Prioritizing, not so easy….

You know the saying, “easier said than done”, unfortunately I do. As a life coach, I often times fond myself aiding my clients in creating and managing priorities. As an outsider it is easy for me to stay objective and see a path to success, but when the tables are turned and I want something for myself, it’s not so easy to see how it’s all going to come together.

So with this said, there is something that I want real bad, and in order to get what I want, I need a substantial amount of money. Right now, I most certainly do not have the funds to get what I want, so I am faced with an opportunity to shift my priorities and re-evaluate my current priorities and spending patterns. … Big sigh. I don’t really want to take a closer look at my spending habits, because I know what I’m an about to find. I’m about to discover that in order for me to work towards this thing that I really want, a serious overhaul of my behavior in required.

As much as I would like to pretend that I am fiscally responsible, this new priority is allowing the opportunity to discover some truth about myself, and to be honest it’s a little uncomfortable. I am committing to adjusting my current behaviors in order to get what I want, and I’ll admit that it’s not going to be easy for me. What I do know is this, for me to be successful in this mission; I need to create very realistic and achievable goals for myself.

Throughout this process of reprioritizing and shifting behaviors, I will remember to be kind to myself and not to get frustrated. I will also acknowledge my progress and reward myself accordingly, so that I remain committed to the end goal, and enjoy the process. At the end of this mission, I know I’ll be very proud of myself for all the work that I have done…it will be worth it.

Some questions for you:

When’s the last time you examined your priorities?

What are your priorities?

Is there fear in shifting your priorities? If so, where is that fear coming from?

What are you willing to do in order to accomplish what you want?

Stay tuned on my progress and wish me luck!

Hope to hear from you all,

Talia

I'm annoyed at my own behavior.

A few years ago, a very close girl friend of mine, got very irritated with me. There were several issues compounding her irritation, but one that seemed rather petty to me at the time, is now coming back to bite me in the karmic bum. My friend told me that when we were spending time together, I was rarely present because I was so glued to my phone. I remember being defensive about her calling me out on this, because it was so true. There was a time in my life not to long ago, when I was utterly consumed by whomever may be trying to get a hold of me at any minute of the day. The irony of this, was that the person I was so concerned about turned out to be a fool and mostly a waste of my time, and my friend who wanted to spend more intentional and quality time with me has since moved across the country.

I am far from being disconnected from my phone, and I find myself still rushing to it after I've been away from it for an extended amount of time, but what I am noticing, is that I am taking offense to when I am wanting to spend quality time with people and they are attempting to have a conversation with me and texting other people at the same time. Now to be honest, I am still guilty of this behavior too, and I'm ready to change it. I tend to think that my time is precious and the people I choose to spend time with most likely feel the same way, and what I am realizing, is that I find it extremely rude when people don't value my time or my presence.

When I am spending time with someone, I have made a conscious choice to be with that person at that time and it is important for me to make the most of every minute that I choose to spend with loved ones and friends. I love making making people feel special, and at the end of the day I want to feel special too. When I am either texting someone, or taking insignificant phone calls while interrupting a real person-to-person interaction I am being rude and disrespectful. Being rude and disrespectful are two qualities that I am not ok with giving or receiving.

So how do I proceed? Of course there are going to be times when it is important to respond to a phone call or a text, but what I have found to be true is that 95% of the phone calls, texts, and emails, I receive can wait a little bit, if not for a a while. My intention is to be present while engaging in person-to-person interactions because it is important to me to connect with the people who take the time to be with me. I cannot change other people's behavior, I can only change my own, so when I find myself feeling like whomever I'm with is being rude or disrespectful to me, I have the choice to either say nothing, or speak up and share how I am feeling.

Here are some questions and thoughts that have come up around this issue for me:

What makes interaction with one person more important that an other?

Is a casual text conversation really that important?

How can I make the people in my life feel appreciated and special when I am with them?

Can I ask the people in my life who really only communicate with me on the phone to only call/text me at specific times?

What would it be like to turn my phone off for a set amount of time every day?

Now obviously this is an issue I am working with, I'm sure anyone with a phone experiences this to some extent, but I am curious, what behaviors do you take offense to that you actually perpetuate too?

