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Women Taking the Lead

The Women Taking the Lead podcast is a resource for women leaders, allies, and organizations looking to promote more women into senior leadership. Episode formats include specific leadership challenges, "on-air" coaching with women leaders, and interviews with internal talent and organizational development leaders. Women Taking the Lead inspires women to overcome self-doubt and lead with confidence, integrity and a sense of humor.
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Now displaying: October, 2018
Oct 29, 2018

Hello everyone and thank you for joining me for this month-end episode on goals. We are solidly in the 4th quarter of 2018. Can you believe it? This is the time we all typically have a wake-up call when it comes to our goals. Are we going to achieve them? Do we need to adjust them to make a realistic motivated push between now and the end of the year? Or are we going to throw in the towel on our goal.

Unless you realize you set a goal you don’t give a care about I am always going to encourage you to adjust instead of throwing in the towel. Throwing in the towel will leave you feeling defeated and as the next couple of months will also be focused on setting goals for 2019 you don’t want to go into that process with a defeated mindset.

There’s nothing wrong with adjusting so that you’re still stretched a little bit, yet don’t feel so overwhelmed you don’t know where to begin or start to feel like, “what’s the point? I’m not going to achieve this goal anyway.”

Remember, achieving goals is largely due to your mindset. Do what you need to do to get a positive and willing mindset. You can do this!

Last December I did a series of episodes to walk you through my goal setting process and I used myself as an example of what the process looks like in real life as it plays out.

I promised during that time that I would keep you updated on my progress toward my goals in the hope that it would be helpful for you as you work toward accomplishing your goals. I want you to know we are in this together.

During the Goal setting series I identified four focus areas that were important to me and each area has a specific goal assigned to it.

Focus area #1 Increase profitability in my business

Specific Goal: have a net income (earnings minus expenses) of $80,000 minimum this year.

Focus area #2 Build more strength and endurance

Goal: do 1000 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form within one workout by the end of October. Separately, do an unassisted pull-up before the end of this year.

Focus area #3 Romantic Partnership

Goal: Be in a committed monogamous relationship with a man.

Focus area #4 Live Events

Goal: Do a live workshop in the 4th quarter of this year.

The Creating and Achieving Goals that are Worthy of You workshop is going to happen on December 4, 2018 at the CoworkHERS co-working space in Portland, Maine.

All-day parking at the Temple Street garage is included in the price of the workshop so you don’t have to worry about finding a spot or any additional out-of-pocket expenses for parking.

I am also running an early bird rate for this event but here’s the thing: space is limited to 32 participants and tickets have already been sold. Buy your ticket now because I have a feeling something is going to click and all of sudden the tickets are going to be gone.

Go to womentakingthelead.com/goals2019 to reserve your seat!

I am looking forward to seeing you in-person and introducing you to all the other amazing women who will be attending this event. 

Quick Update on my Mom

My Mom has had her third chemo treatment. Her hair had started to fall out so this past month she went to her hair stylist to shave it all off. There were some tears while it was happening but the family was sent two pictures right after the appointment; one of her with a cap on and one of her completely bald.

She was beaming. In both pictures she was absolutely beaming and I had the thought, “I hope when I grow up I can face life with the same attitude she brings.”

Although she is more tired and the side effects of the chemo and steroids increase with each treatment she is still in good spirits. And my sister and sister-in-law who are nurses are helping her to regularly take her anti-nausea medication and are checking with the doctor for possible alternatives.

Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and messages. They make a difference and I am grateful to you for taking the time because I know you’ve got your own stuff in your life you are dealing with. I truly appreciate you.

As always I hope this update was of value to you and here’s to your success!

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

Zebralove Web SolutionsYour website tells a story about your business! At Zebralove Web Solutions, Milly and her team are going to make sure your website tells the story you want your customers to hear. Connect with Milly at zebralovewebsolutions.com to create the impression you want to make!

Resources

Create Goals that are Worthy of you: If you are done with either pursuing vanilla goals, suffering through the struggle of goals that are not aligned with your strengths, or dealing with heartbreak of an unattainable goal this online mini-course is for you!

Private Facebook CommunityChat, share and collaborate with other women listening to the podcast!

Accomplished: How to Go from Dreaming to DoingA simple, step by step system that gives you the foundation and structure to take your goals and make them happen.

