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With our summer road trip over and my son back to school, I’m trying to get back into my morning routine. It fell apart over the summer and I’m noticing! Before, I’d been sleeping through the night and my hot flashes and headaches were practically non-existent. I’ve started waking up at 4am regularly, so you could say I’m pretty motivated to get back to what works. 

I Embraced 4am (Once)

Normally when I wake up too early, I’ll try my hardest to get back to sleep or get up for a bit before returning to bed. When the latter happens, I end up waking up later and my morning routine doesn’t happen because the rest of the house is up and about. So the last time I woke up at 4am, I decided to just get up and stay up. 

I used this time to take my morning routine to the limit, and while I won’t be doing this every morning, it was a great reminder of why I do it. It works, and makes me feel good! So what did I manage to do in those extra few h...

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At first, I wanted to title this post “Practices to Master your Personal Psychology”, but then I gave my head a shake. The words “practice” and “master” don’t belong together here, because the tips I’m sharing to develop your personal psychology are just that: practices, not masteries. They’re meant to be done regularly, with the open-ended goal to expand your mind. 

As you read through these practices, consider which one would best fit into your season of life right now. Which one speaks to you the most? In which direction do you want to stretch your mind? Start by choosing one practice that you can commit to regularly, and build on from there. 

Meditation

Meditation has become much more mainstream, but it has been used for thousands of years as a way to quiet the constant chatter of the mind. I used to meditate daily as part of my morning routine, but I’ve added new things to my routine and meditation seems to have fallen away. I’m...

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I recently took on a challenge called 75 Hard to build my mental strength. Essentially, the challenge is designed to help you get better at what you’re going to say you’re going to do. I decided to do it because over the past few years I started breaking little promises and appointments I’d set for myself, and was starting to feel the consequences. The challenge entails doing the following for seventy-five days in a row: exercise twice per day for forty-five minutes each, drink one gallon of water, read ten pages of a personal development book, follow a diet of my choice (I chose no gluten, dairy, or added sugar), and no alcohol. I made it eleven days. 

The challenge is extreme, and I know it’s not for everyone, but I was still disappointed because I was really excited to see and feel the outcome after seventy-five days. After reflecting on why I took the challenge on in the first place and the reasons I failed, I decided to start agai...

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I’m sure that by now you’ve realized that making changes in your life, even the positive ones, is hard. Our minds are wired to keep us safe, and changing the status quo comes with risk. That’s why we put off starting a new exercise routine, waking up earlier to meditate, or even drinking more water. Half of overcoming procrastination like this is understanding the process of change, and the other half is strengthening the “I do what I say I’m going to do” muscle. 

Over the past five years, I realized that I wasn’t making fitness a priority in my life as much as I wanted to. Since I signed up to be a coach on my son’s mountain bike team that’s improved a bit, but I want to do better. Moving each day is something that I used to do and want to make a priority again. That’s one reason I joined a friend to do the 75 Hard challenge. It’s seventy-five days of being consistent with food, water, movement, and reading. While I’m sure there will ...

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It’s the week of Thanksgiving here in the United States, when we focus on being grateful for all that we have. Since I practice gratitude every day of the year, I had no plans to do a special post about it for Thanksgiving; but then I thought about how much it’s changed my life for the better. Gratitude changes everything, and I have six ways you can include it in your everyday life - so you can feel more abundant, peaceful, and joyful all year round. 

Experience the Shift of Gratitude

When you practice gratitude regularly, you’ll start to see positive shifts in all the areas of your life. You’ll also feel happier immediately! Give it a try right now. Take a moment, and think about all you have to be grateful for. It could be your family, your friends, or the abundance of love in your life. Think about being grateful for the work you do, the opportunities you have in front of you, and the things you have overcome and learned from. Jus...

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Over the past few months, I’ve been sharing a lot about the power that routine and habits have in creating your extraordinary life. And while I share a lot of my personal habits, it’s important that you choose habits that work for you. That’s why I interviewed my friend and successful entrepreneur, Kai Deering on my latest podcast. Keep reading below for how she’s created habits to fit her individual lifestyle and goals, or listen to the full interview on The Extraordinary Life podcast. 

Meet Kai

I’ve got to know Kai really well over the past year and a half in a networking group and an eight month program we were both in. (So don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t form impactful relationships online, because we sure have!) She walked away from a career that didn’t light her up, and now she’s been with Legal Shield for over twenty years. As she says, “When you love what you do and you do what you love, it doesn't...

High Performance Habit #6: Demonstrating Courage

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We’ve reached the sixth and final High Performance Habit in this series of blog posts, which is demonstrating courage. I’m sure your mind went straight to dramatic ideas of courage, like rescuing someone from a burning building; but in the context of building habits to create an extraordinary life, courage is made up of the smaller actions we take that push us beyond our comfort zone. To me, being courageous is stretching to become a better, stronger version of yourself - and it’s something we can all learn to do. 

Find Your Version of Courage

Demonstrating courage will look different for each person, since we all have different goals we want to achieve. In my Design Your Decade workshop, I ask my students to look at their goals and dreams, and identify what courageous actions they can take now to achieve their ten year dreams. More often than not, it’s very small, brave steps that will add up over ...

High Performance Habit #5: Developing Influence

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Thanks to social media, the idea of “being an influencer” has an uncomfortable energy around it these days. I want to start off right away saying that the fifth High Performance Habit, developing influence, is far from being manipulative or getting people to do things they wouldn’t normally do. Let’s dive into what developing influence really is, along with three simple and powerful ways you can create it in your own life. 

A Reminder to Learn Your Habits in Order

If you haven’t read about the first four High Performance Habits (or listened to the podcast), stop here and go back. This is because you need to fully understand the personal habits (seeking clarity, generating energy, and raising necessity) before you can move on to the social habits, like this one. 

 What Developing Influence Means

In his book, High Performance Habits, Brendon Burchard broadly defines "having influence' as...

High Performance Habit #3: Raising Necessity

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Over the past few weeks I’ve been introducing you to the High Performance Habits, and today we’re halfway through with the third habit, raising necessity. As Brendon Burchard says in his book, High Performance Habits, “necessity is the emotional drive that makes great performance a must, instead of a preference.” When you have an increased sense of necessity to do well, it’s easier to keep going when life gets hard, obstacles pop up, or you just don’t feel like showing up that day. 

Another way to understand what raising necessity means, is to think about increasing the pressure or force surrounding your goals. Some people don’t like the idea of being under pressure, even if it’s a positive pressure, while others thrive on it; but at some point, pressure is what will drive you to succeed. So choose whatever word you like the best, (necessity, pressure, or force), and make these six ways to increase...

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As a coach who literally teaches high success habits, it may surprise you that I’m bringing up the negative side of routines. I’m here to support and help you create the extraordinary life you deserve, and habits are an essential part of that - if they’re used correctly. Unfortunately, our unconscious routines have a downside that can hamper the changes we desire. That’s why I’m sharing tips on how to avoid the negative side of habits, and what to do instead. 

The Negative Side of Habits

Routines can bring ease, joy, and comfort into your life, which is why they are so important in helping you create a life you love. That’s why I don’t want you to start thinking that all habits have a lurking bad side; however, all habits have the potential to create complacency. This complacency can cause some big problems, and even get in the way of the changes you are trying to create in your life. 

You Lose Situational Awareness

Have you ever be...