Why I meditate before I coach, and other things I so to create space for my clients

When I started coaching, I didn’t have a clue about what coaching really was. I came to sessions to the best of my abilities, and wholeheartedly, with a genuine desire to help my clients, but I wasn’t really creating the sacred coaching space that makes the experience so incredible, and life-changing.

It took me to enroll in the Beautiful You Coaching Academy to really learn the ropes of coaching, and to understand how important it is to be fully present for my clients. That’s why I now meditate before I coach, and why I have created a powerful ritual for myself, that I perform before every coaching session. And what I want to do today, is share with what that ritual is all about, and how I learned of it’s importance during my time at the coaching academy.

How I discovered I was meant to be a coach

From as far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to help people. If there’s one passion in my life that has been with me every step of my journey, this is the one. Even as a little girl, the only thing I ever wanted to do was help. Someone would lose something, and I would be the one looking for it for hours. A bird would be injured in our garden, and I would tend to it day and night until it was whole again, and ready to fly away. Whatever it was, I couldn’t help myself (no pun intended), helping was just part of my DNA.

Now my life story is definitely messy, and although helping others remained at my core, for a long time I silenced the need to express it. After college I went on to climb the so-called corporate ladder, I started freelancing, then created my first company.

I did everything I though was expected of me, and helping others wasn’t really part of that. But even through my work at the time, I found ways to still offer advice and help. And eventually, six years ago, a personal tragedy made me realize that your true self can never fully be silenced, and that it will always come back to you, and ask to be expressed. At least, it did with me.

From business consulting to career, business and leadership coaching

Since I was already helping my business client with more than just their projects, I decided to transition into business consulting, and eventually business coaching. At first the sessions where very masculine in nature, and concentrated mostly on the financial goals, and success aspirations of my clients. But as time went on, I felt that I needed more tools, and a better understanding of coaching to be able to really help my clients. Because I noticed that whatever goals they were coming at me with, there was an underlying feeling, a hunger for a more fulfilling life, a quest for happiness that couldn’t be ignored.

And so I enrolled in the Beautiful You Coaching Academy. To this day one of the best decisions of my life. The place were I learned the true meaning of self-love, compassion, and sisterhood. And where I understood how to create sacred space, something I had never done before, but that I’ve now come to value as one of the most important parts of coaching.

What is creating space?

You might be wondering what sacred space is, and if you are, you’re not alone. Although I’ve been creating space for my clients for a while now, I’m still amazed at how powerful, and magical that space really is. And how unique it is to be able to create it for someone else, like a client.

To me creating sacred space looks kind of similar to what is known as speech acts in language philosophy. We perform speech acts when we “open a ceremony”, or “pronounce a couple husband and wife” for instance. Or when we offer an apology, greeting, request, complaint, or anything else of that sort. Basically something is created when it is spoken, as you cannot open a ceremony without speaking the words – the actual act that is born when the words are expressed.

With creating sacred space, I feel something alike is happening.

As a witness, through the work with my clients, I’ve seen how sacred space is real, and although invisible to the naked eye, clearly there for the soul. And the way it’s created is through a bond between coach and client, where the client is open to receiving and accepts the gift of total presence, and where the coach is creating, and holding that space for the client. Almost in a mystical way – and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. And as such, it’s not an easy thing to do, and something that you must commit to as a coach, and that you cannot take lightly, or rush into.

Holding space requires:

• Work: as a coach you have to open the space, and keep it open for your client, that’s why it’s so important to prepare well for it (see below).

• Respect: coach and client enter this sacred space from a place of respect for one another, with lack thereof there is no sacred space created.

• Trust: as a client you must fully trust that your coach has your best interest at heart, and will do nothing but help you achieve your goals, if not there is no sacred space created.

• Presence: as a coach you must enter this sacred space stripped from all your worries, and the things that distract you from holding space for your client, again one of the reasons why preparing for your sessions is so important.

• Love: and finally (although this list is in no way exhaustive!) I believe that to create sacred space as a coach you need love. Love for your client, love for the work, love for the learnings of each and every session, and love for life itself.

Creating space for my coaching clients

Ever since I graduated from the academy, and became a Certified Beautiful You Life Coach, I’ve been working on putting together a ritual for creating sacred space for my clients. This ritual has become a cornerstone of my coaching practice, and something that couldn’t do without anymore.

Of course, before any coaching session, I always go over my coaching notes, and review homework, comments, or anything else that my clients have sent to me about their actions. And yes, this definitely helps to prepare. But it doesn’t guarantee that I won’t be going into the session with my own stuff, or that I’ll be able to be fully present.

But I find that it’s essential to create sacred space for my client, hence the ritual. Before any coaching session I take around 20 minutes to fully prepare.

