Each of us has our own personal set of values. These are what determine which aspects of life we regard as important or beneficial. Our values help determine our way of life, our work, our entertainment, social, political and religious interactions. Each of us hold many values and these values are likely to change as we grow, or easily put, as we reach different stages of our life and have more experiences and influences. Some of the values we hold may be ’superficial’, transitory, temporary so to speak, really only serving you at that moment. Other values are fixed or at our core and stay with us throughout our life; these my friends are our ‘Core Values’. Grab a pen and piece of paper and I invite you to do this exercise. Yes I am suggesting, write it down!

Lets talk about clues to our Core values

1.How do you spend your time?
2.What do you love to do?
3.What are you looking forward to most today or what happened today that was The best for you?” The answer to these questions most likely will reveal some of your Values. But don’t stop now, this is where it starts getting FUN!

1. Who do you admire most? Dead or Alive from any point in your life, someone you know personally or not, just WHO do YOU ADMIRE Most?
2. What are their qualities and characteristics
3. What you would say your personality is like?: Describe “uncensored”
4. What would you say your strengths are?

Again this is just for you, so don’t hold back. Ready for the Big SECRET to CORE VALUES? You just started to discover yours! Look at what you wrote, what does it say? These are the things you value most.

If we want to move forward in life it is important for us to know our Values. For more techniques and strategies to move forward in your life or Career, invest in a coach.

By working with a professional coach, you improve your ability at figuring out where you want to go, you increase the probability of successfully getting there, and you decrease the amount of time to get there. This is achieved by the following key aspects of what coaching can help with.

Finding Clarity
One of the key things that a professional coach can help with is helping you to find clarity in terms of who you are, what you want, the challenges you face, and the opportunities that exist. This can help you to improve your self-awareness and can have a direct impact on your personal and professional growth.

Provides a Sounding Board
Working with coach will provide a sounding board for a client to discuss ideas, thoughts, and challenges. Not only can a coach provide good feedback, but sometimes just talking about something with somebody else is enough to establish clarity by itself. And when it is not enough, a coach can help a client to work through things by talking through the details and looking at things from other perspectives.

Create More Focused Attention
We all have such busy lives and so many things to work on. Working with a coach can help to identify where attention needs to be focused and the coach can help a client to maintain that focus in order to stay on track and drive growth.

Increase Accountability
We often have self talk with ourselves about what we need to do. This self talk creates accountability internally with ourselves. When work with a coach, we talk through what we need to do with someone else and that establish accountability between us and an external person which increases the level of accountability and can improve our motivation and focus. At the end of the day, it is easier to keep your commitments when they are with someone other than yourself.

Action Planning
Whether we know it or not, we are always doing some sort of action planning and a lot of the time this at the subconscious level. By working with a coach, we are forced to bring that process to the conscious level and work through what needs to be done and accomplished to get where we want to go. By doing action planning with a coach, we can establish more clarity, focus, and accountability and this can improve our ability to be successful.

Progress Tracking
When working on independently, it is often easy to not be aware of the progress we are making. It is also easy to veer off course and not even know it. By working with a coach, you can spend time on tracking progress to ensure that progress is being made toward identified goals and that everything is staying on track.

There are cats and dogs. In the human world. Dog People, who love routines and want everyone to enjoy and get along. Cat people, who loves chaos and are attracted to danger. How can we communicate with each other, dogs and cats?

Michael Grinder is a frequent visitor to Sweden and many other countries. From Portland, USA, he has built a platform for non-verbal communication, which he teaches to people of all professions. It can be teachers and principals who want to learn group dynamics and business managers who need to sharpen their recruitment processes.

Thursday’s day of the course was about how we talk to each other without words. Body language accounts for 80% of communication, then it makes little difference how much we’re talking.

“We are far too oral, says Michael Grinder. This gives rise to major problems of communication, especially between different cultures. Gestures and above all pausing are a universal language.

The day was filled with lots of laughter and “aha” moments when the 150 participants recognized familiarity in the stereotypes presented. Michael Grinder shone with energy and willingness to teach. There were lots of role playing on stage and even more fictional by using chairs as Michael moved around so that we could understand.

-You must be visual if you will manage to communicate! Michael Grinder said. People will follow your eyes, so look where you want them to look.
The day was an appetizer of the course organized by the Villa Harmony in March next year. Mats Ohlsson runs Villa Harmony with his wife Lisbeth and has a collaboration with Michael Grinder since 2005.

