Tag: featured

The first step to living your dream life

by Julie Nguyen, posted in Work

Where do you want to be in a year?

It’s not a question that many of us stop to think about because it’s hard enough to get through the week or even the day without worrying about a year out.

But if we never stop to think about where we want to be, we wake up one day and wonder, what have I accomplished? Is it what I actually want to accomplish? Why haven’t I accomplished more?

Nurses and hospice workers say that one of the biggest regrets that people have on their deathbeds is not living the life they wanted to.

But it doesn’t need to be this way if you choose to live life intentionally and authentically.

Where do you want to go?

Think about your last vacation. How much time did you spend planning it? My guess is you spent a total of at least 10-20 hours deciding where to go, how to get there, where to stay, what to eat, where to sightsee, and what activities to do.

Why? Because you only get so much time off per year and want to make the most of it. And with at least a little planning and research, you’re more likely to have an amazing vacation.

If you can benefit so much from spending a little extra time planning two weeks of your life, imagine how much more you could benefit by planning the other 50 weeks of your life. You can go from living a life that feels like a hamster wheel to living a life filled with intention and purpose. Whether you think about it often or not, you only have so much time to live on this earth. Why not give yourself the best chance at living a life you’ll love?

The role of your subconscious mind

Even if you have a plan for where you’d like to be, you still might not be living that way. It’s not because you’re lazy or not good enough, and it’s also not because it’s too hard or you don’t have enough time. It’s because it isn’t ingrained in your subconscious mind yet.

Your subconscious mind is responsible for the automated part of your life: habits, automatic processes like breathing, reactions like the fight or flight response, forming memories, interpreting what’s happening around you, and creating beliefs about how we should live and how the world works. Up to 95% of what your brain processes happens in the subconscious mind so you don’t spend huge amounts of energy processing all the minute details of your day.

So any time you introduce new behaviors or beliefs into your life, it’s going to feel strange. Not only does it take significantly more energy to integrate these into your life, but they also might conflict with previous behaviors or beliefs already ingrained in your subconscious mind. And when that happens, your subconscious mind is actively going to fight against you.

So when you’re planning out where you want to be in a year, you need to figure out what you want to achieve and change and you need to get your subconscious mind to embrace that plan.

The personal vision statement

That’s where a personal vision statement comes in handy. It acts as your guiding force for who you want to be and what you want to achieve, plus it makes it easier for your subconscious mind to accept your new plan as the status quo.

So how do you create and use a personal vision statement in your life?

1. What do you want to accomplish in the next year?
Often when we think about what we want to do in our life, we think about something broad that might get done in the next 5 to 10 years. At first, that feels less stressful because we have so much time to get what we want done. But it also makes it harder to make concrete plans because it’s harder to wrap our brains around where to start and what steps we need to take.

By narrowing your focus to a year, you’re more likely to be specific about what you want to accomplish (i.e. I want to write and publish two books this year vs I want to be an author), making it easier to break your plans into manageable steps that can be performed over the course of the year. And with specifics, you’ll probably find you can get a lot more done than you thought you could.

So start by making a list of what you’d like to do in all areas of your life, including work, family, other relationships, health, and spirituality. Don’t be afraid if the list looks too challenging right now. We’ll come to that.

2. Write your vision statement
When you’re writing your vision statement, you’ll want to keep a few things in mind:

  • Write it in the present tense: When you write in the present tense, you’re telling your subconscious mind that you’re already doing these things, even if you’re not. The funny thing is, your subconscious mind believes you because it can’t tell the difference between real life and an imaginary visualization that it’s told is true. This is what concepts like the Law of Attraction and mantras are built off of, and amazingly they work as long as we pair them with action.
  • Be descriptive: The more descriptive you are, the easier it will be to see yourself as the person you want to be. Visual descriptions especially make it easier to solidify what you’re working to become.
  • Write them by hand: This isn’t absolutely necessary, but when you write your vision statement by hand, you use parts of your brain that don’t get activated when you type. This helps you ingrain the visualization even deeper into your mind.

So what does it look like when it’s finished? Let me show you with an example.

I am a multi-dimensional mom. I work a full-time job in a field I’m passionate about. Every day I come home at 5pm and put my electronics away so I can focus on my kids until they go to bed. Three days a week I wake up early to fit a workout in so I am on top of my game. Every night I write about my day in my journal to process and release everything that happened so I get the best sleep possible. Twice a month, my husband and I go out by ourselves to deepen our relationship. I model balance, love, and joy for my kids every day so they can grow up and know how to create those attributes in their own lives. 

Some of this might be true right now, and some or all of it might not. What’s most important is that this statement uniquely represents your desires for where you want to be in all areas of your life a year from now.