During those 20 minutes I:

• go over my coaching notes, and anything else that I need to review to be fully prepared for the session;

• think about my values, remember why I do what I do, how strongly I feel about wanting to serve this client, and ask what I need to do to be fully present for her in this moment;

• feel into the love, respect, trust that I have for my clients, myself, and the coaching process;

• use the final five to ten minutes of this prep time to do a powerful meditation, focused on letting go of all my stuff, and preparing myself to create sacred space in the present moment.

Coaching is a layered process

I’ve come a long way since my early days as a business coach. Transitioning into the feminist, women empowerment, and sisterhood coach I am today, working with so many different, and inspiring women, has made me understand that coaching is a layered process, not only for my clients, but also for me – as a coach. And that’s really what I love so much about it. It’s one of those things where doing really is becoming.

The more I coach, the more I become aware of myself, and in turn the better a coach I become. That’s why this ritual is so important, and powerful.

And if you’re thinking about becoming a coach…

If you’re interested in learning more about becoming a life coach, and creating sacred space for your clients, you might want to check out the BYCA, as I can only recommend you enroll in the Beautiful You Coaching Academy. Through my own experience, and that of so many of my fellow academy trainees, I can only say it’s one of the best life coaching courses around (I absolutely want to say the best, but OK I’ll be a little humble).

And if you enroll through my affiliate link, you’ll get a unique bonus package from me (with a total value of €1259 / $1405):

• A 3-month / 6-session coaching series with me to help you work towards your certification.

• Access to The Loft, my membership program, free of charge for the entire period of your studies at the academy.

• 50% discount on tickets for my Live Sisterhood Retreats for the entire duration of your studies.

So check out the Beautiful You Coaching Academy website now

And before you go, in the comments below, do tell me why do you want to become a life coach? And if you are already a life coach, what’s your pre-coaching ritual? How do you like to create space for your clients? I’d really love to know.

How I cured my anxiety and stopped (almost all) the worry chatter in my head

Every month I have a wonderful time connecting with some of the most amazing women in our coaches’ mastermind circle. As part of our monthly rituals, we do a virtual go around, where we each share one or more of our wins of the past four weeks. When it was my turn, I had the best win ever to share: I’ve come to the conclusion that I cured my anxiety and stopped (almost all) the worry chatter in my head. But, and there’s always a but, this realization came as the silver lining of a very unpleasing situation that has recently made its way into my life.

That’s the reason I want to write about anxiety today, because in a way what’s happening to me right now, and the way I’m dealing with it, has helped me realize how far I’ve come, and how much all the work I’ve put in to overcome my anxiety has paid off. Because believe me, if what’s happening now in my life would have happened to me only a few years ago, I’d be a total mess, completely devastated, overcome with bouts of anxiety I wouldn’t be able to deal with, incapable to stop the worry chatter in my head.

Yet, here I am. Peaceful, calm, and happy.

The €80,000 Anxiety Test

While an ex-business partner from almost a decade ago managed to bankrupt a company that I was briefly involved in way back when, failed to file the required accounts and other reports to the state for years, made official documents disappear, lied about the whole thing to government officials, so that now they’re at my doorstep asking me to fill in for the losses, using a decade-old capitalization promise of €80,000 (yes, you read that right, we’re talking $100,000). I’m sure you’ll agree that this might be reason enough to propel anyone into anxiety and worry town.

Yet, here I am. Together, serene, and (almost) undisturbed.

When I realized the placid state I was in, when the news about this really unfair, and really, really shitty situation reached me a few weeks ago, I was in disbelief.

At first, I thought I was in shock, and that that was the reason why I didn’t feel anything. “Give it a few days”, I thought to myself, “and you’ll be a mess, I promise”. But a few days later, I was still doing fine. Of course, I had the occasional thought popping into my mind, but every time, in a reflex-like manner, I simply pushed the thought away.

Then, I thought it was because I was being optimistic, having arranged a preliminary meeting with my lawyers, and thinking it would all be OK since I have absolutely nothing to do with this whole thing. Until I met with them, and they confirmed that there was no way out of this, and that I would have to pay up, no matter what. Even then, every time a worrisome thought about this came into my mind, the reflex was there too, and the thought was pushed aside.

Finally, I thought it was because I was blinded by anger for the injustice that was happening to me. And that when that wave of anger would pass, I’d only start feeling the real feelings, anxiety, and worry that I was expecting to come over me.

But again, close to nothing. And when an anxious feeling did make its way into my mind, it left as fast as it had appeared. This left me puzzled to say the least, and for a few different reasons.

How Far I’ve Come…

• One. I’ve been anxious for as long as I can remember. When I used to be a people pleaser, the worry chatter in my head never seemed to stop. Even the smallest, most insignificant thing would get me going.