Oct 22, 2018

Over the summer when I shared my Mom’s cancer diagnosis I asked this community to help support me in doing the Women Taking the Lead podcast by giving me some ideas for future episodes. I knew I wouldn’t have a lot of creative energy so your suggestions would take a couple things off my plate.

I have to thank Geraldine Carter of the She Thinks Big podcast who sent me voice recordings that she created while she was out for a walk with ideas for future episodes. On idea was to talk about Tara Mohr’s book, Playing Big.

We talk a lot on this podcast about playing small so this is not the first time I had heard of Tara’s book or gotten the suggestion to read and possibly review it.

This time, however, I was ready and an open recipient for the suggestion. Geraldine, thank you so much for the support you have been to me.

Let me dive into some of the underlying premises of Tara Mohr’s book, Playing Big.

Women Are Playing Small and They Don’t Like It

Women work really, really hard to deliver value and then undervalue their own work. This leaves them behind men who are not as critical of their own performance.

In a survey Tara Mohr put forth to her community, to ascertain what type of content and programming she should create for them, she created a long list of multiple choice options. The “largest number of survey responses from women deemed their most significant problem, ‘I’m playing small.’”

Playing small ranked higher than work/life balance, stress and relationship issues.

It is my opinion through my own experience, and I put it forth confidently, that most of you who are listening to this know you are playing small and it makes you unhappy when you think about it.

I’m going to do a few episodes on the concepts in the book, Playing Small, because I want to make you aware of what is going on for you and some steps you can take to stop playing small in your own life. Even though I’m going to review this book I recommend you buy it as well because:

  1. Tara Mohr is amazing and you’ll want to experience her more fully and
  2. You’ll get more detail from the book. I don’t know exactly what concept will create the “ah-ha” moment you need to get out of the spiral of wishing you were playing bigger, but not.

The concept I’m covering in this episode is only chapter one of this book so much like a book turned into a movie, there’s a lot that didn’t get included.

Here we go...The Inner Critic

As always I hope this is of value to you and here’s to your success!

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

Zebralove Web SolutionsYour website tells a story about your business! At Zebralove Web Solutions, Milly and her team are going to make sure your website tells the story you want your customers to hear. Connect with Milly at zebralovewebsolutions.com to create the impression you want to make!

Resources

Create Goals that are Worthy of you: If you are done with either pursuing vanilla goals, suffering through the struggle of goals that are not aligned with your strengths, or dealing with heartbreak of an unattainable goal this course is for you!

Private Facebook CommunityChat, share and collaborate with other women listening to the podcast!

Accomplished: How to Go from Dreaming to DoingA simple, step by step system that gives you the foundation and structure to take your goals and make them happen.

Oct 8, 2018

As I’m recording this it is a rainy Sunday morning, I’m sipping my hot beverage looking out the window at the trees that have started to change colors. It’s a very relaxing picture but let me warn you this is not going to be the tone of this episode.

The pace so far today is giving me an opportunity to reflect on the past week and this past week was anything but tranquil. I was already a little off balance when something good happened and yet it sent me into a spiral.

Let me set the scene. Last weekend I drove my friends to the airport in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday and that began for me a week of house sitting and doggie sitting. My friends have two dogs and one is a one-year-old Australian Shepard. He requires a lot of attention and engagement and will get in trouble if you don’t wear him out.

This was also the week the BNI leadership positions transition over and as the incoming Secretary/Treasurer of my chapter there were a lot of things that needed to be requested, communicated, decided, put in place and prepared for.

I have also taken on being Vice President of the board for the Maine Women’s Conference this year and we have been in a recruiting phase for the board for the past month. All of a sudden this week there was an influx of emails with nominations and applications to review as well as attempts to schedule interviews for the candidates.

While all these things were not necessarily meant to happen all at the same time they did. It made for a hectic week but I’ve seen weeks like this before.

Sunday and Monday were very productive days for me so I felt really good heading into the week.

What I also had on my calendar was a large time block on Tuesday for training for my goal of 1000 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form in one workout.

As I’ve mentioned on the podcast previously, I recognized I needed some expert help on this goal so I began working with Alex who is a personal trainer and nutrition coach in August. Alex put together a training and nutrition plan for me that we execute and review on a weekly basis. To save my joints in my weekly burpee workout Alex had me doing no more than 500 burpees in these weekly workouts. The focus of those workouts was initially getting down the proper breathing and form and once I nailed those the focus was to try to do the workout a little faster each week.