This is coaching undertaken professionally by an individual who possess vast experience and qualifications in a specific field for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals who lack such experience and knowledge. There are usually particular goals, often quantitative goals, associated with any coaching activity and it can be used to develop innate talent and skills to enhance ones quality of life and professional experience.

How can I determine if I need a coach?

A coach can often tell if their experience can help a client improve their lives but to avoid unscrupulous and insincere individuals it is often better to have your own set of expectations that you hope to achieve through coaching. Coaching is often necessary in situations where theoretical understanding alone is insufficient to claim knowledge of the subject matter. In the context of life coaching, a coach can foster wisdom in helping you achieve your desired goals and help you understand the patterns that suit your lifestyle best based on your goals.

What are the advantages of being coached by someone experienced?

- With outlined expectations and goals, coaching can help you base your decisions on strict and well defined rules that produce the most effective results.
- Coaching also improves ones capabilities of independent thought and interpersonal skills.
- Coaching helps one accept their level of competence in light of the skills which will be developed in due time. This bolsters an individuals self confidence and gives them a positive outlook towards life and a new appreciation towards being a learner
- Self satisfaction for achieving ones own defined goals through coaching

The coaching industry has grown unprecedentedly, why is this?

It is true that coaching has grown in the business world as well, but this can be attributed to the need to lower costs of hiring very experience individuals. It costs less to pay such an individual to train in-house employees than to have the experience individual on a payroll permanently. Coaching has also developed as people recognize the need for professional assistance to accomplish their goals; in early years a lot of people felt that they would lose the inner conviction and satisfaction of accomplishing their goals on their own, this is not the case and has been a deterring misconception about expert coaches. Coaches are there to guide you and not to accomplish your goals for you; the understanding of this important fact has also played an active role in growing the industry.

When you can’t get what you want, you learn to be creative about getting the same thing in a different way. That’s how I discovered the life coach I already had living under my roof (which doesn’t leak, by the way).

My advisor for many years was Muggins, my Springer spaniel who passed away last October at 17 years old. Now I have Ducky. Ducky is also a Springer spaniel; she’s just over a year old. And she is the best life coach a person could possibly want. If you want to see a picture of Ducky, check out the “About” page on Up From Splat.

Everyday, she guides me. She does it by example.

Your pet is guiding you too. But are you taking in that guidance?

Pay Attention

Here are just a few ways your dog or cat or other pet can give you great life coach advice.:

1. Because pets usually find something good about everything-even trash, which they often consider to be a great toy, they teach positive thinking. They get you to focus on what feels good and what’s going right instead of what’s going wrong.

2. Because pets are often in motion, they remind you to get in motion. Energy creates energy. You can see that in animals, and you know it’s true when you make yourself get up and move, even when you’re feeling down.

3. Because most pets, at least those in loving homes, expect good from everything and everyone, they remind you to set your intentions for what you want instead of what you don’t want.

4. Because pets pursue their passions, they remind you to take inspired action and not force yourself to do things you don’t want to do. And if you feel like you really have to do something, you know to find a good way to do it. Most pets are great at that.

I could give you a hundred more examples, but you’d be bored by the time I was done and Ducky has taught me not to be boring.

If you have a pet, you can get a life coach for free. I don’t care what you have-a dog, a cat, a bird, a fish, a gerbil, a python or any other kind of critter. Animals are better teachers than most humans.

Every animal has a more natural relationship with its true nature and with the flow of energy in the universe than most humans do. If you just observe your pet and make it your intention to emulate him or her, you will be receiving some of the best coaching in the world.

I’m not talking about sniffing your friend’s butt, although if you did that, you’d be doing something powerful like stepping out of your comfort zone. But no, I don’t mean that you emulate specific behaviors. I mean that you copy general ones-attitudes and mindsets and use of energy.

If you don’t have a pet, visit friends or family who have them and watch their pets. Or go into nature and watch the birds or the deer.

Most people who love animals enjoy observing them, but they don’t think about observing them with the intention of learning from them. Set that intention, and you’ll get life coaching for free. And you’ll love the ways it will positively impact your life.

We’ve all experienced situations where we’ve said something and then on the way home found ourselves re-playing the conversation in our heads over and over. Our inner critic picks up the microphone and broadcasts that we said it wrong, we should have worded it differently or beats us up because we might have upset someone.

The longer you listen, the worse it becomes. The greater the intensity of worry and you begin to lose self-confidence and feel bad. This is all you think about that evening, tirelessly re-playing the loop.

These thoughts manifest themselves as phrases such as: “He thought I was talking rubbish…” “She’s angry with me…” “She feels I’ve let her down…” “Because I said it this way I must have upset him.” The longer you listen the more you believe some of these thoughts to be true.

