NUMBER 6

Do you tend to procrastinate? Do you avoid certain topics by distraction or total denial? Do you have problems seeing the reality of life the way it is because you embrace what you want to see and deny the rest?

I can help. Procrastination has very deep roots. We will have intense conversations, and I will ask you skilled questions that will reveal the blind spots you like to avoid. By finding out why you are procrastinating, you will be able to change this habit of avoidance and postponement and live a life with more honesty towards yourself.

Become a fan and follow me on Facebook!

There are many areas that need support from a Business Coach. Let me address the main areas I have been confronted with in my coaching practice and summarize 10 reasons to hire me as your Business Coach:

Number 5

Are you disconnected with yourself? Is your mind in disharmony with your body? Do you feel torn apart by what you really want and what you feel?

I can help. I am a certified Integral Coach with the training and experience to help you regain the inner peace and harmony needed to balance your life and being. In order to become one, we need to look into the various domains that form the whole picture.

Become a fan and follow me on Facebook!

Don’t expect a follow up of the popular soap opera.  There is more serious stuff than TV intrigues, felony or other evil behavior. Instead I want to discuss the understanding of gender roles and family dynamics in times of recession –real life.

The idea to write about this topic evolved when I found an article in the December issue 2010 of Newsmax with the title: “The Down-on-their-luck wives club”.  The title caught my attention right away and I wondered what was behind it.

The Recession-Prosperity Comparison

Let me start with the survey by researchers Marybeth J. Mattingly and Kristin E. Smith of the University of New Hampshire.  The survey considered the population survey of May 2008 and 2009 and compared the findings to May 2004 and 2005 – recession versus relative prosperity.  The study was published in the journal Family Relations and revealed some interesting results.

American families are experiencing the effects of the ‘Great Recession’.

From December 2007 to January 2010 the US economy lost 8.4 million jobs.

The statistics, in conjunction with high losses in investments, unprecedented housing price declines, and mortgage foreclosures earn this recession the distinction of the worst recession in decades.

Families are responding to the deep financial strain caused by the Great Recession with an increase in wives labor force participation.

The current recession, with heavy job loss among men, has pushed many families to rely on wives as breadwinners to a larger extent than in the past.

Women are looking for and commencing work and they increase their work hours when their husbands stop working.

Wives are seeking jobs more often than they are finding them.

Wives earnings tend to be lower than husbands. Therefore families may still take a hit financially, if they rely primarily on their earnings.

Some of the consequences of the Great Recession reflect dramatic changes in the roles of women and men in society.

Women now hold nearly 50% of non-farm payroll jobs. Given that three-fourths of recent job losses accrued to men, many married women have increased their role as economic providers.

For more details on the survey: Family Relations 59 (October 2010)

( http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2010.00607.x/full )

The way out of desperation into inspiration

When you read the results of the survey you might feel desperate and frustrated.  Maybe you are one of the housewives, maybe you could become one of the housewives or maybe you know a housewife who was forced back into the labor market whether she liked it or not. No matter what your position, I invite you to look at this topic with an open mind.

Every situation, no matter how great or miserable, involves a new perspective – a chance for a new beginning.  Yes, you don’t like change and you would rather keep everything warm and cozy the way it is.  Life does not work that way. Suddenly and without doing anything, you find yourself in a flow of water, a strong stream pushing you forward even though you don’t want to move forward.  You want to stay just where you are but the stream is too strong to resist.  It forces you into a direction you don’t want to go, but there is not much you can do.  You resist and resist until you lose all your strength and energy and finally surrender weakened and deeply hurt.  This is a painful scenario and this is exactly what happens when you try to stop a force that is stronger than you are – the force of nature.

Now look at a different scenario.  Again, suddenly without doing anything, you find yourself caught in the middle of a strong stream of water pushing you forward relentlessly.  You feel the power and you realize that you cannot fight it.  Instead you use all your strength and energy to stay in the flow and become one with the stream.  You allow the power of nature to carry you until it comes to exhausts itself.  You look up and continue your path from there.

Two scenarios and two different outcomes. I guess we agree that the second scenario is much more inspiring and creates a more positive outlook on life.

When you realize that you cannot stop the flow, ride on top of it.  You might even enjoy the ride that brings you to new places with new outcomes.  Become a winner and not a victim.  As much as you liked what you had, look forward to want you can achieve.  This brings me back to the headline that caught my attention: “The Down-on-Their-Luck Wives Club”.  I don’t agree to this headline, and I don’t think you need to lose your luck in these tough economic times.  Instead, I prefer “The Comeback of the inspired Housewives” who reinvent themselves and are more successful and happy than ever.