• Two. Although I’ve been working on getting myself anxiety and worry-free for a good five years now, I never would have thought that I could remain so composed and blissful in a shitty situation like that. Yes, I knew I had beaten the little anxiety demons, but I wasn’t aware that the big ones were also slayed.

• Three. I’ve been working on my money story for a very long time too. And one of my biggest worries in life has always been money, and my biggest fear that someone would come and take my hard-earned cash away from me.

• Four. When I was a kid, the thing that made me the saddest was when someone would wrongfully accuse me of something, and I would have no way to defend myself. And until this day, I still cannot stand it. It’s made me into a feminist, and an activist, which I wonderful, but also into someone who’s very sensitive to any kind of injustice.

The good thing about being self-aware, and on a continuous path of self-discovery, is that you notice things. And after a few weeks, when I had gone through all five stages of loss, because – hey – it’s not because you’re not worrying or anxious that you can’t or shouldn’t feel angry, depressed over something unfair happening to you, I had to accept that I still wasn’t back to my worrisome self from the past.

So I started to think back on all the things I had done to help alleviate my anxiety, and the path I’d traveled since then. I read a lot of books, tried out a lot of techniques, and often felt like nothing was really working.

But that’s because I didn’t realize what a layered process it is, and how everything I was doing, and learning would be very beneficial in the long term. So after six years of self-discovery, with the last three years spent working on overcoming my anxiety, here’s an overview of the five main areas I worked on to achieve the level of peace, and calm I now enjoy.

#1 Mindfulness

The first real step I took to live a life with less anxiety, was to follow an eight-week course in Mindfulness. It’s funny when I think back on it, because a lot of the things that were taught during that course now seem so normal to me, yet at the time my woo-woo alarms where going off every five minutes. I was so into the masculine, and so focused on being a high-achieving woman, unaware of the suffocating stress I was living under, and the unrealistic expectations I had for myself, that anything that tried to crack that armour was met with disbelief. But thanks to the beginners’ mind, and a real wish to live a much happier life, I kept going, even though I fell asleep during every single meditation!

The most important thing that this mindfulness training taught me was that we are not our thoughts, and that we should be like investigative journalists before we believe them. A Copernican revolution for me. Until then, I made no difference between what I thought, the nasty little voice in my head that spelled out those thoughts to me, and my self.

After the Mindfulness course I started to question the things that I thought, and to distance myself from them. An awakening moment to say the least.

#2 Meditation

I’d been on and off the meditation wagon for many, many years. I knew about the benefits, but I had a hard time keeping a daily practice. After the Mindfulness course, I committed to giving myself to meditate every day. The reason I wanted this so badly, is that I realized that if I was not my thoughts, I needed a powerful way to be in control of them. And I felt that meditation might be the answer. And I believe it’s been instrumental to stopping the worry chatter in my head.

My meditation practice is really simple. I focus on my breathing, and I allow thoughts to enter my mind, but also to leave my mind again. Always going back to my breathing. That’s the powerful training that I’ve given myself over the years. And now, even when I’m not in a meditative state, I’m able to push away thoughts that I don’t want. And… to keep them at bay, leaving me undisturbed.

#3 The Now

A few months after the eight-week Mindfulness practice, my coach at the time proposed that I’d read The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. Of course, I’d heard about how the only real moment we have is now, and how the past cannot be changed, and the future is only an illusion, but still I found myself anxiously worrying about all the things I felt I had done wrong in my life, and all the things that dawned on me in the future.

No stone was left unturned. I could spend hours, days, weeks even going over a conversation I’d had with someone, or something someone had said or done. I saw danger everywhere, with my biggest worry being that people would eventually hate me, hurt me, and figure out that I was not anywhere near good enough. I didn’t believe in a happy world, where I could live a successful life. Until I discovered the power of now.

Using the teachings of the book (and of course, reading up on it, and doing a lot more research!), whenever I felt anxious I started asking myself:

• How are you feeling now?

• Where are you now?

• Can anyone hurt you now?

To always come to the same conclusion: that I was safe, that I was good, that nobody could hurt me.

It changed my life.

#4 Beliefs

By now, I’d come to realize that I was not my thoughts, and even better, that I could control them. I’d also learned techniques to keep me out of the past and future, and to ground me in the present – where everything was really just fine most of the time. And so, at this point in my journey, I came across the next very powerful piece of the anxiety-free puzzle: my beliefs.

Realizing that I was not my thoughts was a very powerful experience for me. But even more so, was understanding that the thoughts I have are a result of the beliefs that I hold true. And with that, to become aware of where those beliefs come from, and their innate illusory character.

