hidden potential.

1. Become aware of limiting thoughts.  It is difficult to change something you are unaware of. Begin to write down and journal limiting thoughts and beliefs that hold you prisoner.

2.  Begin to think big and see the possibilities. It is easy to find the faults and negatives in any situation, but to expand your limits you need to open your eyes to the world of possibilities–big possibilities.  Allow yourself to  dream a bigger dream.  And then look around for the many possibilities.

3. Take action toward the big dreams that confront the limiting beliefs. Action is a mighty powerful force.  Action that challenges old beliefs can change those beliefs quickly.  And if you are feeling imprisoned, you want to make a fast break.

4. Surround yourself with other Big Dreamers. An amazing thing happens when you surround yourself with other possibility thinkers–Big Dreams begin to happen.  The positive ideas and positive actions create  positive outcomes.

5. Continue to Grow!  Conscious growth forces you to swell beyond your cage.  Read, attend seminars, teach others to dream big, share your message, push your limits, challenge yourself, –the list of ways to grow is unlimited.  Just keep growing.

What would you add to this list.  How have you overcame self imposed limitations in the past?  I look to learn from your comments.

Posted in expectations, success, Coaching, mindset | 1 Comment »

by ColoradoCoach.

Tis the season.  Tis the season for scammers to ramp up their efforts and prey on the innocent & hopeful.

This is not a usual post for me, but thought it was still pretty valid, so I thought I would throw it up as a warning.

I received an envelope that was  hand written addressed to me at my home address. I immediately thought something was fishy since there was no return address. Also, it was postmarked from Phoenix, Arizona.

The letterhead said “US Airlines”.  This was intriguing because I never heard of US Airlines. Perhaps this was meant to sound familiar as a clever with a cross between US Airways and United Airlines. Here is what the letter indicated (see below).

NOTE: You must respond no later than December 2, 2011

Dear Sean,

I am pleased to inform you that you have qualified for an award of 2 roundtrip airline tickets. Congratulations. These tickets are valid for travel anywhere in the Continental U.S. from any major international airport. The retail value of this award is up to $1,400.00. Certain restrictions apply.

We have attempted contacting you several times without success. This is our last attempt. If we do not hear from you soon, we may need to issue the ticket vouchers to the alternate.

Please call me today at 1-866-342-1899.

Regards,

<printed signature that is supposed to look like ink>

Erica Bale

Vice President

The bottom of the letter also had reference numbers (consisting of two letters – five numbers) as well.

Stuff like this annoys me so much, particularly because i know some people will be taken by this scam. I didn’t even waste time calling, but instead decided to make it public just in case anyone else receives a similar letter!

After searching on Google I discovered there are tons of people out there reporting these scam letters. In exchange for credit card information, they are promised round trip tickets which are NEVER received! Don’t fall for this stuff. If it seems too good to be true, then it probably is!

As I have written about before there are plenty of dangers out there to navigate, including unscrupulous  people.  To quote a famous line from a TV show my dad enjoyed watching, “Let’s be careful out there.”

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by ColoradoCoach.

I was recently invited to a local elementary school to speak to a group of about 70 fourth and fifth graders about goal setting, for their Wonderful Wednesday program. At first I was a bit surprised to learn that most of these kids have had little exposure to what goals are or what is involved at goal setting. Then after thinking a bit more about it, I realized that many adults really have no idea about goals and goal setting. In fact one of the adults in the room came up to me afterwards and said, “I think I took more away from your presentation than the kids did.”

After thinking about that, I thought perhaps it would be useful to get into a little more detail about this simple presentation that I gave. Goal setting is so core to everything that I do as a coach, yet it seems to play a smaller role to my marketing and communication. As we approach the end of the year, I tend to spend my coaching sessions looking at ways to ramp up my clients to increase their achievement because they got started late in the year producing the results they wanted, or I spend time evaluating the year of successes and misses and begin planning for next year. Well with you, my readers I want to take a different practice schedule. I want to work on the basics.

What are goals?

When I asked the kids this, the first response was a soccer goal. “Some place where I kick the soccer ball.” I asked why he wanted to kick the ball there and he responded it is how he scores. And the one that scores the most wins, right.

Well life and business goals are similar. How do you really win in your life? How do you win in your business? How well do you know how to score in your life and your business?

I shared with the kids the very basic answer of goals are something you want in your life or something you want to achieve. I like the idea of thinking of goals as the “scores” in your life and business that ultimately lead to the wins. After you add up enough wins, you claim the cup, or “trophy” life.

In the next few installments on the blog I’m going to cover the simple steps to setting goals that lead to achievement. So keep reading. And watch for a link to the actual presentation I gave at BF Kitchen Elementary school in Loveland, CO.

Until the next installment you have some homework. Define how you define the “scores” in your life. Write it down. I make you a deal also, if you post your answers in the comments section below I will enter you in a drawing for a free year of coaching. This will be a free pass to my new online coaching program that will be released in December.

So how do you score?

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