3. Read your vision statement every day
Writing your vision statement down once doesn’t make it magically come true. Just like a new habit, your vision gets integrated into your subconscious over time, which means you need to make sure that you’re using it every day.

Reading it out loud uses different parts of your brain (like writing by hand) and helps integrate it further into your subconscious. But if it’s difficult to read it out loud, just reading it every day and visualizing it as true is a great start.

Visualization can also be incorporated at the beginning or end of your daily meditation practice because it’s a lot easier to form a new habit by tacking it onto an existing habit. Or you can write your vision statement out again every morning to get those extra motor skills involved. The more you do any of these and visualize your statement as true, the more your subconscious will believe it and the easier it will be to actually become this person.

4. Find your action steps
It’s not uncommon to write a vision statement and then ask yourself, how in the world am I going to do this? If you’re challenging yourself, it probably feels difficult to plan all of this out and get it all done. It might even feel terrifying.

That’s why you need to list out what you need to do accomplish this year and then integrate those action steps into your days.

Start with a list of all the action steps you think you’ll need to do to make your vision a reality. Things like:

  • Going to the gym 3 times a week
  • Writing 1 blog post a week
  • Putting away work after 7pm
  • Getting 8 hours of sleep
  • Attending 1 professional conference every quarter

Break down any tasks that require multiple steps so your list reflects how tasks will actually need to be accomplished (i.e. If you’re writing a blog post, you’ll need to create tasks to research, write, edit, and publish).

Then, schedule all recurring tasks into your calendar. For tasks that don’t need to be done at a specific time, schedule them as early in the day as possible to ensure they’ll actually get done. The later you schedule tasks, the more likely something will come up to prevent you from doing them. So you want to make sure that the most important tasks for your vision get done first to ensure they get done the day they’re supposed to be done.

Finally, you’ll take everything else from your list and prioritize them from most important to least important. You’ll probably want to keep this list on a program that’s easily updated so you can continue to add to this list or rearrange it as necessary.

5. Integrate your vision statement into your daily life
As you read your personal vision statement each morning (or at night if you plan your days the night before), choose the 3 most important action steps you’re going to take for the day. For instance:

  • Get a 30 minute pilates session in at 5:30am before the kids wake up
  • Write out a proposal for a new project at work
  • Play soccer with the kids for 30 minutes while they take a break from homework

This includes any recurring tasks you already have scheduled for the day that support your vision.

Three doesn’t seem like much, but when we have more than that it becomes difficult to prioritize and finish everything. When you limit yourself, you ensure you’ll be making progress on your most important goals and have a much better chance at completing your most important goals every day.

Once you have those three items, schedule them into your calendar, giving them the appropriate amount of time to complete them. Again, make sure they’re scheduled as early in the day as possible.

Only when those are scheduled do you look at the rest of your day and schedule anything else that you want to get done. But remember, the only three things you’re absolutely committing to are the three items on your to do list. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

6. Re-evaluate on a regular basis
The beauty of your vision statement is that it’s yours, and just like you it can change. You should re-evaluate your statement every 6-12 months to make sure it still aligns with who you are and what you want to accomplish. If not, then feel free to tweak it until it feels right again and use that to guide the next 6-12 months.

I like to re-evaluate my vision every year on my birthday, but you can use any date that will act as marker to remind you it’s time for a re-evaluation.

You deserve to live a fulfilling life that you love, but you’re the only one that can make it happen. Even though setting up a vision can take some time, and maybe even create a big shift in how you structure your day, I promise it’s worth it.

The key to happiness? Self-compassion

by Julie Nguyen, posted in Love

If you ever heard someone say the following out loud to someone else, they’d be considered a huge jerk, right?

“You’re an idiot.”
“I can’t believe you messed up again.”
“You’ve gotten fat.”
“Why are you so lazy?”

But how often do you say things like that… to yourself?

If that is something you do, why do you talk like that to yourself? Maybe you’re scared that if you don’t, you’ll never live up to your full potential. Or maybe you think you deserve it.

Is that really true? And what would life be like if you were as compassionate to yourself as you are to people you care about?

What self-criticism really does to you

At first glance, self-criticism might seem to work really well in the short-term. When you make a mistake and you punish yourself for it, your disappointment prevents you from making that mistake again. Success.

But what if you’re in the middle of a big presentation and you make a mistake? Self-criticism keeps your attention on the mistake as you’re trying to move forward. When your focus splits like this, the more likely it’ll be you’ll make another mistake, which splits your focus even further. It’s a downward spiral that’s difficult to escape. And it can happen in any area of your life, not just work. Imagine this happening on a first date or in the middle of your workout class.

