3 Self Care Tips To Practice Now

With the pressures of work, family or  school, it can be challenging to create space for yourself. At work, I encourage people to tap into their power by first taking time for themselves before embarking on their next venture. But, I’m also guilty of not practicing self-care when I need it most. I find it difficult to close the computer, take a break from work and just slow down; go for a run, sleep, or get a massage. Especially when  work is your calling, putting “me” before “we” can sometimes feel uncomfortable. So how do we get off the hamster wheel of life and move to a place where we are taking care of ourselves like we would a loved one?

First, we must decide to be kind to ourselves. Practice being gentle with yourself – and throw away your rulebook of should-dos, have-tos and need-to-dos for a moment. Let’s do this now. Take a deep breath and believe, with your heart, that you are worthy of care.  In order to be the boss you are, you need to source for yourself.

Second, commit to one action you will take this week to tend to yourself. Make a plan to take care of yourself each week for the next four weeks. This could be riding your bike each morning, taking a walk during your lunch break, painting after work or going out to dinner with friends. Write this down and commit to taking that action. Come on and do it!

Third, you’ve started something good for yourself, now it’s time to keep it rocking. Once you’ve established your new nourishing healthy habits, try adding more. Whatever you do don’t stop. You will find that as you nourish yourself, you will naturally start to show up more vibrantly for  others as well.

 Cheers to self-care! 

2018 Will Be Your Year

5 Steps To Help You Land Your Dream Job

In order to land the job you want, you need to have a clear picture of your dream job. Bring your ideal job to your mind now. Now that you have your target job in mind, you can put all of your efforts into hitting the target. Here are 5 easy steps to help you land your dream job -

Step 1 – Tailor your resume to fit the specific job opening you are applying for and re-write your resume for each job you want. Be clear/concise about your relevant skills and experience. Write the resume as if you are painting a compelling picture to the reader that they need to bring you in and meet you. Customize your resume based on the employer. Research the company and the culture to ensure the language you are using aligns with the company. Place the title of how you want the recruiter or hiring manager to view you right under your name – i.e. Tara Happy, Program Manager or John Borne, Chief Information Officer etc..

Step 2 – Network and seek to expand your network. Network, network, network - the old adage still holds true. Leverage your network by emailing your resume to friends, former colleagues, old managers or use LinkedIn to connect with former associates. Leverage LinkedIn to see if any of your connections are connections with contacts at your target company. Seek to expand your network by introducing yourself via email or LinkedIn. Think about how you can add value to your new contacts so that it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. These connections might not initially bear fruit but your career will span a lifetime so continuing to expand your network will come in handy someday.

Step 3 – Apply to job roles early. Apply within 1-3 days of the job posting. Applying to roles early gets your resume to the top of the stack. In the beginning of the candidate search, recruiters and hiring managers are anxious to see candidates, so being the early bird could help land you an interview faster. Have job roles pushed to you using job aggregators like, Indeed, or by setting up automatic job retrievals on your target companies websites so that you can be first to apply.

Step 4 – You applied to the role and now you’ve landed the phone or in-person interview; this is your opportunity to shine! Commit to being authentic but confident during your interview. You want to show your true polished colors. Answer the questions as if you were made for the role. Answer the questions you are asked and don't go off topic. Showcase the value you can add to the company as you answer each question. Don’t make negative comments about past employers. What you wear to an interview matters so align your attire to the company’s culture always erring on the side of being more professional vs. casual.

Step 5 – You had a great interview and you’ve just received your offer letter – congrats! If you receive what you asked, accept the offer, no need to negotiate. If the offer is not quite what you want, negotiate for more. The worst you can be told is no, so go for it.

Inspiration is All Around Us

I spoke with a friend today and learned that the new job in another state was bringing him more fulfillment and financial abundance. I was inspired! Hearing about how he realized his dream made my heart smile. Then I reflected on my other friend, a divorcee, with two children, who left a high-powered stressful corporate job in search for more fulfillment and work-life balance.  Now, she has a great job with work-life balance, married to a wonderful man and she just had a baby. Over the years, there have been friends, family and others that have sought greatness, ran toward it, stumbled, crawled, stood tall and walked into their great life. As you sit with where you want to go in your life today, take a moment to reflect on someone you know who is living in the brilliant space they created. The power, love and determination that they leveraged to achieve, lies within you. People doing bold, beautiful things are all around us like breaths of fresh air. Encouraging you to breath easy and open up to the inspiration blossoming around you.

Kindness

When I experience kindness, it makes me happy. Kindness is the carrier of a many gifts – coming in the form of a compliment, a helping hand, a smile or a word of encouragement. Kindness can shift the mood or be the start of a new beginning. Have you ever had a bad day and a waitress bought you a free dessert? Or a random person is kind to you for no reason? Those acts of kindness can soften your heart, lift your spirit and make everything okay. More doses of kindness make you feel like you are surrounded by goodness and that goodness infects you and those around you. I encourage you to be kind. To move into the kind zone, start by being kind to yourself. Then be kind to those closest to you. And once you’ve mastered that, extend that kindness to a stranger. As we all raise our kindness game we will help to create a kinder world.

"Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end." -Scott Adams

Creative Authentic You

I was a rule following “Northeast Coaster”. I strived to be perfect in the way I lived my life and in the work I produced. When I got the chance to create something, I felt like it was difficult to deliver something original that didn’t pull from a benchmark or best practice. And when I veered off to share something new, I was always worried that what I shared wouldn’t be accepted. My phoniness was tiring and it made me uptight and out of touch with others and myself. When I heard Elizabeth Gilbert’s podcast, where she interviewed Brene Brown, and Brene said, “Creativity is the way we share our soul with the world”…”the only unique contribution we will make in this world will be born out of creativity.” This quote transformed my view of creativity, simplifying the definition. Creativity now = being your authentic self. Not being bound by societal, work or personal expectations born from “right living”. Unleashing the creative meant that I had to be willing to be vulnerable, to tell a joke and it bomb, or writing down my story and be told my writing sucked, or share my story and risk people judging me. No rules or right living but just living fully as myself. Pink has a song Glitter in the Air where she says – “close your eyes and trust it, just trust it” magical right! It’s one of my favorite lines from a song. So I’m asking you to close your eyes for a minute and just trust the answers you receive in your heart. Are you who you want to be? Are you sharing yourself with the world? If you aren’t, that’s okay, I wasn’t, but now you can make a change. Now, close your eyes again and ask yourself how can you be more honest, more real and more authentic? What attributes do you have when you are real? I think you know, but if you don’t know, ask the people you are most authentic with to tell you how they view you. Then, make a commitment to yourself to do one thing that enlivens the honest you today. Be creative with how you choose to show your true colors today and everyday! I want to see that picture and others will too. #therealyou.

Take Action

Action is a catalyst for change. When action mixes with ambition, or vision, or an idea, it’s a force that once ignited, is unstoppable. Action is the engine of progress. And deliberate action is like an arrow hitting its target. As you consider where you are today, and where you want to go tomorrow, action is the vehicle to get you there. When you have a goal, taking the very first step can feel heavy or scary or sometimes so difficult that you just get stuck because it’s not even worth trying. I’ve felt stuck, and when I do, I just stat crawling. Eventually, without even knowing it I’m walking toward my goal. Inaction is the enemy of action so in order to quiet the fear that is preventing you from moving forward, and amplify your vision, all you need to do is start taking one step and then another toward your goal.

What does taking one step forward mean to you today? Is that step doing or re-doing your resume, applying for a job, writing down your life goals, asking someone out, making a list of the things you want to change, crying, feeling, asking for a meeting with an investor, inviting feedback? Whatever step you feel showing up in your mind or heart right now, just take it. Once you take that step, see how another step feels. It feels so good, right? As you take steps forward, you will reach your goal and before you know it, you will have achieved your dream. And if you fall or fail as you cultivate action, I failed, and others have failed big, only to get back up, and reach unimaginable heights. If you take action you will move from where you are today to where you want to go. Take one step today toward creating a life you love and take another one tomorrow. I’m rooting for you. 

Time To Make and Keep Your New Years Resolution

With the New Year many of us make resolutions to lose more weight or find a new job or start dating again. While some stick to their resolutions, some don’t. With resolutions we are resolved to make a change or shift, so how can you start and keep those resolutions? First focus on what you want and why you want it. Bring that vision up in your mind, head and heart. Connect with that vision by seeing what you life will look like when you reach that goal. Then write down what it will mean to you if you accomplish that vision.  Make a plan to keep that commitment for 30 days and reward yourself for reaching the goal at the halfway point and at the end. Now as you move toward your goal, you must make sure you don’t focus on who and what you used to do when you started something and didn’t finish it. That person isn’t you, you are amazing and strong and most importantly you are ready to make a change. Others have lost 50 pounds, met the man or woman or their dreams or started a business, so you can and will too. Tap into your extraordinary and let go of all the stuff that doesn’t align with you. Time to step into the good life Now. Time to create a new vision and story. You got this and I am rooting for you my friend – and I know you are rooting for yourself. Stay the course and be kind to yourself as you walk in this beautiful new light!

Inspired Warriors

We are all Inspired Warriors. Within us all is a well of love, passion, wisdom and peace. Poet and speaker, Anthony Anaxagorou, says in a poem titled The Master’s Revenge – “stand in the present, draw for the future and shoot with the ammunition from the past”.  Your past has prepared you to aim for a profoundly beautiful future. And you move toward this future, not from a space of fear or timidity, but you move with a swift warrior-like confidence, aiming your faint past the obstacles with precision to the target. And as you continuing aiming and shooting and aiming and shooting, you keep hitting more targets and more targets, not concerned with how the arrow will get there, because you just know it will.

We are mighty warriors with powerful internal resources, mighty enough to build coalitions, empires, heal, transform, create, innovate, empower, encourage and love. We are so incredibly powerful that we sometimes don’t listen to our intuitions telling us to slow down, speed up, dig deeper, give love, stop, go; so we drown out that noise in exchange for something else, that could be someone telling us what to do, a boss telling us how to act, a group telling us how to think or us confirming to a “normal” job because its what society expects from us - all of these things slowly diminishing the inner warrior that lives within us all.

I have carried battered arrows and operated from a space of lack and though I always had these broken arrows, I dared not try to fix them, least I loose me. I held on to this identify of mine – being efficient, uptight, helpful, cold and judgy because it was what I thought I needed to do. My experience may have been your experience, but since you too are a warrior, you have fresh arrows constantly being replenished on your back through what you believe about yourself, through others offering you arrows and through you being born with this ability to create new ones.

Be present with yourself, get honest, surround yourself with warriors that will fight with you and for you, and walk with ease through life because your broken arrows are made straight as you realize they were never broken, but just waiting to be pulled out, made straight and aimed with precision at your next target. Sending you lots of love and encouragement to my fellow inspired warrior.

Siona