Check out the post I did for www.examiner.com on how to leave the corporate world and start your own business:
July 8, 2009
February 20, 2009
Life Happens
As many of you know, I have two blogs, this one, which is aimed more to “personal development” and the other, which is focused on “professional development”. My posting on the SuccessfulHR blog is one that is relevant for both sites, therefore, I want to share it with you here:
http://successfulhr.wordpress.com/
I hope it helps you a little when “Life Happens” to you.
January 16, 2009
Have You Sparkled Today?
A business coach I’ve been working with is really big on “inquiries”, which are questions that you post somewhere to act as a reminder of something you’d like to work on.
Through the holidays mine was – “Have I been present and peaceful today?” It was the first time I used the technique, and found it extremely useful. Given that the holidays can be stressful enough on their own, it was great to be reminded to breathe. This worked so well for me, that I’ve adopted a new one – “Have I sparkled today?” And guess what? It makes me laugh every time I see the little green post-it with those words. It reminds me to not take myself or life so seriously and I find that I’m being even more productive!
So, I invite everyone to pick an inquiry for the week or for the month. The important thing is to have it be fun and be positive (no sense in having an inquiry that yells at you). I encourage you to post your inquiries in the comments section so that others can learn from you!
November 19, 2008
Changing with the times
It is so fascinating to me, to see how my plans continue to evolve and morph. Since my last posting, I’ve launched a new HR Coaching Program: http://www.insightscc.com/resources/HR_Coaching_Program.pdf that is gaining a great deal of momentum. I’ve decided to part with my business partner on the WealthyMind and minor things like changing my newsletter from Constant Contact to Aweber.
Change is always so constant and so wonderful, in that as one thing ends, some thing else is always begining. Since making changes to my strategy and focusing, I’ve found more and more opportunities that I would never have seen. I am working on a relaunch of my website, and even created a plan on some longer term Personal Growth initiatives. I find that I continue to evolve and expand in ways I never thought possible.
I am grateful to all those around me, my new husband, family and friends. So many good thoughts and gracious words that come my way and how free and happy I feel in pursuing my dreams. So although things continue to morph and change, and sometimes I don’t even know where it is going, I am grateful for the journey I’m on, and I’ll just keep on trekking!
August 28, 2008
Beliefs and Our Reality
I’ve been doing a ton of research on the concept of beliefs, preparing for a class I am co-facilitating designed specifically around this notion of how beliefs (among other things) can either help or hinder our success. It is fascinating to know that the limits we perceive in our daily lives have root in the beliefs we hold to be true for ourselves. Not only that, most often the core beliefs (which tend to give us the biggest problems) were ones we created when we were little kids and had very little information to discern what was happening in the world around us. What does that mean exactly? Well let me give you an example:
When I was young, 8 or so, as my family watched a slasher movie, I overheard the following comment “Pretty, skinny girls always get it!” Well at 8, I wasn’t sure what “get it” meant, but from the sounds of it I didn’t want to find out! Shortly after that, I found all sorts of evidence that “Pretty, skinny girls get it”, mostly it seemed that they would come to some sort of violent death or at least be left for dead after some brutal attack. It wasn’t hard to find this evidence, TV, songs, movies, etc all confirmed that “getting it” was no good. Pretty soon I started putting on weight, and struggled with it for YEARS. It wasn’t until recently when I was trying to find out what sorts of beliefs was I holding on to that were preventing me from being at the weight I wanted, when I stumbled onto this notion that I’d been carrying around for so long! My life all of a sudden made sense! I now knew why it creeped me out when I got too much attention from “strange” men and why my weight had been yo-yo’ing all these years! Now it was time to take my life back! I did some NLP Belief Change work that helped a great deal. I am now on my way (in an extremely effortless way) to getting down to my goal weight. It absolutely feels like magic.
Although I wont share the details of the process I used, I will leave you with some questions you can ask yourself, to help loosen some of these limiting beliefs.
- How have you known this belief is true, until now?
- Is this belief always true? For everybody?
- What is the positive purpose for holding this belief?
- How would you know this belief wasn’t true? And what evidence (see, hear, feel) do you have for that?
These questions will start shaking the belief up a bit creating space for you to consider more possibilities. The one thing I find that works tremendously well, with limiting beliefs, inner critics, negative emotions, etc. is determining what the positive purpose/intent in holding these things to be true. By acknowledging and somehow incorporating that intent into your solution, allows you greater flexibility than remaining in inner conflict.
If you want more information on the specifics, please feel free to send me an email @ silvia@insightscc.comor post a comment.
June 27, 2008
Taking time to breathe
We are all running at a frenetic pace and sometimes we forget to breathe. Yes I know this is a natural process, and you don’t really forget to breathe in and out, but how often do we forget to take a DEEP breath. Taking a moment to just allow ourselves to be? It is as if we feel guilty in saying, I am going to take a moment for myself. There is something about how society views “me” time as being selfish, but in fact if we took time for ourselves, we might let that person in our lane, or we might say good morning as we pass someone by in Starbucks. If we were kinder and gentler to ourselves, it would be easier to be kinder and gentler to others. So I encourage you, take a moment to just breathe, and do it every day!
