Ask Donna: My SMART Goals Aren’t Inspiring Me

Q: I was trying to figure what I wanted from life, and I got some ‘SMART’ goals…but they don’t feel like a Big Dream. I think a couple of them are close to being part of that Big Dream, but the energy feels all wrong and I don’t know how to change them…and they’re really not that inspiring! – Mel

I find SMART goals really boring – they have no energy, no juice to them. So, let’s talk about SMILE goals instead (something I made up!) — does your goal make you Smile? Does it have a touch of Magic about it? Is it Inspiring to you? Do you have Lots of enthusiasm for this? Does it give you Energy?

For example, a SMART goal might be “Lose 10 pounds in 3 months”… whereas an example of a SMILE goal might be “Look stunning in a beautiful frock with gorgeous shoes”.

If you have a question you’d like me to answer, please leave a comment below or contact me.

Love

Donna.x

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An Easy Decision Making Tool: Toss A Coin

How do you make a decision? Do you weigh up the options carefully, plumping for the safest, cheapest, easiest, most sensible? Do you worry endlessly about consequences and never make a decision at all? Or do you jump in and make a decision and worry about the consequences later?

For many years I have tried (and failed!) to do the first of these – and do the ‘right’ thing. The problem is, the ‘right’ thing is often the ‘wrong’ thing for me. The sensible decision is usually the one decision which will stifle my spirit, bore me to tears or keep me in a situation I hate. And I like flying by the seat of my pants – it’s far easier than all this pros and cons bull. I now toss a coin to help me decide.

For someone who has been known to be indecisive on occasion it is marvellous…and rarely wrong. The simplicity of a coin toss appeals to me because it is quick, easy and relatively uncomplicated – no evidence gathering, no researching, no discussing, just a flip and there you have it – a decision! And I don’t just mean for small decisions, like pizza or pasta? I have decided whether to buy a house, go to Australia for a year, leave my job to start my own business, and buy a car…all on the toss of a coin.

I can see some of you twitching at the very idea of this – not exactly scientific, responsible or sensible, right? Correct! I’ll tell you what it does do though, it focuses you very quickly on what YOU want. Imagine you wanted to decide whether to look for a new job, you toss a coin and it comes up tails…stay at your current job.

Your stomach sinks, you stare at the coin and think…best of 3! Then best of 5, best of 7, best of 9, best of 73. You see, I’m not suggesting you take the advice of the coin! Merely flipping the coin will give you an indication of what it is you want – in the above example, you want to leave the job. Deep down, the decision is already made but your conscious mind is getting in the way with the endless pro’s and con’s of making a decision.

By tossing a coin, you can find out very quickly what it is you really want. Many years ago I was trying to decide whether to buy a house. Every signpost pointed to yes – it was the done thing, the sensible thing, an investment blah blah blah. Even the coin toss agreed, I should go for it.

But I carried on flipping that coin for 10 minutes, wanting tails to come up. Suddenly I realised there was one overwhelmingly good reason for me not to buy a house. I didn’t want to. If I had, I would have tripled my money by now. I don’t regret it for a second. The coin was wrong, but it did tell me what I really wanted. What does the toss of a coin tell you?

- Something to Play With -

Take a decision you have been struggling with, and toss a coin…what does the coin toss tell you? (note how you feel, not if it’s heads or tails!) For the next week, try this method of decision making – get in touch with your intuitive leanings and quit wasting time endlessly weighing up the pros and cons! Want to share your thoughts on this article? Leave a comment here or pop over to my facebook page and leave a comment there.

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Podcast: Extreme Self-Care and Your Big Dream

Your Big Dream requires a lot from you – a lot of your energy and time, and they demand that you are very well cared of. Extreme self-care means going the extra mile for ourselves, taking extremely good care of yourself. Taking care of yourself body, mind, heart and soul, and supporting yourself fully, 100% caring for you. You need to be in tip-top shape to be able to give your Big Dream anything outside of your normal, busy life.

