It has been my privilege over the last six years to partner with remarkable women (and sometimes men and couples) in realizing more joy and fulfillment in their lives! The life coaching process inspires you to be more present to your inner truth and create deep and lasting change that supports your growth.

Every so often, I am awed by the utter courage of one my clients. Remember, courage is feeling the fear and still taking right action. This type of courage requires profound clarity and oodles of support (queue Jane Sibery singing “Calling All Angels”).

One such inspiring client made a courageous leap in her life this week and wrote a manifesto to declare her intentions. She has given me permission to share it! Click on the image to see a larger version.

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By Zohar Manor-Abel, shared via Flickr

To begin 2012, I have a simple question for you: Who do you want to be this year?

You, like everyone else I have met through my life coaching practice, have many different selves inside. You might have a worried self that tends to agonize about money and a jaded self that feels skeptical about getting too close to people and a hopeful self that wants to have an impact on the world…and many other selves that have conflicting feelings.

The themes might be different for each of us, but the truth is clear: moment to moment, we can choose who to be.

Every action you take and attitude you hold comes from some version of your self. So, change who you are being…and you truly change your life.

The very first step is to be mindful (pay compassionate attention) to who you are being. You might ask yourself: How do I feel right now? What does this version of myself believe? What else feels true?

If you would like to explore this more, I invite you to join my next Self Nurture Women’s Group. We will practice important skills like: mindfulness, self-compassion, connecting to inner knowing and more!

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One of my clients sent me a link to this TED talk by Kristen Wheeler, “Evolution of a Job Hater.” What I loved most about this talk is the question: “What is the seed of your native genius?”

In other words: “When you are most yourself, who are you being and what are you doing?” In an ideal world, each of us would be doing meaningful work that is sparked from the essence of who we are. Work that we would do naturally, even if no one paid us for it. Work that we can’t help but do because it is the expression of our own form of genius. And I promise, we all have it.

Photo by em-si, shared via flickr

The process of uncovering your genius is not always easy. It is often buried beneath layers of enculturation, limiting beliefs and painful life experiences. I believe we were each born expecting to be supported in the unfolding of our own brilliance. But we live in an imperfect world and often our self-expression is thwarted.

I trust implicitly that each person who walks in my office for life coaching has that seed of genius inside. I am dedicated to shining the sunlight of clarity and the nourishment of support so that it can grow and grow and grow!

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While inner clarity is the primary focus of my life coaching work with women, intentional action is usually the next step. Once you have inner knowing, it becomes important for your outer world to match your inner truth. Anything less begins to feel like a self-betrayal.

But taking action can be difficult. You might be frozen by fear, stuck in old patterns and habits or lose your certainty once it becomes time to actually do something about it.

Don’t worry, you are not alone! This is not your problem, this is a human problem. And the solution is close. As a matter of fact, it is right there in your heart. So, don’t get lost in your fear mind when it comes time to take steps towards your truth. Slow down and listen carefully. The clarity already knows the exact right action to take.

I use mindfulness in client sessions because it allows us to do just that: pay careful attention to the inner voice and see the obstacles more clearly.

*This is re-posted from my Clarity Speaking e-letter. If you would like to get sweet short burst of clarity in your in-box a couple of times per month, you can subscribe here.

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Happy 2011!

If you are focusing on some New Year’s intentions or resolutions, I encourage you to read my column this month in Portland Woman Magazine. It is all about the 5 reasons most resolutions fail and how to insure that your resolution sticks! Just hit click on Portland Woman Magazine (link here) and then click on the current issue. You can then use the scroll button on the bottom left hand page to choose my column, “Get a Life (coach)!” The article will open right up. Use the magnifying glass icon to zoom in and make the print larger. Enjoy!

No matter how you feel about resolutions this year, I encourage you to invest some time and energy into thinking about who you want to be in 2011. You see, every day you wake up and make choices, not just through your actions but also through your beingness. This year do you want to be the victim or the hero of your circumstances? Will you be the healer of your own heart or will you continue to judge yourself? Will you be the creator of your most secret dreams or will you stifle them once again?

Above all, my hope for you this year: come home to yourself. Be the most authentic you possible!

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Many of my clients suffer from what I call the “perfection trap.” This sneaky pit is easy to fall into when you are trying too hard to do everything just right. When you over-worry about failure or looking bad, you back yourself right into the devious clutches of “it’s never good enough” – and never done.

What is the easiest way to fall into it the perfection trap? By comparing yourself to someone else.

The biggest problem with the perfection trap is that it is difficult to escape. Some people live their whole lives inside of it. From the inside, it seems that everything is more difficult and personal connections are complicated. There is a vague sense of longing for more ease, more passion, but the harder you claw your way towards it from inside the trap, the further away it seems.

The world outside the perfection trap is messier. There is more space for error and exploration…and creativity!  Your relationships are more authentic because people can come closer to you.  You are willing to try and learn new things – and even fail – creating more possibility in your life.

How do you escape this tricky trap?

Accept yourself right now, just as you are and be willing to grow. Your imperfections make you who you are instead of a photocopy of an unachievable ideal. Everything you have been through, every sag and scar, your disappointments, quirks and fears, all tell an important story about your experience during your lifetime.

Your true nature shines through only when you are willing to stand in the open.

I have a gift for you: There is nothing wrong with you.  You might have some problems, but that is a natural part of being human.  How you learn and grow from your challenges, rather than hide in the shade of perfection, is the beauty of you.

“Ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”— Leonard Cohen

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“I know that will never happen for me,” my client said dejectedly as she described her dream job. “He never listens…I doubt that will ever change,” huffed another client about her husband of 10 years.

My good friend Rev. Susan Leo once said “certainty is the opposite of faith.”

I think she meant that when we think we know exactly what something or someone is, we lose our ability to trust in the mysterious and ever-changing nature of most everything. Our fixed version of reality rarely holds all the possibility that exists.

Doubt can actually be good, especially when it comes to limited ways of thinking. It can create room for exploration and for the kinds of questions that can open doors. Doubt is even helpful when you have an overly positive certainty because it allows you to creatively prepare for potential obstacles.

Doubt can actually inspire deeper clarity.

I describe clarity as the inner knowing that allows you to see to the heart of the matter. That is hard to do if you are clinging to your false notions of what something is or isn’t. The tighter you hold on, the more energy you expend.

Take a moment to think about a challenging area of your life where you feel absolutely certain. What would be different if you allowed some doubt to come into your awareness?

Maybe that person isn’t always going to be so difficult. Maybe they aren’t even as difficult as you assume right now.  Whether you are struggling financially, feel stuck in an unfulfilling job or relationship, or convinced that you don’t have what it takes to create the life you secretly crave, loosen your hold on certainty and you will create more possibilities.

Clients often come to coaching hoping I have the answers to their problems. Thankfully (whew) I do not!  If I did, they would depend on me rather than themselves for clarity.

What I do offer is trust in yourself: that if we ask the clarity-inspiring questions and pay close attention, the answers will always come. And they do. Time and time again.

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