I haven't been blogging for a while, and it feels good to be back.

Say hi, and have a great week!

Talia

Sanctuary

Sanctuary

One of the many perks of going to school to become a Life Coach, is that I have a handful of coaches at my finger tips to help me work through my own thoughts. As I was catching up with one of these wonderful people, not really intending to have an “Ahh Huh” moment out of the conversation, I found myself complaining about my house being a mess.

Since I got my dog 7 months ago, my life has shifted, obviously, and for the most part I am learning to adjust and seem to be doing fairly well. However, what I am not doing well with is keeping up with the endless amount of dirt that she tracks through the house, as if she is so proud of herself that she runs into every room spreading the joy of dirt everywhere. I am not a fan of this dirty dance.

Like the skilled coach that she is, my friend allowed me to share my thoughts and express my frustrations. Throughout the conversation, I found myself returning to the topic of my office, and every time I would mention it, I would take a deep breath and say, “I just want a space in my house that is mine.” I was already asking for what I wanted, but because I was so focused on my entire house being a mess, I was unable to see a very simple solution to the problem at hand. Very softly, and without attachment to my response, my friend asked a simple question. She said, “Talia, is there a space in your house that you can make into a sanctuary, or a space just for you? You keep talking about your office, can that be your space and your space alone?” My response, “Ha, yes, yes it can…. I hadn’t even thought about making a no puppy zone in my office, I love that idea.”

So today marks the third day in a row that my puppy is not allowed in my office. At first she was a bit peeved, and whined outside the door. However, in these past three days she is starting to understand our new arrangment; she now stops before she attempts to come in and the whining has stopped. Next week, I will re-organize my office and make it new and a more inspiring place to spend my time. What I love about this new behavior is that it is giving me a chance to set boundaries and maintain them, be committed to what is important to me, and create a bit more peace and ease in my life.

So my questions to you are these:

What seems to be a constant frustration in you life?

How can you shift your perception of this frustration in order to see what you haven’t been able to see?

What are you willing to do in order to lessen this frustration?

How would it feel to be free of this frustration?

I hope you are all well, share your thoughts if you feel like it.

Talia

Ready or not, here I come!

So today marks two months until I turn 30, and in truth I am more than ready for what the next decade will offer me, which is a little surprising to be honest. For the majority of my life I viewed 30 as this huge milestone, which maybe it is, but I also had so many unreal expectations for myself, that I was basically terrified of turning 30.

From the time that I was little girl and even well into my early and mid-twenties, I held some beliefs that were not my own (I have no idea who’s they were, but clearly they were not mine) and in fact, they crippled me in many ways. I thought that by the time I turned 30, I would already be married and have some kids. When I found myself on that path in my early twenties, I was miserable and the least connected to myself, more so than I had been in any other time in my life. Now that’s not because I have anything against marriage or having children, in fact I’m super excited about both prospects, but I was racing towards several goals that I didn’t actually believe in. After plenty of life experiences and personal changes, a few years ago, I clearly dissolved those beliefs and created new ones. I realized that my actual timeline of life is vastly different than the one I created in my head when I was 7…and if I were living my life today with the expectations that I held when I was 7, well let’s just say I might run into a few bumps in the road.

So as I have grown older and wiser, I have very deliberately reviewed what beliefs I’m living my life by and have gotten rid of the ones that no longer apply. Basically, I have created a life that sets me up to be happy, fulfilled, and moving forward with purpose and excitement.

In terms of turning 30, I am psyched. I have never been happier, healthier, and ready to move forward welcoming the unknown.

Some food for thought:

Are there any old or new beliefs in your life that are steering you in a direction that does not necessarily align with what you actually want?

What fears come up around reviewing your most fundamental beliefs?

How could reviewing and updating your beliefs change your life?

I hope you all are well,

Talia

Reunited and it feels so good

Baby steps…

I have to admit that I have been a really bad blogger and I don’t have a good excuse at all. A week ago, when one of my readers called me out for not posting anything new in months, I did in fact recommit to posting. It’s not that I haven’t had plenty of experiences to write about, but rather I got lazy and lost a bit of my confidence in the process. For the past few months, everyday when I looked at my schedule, I would write, “I will blog today”, and of course that obviously did not happen, so then I would say…”tomorrow, yeah, I’ll do it tomorrow,” and that didn’t happen either. Pretty soon I found myself in a pretty negative pattern of procrastination, which ultimately turned into loosing my confidence, thus being a little bit scared to re-enter the blogging world.