Our thoughts have such a powerful effect on us.

Here’s the thing…

The reality is that we don’t know what the other person is thinking unless they tell us or we ask them (…or unless, of course, you’re a psychic!).

The voices in your head aren’t true. They are replaying assumptions based on your own imagination of the situation.

We automatically default to negative thinking and get stuck in the loop

If you’re prone to mind reading try the following to help you to break out of the loop…

1. Recognize your negative thinking. Just because you’re thinking it doesn’t mean that it’s true. Make a list of your negative thoughts. Energy goes where attention flows. Putting them on your radar enables you to recognize and challenge them whenever they show up.

2. Challenge your assumptions. What do you know? How do you know that this is true? You can choose whether to listen to or believe any thought you have. Is this thought helping you or blocking you from where you want to be? Learn to challenge your thinking by letting go of those thoughts that no longer serve you. Replace the negative with a positive thought that you know is true.

3. Ask for clarification. You don’t know what someone else is thinking unless they tell you. So ask the question and test your understanding of the situation. Clarify you thinking.

Change can be difficult because we all develop patterns and habits that support us where we are now (in relationships, career, health…). We literally are doing the same things over and over! In order to move into a new realm, we need to let go of past habits and behaviors and develop new ones.

Here’s some good news; I found it to be true time after time: once you have made a significant change in one area of your life, you already have most of the skills needed to make changes in other areas too. So, let your success in one area encourage you to tackle other areas too. To help you succeed, I’ve outlined factors that play an important role in your success.

Personal awareness. When you are aware of your thoughts, mindset, and actions, then you’re able to see your behavior patterns; you may see ways you’re sabotaging your success. You must be willing to be honest with yourself (that doesn’t mean you berate yourself, it just means that you accept responsibility for where you are).

Consistent effort on your part. You have developed patterns and habits that support your life in its current state; if you keep those patterns and habits, your life will stay pretty much the same. To bring about something new and wonderful, you will need to create new ways of being. And that means not just changing yours actions/behaviors/thought once, but changing them every time you’re in that situation. Without consistency you won’t have the outcome you desire. Here’s where having a support system and accountability are vital (a coach can provide you with both).

Some changes take time; don’t expect to see results immediately. I love instant gratification; you do something and get to immediately see the results. For folks like me, who don’t do well with delayed gratification, it’s important to set many short-term goals that can be celebrated when reached. This way you won’t give up because you’ll have lots of victories en route to your larger goal.

Don’t be surprised if it’s a little harder than you were expecting. When you are focused on your goal and are motivated to change, you feel like you can do whatever it takes. On the way to your goal though, obstacles may arise that you hadn’t planned on. Instead of letting this catch you off-guard, know that it’s often part of the process. Lean on and receive encouragement from your support system. Once you make it past that obstacle, give yourself credit and celebrate, knowing that you are in the process of making a significant change.

Change happens when we let go of old, self-limiting patterns and create new, healthier ones!

Your coach doesn’t give you instructions, nor does he set goals or destinations. You will state where point north. You say where you want to go with your life, and the coach will be there to support this self-directed process. Here’s why.

Big time authors in the field of self-development have spent the last few decades repeating that only five in every one hundred people are self-directed. The same authors suggest that this is the reason why most people don’t feel truly fulfilled, and blame circumstances, problems, or other people for how life turned out. It seems that only a small percentage of the general population end up where they intended to be, and live lives of fulfillment, meaning, and deep-felt satisfaction.

According to this claim, the other 95% of the population is outer-directed. This means we have a large number of people acting because they have to, not because they choose to. To give you a brief description of your outer-directed neighbors, they tend to…

Think and behave with the masses, go where everyone else goes. It’s only later that they ponder over how they got there in the first place.
Live by the standards set by their environment, their peer group, or their business code of conduct. (?)
Explain life using the “this is the way things are” card.
Adopt their beliefs from the environment without rational filtering or questioning.
Need rewards from their environment in order to get them moving.
Blame their disappointments on external elements: the stock market, an illness, fate, God, bad luck, the wrong partner, their boss, the past, the future, or the flying spaghetti monster. (Note: outer-directed people may also believe that their successes are the result of “good luck”.)
Assume life should unfold differently, and grow resentful because things do not work in their favor. They are at the effect of circumstances, not at the cause.
Become experts on why the world is out of control, and develop a sense of learned helplessness.