Based on the times I was hitting Alex and I guessed that it would take me about 4 hours to hit 1000 burpees if I could stay at a steady pace.

This week the training plan was to do burpees slowly and steadily for 4 hours just to get my mind wrapped around how long it was going to take. The best day for this workout was Tuesday as I didn’t have any meetings in the afternoon. I knew I wasn’t going to be good for much than basic activity after doing any kind of a cardio workout for 4 hours.

So Tuesday morning I began doing burpees slowly and steadily figuring I’d hit around 900. What happened occurred to me like good news and bad news all at the same time.

The good news is on Tuesday, October 2nd at 11:41 am ET, after doing burpees for 3:38:34 I hit 1000 Spartan-regulation burpees done in good form and achieved my goal.

I shared with a friend that it was a little tacky to share that “I did intend to but I ended up doing 1000 burpees in my last workout.”

She responded that there is a saying, “practice hard so game day is easy.” I completed 1000 burpees so easily because I was prepared for it; better than I realized.

I also joked with Alex that I think he used reverse psychology on me. By telling me to go slow and just do burpees for 4 hours with no goal he made it easier for me to hit 1000 because there was nothing riding on this workout; there wasn’t any pressure. I settled into a kind of meditative state just focusing on breathing in, breathing out, awareness of my form and keeping count.

The bad news is I’ve been in a bit of a funk about it ever since.

After some contemplation I hit on the pitfalls that created this experience for me and I'm sharing these in the hopes that if you ever find yourself feeling let down rather than joyful at hitting a big goal you can find your way out of the funk.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode this past week was a perfect storm of things that are important to me requiring a lot of attention all at once. 

You need to know that as much as you and I plan, as much as you and I prepare, it doesn't stop "life" from coming at us.

Sometimes, even when we've done all the clearing away of what’s not important to us, so we can focus only on what is important those things suddenly have needs at the same time.

Don't judge yourself and your life too harshly. All you can do is your best.

However, the work that can be done now in preparation for the next time is to move the needle on what your best looks like.

Can you practice more awareness, presence, patience and listening? Can you take better care of yourselves so your body is better absorb brief periods of living at full speed?

It is no mistake that I am choosing mid-October as the time to do The Accomplished Course Part I: Energized and In-Control. We’ve just gotten through the busy end of summer beginning of fall period and the holidays are coming.

Now is the time to change your perception of what you can and cannot handle. What will you focus on to prepare for the next active wave?

In The Accomplished Course I’m going to give you some insight into how you are handling stress right now and the tools to manage what is coming at you more effectively so you actually decrease and even remove the experience of feeling stressed.

Imagine having life coming at you full speed yet you still remain calm and in-control.

When you can remain calm and in-control you will be more productive, more effective, more enjoyable to be around and you will hit your goals more quickly.

I hear people say all the time, “I know what to do I’m just not doing it.” It’s always a stress reaction that is keeping them from it.

If you’ve been thinking that you would like to work with me this is one of your best opportunities to do so. Go to womentakingthelead.com/energize to find out more and get yourself registered.

This round of The Accomplished Course will close to new registrations on Friday, October 12 so take the step and get yourself registered now.

One last thing…

You guys, I did 1000 Spartan-regulation burpees in good form in one workout and I did it in the month I said I would do it, October. Thank you for being a part of my journey and supporting me along the way.

As always, I hope this was of value to you and here’s to your success!

Thank You to Our Sponsors!

TextExpander lets you instantly insert snippets of text from a repository of emails, boilerplate and other content, as you type – using a quick search or abbreviation. Go to https://textexpander.com/podcast and select Women Taking the Lead from the dropdown list for 20% off your first year!

Zebralove Web SolutionsYour website tells a story about your business! At Zebralove Web Solutions, Milly and her team are going to make sure your website tells the story you want your customers to hear. Connect with Milly at zebralovewebsolutions.com to create the impression you want to make!

Resources

Create Goals that are Worthy of you: If you are done with either pursuing vanilla goals, suffering through the struggle of goals that are not aligned with your strengths, or dealing with heartbreak of an unattainable goal this course is for you!

Private Facebook CommunityChat, share and collaborate with other women listening to the podcast!

Accomplished: How to Go from Dreaming to DoingA simple, step by step system that gives you the foundation and structure to take your goals and make them happen.

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