Live Your Best Life!

Did you start the new year excited about what was possible for you? Did you start the new year with a plan for what you wanted to achieve? Maybe it was a health goal, a financial goal, a relationship goal, or a career goal. Maybe it was that you wanted to start a new hobby, learn a new language, sign up for a class, or get your house organized. Whatever it was, weren’t you excited when thinking about it? Are you still as excited? Have you made progress towards it?

If the answer is “no” to either you are no longer as excited, or that you have not made progress towards it, you are 100% normal and this is for you. Keep reading so that you understand why this happened and learn how to get some forward momentum. I absolutely love to dream and to think about all the things I want to do and learn. I can make lists for days. I can schedule my projects and plans out with color codes and be really organized about how and when I am going to work on my goal(s). Can you relate? That is the fun ...

I am someone who likes to have a clear plan. I like to map goals out, break things down into tasks, know exactly what needs to happen, and assign a timeline to them. Can you relate to this process? This process works for many things such as cooking and following a recipe, having a list of chores that need to get done, having a list of tasks that need to get done at work, and mapping out a plan for a vacation. What this does not work well for is when you are setting big goals for yourself,  and trying to do something you have never done before.

When you are pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, doing something you have never done before, maybe doing something that both scares and excites you, you won’t have everything figured out when you start. Because of this, many people never take any action to make their dream or goal a reality. They get so stuck on the “how” part of the dream, that they decide it is not for them when they cannot figure out each step ahead of time. I have ...

This is a good question for you to ask yourself and chances are that when things get hard, sometimes you give up, and sometimes you get up. There is no judgement either way, however, having a process that helps you get really clear about whether you want to give up or get back up, can be helpful.

Typically, when we stop working on something or have thoughts of wanting to quit it is because things are not going according to plan and/or things get uncomfortable. It is human nature to avoid pain and discomfort, so this makes perfect sense from a human evolution perspective. Our brains are wired to alert us when something is making us uncomfortable and will try to tell us to stop because its job is to keep us “safe” and comfortable. This is really helpful when we are in physical danger, however, that is not the experience of most of us today. Instead of highlighting physical danger, it highlights anything that causes us to feel difficult emotions, that challenges us in new ways, that m...

One of the most effective strategies for making real and lasting changes in your life, is to get really honest about where you are today. While it is important to have a roadmap for where you are going, if you are not honest about where things are now, and how they got to be the way they are, it will be harder to get to your destination.

To start this process, ask yourself what is one thing that you would like to change. It may be tempting to want to make a list of 3, or 5, or even 10 things, however, start with one thing and you can add others as you go. Once you identify the one thing you want to start with, ask yourself the following questions and then answer them, being as specific as possible. If you want my guide to help you though this process step-by-step, click HERE.

• Why is it important for me to make a change in this area?

• What do I want this change to look like? How do I want things to look and feel when I have made the change?

• How do things look
...

Do you find that you sometimes look at other women and wish that you had the life they are living? Do you sometimes wish that you had the resources they have, or the career they have, or the body they have? If so, you are doing what so many of us do both consciously and unconsciously. We compare ourselves to others and then beat ourselves up for not measuring up. We compare ourselves to others and become resentful of them. We compare ourselves to others and then find even more faults within ourselves. I am here to tell all of us who fall into this behavior pattern that we need to stop.

Instead of looking at someone else and then being highly self-critical, telling yourself that you are not “enough”, or feeling bad about yourself, use them as an inspiration for what is possible. When you look at someone else who is doing something or has something that you wish you had, study them, identify what things may have helped them get to where they are now, and use this valuable information...

Have you heard the old joke that the best business model is one where a gym opens on January 1^st, and then turns into a bar on February 15^th? It sounds crazy…but is it really? Have you ever had big goals in January and within a few weeks or months you are no longer putting in the effort required to achieve your goals? Why can so many of us relate to this? It’s because motivation ALWAYS falls off. Always, you ask. Yes…always. But the good news is that there are some practices that you can put into place that will help you continue to work towards your goals and help increase your motivation when it dips.

Break down bigger goals into smaller goals. When you have a big goal, it may feel overwhelming and hard to get started and see progress. Therefore, breaking down big goals into smaller, clearly outlined, action-oriented steps can help you get started and keep going.

Focus on one day at a time. When you think of the big picture, it can feel overwhelming which can cause you to bec...

How do you hike up a big mountain? One step at a time. How do you run a marathon? One step at a time. How do you achieve a goal? One step at a time. It’s the same process. The steps can be slow and sometimes you might fall or backslide but if you keep taking steps in the right direction you will eventually get there.

In hiking a mountain, if you stop, you will be standing still in the middle of nowhere, looking up at what you could have achieved. Eventually you will have to make the choice to regroup and start climbing again or start hiking back down the mountain. The longer you stay standing, the less likely you will start pushing up the mountain again.

In running a marathon, if you stop you will watch other runners pass by you and you will never get to that finish line. The more you think about how tired you are, how much your feet hurt, how much further behind you are than others, or how much further you have to go, the less likely you will be to start running again.

The...

How have you spent your time during the last four weeks? Does it make you proud or does it make you cringe a little? If it makes you proud…yay and keep it up!  If it makes you cringe, let that go and let’s regroup. None of us knew what was coming our way a couple of months ago and none of us could predict how things would play out or how we would respond to being quarantined, so let’s cut ourselves some slack.

At this point in time, what is important is to look forward, make a plan and choose to come out of this thing better than you were going into it. We have at least two more weeks (likely more) so there is enough time for you to do something that will make yourself proud.  Two weeks is plenty of time to start to form a new, healthy habit.  Two weeks is plenty of time to clean or organize something in your home.  Two weeks is plenty of time to read a book, listen to an educational podcast and start to learn something new. Two weeks is plenty of time to reconnect with someone you ...

Hi!  It's Karen from Karen Vincent Solutions. 

Where did the time go?  How many times have you said this to yourself or others?  How many times have you gotten to the end of your day or week and wondered what you actually got done?  We have all been there…a lot! 

If you are reading this, you are likely busy and a doer.  I already like you…you are my kind of person!  There have been many weekends where I get to Sunday and think…where did two full days go?  I used to get really frustrated so I was motivated to come up with a system where I make sure that I am accomplishing the things I need to accomplish each day, week, month, quarter and year.

Before I go on…let’s talk about “to do” lists. I am a list person, so I am not here to tell you not to have one.  However, I used to make these super long “to do lists” that were overwhelming for me to look at, let alone act on. 

I also used to do the classic move of putting something on my list that I had already done, just so I could cross...