I can’t take it any longer. The self-imposed guilt and veil of irrational fear that I’m carrying is sucking the life out of me. AHHHHHHHH. Sorry, I just needed to shake that off. In truth there are a lot exciting things happing in my life, and taking the time to reflect upon them can only help me gain clarity as to what’s really important to me and how can I achieve what I want.

So in moving forward, I am not going to make false promises to myself as to how many times a week I’ll blog, but rather I am choosing to remember how good it feels in this moment to accomplish something that is important to me.

So with that said, here are some of the questions I’ll be asking myself until we meet again:

If accomplishing a task, no matter how big or small, makes me feel so good, what is the point in procrastinating that task?

What other areas in my life have I been neglecting, and what is the cost?

What are my priorities right now?

How can I hold onto a sense of accomplishment?

I hope you all will welcome me back into your cyber reading and re-join the conversation.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Talia

Open to a loving the madness.

The past few weeks have been absolutely nuts in my life. My life has a tendency to be filled with randomness and excitement, but what has happened lately is different from anything that I can recall. From someone re-entering my life, whom I had 100% written off and had moved on from, to amazing travels, and the potential of something new and totally crazy, I am convinced that all of this is happening for a reason....not a celestial reason, but rather that I am at a place in my life to welcome and be okay with whatever comes my way.

Now, I'm not sitting here saying 'look at me, my life is SOOOO perfect", actually what I am saying is this, "Yea, this is crazy and totally unexpected, and I'm ready to face it all head on and am ready to go." Over the past few years I have done a lot of personal work on myself to prepare myself for what is happening now. I'm sure to some of you the term 'personal work' is completely unappealing and most likely conjures up some sort of negative connotation, but what I have experienced and has been nothing short of an awesome ride, with many ups and downs. There are many lessons that I am trying to learn and have not yet been able to fully incorporate into my life, but with that said, the knowing of what I'm striving for helps to keep me grounded and moving in a positive direction no matter what.

When I find myself over thinking my life, which I do often even when it's all good, I find myself trying to predict or manipulate the future... I'm pretty crafty, but I'm not super human, so spending all this energy trying to figure out the "what's next?" is kind of pointless. It's somewhat of an impossibility for me to say that I have no expectations of what's to come, because I do, however, the future is out of my control. So what I am focusing on is this, moving forward with passion and truth, and being unattached to the outcome.

The people in my life who know me best, know that I live fully and give my all when I am excited about what's going on, and they have also witnessed some of my major disappointments. I don't want to be disappointed anymore, so with that I am creating this intention: I experience life as it comes without attachment to it's outcome, so that I can fully appreciate what is happening in the moment and make changes based on truth and not on expectations.

If you could take a few moments time to create a statement of intent for how you would like to move forward from this moment on, what would it be?

Please share what you come up with or let's just talk about it.

Hope you're all well,

Talia

Yay for today!

Today I woke up in one of my most favorite places on earth, San Fransisco. I am here with my best friend, and have four full days to roam around the city and connect with old friends. I am so happy to be here and want to take full advantage of this time.

San Fransisco, to me feels like my second home, which in my mind is pretty cool. So in order to take full advantage of my time here, I am focusing my energy on staying present in the moment, and remaining flexible. My friend and I have travelled together before, and I think we make good travel buddies, but when traveling with someone other than yourself, it is important to share your plans and hopes for what you want out of the trip, otherwise you may end up feeling disappointed.

So over a cup of some serious coffee, Mandy and I are going to map out what we both want out of the trip, and then we'll be off.

What traveling tips have you learned over the years?

How do you remain flexible while taking someone else's agenda into account?

When you think about your most memorible trips, can you identify what lead to that being the case, (was it circumstantial, a state of mind, the people you were with, expecting the unexpected)?

I hope you all are well, and please share your thoughts.

Later all,

Talia