Even worse, it’s not just limited to one area of your life, even if it starts out that way. The more you tell yourself you aren’t pretty enough, smart enough, strong enough, talented enough, good enough, etc., the more that gets ground into your subconscious.

Your subconscious mind is responsible for up to 95% of what the brain processes, including making sure your actions are consistent with your thoughts. So by telling your subconscious mind you aren’t good enough too many times, you start to act that way as well in all areas of your life.

So what’s the alternative?

What is self-compassion?

Self-compassion is the practice of seeing yourself the same way you see your friends and family: as a person who deserves empathy, love, and care despite your flaws and mistakes.

In other words, stop judging yourself so much!

It sounds so simple, but it’s hard for us to overcome the fears that keep us tethered to self-criticism, like:

I’ll screw up more if I let go of self-criticism
Perfectionists often believe that with a little more effort, they can be perfect. But that’s just not possible. So let go of that idea. All the energy and focus you put into being perfect is suddenly freed up for what you’re actually doing, which makes it likely that over time you’ll perform better. If nothing else, you’ll enjoy what you’re doing more, so you’ll focus on how much you love what you’re doing rather than on potential mistakes you’re making.

Putting myself first is selfish or narcissistic
Giving yourself what you need and putting up boundaries allows you to do your best work and take care of the people you love more easily. It’s just like using an oxygen mask on an airplane. If you put the oxygen mask on yourself first, you’ll be conscious to put masks on other people who might need your help. If you put the mask on others first, you’ll pass out and be left without oxygen.

I’ll become lazy if I’m not criticizing myself
Practicing self-compassion means recognizing what you need. And part of what humans need is to feel like they’re fulfilling their potential. It’s difficult to do that while binge-watching TV. There might be periods of more rest and less doing, but at some point you’ll want to get back up and start accomplishing again. You might even push yourself more when you practice self-compassion because now you don’t have a voice in your head telling you you’re not capable.

The most important thing to remember is that self-compassion is a process. It’s not something that happens overnight, but a series of lifelong practices that are applied over and over as you continue to grow and become more confident.

The benefits of self-compassion

The biggest benefit of self-compassion is that you’ll find yourself a healthier, happier person. And it’s not just because you’re not telling yourself how terrible you are anymore.

When you start to focus on your needs and desires first, you see how much impact you can have on the world. You spend more time on what you care about and the things that make you feel great and less on what you’re “supposed to do,” which makes you feel accomplished and engaged on a regular basis.

As you focus on your own needs and progress, you also spend less time comparing yourself to others. You realize that focusing on whether someone else is happier than you or more successful than you is only adding to your sense of lack. Self-compassion helps you focus on how much you’ve grown rather than how amazing you could be if only you were more like someone else, which will never happen.

Show yourself some compassion

As good as all that sounds, transitioning to a self-compassion mindset can be a scary process if you’re used to clinging to self-criticism. So how do you make that transition for yourself?

1. Recognize the moments when you’re being harsh toward yourself
Most people don’t realize how critical their inner dialog is because they’re so used to it, they assume it’s normal. When you actually voice those thoughts, that’s when it hits you how harsh those thoughts are. So write down your thoughts and read them out loud as if you’re reading them to a friend. Even when it’s pretend, it’s hard to believe the words that are coming out of your mouth. Seeing that is the first step to changing how you talk to yourself.

2. Change the message
Through a vision statement or daily mantras, start to change the message ingrained in your subconscious. Use the thoughts you wrote down to find the messages your subconscious needs to hear: I am worthy of love, I use my mistakes to learn and grow, I am beautiful, I am capable, I am enough. You might not believe the mantras at first, but the more you use them the more they seep into your subconscious, replacing your self-critical thoughts. It helps to say them out loud or write them down for 1-2 minutes every time your self-critical thoughts come up until you start feeling like they’re true.

3. Take time for yourself everyday
Whether that’s five minutes or an hour, make sure you take some time to connect with yourself, what you want, and how you want to feel. Practices like meditation or journaling can help you dig into your needs, as can meditative movement like yoga, tai chi, or walking in nature. Take note of areas of self-care you’ve been ignoring, actions you’ve been taking that don’t feel congruent with who you are, actions you’ve been wanting to take but haven’t, and areas of your life where you need to set up boundaries.

4. Start taking care of yourself
Take action on the items you’ve noted during your reflection time. The key is to start small. Unless radical change is absolutely necessary, implement one or two things on your list at a time until they start to feel routine. Then implement the next one or two things on your list. Small steps build up your confidence and make the changes in your life less overwhelming so that you’re more likely to build them into habits you’ll use all your life.