Swan Journal for Women » Circle of Wisdom

Navigation – How to Make Wise Decisions

Lynn, Clarity Coach — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:35:21 +0000

Chart Your Course with Wise Decisions

As you decide to take ownership of your life, the most critical skill you can develop is learning how to make wise decisions. Time challenged and overwhelmed with information, you often second guess your ability to make the right choices. Knowing wrong choices can affect your future freedom, independence and security, this frustration and uncertainty leads to inaction.

Sound familiar? It doesn’t have to be this way.

Once you develop your personal decision making process, you will instinctively know the path of action you need to take when you find yourself in unfamiliar territory. This newly discovered clarity and confidence will help you make wise decisions you can trust.

Action strategies, removing internal roadblocks, and setting success milestones will help you chart a course of successful solutions not only for your current transition, but will also help you navigate future.

How do you do this?

How to Make Wise Decisions for Life’s Next Chapter

Decide what is most important to you. What will make you feel secure, fulfilled, at peace with yourself?
Honestly look at the current direction of your life. Is your current path leading you towards your goal or away from it? What can you immediately do to change course?
What are you willing to pay for reaching your goal? Make no mistake. You will pay with either your time, effort, or money. Perhaps all three. If you aren’t willing to commit your energy to action, you don’t have a goal. You have an empty dream.
Once you decide what you are willing to pay for your goal in time, energy or money, decisions become easy. Every choice that presents itself will have an instant answer. You will immediately know if that choice will lead you in the right direction to help you on your journey.
Before you begin your journey, decide in advance how you will recognize success. How will you feel? Where will you be living? What type of work will you be doing? Where will you find fulfillment? How will your bank account, your scales, your self-worth reflect your efforts?
Create a Vision Map with photos, quotes, magazine clippings that visually reinforces your goal.

Bottom line? Follow your truth.

You already know what to do. Chart a path that will help you radiate the peace of mind that accompanies spiritual fulfillment and financial strength.

Our forthcoming book, The Circle of Wisdom, a Woman’s Guide to Clarity and Confidence, will soon be ready. Please let us know what burning question you may have about taking ownership of your life and learning how to make personal wise decisions.

Attitude ~ The Key to Success

Lynn, Clarity Coach — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:13:50 +0000

The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams. Og Mandino

What timeless principle of the Circle of Wisdom reinforces this guidance?

Believe in yourself and your goals. The choices you make today create tomorrow’s history.

Set goals.
Establish new habits so they become second nature.
Trust in yourself. Know that each small step today, however difficult, is bringing you closer to fulfilling your dreams.

Persevere.

The new WOW workshops begin in January. Inspiration, motivation, and accountability to help you be Great in 08!

Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

Lynn, Clarity Coach — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:31:33 +0000

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where you’ll go. Theodor Seuss Geisel (more popularly known as children’s author, Dr. Seuss)

So, have you decided where you are going and, most importantly, how you will get there?

Dust off your imagination. Creating a life you love begins with the very first step in the Circle of Wisdom … Awareness. Take just 10 minutes today to step away from your hectic life of non-stop action, information overwhelm and imbalance. Take time for reflection.

Use the “brains in your head” to reflect on what a life of fulfillment and balance actually looks like … to YOU. What can you simplify? What are you tolerating? What do you love?

Use the “feet in your shoes” to begin walking in the direction of your chosen life. Forge a path of action that will steer you in the direction you choose.

Use your inner guidance system, your intuition, and your talents to create your future of tomorrow today.

I believe in you. It’s time to believe in yourself.

Are Circumstances Holding You Back?

Lynn, Clarity Coach — Fri, 25 May 2007 15:02:48 +0000

Release your mind from the chains of circumstances and believe in the power of possibilities. Shaw

Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, a strong advocate for women’s rights and best known for his play Pygmalion, believed:

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.

Regardless of your past life circumstances, how you were raised, where you have lived, what jobs you have held, or your success with relationships, you have the ability to control your attitude and take responsibility for life’s next chapter. Playing the blame game only holds you back from living a life of fulfillment.

The Prayer of Serenity states:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Using life’s wisdom to concentrate on what you can change will dramatically change your life ~ physically, financially, and emotionally.

Shaw’s wisdom provides guidance in how your thoughts direct your actions:

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will. You see things and you say “Why?”, but I dream things that never were and I say “Why not?”

Isn’t it time for you to allow yourself to accomplish what you want. New career? Financial security? Better health? Closer relationships?

Life is within your grasp. Follow the six step decision making process found in the Circle of Wisdom:

Awareness, Acceptance, Accountability, Action, Achievement, Assessment

You Were Born to Soar!

Lynn, Clarity Coach — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 04:50:00 +0000

The Whole World - In Your Hands

Oh, the memories a few little words can bring to mind.

Today, 1962: Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, flying aboard the Friendship Seven. I was ten years old and living in Alabama when John Glenn made his famous flight. My family had recently moved from the only childhood home I could remember. It wasn’t the first time we had moved; and it surely wouldn’t be the last.

By the age of four, I had already lived in three states and five different cities. The string of moves in the ten years following Alabama would include four more states and six more cities. Such is the life of a military family.

Powerful, unconscious lessons are learned throughout our childhood experiences. For me, it was:

Family is your foundation. You don’t need a house to have a home.
Friendships must be nourished to flourish.
The only thing constant in life is change. Embrace it.
Bloom where you are planted.
Attitude is the only thing we can control.

As an adult, looking back, I now realize my experience as a child was totally different from that of my mother. What an amazing woman! In all our moves, I never remember boxes. Magically, each new house was transformed seemingly over night into a home with familiar furniture, pictures, and family traditions. I think of her having to pack up children and pets and leave behind newfound friends. I think of the strength she had to lead a home while my dad was stationed in Vietnam and Thailand. I felt safe.

Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world. Eleanor Roosevelt

My experiences were also not the same as my younger sister and brother. By the time they were in their early teens, the moves were over.

Your Personal Story

You have a personal history that is a culmination of all your experiences. Those experiences have unconsciously shaped your life. It is your gift to share with others. No one else has quite the same perspective.

Where were you when …

In the fall of 1962, just a few months after John Glenn’s flight, George Wallace was elected governor of Alabama. His son, George Wallace, Jr., and I attended the same Montgomery elementary school. Being raised in a family which embraced diversity, I did not understand the very hot topic of school segregation.

One year after acknowledging John Glenn’s mission, President Kennedy was assassinated. Where were you? I was in a 6th grade classroom on Eielson Air Force base, just outside Fairbanks, Alaska. Four months later, on May 27, 1964, we experienced the Great Alaskan earthquake.

So why do I share all this with you?

What is comfortable for us as an individual because of our past experiences may be very uncomfortable to others. Moving into new houses or even careers doesn’t bother me. I find wonderful opportunities for growth in change.

Whether the circumstance you find yourself in involves loved ones, colleagues, or clients and customers, begin looking at the situation from their perspective. Building awareness, empathy, and ultimately understanding will help you develop deeper relationships, both personally and professionally.

You Can’t Change Your Story ~ You Can Change Your Future

None of us can re-write history. It is solid bedrock. It does no one any good to live in either past glory or regret. But the future is like clay. It is molded every day by the choices we make and the chances we take.

The first step in creating a life you love is developing an awareness of your story.

The Circle of Wisdom™ is the first step in The Journey to Swan. A simple six step decision making process involves:

Awareness
Acceptance
Accountability
Action
Achievement
Assessment

You, too, were born to soar! You have the whole world in your hands.