To listen to this week’s podcast, click here: Extreme Self Care and Your Big Dream

Homework:
Answer this question every day: If I was taking EXTREME good care of myself today, what would I do? And do it!

To listen to the 3 pillars podcast, go to http://www.donnaonthebeach.com/blog/2012/01/dreams-to-reality-podcast-the-3-pillars/

You can also subscribe to this podcast on itunes here.

May all your dreams become reality.

Love

Donna.x

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Ask Donna: A New Dream is Calling

Q: I had a Big Dream I’ve been working towards for years…and now I have that Dream, I find another Big Dream is lurking under the surface. The trouble is that the new Big Dream is totally different and I will need to let go of a lot of the things I’ve worked so hard for. I feel so frustrated – I thought I’d be happy when I got this, but instead I’m now hankering after another challenge. What is wrong with me? – Sarah

Rather than be happy ‘when…’, work to be happy now – whatever your circumstances. Who you are, what you like, what you want changes as you age, and if you rely on any outside circumstance to be happy, when you change or the circumstance changes, that will affect your happiness. One way to do this is work on your self-care, energy and joy on a daily basis – when you’re cared for, energised and enjoying life (whatever the circumstance), the changes are easier to navigate.

When you change your dreams, you don’t lose everything – all the skills you have learned stay with you, the courage, the growth, the confidence stay with you. Your inner wisdom will tell you what you need to do now, and how to let go of the old and welcome in the new. To read more about this March daily practice, click this link http://www.donnaonthebeach.com/blog/2012/03/march-daily-practice-trust-yourself/.

To ask your question, simply comment below or use the contact page.

Love

Donna.x

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OnTheBeach – Push, Push, Push

Do you ever get the feeling that you are pushing a stone uphill? Against a herd of bison coming toward you? With your feet tied together? There are times in life when we seem to push and push and push, and yet nothing happens, nothing changes. Apart from our energy level, which visits the basement! And what do you do in response to the ‘nothing happening’?

Push harder? And keep pushing? Yes! Because if you want things to happen, you’ve go to put the hard work in, right? If we let ourselves off the hook for just a second, we will become lazy, idle, unproductive members of society. And this is a bad thing. What would you think if I told you that was absolute tosh? Would you think ‘yes, I know but I still keep pushing myself’?

There is a body of thought which says that when we stop pushing and start allowing things to happen naturally, organically, they happen faster than if we ‘push, push, push’. Not only is the happening faster, it is easier on us – there is a flow, a rhythm, an ease that is joyful. A surprising number of people know this, agree with it and ignore it! Me included on occasion! Just this week I was trying to push myself to do some work.

I was tired, couldn’t concentrate, wasn’t interested, kept being distracted, didn’t want to do it…and it still took me an hour to read the signs and move onto something else! Der. I had become very attached to doing this work – my success or failure had become tied into ‘getting this done’ (a ‘push’ attitude if ever I saw one!). As soon as I let go of pushing myself to ‘get shit done’, I actually managed to do something useful instead of being the living incarnation of resistance to pushing!

This does not mean forgetting altogether about what you want and giving up. It means stopping pushing and trying to force things to happen. It means stepping back from your challenge for a moment and finding out WHY it is so hard to do – it could be many things – there might be a better way, you might need some self care first, there might be something more important to do, you may have something to learn, something you need, something else that has to happen first. If you don’t stop pushing, you will never know if it could be easier to do what you want to do.

And if you collapse in an exhausted heap and the stone you’ve been pushing uphill runs over you, how does that get you closer to what you want? So, if you could stop pushing for a moment, enjoy your life and allow something to evolve naturally, what would change for you today?

love

Donna.xx

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Podcast: Your Big Dream and Interruptions

Sometimes life gets in the way of your journey to your Big Dream. We’ve just had an Easter break, the kids have been off school, maybe you’ve had time off to relax and now you’re trying to get back into the swing of things. I know the feeling. I had 5 days off for Easter, then we had unexpected visitors for a week, and my normal routine got pushed totally off kilter!