On the other hand, you have that rare individual who is self-directed. This person wakes up in the morning believing he is the master of his own destiny. He or she tends to…

Know where he or she is going. A destination has been consciously chosen.
Sets his or her own standards in any circumstance.
Explains life with the “this is what my belief about things are” card. Your self-directed neighbor adopts her beliefs from the environment, but molds them through self-awareness, good reading, re-evaluating, truth-seeking, and testing in real life situations.
Is internally motivated. He has his own reasons to get himself to where he wants to go. He feels his own rewards when he gets there, and needs nobody to compliment him on his achievements. External rewards and approval are just an added bonus.
Takes responsibility of circumstances, surprises, or problems along the way. There is no blaming the world, there is no whining, nor complaining. (Note: a self-directed person develops a sense of gratefulness for his “good luck”, and a sense of ownership towards his “good fortune”)
Develops a sense of purpose and meaning.
Doesn’t wish for life to behave any differently than it does. The boss shouldn’t be smarter than he is, and the sky shouldn’t be more blue than it is. Instead, a self-directed person looks for challenges and opportunities in order to shape their circumstances, beliefs, behaviors, and internal attitudes towards learning something, and drive the situation to a satisfactory end.

After this short description, I don’t think I have to sell you on the “which one is best” gimmick. On the one hand it’s easier and more comfortable to be outer-directed. It’s the easy and cozy part of being a child forever. It’s the sweet security that comes from believing that something or someone else is in charge of life and should take care of us. It’s the tranquility that comes from knowing there is someone or something else to blame. On the other hand, I believe it’s really tough to live life feeling powerless, slowly falling into the trap that it’s not up to us to “make life behave”, to change things, to improve situations. It really is difficult to live resentful towards life because it didn’t give us what we wanted, or because it took from us what we valued. Being outer-directed leaves us weak, sad, cynical, tired, aim-less, spirit-less. And that’s a high price to pay.

So let me sell you on being self-directed (if you are reading this website I don’t think there is much selling to do, anyway). On the one hand, being self-directed is tough. You look into the mirror and need to take responsibility for how you look. You look into your heart, and need to take responsibility for your feelings, your resentments, your dreams and hopes. You look into your mind, and need to take responsibility for your values and beliefs. You face a challenge, and you need to answer to yourself how you got there, which part you are playing, and what are you going to do about it. That’s tough, on-going, never-ending work. The good news is… it pays off: you grow a sense of purpose, your goals begin to get clearer, your become more and more aware of your values, and you start making your life a work of art. In the end, you are shaping yourself, conquering your habits, and growing enlightened, and mature… Free.

Being self-directed requires walking the path less taken. If you’ve never walked down this path before, it will take training, new thinking habits, courage and plenty of self-awareness, BUT-it’s the beginning of what Immanuel Kant called enlightenment: “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another.”

Being self-directed means playing by your own rulebook. When you set your own goals and standards, you naturally need to set your own laws. There will be behaviours that will be OK for some but not for you anymore. There will be performance levels that will be OK for some but not for you anymore. That is why our friend Kant says that “A free will must be acting under laws that it gives to itself.”

Most people believe that freedom comes when there are no restrictions. On the contrary, studies on performance, along with philosophical and spiritual teachings, tells us time and time again that we achieve freedom whenever we are able to set our own rules and play by them. Living with no rules and no standards leaves us without a sense of mastery over our own destiny. We start feeling like a ship without a rudder, captain, or crew. It breeds confusion, not choices. Freedom starts by naming the game, and choosing what you say YES and NO to in your world.

So, enough with theory. How do you and your coach give it a kick on this self-directed gig?

1. Stop the blaming, stop the complaining. Take responsibility. This also means stop blaming yourself, stop complaining about yourself. Take responsibility.

2. Now you’ve taken responsibility over your whole life. If we were to work together in a Life Coaching Online context, I would ask you to name which life situation, or challenge you would want to work on for starters. Yes, there may be plenty of areas in your life you want to work on, but you want to take it one step at a time.

3. Once you have chosen the situation or challenge to take responsibility for, you should answer the following questions:

Why do I want to take responsibility for this situation?
Who have I been until now to have arrived to this situation?
What part of me plays a role in being here?
What do I believe about this situation?
What about this situation is, at some level, comfortable or beneficial to me?
What is the outcome I want for this situation? WHY?
Who do I have to become to drive this car to my desired destination?
What values am I honoring by wanting to take this situation to my desired outcome?
What would I have to believe in order to take this situation to my desired outcome?
What actions can I take right now that would start me on the path to solving this situation?
What is the plan?
Who can I count on for support and accountability?
Am I committed?
If not, what would have to happen for me to become committed? How much pain am I willing to tolerate and for how long until I take responsibility for this situation? What rewards await me once I have solved this situation?