Be a woman and act like one.

Become a fan and follow me on Facebook!

There are many areas that need support from a Business Coach. Let me address the main areas I have been confronted with in my coaching practice and summarize 10 reasons to hire me as your Business Coach:

4.      Do you want to strengthen your leadership skills? Do you feel that you have not lived your role as a team leader to its full potential?

I can help. I am certified in an assessment tool that will identify your strengths and also areas for improvement in the emotional skills that are essential for success as a leader. After the assessment I will help you create your personal development plan that supports your efforts to be a genuine leader.

Part 2

It’s not all about looks

Hello, wise Bond girl. Did you read my latest blog? Could you relate to the struggle with aging and did you discover your sense of humor and wisdom to respond to the unstoppable evolution of aging with ease and lightness? I really hope so, because real beauty is not just a facade.

I must admit that I am conscious of my own looks. It is important to me to look the best I can. What do I mean by looking good? Of course, I like to dress up and polish my look. But what gives me the real kick has nothing to do with fashion or make-up. I love the days when I feel connected with myself and I am in balance. I feel that this inner balance shows on the outside. It has nothing to do with feeling younger, but I like what I see in the mirror and this is a happy middle aged woman who has kept a certain glow and shine. This is what I like to see in myself and this is what makes my day. If then I encounter disapproval or non-recognition, such as I described in the little anecdotes in my last blog, I can easily live with it. I can develop the sense of humor needed to deal with it, because I am in a good place in my life.

This leads to the question: Is beauty visible to everybody?’ It takes certain skills to see through the façade and discover the true value. Not everybody is able to see what is not obvious.  There is a saying, ‘Not all that shines is gold’. For us women, this means we can use as much make-up as we like, we can wear the coolest fashion and slim down to model sizes and we will still not be beautiful. Isn’t that weird? Fashion magazines show us exactly that and pretend it is called beauty. They are wrong. They show us the world of glamor and fill our hearts with envy, but all they show us is façade.

Once women understand that facades have no depth and are rather misleading, women will begin the real make-up – a make-up of their inner values. What makes us beautiful is who we are and what we represent in the meaning of virtues, emotional skills and personality. Yes, you will say, that is what they all say. It is the inner beauty that counts, but then by the end of the day, the young and beautiful woman gets the promotion, or the sexy lady gets all the attention. How can inner beauty help me to succeed in my life?

As I said, the problem is that many people out there do not have the ability to recognize real beauty and they make their decisions based purely upon appearances. We cannot change this stupidity and incompetence by complaining and feeling sorry for ourselves. Not everybody gets it, and that is o.k. It is on you to decide whether you let these disappointments get under your skin or if you simply take it with humor and maybe compassion for these innocent, misguided souls.

Your choice is to stay true to yourself and be authentic and real. Of course, we make sure we look our best, but that is not the key to success and accomplishment. The main challenge we have is to work on being a beautiful woman from the inside. Being beautiful means for example being real, showing glow, feeling confident, making smart choices, having a great sense of humor, expressing love and simply embracing the person you are. The more you are in tune with who you are, the more others will be in tune with you. When you feel good about yourself, others will find it much easier to like you. When you are feeling beautiful as a woman, others will look at you the same way (a few dumb exceptions just confirm the rule). As a result, creating beauty is a simple yet nonetheless tough challenge. It is so much easier to dress sexy and wear glamorous make-up than restoring your inside. It takes much more effort to find inner balance and build self-confidence than to dress up for an occasion.

If you are willing to work and create your own beauty, you will not only convince the outside world, but you will become a much happier person. This new person reveals an ageless beauty that can compete with anything and everybody if necessary. This ageless beauty glows like the first morning light. It brings beauty and guidance to the world and grows into the glorious light that makes it so unique.

Be a woman and act like one.

In the last part of the series, I would like to talk about older women I love and adore and what we can learn from them.

Part 3:

Finally over 50!

An homage to the women over 50 and older – much, much older

There are many areas that need support from a Business Coach. Let me address the main areas I have been confronted with in my coaching practice and summarize 10 reasons to hire me as your Business Coach:

3.      Are you finding it difficult to successfully balance your business life with your private life? Are you constantly struggling with setting your priorities to create more focus and peace of mind?