To listen to this week’s podcast, click here: Your Big Dream and Interruptions

Homework:
Think about what works for you to keep you focused on your Big Dream. Does your Dream Team help you? Do you visualise? Do you write down your Big Dream and read it regularly? Do you have routines? Do you have goals to reach for?

And if Easter did knock you off track, it’s time to get back on track!

You can also subscribe to this podcast on itunes here.

May all your dreams become reality.

Love

Donna.x

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Reflect Upon Your Blessings

…Reflect upon your blessings, of which every man has plenty, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some… – Charles Dickens

Do you spend more time reflecting on what a shame it is for you that you don’t have this or that, or on how lucky you are to have plentiful, running water; to have enough food to live; to have so many possessions you desperately need to clear clutter; to have access to any kind of education at all; to be able to express your opinion without being in fear of your life; for the air you breathe; for the sunshine; for spring flowers?

I could go on forever. Of course life is not perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than we sometimes give it credit for! It is easy to focus on the ‘what is missing’ from life, and sometimes it can be helpful – when you can see what’s missing, you can sort it out. But when it becomes an endless litany of why your life sucks, that’s no fun! (and doesn’t help you change anything) For today at least, take your attention off the misfortune in your life and reflect more on your blessings, and Happy Dance because your life is so filled with fortune!

Love

Donna.x

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April Full Moon Dreamboard – the Full Pink Moon

It’s full moon dreamboard time again with Jamie Ridler of Jamie Ridler studios – the Full Pink Moon. Jamie suggests that the question we answer this month is ‘What Dreams Is It Time To Tend?’ – I collected the images before I even looked at the question, and yet the images answered the question perfectly – it is time for me to tend the dreams of luxury, writing, love, beauty, flow and soul. What do you see?

This month I had less time to choose the images that called to me, less time to create the Dreamboard…but even with that, it calls to me. Before finding Jamie’s circle of Dreamers I had never been a fan of Vision Boards – I now understand that for me, they are to ‘heady’, too ‘thought-driven’. But this intuitive way of collating images brings a new dimension to it – the subconscious and unconscious mind. Each Dreamboard I have created has had a message for me – a message that, as soon as I see it, hits me like a punch in the gut! And in this, the 5th Dreamboard I have created, I find that even with ‘less’ images and more space, there is more to be learned. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Join the dreamboard circle and create your own – if you’re not sure how, here’s a free resource from Jamie to teach you.

To your dreams!

Love

Donna.x

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Ask Donna: Out-takes

Because it is Good Friday, I decided to have a week off doing a video, but thought I’d share with you this fun out-takes montage from filming ‘Ask Donna’ – I was told recently that the videos looked seamless…but this is more the reality than the finished product you see!

Always remember that you rarely get to see the mess-ups, mistakes and failures of others – you just get to see the finished product. So if you have something that you are fluffing up and doing several ‘takes’ to get it right – that’s just how it goes, it’s not you that sucks! In the real world, there are LOTS of out-takes, and the more you can see them as funny, part of life and nothing to get upset about, the better!

Happy Easter!

Love

Donna.x

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Striving For Perfection

Are you striving to be ‘perfect’? Do you insist that you never ever make a mistake, get something wrong, cock up? Will you accept nothing less than perfection from yourself?

High expectations are all well and good, but not when they come at the expense of your peace of mind, your love of yourself, your joy in life. Most of us are much harder on ourselves than we would ever be on someone else, and by having absurdly high standards, we can really make our lives miserable.

By all means be the best you can be…but get there by having fun, by enjoying the journey, by striving for joy and laughter, by being kind and supportive and loving to yourself. You might be astonished to find that you are more likely to meet your high expecations if you apply some encouragement, joy, support and laughter to your life. And hey, even if you don’t, you’ll be having fun!

I doubt that you will get to the end of your life and say “I wish I had been even harder on myself and made my life more of a misery”. No, you are much more likely to say “Why was I worried about never failing – I wish I’d been more laid back, had more fun, laughed more”. Why not pre-empt that life-end statement and get on with the serious business of being laid back, having fun, and laughing a LOT?

Love

Donna.x

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