Our beliefs shape our reality. I have no doubt about that. But that doesn’t make them real, or intangible. We all believe so many things, consciously and subconsciously. And most of those beliefs have been passed down to us by our parents, the significant people in our lives, and even society and our culture. Understanding this was another big a-ha moment for me, one in which I decided that from now on I would question everything, and that I would not accept the status quo anymore.

#5 Self-love

And finally, through this process, I realized that the biggest piece of it all to overcome my anxiety and worry, was to learn to love myself. I believe that something that is whole doesn’t worry, because it has everything it needs right within itself. And I believe the same goes for us humans. A big part of anxiety and worry comes from believing you’re not good enough, at least it was for me, and that somebody out there will hurt you, or figure you out, or that nobody will ever love you.

Remembering when I’ve been the most anxious in my life, this certainly applies to me. The worries I would have would always have to do with my many flaws, with the things I could lose in my life, with invented danger about being left all alone in this world, having no were to go, or no one to turn to. But the real issue was: I didn’t love myself.

Over the course of the last few years, I’ve worked very, very hard at becoming my own best girlfriend. And it has had a profound effect on how I stand in the world, and the way I deal with any kind of shit that comes my way: serene, untroubled, and supported.

Because I’m always there for me. And that, in the end, is my biggest anxiety and worry-busting remedy.

Of course, I’m not saying that I never have any worries anymore, or that I’m totally anxiety free. That would simply not be true. Especially with something like what’s happening now, I will have the off moment and the dark thought. But where it used to be days or weeks on end of agonizing worry over anything and everything, I’m down to a couple of minutes, that have little to no effect on my overall happiness. And that to me is nothing short of a miracle.

I hope this post helps you to overcome your anxieties and worry chatter. And if you’re doing the work, but feel like nothing’s changing… Know now that it’s a process, and that you’re on your way to a much happier and more peaceful life. So don’t give up, but let me know how you’re doing in the comments below instead. I’d love to know.

Orgasms are good for you. You should add them to your self-love practice

There, I said it. Orgasms. That’s what I want to talk about today. About how they’re good for you, how they help keep you healthy, can make you love yourself more, and why I think you should consider adding orgasms to your self-love practice.

I’ve been binge watching Masters of Sex on Netflix recently. I started on a Sunday afternoon, randomly, just looking for a quick R&R fix, and I’ve been hooked since. I enjoy watching the show – it’s set in the 60’s and 70’s, the actors are so talented (I have a real girl crush on Lizzy Caplan), and the mood fits the subject so beautifully – but that’s not what got me so hooked. What grabbed my attention is it’s subject: the scientific pursuit of knowledge about the female orgasm.

If you’ve watched the show you know there’s a lot of sex going on. Even if you haven’t, going by the title, I bet you’d kind of know. That’s not to say that it’s too much, or over the top. But it does put the subject front and center. Not only that, the show – because it’s set in a time before the sexual liberation of the 70’s – gives a well-paced, intelligent, sometimes hard, and probably pretty accurate account of how sex, orgasm, and masturbation were perceived, and understood, in a time were most of it was nothing but taboo.

That’s what makes the show so interesting to me, and why I wanted to talk about orgasms, and particularly about why I think enjoying them is a powerful self-love practice.

A quick dive into the history of the female orgasm is enough to understand how controversial a subject it’s always been, and how controlling it has always been a way to try and control women. Much like the history of women themselves: side-lined, oppressed, misunderstood, feared, yet never conquered, their power never really taken away. Of course we’ve come a long way since – at least in the Western world – both in terms of women rights and orgasms. But the taboo lingers on, and a lot of misconceptions remain. With it a lot of guilt, insecurity, and agitation.

I’ve always had what I would call a healthy relationship with my sexuality. I discovered masturabation at a young age, always enjoyed it, and although it wasn’t a guilt-free act at first, it wasn’t all that guilt-laden either (at least not consciously), rather something I intuitively knew required caution, and that I’d better keep to myself.

Still, it’s only in the last couple of years, through my journey of self-discovery, that the relationship I have with my orgasms matured, and that I realized I was in control of my own pleasure.

I also never bothered with the habits of my partners, and always felt that it was none of my business when, or why they wanted to make themselves feel good. I know that a lot of people think differently about this issue – especially women – and that within a relationship enjoying solo-pleasure is often considered a no-no. I remember one particular friend who gave her significant other a weekly interrogation about the subject, which predictably and unfortunately always ended with her calling me in tears.

My point is – and I’m shamelessly paraphrasing a line from the show here – that as human beings we have no problem satisfying our urges when it comes to hunger or thirst, but that our sexual needs have been the subject of so much debate, anguish, and even persecution throughout the whole of human existence – female sexual needs in particular. Since then, thankfully, a lot has been achieved, and the benefits of orgasm, and thus masturbation, are strongly established – even scientifically.