May 30, 2008
Excuses
Have you ever noticed how many excuses we make in a day? Excuses for not reading, not doing work, not getting into relationships, you name it, we make them! Here is a little cathartic poem I wrote, which exhausted all my excuses and I was left with no choice but to Workout! Enjoy – Silvia www.insightscc.com
“Too Much”
by Silvia Siguenza
It’s time to go work out.
I am feeling,
Too Unmotivated,
Too Tired,
Too Lazy,
Too Busy,
To go work out right now, but I promise to go later today.
It’s later, but I still can’t go.
I’m feeling,
Too Fried,
Too Hungry,
Too Stressed,
Too Anxious,
To go work out right now, but I promise to go tomorrow.
Its tomorrow, my alarm is shouting at me.
I’m feeling,
Too Weak,
Too Depressed,
Too Embarrassed,
Too Overwhelmed,
To go work out right now, but I promise to go… at some point.
Where are my chips?
Where’s my soda?
Fries make me happy.
What about that brownie?
Anyone eating that?
What?
No, I wasn’t going to work out today!
I guess I should go work out now.
But, I’m feeling,
Too Broken,
Too Lost,
Too Lethargic,
Too Apathetic,
To go work out right now, maybe tomorrow.
May 9, 2008
Getting ready for the Wedding…
It’s that time, less than 2 months until the big day. As I was writing out my LONG list of to do’s leading up to the big day, I started to feel extremely nervous. Not the “cold feet” kind of nervous, but the “crap do I have time to get it all done” nervous. The more I let myself feel nervous and less than resourceful, the more anxious I got. So in true coaching fashion, I asked myself what can I do, to help manage my state of being leading up to the wedding. What came to me was a simple yet effective NLP strategy called “Circle of Excellence”. It made me feel a ton better and so, I share it with you. Try it out and you’ll see how quickly you can shift your thinking!
Circle of Excellence Steps:
1. Start by imagining a circle on the ground in front of you. If you have trouble conjuring up this image, do what cartoons do, and just pull a circle out of your pocket and place it on the floor.
2. Make your circle unique to you, add color, texture, sound, etc.
3. Then ask yourself what state(s) of being you would like in your circle. For example in my case I wanted to be “sharp”, “positive” and “efficient”
4. You then need to think of a time when you had those states of being. Once you identify such a time, step into your circle fully accessing the time where you had the appropriate states of being. If you have different examples for each state, then access them separately, e.g. 1st think of the time you felt sharp, step into the circle fully accessing the time you felt sharp, then step out of the circle. Think of the time you felt positive, then step into the circle again accessing the time you felt positive, etc.
5. Once you’ve added all your states of being to your circle, step into it one more time thinking about carrying this “Circle of Excellence” with you in the future. For example, I visualized myself running all my wedding errands with these feelings and to make it even more vivid I saw myself crossing out to do’s from my list.
6. At this point you can give your circle a name or symbolic representation to remind you of this way of being. You can also pick up your circle and put it in a pocket or throw it on your head as a hat… whatever works for you so that you feel you are carrying it with you moving forward.
I hope you find this tool as useful as I did. For more information or questions check out my website at www.insightscc.com
April 24, 2008
Time, where does it go?
When I was in high school I wrote a poem entitled: “Time” and it went something like this:
If we spend all our time
Learning how to manage time
Aren’t we just waisting time?
I know it wasn’t that good, but for me it was the nut I needed to crack. Years later, I’ve learned the value of time and have therefore become much more mindful of the limits and lack of control I have over time. For example, I can not control how quickly the clock ticks or when the sun rises. What I have control over, is what I agree to do with my time. As a result I now make the determination of what trade offs I need to make when I decide to take something else on.
There are times we all overestimate how much we can squeeze in to our day, but what we’re not being explicit about is what we have given up by agreeing to do that one more thing. If we were more explicit about the 5 minutes of quiet time we were giving up or the extra 30 minutes of sleep, we may be a bit more discerning about what we take on.
I challenge you to be more conscious of what you are giving up when you accept “one more thing” and before you say yes to someone else or even to yourself, be sure you understand that trade off.
See Silvia’s website www.insightscc.com for a list of products and services.
April 10, 2008
Mirror Neurons
I recently was introduced to the concept of mirror neurons. As you watch someone else perform an activity these neurons fire off in the brain as if you were the one doing the activity. Further, it has been found that these neurons also fire off in your emotional center based on the emotion someone else is feeling. This seems to be a basis for empathy.
This has lead me to ponder about the company we keep. How did I make that leap? Well, if we are constantly around people that are sad, depressed, etc. then we will be mirroring those emotions, even if we don’t intend to. That unintentional mirroring seems as though it may lead us down a path that may be less than fruitful. In the converse, if we surround ourselves with people that are happier with a more positive nature, perhaps that can help us.
Now I’m not suggesting that we should be happy all the time, merely that sometimes we wonder why we don’t feel like ourselves or wonder why we get so tired or drained from being around someone that is negative or energized after being with someone that is positive, it seems that we have our biology to thank and specifically know that it is our Mirror Neurons at work.
