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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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Even with all the tools, knowledge, and life experience we have, we all still just want to belong. I work with a lot of women who have lost themselves while parenting, in their careers, or when a relationship ends. Other times, we want to try something new but are afraid of not being any good at it. No matter how old we get, we just want to fit in! 

I recently interviewed an extraordinary woman who is nearing 60 and still experiences moments like these. Laurie Broderick-Burr completed her Master’s in Kinesiology when she was fifty, recently took up painting even though she can’t draw, and has constantly battled imposter syndrome as she’s found her calling as a non-traditional yoga and movement teacher. With each experience, though, she’s learned something new and is living a life that she loves. 

Listen to Episode 43 to experience Laurie’s contagious energy and uplifting outlook on life. You’ll be sure to end this episode feeling exci...

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There is daily stress, and then there is STRESS. Recently I’ve had several friends experience the loss of loved ones and the acute stress that comes with that, but it can happen if you’re going through a relationship breakup, been laid off from work, have a diagnosis, or any of those other heavy things that happen in life. Last week I shared ways to cope with daily stress, and I want to take it a step further and share specific tools for dealing with acute emotional stress. 

Use These Tips as Tools, Not Cures

When you are going through a crisis, the constant state of stress takes its toll on you mentally, physically, and emotionally. These tools will help you take a break from those feelings, but are by no means the solution to finding your way through whatever is stressing you. Note that I’m not a therapist, and these tools should be used alongside other professional recommended help.

6 Tips to Relieve Acute Stress

These tips are h...

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Have you noticed when you feel stressed in one area of your life, it seems to attract other stressors? Like when your alarm doesn’t go off and the day starts out hectic, you forget your keys, then traffic is bad, the coffee shop messes up your order, and on it goes until you burn dinner and the dog pukes on the rug?

Life has a way of throwing us curveballs, challenges, and changes, so it’s important to know how to cope with stress so each incident doesn’t snowball like that! Not to mention the impact that stress has on our health, mood, and relationships.

To equip yourself to respond to stress better, I’ve got five simple tips to keep in your toolbelt the next time your boss comes to you with a big project or your kids come down with the stomach flu. You’ve got this. 

1. Know Yourself. By now, you probably have a pretty good understanding of what stresses you out, and how you respond to it. Unfortunately, many of us don’t use this...

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We all have those days when our mental energy and motivation aren’t at their best. You might feel bored, disinterested, or like you’re living the same day over and over again. Days like these are going to happen, so it’s important to have some tools to combat them. I’ve just emerged from my own funk, so here are five tips to get out of a rut to save for your own “rainy day”. 

How I Found Myself in a Rut

Last week I found myself feeling blah. I was irritable and unmotivated, and didn’t want to do much of anything. It could be because the weather changed from sunny to cloudy, or the news, or that I was feeling stir-crazy after spending the past two years working from home. Even though I’m a homebody, I admit that I'm feeling “done” with being home all time. All of these feelings are valid, but I didn’t want to wallow around. I wanted to get my zest for life back! The following tips to get out of a rut helped me get unstuck and back to feelin...

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Some women that work with me share that they’re afraid of running out of time to do the things they’ve always wanted to do. There are women who put their careers on hold for children, couldn’t afford to travel in their youth, or who have a nagging dream that they want to see fulfilled. Some are worried about getting older and that their years to do “all of the things” are running out. 

I don’t believe that you have to choose between  your dreams and your obligations, imagined or otherwise. Rather, I help women learn strategies to find the time to do both while honoring where they are at life and where they want to go. 

Then there are the women who have found the balance on their own, and have embraced their life stages and changes with curiosity and talent for seeing opportunity. In episode 39 of The Extraordinary Life Podcast, I talk with a woman just like that. Deborah Costella is in her mid-sixties and is opening the new location f...

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Last week I led you through a process of evaluating and tracking where you are in your life and what needs to be changed using the six High-Performance Habits. Once you start tracking them, it gives you a great baseline to work from and keeps you on track. They’re so important to creating your dream life that we spend six months working on them in The Extraordinary Life Tribe and keep coming back to them. For the other six months, we work on ways to activate your life. These are called the Charge Sessions and are what help you create an engaged, energetic, and enthusiastic life. 

Activating your extraordinary life starts by thinking about and strategically managing your long-term energy, enthusiasm, and engagement in life. To achieve this, you must decide to move beyond the boundaries and beliefs that you or others may have set out for you, and decide what you really want from your life. 

There are ten human drives that are the activa...

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I think it was my mentor, David Neagle, that said a map doesn’t do you any good if you don’t know where you are. You have to know where you’re starting to get where you want to go. This is why I use the Whole Life Assessment and High Performance Habits Assessment in my High Performance Planner regularly, and why I share it with my clients. It makes me aware of where I’m at and what I’m doing, so I can see what needs to change (or not!) to achieve my goals and dreams. 

This works because most of us are unaware of what we’re doing unless we start tracking it. For example, when I taught childbirth classes I gave the moms-to-be a weekly worksheet to track what they ate because eating enough protein, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats is important to growing a healthy baby and increasing the chances of an easier birth. But if you’re on autopilot and not conscious of what you're eating, you don't know what needs to be changed. What you mea...