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Have you ever felt like you needed to put on a suit of armor before you headed into work? Or maybe you have someone in your life whose number makes you cringe when you see it because you know you’re about to get unloaded on. You can probably think of a few more examples (or even many) where there are people or environments that just don’t feel good anymore. There are lots of reasons why we end up in these situations, but the number one is because it’s comfortable. That may seem like crazy talk, but people are remarkably resilient and will put up with a surprising amount of discomfort and even downright pain to avoid having to confront the truth. Maybe that truth is that a relationship you are in has become one-sided over time and no longer serves you, so it’s time to let it go. Or maybe that job that you once loved is something you now dread getting out of bed in the morning for and it’s time to move on. It’s not about the facts, but how you feel and putting that ahead of everything else. Facing what’s true in our lives and how we really feel about something can be tough. Even getting down to how we really feel can be a challenge, as we rarely slow down and get quiet enough to check in with ourselves. It can be difficult to have a conversation with someone that puts your true feelings out there when you know that they aren’t going to like it. It can make you feel anxious, vulnerable or even afraid. Sometimes you may need to get support to deal with a particularly challenging situation and you should always seek out the right kind of support if abuse (physical or emotional) is involved. Putting yourself first isn’t easy, but you’re the only person who can, and no one can do it for you. When we put our own truth ahead of what others may think or feel, we are telling ourselves that we have value and that we matter. It doesn’t mean that the things we may need to let go of weren’t valued or didn’t have a place in our lives at one time. It does mean that people and situations are constantly changing, and letting go of what doesn’t work allows room for the things that do. You only have a finite amount of time and energy in your life – why not choose things that contribute to your life in a positive way. As you go through this week and the busy holiday season, take time to check in with your inner wisdom to root out the things in your life that just need to go. When you find them (and you will), look for a way to gracefully exit the relationship or situation. If you need support to do it, allow yourself to get it. Make you the most important thing in your life and give yourself the gift of the life you deserve.

As the last month of 2019 kicks off, how many of us have already staked our happiness on what will happen in 2020? We have already 'written off' December as a month where something new or transformative won’t happen because we'll be busy with all of the excitement...and obligations...of the holiday season. It isn't that we don't have the same amount of time available to us or even the desire to change. But somewhere along the way the idea of a fresh start with the new year grabbed a hold of us and with it came the perfect excuse to just coast through December. In January, we'll focus, buckle down and make things happen, but until then, please pass the cookies. That's just the anti-motivation we need to overindulge in those holiday treats or skip a few days at the gym. After all, we are really going to get serious about our lives on January 1st! We're already starting to compile the list of the life changing things that will happen in the new year - the magical resolutions. It will be a fresh start and the things we struggle with today will be vanquished as the calendar page turns. And then January 1st arrives and we already know how this is going to turn out. That list of resolutions you are so excited about today will seem to topple like dominoes and you will quickly leave behind the idea of the fabulous new you. Less than 25% of us will have even a fingernail's grip on a single resolution by February 1st and those who really make lasting changes in their lives drops into the low single digits by the middle of the year. Not very encouraging, and not surprising. Resolutions are vague and out somewhere in the future, where something outside of you will give you the motivation, knowledge and willpower to change. They're just not specific enough, almost never have a detailed plan of how you're going to accomplish them and rarely do they include the systems and support you'll need to hang in there when things get rough (and they will). What we end up with is a big pile of guilt and shame over once again not being able to stick with it, and that is usually enough to keep us where we are until the next year rolls around again. What if you tried something different? What if you looked at every new day as an opportunity to improve your life? What if you got the support and systems in place today to help you get really clear on the priorities in your life? What if you got real with yourself about what you could accomplish and in what time frames? What if it wasn't about overnight transformation, but little steps you could manage? It can all start today, right now, wherever you are. What's stopping you!?

