Old news… dump it for good!

Old news is suffocating, sticky, and beginning to smell.  It’s piled so high that you can’t see past it, and you are stuck behind it. 

I’m talking about the bad stuff that happened to you yesterday, last week, years ago, sometime in your past.  If you’re still dragging it out to rummage through it and relive it, then you’re giving it too much floor space in your life.  Old news is occupying valuable space that could be used for storing stuff that makes your life more pleasant, like happy experiences, creative endeavors, new acquaintances, and fresh beginnings.  But piles of old news will squeeze those things out the window.   

You have an old news “garbage” problem if you find you are constantly focused on reliving events like a job loss, a marriage breakup, a financial meltdown, an accident, and/or other unfortunate realities in your past.  Although these events cannot be changed, they are actually over and out the back door.  They don’t define you today. BUT they can reenter and replay forever if you open the door and invite them back.  The truth is, they’re tired – they just want to leave (not to mention your friends who have been listening to these stories over and over again…).   

Want to breathe fresh air?  Then dump your old news before it suffocates you.

Learn to see the good things in your present life, magnify them, and exercise your power to create your future the way you want it to be.  Contact me – Life Coaching will help.

Your life… creatively yours

“I couldn’t paint a picture to save my life!”

Sound familiar? I’ve heard far too many people disparage their innate creativity this way, haven’t you? It’s as if putting paint to canvas is the only measure of creativity there is.

Don’t get me wrong, I certainly admire the obvious creativity of visual artists in every medium. But I’ve also seen “art ingénues” pick up a paintbrush and produce beautiful pictures that no one else could have created but them. They may even surprise and delight themselves – if they are able to accept the evidence that they are, indeed, creative!

Are YOU creative? Delete that question.

The real question is: HOW are you creative?

There are many ways people create. One we all share is the way that we uniquely create our experience of life everyday. This is evident in where you go (or don’t go), what you choose to do, what you habitually think, how you feel, the way you react to people and situations, where you focus (past, present or future), and much, much more. There is a HUGE canvas of creativity open to you each day and night of your life – and you’re selecting which paintbrush to use! 

How’s it working for you now?

Identity loss?

If you’re like most people in our modern society, you’re doing the best you can to attain or maintain a successful identity based on what you DO in your work and your career. Your career is typically what you use to identify yourself in your social life when you meet someone new and they start asking you questions. Usually, “What do you do” is one of the first questions, right? That’s because others will most often use your career to identify, classify, and remember you.

“Allan… oh, yes! Allan the Accountant! I remember meeting him at that conference last month. I have his card somewhere in my files…”

Nothing wrong with that. You probably want others to understand and remember what you do for a living in case they need your services or products. In many parts of the world, we are well accustomed to living in a consumer-based economy and trading consumables – like Allan and his accounting services.

In your personal life, however, your identity is much more complex. All kinds of problems can arise when you forget this valuable fact and depend on your career as your main identity. Especially today, you could be at risk for a serious case of “identity theft” when your job ends or your industry shuts down and forces you to change careers.

Then – WHO ARE YOU? You’ll need to find the answers in order to reassemble the pieces of your identity and move forward.

When you focus on who you are inside as a unique individual, the inevitable changes in your work life no longer have the power to zap your identity.

Blog emerges from Gayla Doucet in Arizona

June ’09 marks my entry into the blogosphere.  Here I am!  More later…