I guarantee that answering these questions by yourself, with a friend, or with your coach, will start shedding light on what you can do to be self-directed, take charge, and move forward in any given situation.

Let me invite you to take responsibility for your life, your entire life. The world needs self-directed people, people that can think for themselves, people that give the best of themselves, people that develop the skills and attitudes of champions, people that will serve as role models for the rest of us, as sources of inspiration. The world needs the uncommon hero that makes us want to take life to the next level and give something of ourselves.

How to Set Goals Step 1: Define your goal

Goals are not wishes. You may wish to win the lottery, or to teleport to Mars, but those things are nearly impossible, so they are not goals. In order for something to be a goal it has to be: * Within your power to make it happen through your own actions * Something you have a reasonable chance of achieving * Something that is important to you

The most well known formula for defining your goals is to use the SMART formula. Goals have the most chance of being accomplished successfully when they are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound.

An example of a SMART goal is: “I will lose 5 pounds by the end of next month.” This goal statement is Specific – I’m going to lose weight. It’s Measurable – 5 pounds can be measured. It’s Attainable – I can attain losing 5 pounds. It’s Realistic – losing 5 pounds in one month is realistic. It’s Time-bound – by the end of next month.

How to Set Goals Step 2: List steps to take towards achieving your goal

List the specific steps that you need to take in order to achieve your goal. Ideally you want to revisit your steps daily. For some goals, you can go over your steps weekly. But check in regularly. Are you doing the work needed to achieve your goal? If not, what can you to do get back on track? If your original steps seem too hard or unmanageable, go back and change them and make them easier for you to start accomplishing.

How to Set Goals Step 3: List possible roadblocks and how to get around them

The one thing you can count on when goal setting is the inevitable roadblock. If you are prepared ahead of time to deal with these stumbling points as they arise, you have a much higher chance of overcoming problems and achieving your goal. So take time to brainstorm everything that could go wrong, whether it is within you, or from outside forces.

Once you’ve imagined every possible roadblock you can think of, brainstorm as many ways around them as possible. Write them all down. Preparation is the best defense against any obstacle.

How to Set Goals Step 4: Set deadlines

You must have a deadline for your goal or you have almost no hope of success. Deadlines force us to take action. If there is no end date, it is far too easy to just keep pushing the goal back, and back, and back. Deadlines keep you focused on where you are going and if the road you are taking to get there is the most efficient and effective.

Follow these simple steps when outlining your goals and before you know it you’ll be on your way to achieving your goals.

Whether or not you pay for the services of these coaches, is where you must determine if the advice is worth your investment. Does this person package enough helpful information into a course or paying session for my monetary investment to be a wise one?

What can I detect from my observations of their interests, that will make me feel secure in requesting their assistance?

Do I get the impression that they have learned processes for gaining money by selling products, that will incur great results for their pocket book, with less regard for the advancement of my personal growth?

What am I looking for, when I seek a business life coach?

My neighbor is a life coach, albeit, not one I would pay to get advice from! When you choose a Life Coach, make it someone whom you have observed from a distance, read input from those who have worked previously with this coach. Watch for responses, ask questions, listen to the answers given by those who are making comments when not in line with a sales page written to bring new clients to the coach, if these answers are not in line with your personal beliefs, move on!

Your beliefs may change, however, for the coach to be of value to you, you must believe in their approach, even if their advice takes you beyond anything you have experienced in the past.

Belief is the key to success! You will accomplish great things if you believe in the success, if you are tempted to approach a course or style of living that is foreign to you and you are not convinced it is for you, you will see much less success as a result of your beliefs.

Find a Coach who has aligned themselves with those beliefs that make you, you! In this way, you will find that you are able to move forward in trust, being certain that the encouragement you receive from your coaching sessions, is given for your best interest, not to continue sessions in order to pad the pockets of the aforementioned coach.

We are all coached on a daily basis, recognizing the value of the coaching session we encounter, is the key to whether or not we place ourselves in alignment with the instruction, discipline, and performance of the coach as a whole.

Paying for a coaching session will be a pleasure, when we begin to see the results we have previously desired, come to fruition.

Choose your investments wisely, if you do not see results in the time frame you were promised, do not be fearful of moving on to a coach with whom you are more perfectly suited. There are many coaches available today, as the world wide web can attest, not all are those with whom you should connect and pay for services.