This is one of my favorite expressions, because it's simple, to the point and universally applicable. It's been out there in many forms for years, in everything from book titles (Marshall Goldsmith's (What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful) to one of the most popular slogans in recovery programs. Powerful truths have a way of getting around and sticking around. If we let it sink in, it requires us to be personally accountability for where we are in all areas of our lives - and all of the decisions we made that got us here. It also helps to break down A to Z thinking and we start to see the individual choices that we made along the way that directed the course of our lives. It's not a good or a bad thing, it just is. It also doesn't discount that there are often circumstances outside our control that have direct impact on our lives. But it does remind us that what we do in those circumstances is up to us. We are all doing the very best that we can in every moment. That doesn't mean that you don't make decisions that you later regret or do things you wish you hadn't. It does ask you to accept what has already happened rather beating yourself up over things that you can't change. Ultimately, it's an invitation to learn from the past and more importantly to get the secret meaning hidden in that short little sentence: that you don't have to be in this alone. If your best thinking is not getting you to where you want to be, why not allow a little outside thinking to lend a hand? Most often we look to our partners, friends or family to get that extra perspective (which is usually us trying to validate what we have already decided to do) and these can all be incredible support systems, but they don't often add new thinking to the equation. What's missing is the gift of objectivity. Getting an objective perspective on a situation may allow you to see something you may not have or see it through a different lens. That doesn't mean that someone else is making decisions for you - you always make your own decisions, even if that decision is to follow someone else's direction. What it does do is introduce new information that alters your thinking - now your best thinking is even better because it's more informed. As you head into the holiday season, you'll be presented with lots of choices. What invitations to accept, what gifts to buy (or not buy) and for whom - you get the idea. Many of us are running a grim marathon to get to January 1st, with the only goal to check off every box on our to-do list and get through it alive. Let's make this year different. Find a support system that works for you and that can help provide that objective, new thinking. For some of you it may be making the decision to get into a recovery program, talk with a spiritual counselor or find a great therapist to help you work through some of the tough stuff. For others it may be finding a really good coach or mentor to work with to get really clear on where you want to be and develop a plan to get there. So that leaves you with a decision. Is 'here' good enough or are you ready to make real, meaningful change in your life? The choice is yours, as it always is.

If you’re like most people, you probably have at least a little clutter going on in your life.  Most of us think of clutter as the physical stuff around us that we don’t really want or need.  Those boxes in the attic from when you moved two years ago or that closet that you do your best to avoid lest you get buried in an avalanche are the typical things we think about when we talk about clutter.  But it’s much bigger than just the stuff. Stuff is part of it, but I like a broader definition of clutter.  One that includes anything that we hold on to that gets in the way of living our best life, and that applies to all areas of our lives.  It can certainly be stuff, but it can be toxic relationships that we just can’t let go of, a job that makes us miserable but pays the bills, limiting beliefs that we have about what we can or can’t do or even the emotional baggage that we lug around with us all day.  All of these (and the examples are nearly endless) get in the way of us doing the things we truly want to do and ultimately rob us of what’s truly possible in our lives. Let’s take the physical stuff as an example, as it’s the most tangible and nearly everyone can relate.  Maybe you have a pile of birthday cards going back years because you just can’t bring yourself to throw them into the recycling bin.  Or maybe it’s stacks of magazines that you really want to go through one day when you finally have the time.  Or my personal favorite, the clothes that are a size too big or a size too small that you hang on to ‘just in case’.  I’m sure you’re already thinking of a few things of you own. What do all of these examples have in common?  They make you feel bad.  You don’t throw the birthday cards out because you feel like it would mean that you didn’t appreciate them or don’t care about the people who gave them to you.  Those magazines are a constant reminder to you that you don’t follow through or finish things, and throwing them out would mean that was absolutely true.  The extra clothes are there to remind you that failure is just around the corner and inevitable, so you better hang on to them. Sounds simple, but if you’ve ever cleared any of your own clutter, you know it’s anything but. It’s hard work and you have to dig deep, sometimes REALLY deep to find out what’s going on emotionally around the stuff (or people, or baggage etc.).  If you don’t, it just comes back and usually with a vengeance because now you feel like you failed (again, feeling bad), so trying again is even harder.   But on the other side of all the clutter is your life, and no matter how many times you have to try, your life is worth it. So as we start another week, take a moment to think about some of the clutter that is getting in the way and what it would feel like if it were gone.  You might need some help and support to do it, but you’d do it if your life depended on it, wouldn’t you?  And the life you could have does.