Among other things, having regular orgasms has been proved to be beneficial for a wide range of things, going from making you look younger, protecting your cardiovascular health, reducing stress, over boosting your immune system, all the way up to lowering rates of depression, and anxiety, and even possibly preventing breast cancer cells from developing into a tumor.

But we’re not there yet. Because to me – how wonderful all of these benefits might be – we, as a society, still have a hard time accepting that getting off is a need, and therefor that enjoying regular orgasms, just like eating when we’re hungry, or drinking when we’re thirsty, is essential to our well-being. In my own life I’ve been through periods without orgasms, sometimes because I gave away the control of my own pleasure to a partner (never a good idea, believe me), but more often because I let the busyness of life get in the way, something that I know a lot of women do. Each and every time this happened I experienced higher levels of stress, more anxiety, less appetite for life, and a dip in my overall health and feelings of joy.

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A few months ago I found myself in the same situation again. Working on multiple businesses at a time, trying to achieve big goals and dreams, I woke up one morning realizing I was letting this amazing source of pleasure slip away again. So I decided to make it part of my self-love practice again. Two months in, I can honestly say that it is life-changing. I already had a pretty good self-love routine, but adding some orgasms to the mix just makes everything better.

There’s another benefit that brings all of this home for me. Making a conscious commitment to pleasure is also good for you on a deeper, more soulful level. What I mean is that enjoying your orgasms is not simply a good self-love practice, it’s also good to teach you how to love yourself. By discovering, and understanding your physicality, your needs, and your sexual desires, and by allowing yourself to experiment with them, especially by taking control and giving into them, you are not only gaining more insight into who you really are, but developing a deeper sense of love, appreciation, and affection for yourself.

When you look at it like that, adding orgasms to your self-love practice becomes a conscious choice, a moment in space-time when you decide – every day – to choose yourself, to do something that has nothing but benefits for your well-being and your health, while literally making yourself feel amazingly good at the same time. And that to me is a powerful act of self-love, if not the most powerful one of all, and something that is yours, and yours alone, to have, to practice, and to own. So what are you waiting for?

It’s time to stop identifying sexual pleasure with true love, and start equating it with self-love instead.

I’d love to know about you. In the comments below, let me know what you think about sexual pleasure, orgasms and self-love. Or anything else this post brought up for you.

Want to be good to yourself? Try disappointing a few people

I’ve spent a big part of my life trying not to disappoint anyone. I’ve also spent a big part of my life not living up to my full potential, and not being really happy. During those years, I’ve had my share of disappointments. I’ve had hard times come my way, decisions gone bad, toxic people in my life, situations I wasn’t sure I would get out of in one piece. And looking back, there’s one thing that connects all of those experiences: me not being authentic, real, and honest with myself, in an effort to avoid disappointing others. And what I’ve learned since, is that if you want to be good with yourself, disappointing a few people is inevitable.

I’ve wrote in the past about how I’m a recovering people-pleaser, and how I’ve spent a big part of my time trying to live up to other people’s expectations of me – or at least the expectations I mirrored about the kind of person I though I needed to be in order to be loved. As a people-pleaser I was very sensitive to disappointing others, trying to avoid it at all costs, all the time. As a result, I was never truly myself. And because it started at such a young age, it silenced my needs and desires to a pretty scary degree.

When I started my journey of self-discovery in 2010, one of the biggest challenges I faced, was to listen to my desires and figure out what I really wanted. This may sound trivial, but for a people-pleaser like me, or anyone with low self-esteem, or low self-confidence, having lived from a place of trying to not disappoint anyone – ever, rather than a place of self-fulfillment and self-love, messes with your sense of self and intuitive knowing about your innermost dreams and cravings.

In my case, on the proverbial day that I woke up from this pretend life, I was shocked by how little I knew about who I was or why I did the things I did. It dawned on me that avoiding disappointing others had played a major role in alienating me from myself, and who I was really meant to be.

Because you see, there’s two sides to this story.

The more you try to avoid others from being disappointed by you, the more likely you’ll be disappointing yourself. You might not be conscious of it, or you might not realize the effects it has on you for a long time, but eventually – I promise you – trying to meticulously avoid others from being disappointed by you will leave you unhappy, unfulfilled, and disappointed in yourself. At least it was for me.

When I started my self-love journey, the biggest part of the work I did focused on trying to figure out what I really wanted, and what would really serve me, and make me happy. It’s only later, and in time, that I realized that I could not become who I really longed to be, without disappointing others along the way.

The mind is funny like that, I know.

For a while I thought I could keep up the people pleasing and be self-loving at the same time. Until one day, when being true to me, and loving me made me realize I was going to break some eggs doing it. Often. Repeatedly.