I can help. Together we will discover what is meaningful to you and what balance you need to feel happy and accomplished. There is no golden rule for the right balance, but I can help you to develop your individual life concept.

Become a fan and follow me on Facebook!

PART ONE

The motivation to write about this topic manifested when I recently looked at my mom’s photos when she was about my age. I have always looked at these pictures thinking that she looked conservative and rather old. I did not want to look like her when I grew older until one day when looking at her pictures and even looking at her in person today, I realized that I would be a very happy woman to have her looks and charisma when I am her age. The old pictures seem to have changed. She actually looks terrific, or is it my perspective that has changed?

Anyhow, I am not a young chick anymore and as much as I enjoy the maturity and wisdom I have gained over the years in this world, I surely do not appreciate the wrinkles, the aches and pains, the grey hair trying to conquer my scalp (I won’t let it thanks to chemistry), not to forget menopause symptoms and the struggle to keep in good shape. Aging has a price – the price of looking older and being looked at as an older person. How do I know about that? Everyday life teaches me that I am not 20 years old anymore. Like it or not, I must face reality.

I would like to share a little anecdote with you.

The other day when I went to the car wash it happened. I looked good that day, well-groomed, happy and at ease with my life. The guy at the car wash was kind and I thought even flirtatious. Yes, it was one of those days when I felt good about myself, full of self-confidence and charm. At the end of our conversation he asked me: What fragrance? I was not sure if I was willing to answer that question. Wouldn’t that go too far? Why would I tell him the fragrance I was wearing and I hesitated? The guy was insistent and asked me again. Well, I thought who cared and I gave him the desired response. ‘I am wearing Eau de Merveilles by Hermes’ I told him honestly and proudly. The look he gave me was indescribable. He seemed totally confused and I was quite sure he thought that I was a lunatic. ‘Well’, he said, ‘we only carry vanilla, strawberry …”. What an embarrassment! He was asking about the fragrance for my car, while I was thinking…!!! This brought a sharp ending to the conversation which I thought was a flirt while he was simply selling his car wash services.

To enlighten your day and to prove that I am not the only woman running into trouble, I would love to share another anecdote with you that happened to a friend at the car repair. She is as middle aged as I, a beautiful and charming woman who had a conversation with a guy at the car repair. The guy was insistent in making an appointment with her. She felt flattered, but she did not like this blunt approach by a guy she had never met in her life. On top of that she was happily married and she had no intention to go on a date with another man. As flattering as it was to be the chosen one, she had to find a way to get out of the dilemma. She was thinking of excuses why she could not have a date with him until the guy told her that her car desperately needed a certain service. What a bummer! He was not interested in her. It was her car.

Finally, my friend and I had to realize that it was not us the guys were interested in, but it was our cars or whatever needed to be fixed or serviced.

You can get frustrated about this, but you can also take it with a sense of humor. My friend and I we tell these little stories and laugh. We still cannot believe that as educated and self-confident as we are, we were not able to discover the true meaning of the male inquiry. Our egos fell for the basic instinct that men were interested in us as women. We had to learn the hard way that this is not always the case.

Now we know that the days are over when construction workers whistle when we walk by. No turning heads, no blunt compliments by stupid men that make us feel so special. The days when all eyes focused on us are over. Instead we are more like undercover agents on a secret mission. We are important, but we don’t attract attention because that would totally spoil the mission. Our recipe for success is to be there but not to be seen, with our goal right in front of us all the time.

I love it. Finally I am playing a leading role next to James Bond. I am sexy, I am smart and I am on a secret mission for who knows what. If you look at aging that way, it actually begins to be fun. Don’t you think? We cannot stop the process, we can only delay it. If you feel like you want to do plastic surgery or have Botox treatments, why not? Whatever you do that makes you feel better is fantastic. But don’t lose your sense of humor when you realize that you are not getting the desired attention and admiration. You have no need to be upset or high strung when the young chick gets the admiration you were longing for. Do not worry about the aches and pains of daily life and simply live with them. We cannot stop aging, and we do not want it either. The alternative is the end of life and we want to live.

My recommendation is to go undercover. Be beautiful, be smart, be adventurous and become the wisest Bond girl the world has ever seen.

Check back next month for Part Two – It’s Not All About Looks

Be a woman and act like one.

Become a fan and follow me on Facebook!