That’s when I knew I had to come to terms with it, if I ever wanted to be happy. And that’s why I want to encourage you today to look at disappointment not as something to avoid at all costs, but rather as something to embrace as part of your self-loving practice, and personal growth. I have come to learn that choosing you, and wanting to be good to yourself, and treating yourself well will often collide with what others want from you. And you know what? That’s perfectly OK.

We’re not put on this earth to satisfy the needs of others, or to put those needs before our own, or to feel guilty all the time, or not good enough. We’re here to fulfill our destiny, to become the best versions of ourselves, to find happiness and joy in this existence. And that’s impossible to do, if you’re not willing to accept a few unhappy faces along the way.

Here are a few things that helped me accept disappointment in my own life, and that might help you do the same in yours:

#1: Figure out what you really want – and be true to yourself!

When I realized I wasn’t being true to my own desires, a big question mark popped up. What did I really want? I understood that in order to be happy, I needed to figure out what mattered to me. To do that, I needed to analyze my behavior, and strip it from all the people-pleasing first. Whenever I would be asked something, whether it was to do something, go somewhere, or my opinion on a particular subject, I asked myself just one question: “What would I do, if I were the only only person in the world?”. From there, I started adjusting my behavior, and my responses.

#2: Learn to say no gracefully.

By asking myself the question above, it became clear to me that I needed to say “no” much more. But I had no clue how. Not only was I afraid to disappoint, but when it came to formulating a “no” response, I was terrible at it. Often, this caused even more disappointment. My advice is, if you’re going to say “no” – and I strongly encourage you to! – it’s wise to do so gracefully. It will ease the process, and make things easier for you and the person you’re saying “no” to.

#3: See disappointment as possibility, and learn from it.

The people who know me will tell you, I never shy away from learning something new. So when I started to embrace disappointment, and see it as a useful, and even natural part of living a fulfilling life, I also started to embrace all of its possibilities. The thing is, working your way through disappointing others, and accepting to be disappointed, can have many benefits.

It helped me to see things differently, to get to know myself better, to remember what really matters to me or why I do something, and it also pushed me into places well beyond my comfort zone.

But what about you? Are you afraid of disappointing others? And are you finding that you’re turning “no” into “yes” way too often for your own good? If so, perhaps it’s time to let go, and embrace those unhappy, frowning faces.

Let me know how you’re dealing with disappointment in the comments below, I’d love to know.

Want to achieve your goals? Make sure they feed your soul

Every year I do the same thing. Come November, I start thinking about what goals I want to achieve in the following year. And from that moment on until early January, I dream big, and write down everything that my heart desires. And what I’ve learned doing this is that if you want to achieve your goals, you have to make sure they feed your soul.

To stay on track and in action I use a systematic action-setting, and goal-review system that I’ve worked out over the years. As part of that system, by this time of year each year, when we’ve passed the six-month mark into it, I do a thorough mid-year goal review.

And every year, no matter how well I’ve planned in advance, I catch myself doing the same thing again. Because every year, six months into working towards my goals, I always find the odd one or two in the list that don’t work for me. I’m talking about the ones that I haven’t worked on yet, or have been procrastinating on, or have been working on at first, only to find that I’m not able to keep it up.

Before I would really get upset, or feel guilty, or a failure for not addressing these goals properly, or from being so bad at working toward them. But what I’ve learned since my early goal-setting days, is to stop blaming myself and to start by asking one simple question instead: What will achieving this goal really do for me?

And it is powerful, I promise you. By asking yourself this question you’ll start listening to your soul, and learn to connect with your emotions. And when you want to achieve your goals, that’s really what you need to do. Jotting down things on a piece of paper, without wondering how those things make you feel, or why you really want to achieve them, really does not make sense. Yet, we all fall into the trap (sometimes). Even after years of goal-setting, I know I still do!

The question here, of course, is why that is. And the simple answer is, because we go about setting goals the wrong way.

Think of your new years’ resolutions, and what eventually makes it onto paper. It might look something like this:

• Lose weight

• Quit smoking

• Get organized

• Travel more

• Read more

At first glance, there’s nothing wrong with this list. I’m sure that most of us want at least one or two of the things on it even. Still, there’s an issue. There is no purpose, no emotion, no feeling in a list like that. And without that, achieving goals is that much harder. Because in the end, the only reason why we ever really want to achieve anything, is to feel something, and to feed our soul. And that’s the reason why so many goals fail.

Now, that’s not to say that all goals you procrastinate on are orphan of purpose, absolutely not. There are many different reasons why we don’t achieve our goals, even the ones that really feed our souls. Absolutely. But if that’s not the case, if we don’t feel an emotional connection to what it is we’re trying to achieve, it will be really hard to do so. Or to sustain the effort.

Now that we’ve established that, I’d love for you to look at the example list above again. And ask yourself what you would feel if you where, let’s say, getting organized or reading more.

What would that bring you?
What would that change in your life?
What would the purpose be?
How would that feed your soul?

Getting organized might give you a sense of greater control over your life, or give you a greater sense of freedom. Reading more might be an activity you really enjoy, making your less stressed overall, enjoying things more. Or it might feed your insatiable appetite for knowledge.

The point is… those are your real goals: having a greater sense of freedom, enjoying things more, keeping a sharp and educated mind. And those are the goals that feed your soul.

The goal is almost always just a symptom of the real goal. And that’s were a lot of goals go wrong.

Losing weight is an even easier example. We never want to lose weight just for the sake of seeing the numbers on the scale go down. Ever. What we really want, when we say we need to lose weight – which is, by the way, the real goal we’re setting for ourselves – is always more personal, and more emotional. We want to lose weight because we want to feel sexy again, or because we want to feel wanted, or to feel healthier.

Notice the word feel in the last paragraph. That’s the essential word here. A goal should make us feel something, it should make our lives better, and make us happier. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t feed our soul. And if it doesn’t feed our soul, it’s going to be really hard to achieve. And by the way, why would you even try to begin with, if that were the case?

So if you find it hard to get started with a goal you set for yourself, or if you notice you keep procrastinating on it, I invite you to ask yourself what this goal really means to you, and how it feeds your soul. And if you find that it doesn’t, do like me when I find the odd one out: drop it, and move on.

Beautiful picture by Frederic Frognier – shotbyfred.com

How to make money while working with purpose

When I was 12 years old, my father became the CEO of the Belgian branch of a U.S. company listed on the American Stock Exchange. We’re talking 1987, the year Madonna revolutionized the music industry with the hit song “Who’s That Girl”, and by doing so made millions of us want to go and see the movie with the same title, too.

While I was enjoying that pretty harmless tune on my Walkman – for those of you born after 1990, that’s a portable cassette-tape player – one of the first things my father had to do as the brand new CEO of that company was to lay off quite a lot of people. I remember it (almost) as if it was yesterday, despite my young age. Although I can’t recall how we ended up talking about the lay-offs, I do remember a specific conversation we had about it. In that conversation, my father tried to explain the principles of business to me – that is, the obligations of CEOs of companies owned by shareholders, and the pressure that comes from an ever-growing need to make more financial profit. I remember not understanding. So, when my father told me that he needed to lay off people because the company wasn’t making enough money, I asked him if the company needed money – to which he said no, the shareholders just wanted more. That’s when I thought I’d found the solution, and told my father to simply tell everyone that they had enough already. And to share the money evenly among everyone, so nobody needed to be laid off.

Of course, this is not how things unfolded. My father laid off people when he started working at that company, and did so many times after that. Until, finally, he was laid off, too. Many years later, when he had given his all to that company, and done so many things that didn’t align with his personal values.

And this misalignment between values and business is precisely what I want to talk about with you today.

We live in a world that is ever changing, and where new opportunities emerge alongside new knowledge of how things can be done, including business. If you’re reading this post, chances are you’ve watched Simon Sinek’s talk inspiring millions to Start With Why, but if you haven’t, I invite you to do so to understand how working with purpose can help change the way we do things in business, and in life, too. And although this talk is not specifically about doing good, or upholding specific humanistic values when it comes to business, I believe the mechanics are the same.

And they are important. Because this focus on purpose is allowing a new kind of entrepreneurs to emerge from the masses.

Often, they are called social entrepreneurs, but I’ve seen mentions of do-gooders, bottom-liners (I kind of like this one), and disrupters of the status quo, as well as, even, change sustainers (this one’s not bad, either). Now, overall, I think labels are kind of limiting, and in this case I find that ‘social entrepreneur’ is a difficult one to deal with. It sounds as if anyone who is not a social entrepreneur is in business solely for personal gain or profit.

OK, I’ll admit, that’s probably the case for a great deal of corporations, but I don’t believe it’s the case for the solopreneur (there, another label) or for the freelancers and small business owners among us.

That’s why I prefer the idea of spiritual entrepreneur, and I define this as being in business for more than personal gain or profit, answering to something that is greater than ourselves, and upholding spiritual values that we believe in. In short, having a mission of doing good through business. Or better yet, making the world a better place while making money – aka the double bottom-line.

Now, the point of all this is that we can all – and I mean everyone – become do-good entrepreneurs, running spiritual businesses. You don’t have to have spent years in an Ashram in India to do this, or meditate three times a day, or be a vegetarian (although that might be good for the planet, too!). Whatever your business, whatever your background, whatever your beliefs, you can make a difference through your business. The only thing a do-good business is, is a business where the bottom-line is not only measured in terms of financial profit, but also in terms of social and environmental benefits.

So, here are 3 simple ways to get started:

1. Start with why

Being in business for the money alone is not very satisfying in many cases. At first, it might feel good to make money, and to create your own future and sense of freedom, but after a while, you might start to feel something is missing. If this is your case, why not go back to the drawing boards, figure out what your why is, and rethink your business from there.

2. Define what your core values are, and infuse your business with them.

Imagine that respect for and the wellbeing of your employees is part of your core values. If that’s the case, think of ways to make sure that those values become part of how you do business. Perhaps by asking your employees regularly how they’re doing, or by making sure that every voice is heard, or even by making a week or two a year off mandatory – and paid – for the entire staff, so everyone can enjoy time with their family and friends, away from work.

3. Assess the impact that your business currently has on the world, and see where you can make improvements.

Questions you can ask yourself to assess the environmental and social impact of your business include: How much waste are we producing? How much good are we doing in the community? Are we giving back? Are our products or services helping the world or harming it? Whatever the answers to these questions, there is always something more you can do. Changing the world doesn’t happen overnight, so don’t stress over everything at once. Just think of one thing that you could change, to make the world a better place. Then do it.

I hope this post has inspired you to look at your business and the impact that you can have on the world differently. I believe that we can all make a difference – and that we should. What do you think?

Creativity as a spiritual practice

I believe that we are all creative beings, and I believe that women especially are constantly called upon to create, or to birth, so to speak. It’s in our DNA, it’s part of our nature, it’s one of those things that makes us human: our imagination and what we do with it.

I also believe that we are spiritual beings, and I believe that we are all in search of purpose, and want to be part of something greater than ourselves. You know, the search for the meaning in life.

In my own quest for meaning and purpose, and in the discovery of my own creativity and my imagination, I have come to realize that being creative is, or at least definitely can serve as, a spiritual practice. I believe that creativity is a powerful force that is greater than us, moves through us, and creates with us. Creativity takes us beyond our own limits and beyond ourselves in a way that can be called spiritual.

The creative process seems to emerge inside of us, from a place of knowing that is difficult to grasp, and yet connects with life and the human experience in incredible ways. As such, listening to the creative call, and allowing it to express itself through you, requires you to slow down and listen. And in the world we live in, that’s a hard thing to do.

To me, this type of contemplative awareness is what a spiritual practice is all about. It’s a search for greater meaning in your life, it’s a pause that asks you to think about the mystery of life, and it’s a way to create space for stillness and for a different kind of human experience.

But what makes creativity a spiritual practice? Or better yet, how can you use creativity as a spiritual practice?

I believe it begins with breaking out of the limits that our world forces onto us. Limits about ourselves and who we are, limits about what is possible in the world, limits about who we believe we can be and what we believe we can achieve. And to break out of those limits, you have to allow yourself to think differently. And to do that, I believe you need to trust your imagination and allow it to go to many different places.

Cultivating such a wandering mind, where possibility is the word of the day, requires you to unleash the power of your imagination. Again, a very hard thing to do in a media-driven world that doesn’t ask you to really think at all, but rather loves to serve you its preferred version of everything instead.

So, it’s hard to do, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And it is something that can be achieved through the creative process.

1. Don’t be afraid to create. 

Imagination is unleashed through the creative process, not through the final product. It’s about expressing yourself in new and different ways, and learning new creative languages. In a way, a spiritual practice is the same. It’s the journey that matters, for there is no destination.

2. Use the creative process to learn about yourself. 

What comes easy to you, and what is hard? These are pathways to discovery about who you are and what you stand for. In a spiritual practice, the same happens. You might find it really hard to meditate, or to not feel frustrated with something or someone. These events tell you new things about yourself (and not about others, as we often believe!), so use them to dig deeper and find out more about who you truly are.

3. Use your creative practice to connect with something bigger than yourself.

One of my spiritual mentors taught me the benefits of discipline, and how having a consistent spiritual practice and doing the work can forge a relationship between me and that which is greater than myself. I believe the same is true of a creative practice. By surrendering over and over again to creative impulses that ask to be unleashed, it becomes easier to connect with the divine, the life force, the mystery that makes everything possible. And this is precisely what a spiritual practice aims to do, as well.

Finally, besides being a spiritual practice, creativity is also a way to live a richer and more colorful life – a life of exploration and discovery, a life of change and growth.

So, don’t miss out, and especially not by thinking you’re not an artist or that you’re not the creative type. Creativity and imagination run through all of us. Just like the divine mysteries of life. All it takes is for you to pay attention.

In the comments below, tell me… what are you called to create?