How to get the most out of your day planner

I was having a chat with a friend last Friday when she mentioned to me how hard it is for her to stay on track with her goals. It’s a “right brain thing” she told me, I’m build this way and I only thrive in chaos. She continued by telling me that – like everyone else – she has a planner, and write things in it. And that’s precisely the issue: she just writes things in it. She doesn’t use it.

That’s why I decided to call this tip “Make the most out of your planner” instead of buy a planner, invest in a planner, or even have a planner. Those are all really great things that you need in order to USE your planner, but that’s also really where the greatness stops.

I used to be a planner hoarder. (Still am, to be honest)

Every time I came across a planner that I loved, either because of its color (pink, please), bling (you had me at sparkle) or content (give me those pages darlin’!), I’d buy it. Once home I’d put it on top of the pile of other wonderful planners I’d “invested” in. Sometimes – if they were bubble wrapped – they would stay that way for weeks, months, sometimes even the entire year.

Planners were really unhappy around me.

I never gave them the love they deserved, and the attention they needed. Instead, come every Sunday night, I would *think* about prepping for the week ahead and writing all the amazing things down that I was going to achieve, but then the TV called, or a friend, or both.

Before I knew it, it was bedtime. Ah well, I’d do it tomorrow or next week. It didn’t really matter – so I told myself – I had the planner. Uhum – I had PLENTY of them. I wasn’t making any decent progress on my goals, so what was the deal though?

The truth is, a gazillion planners won’t change anything.

If you want to achieve your goals you need to USE your planner – not just look at it, however pretty it may be (starts to sweat knowing she’ll need to part with most of her sparkling babies soon).

Left brain or right brain, we can all use a planner. Yes it’s certainly true it comes easier to some than others. But that’s just more reason to do it. It helps you organize your thoughts, and get clear on what it is you need to work on. When I started using one – for something more than keeping grocery lists that is – everything changed. I got more done in less time, i was able to stay focused on my daily tasks better, and because of this shift I wasn’t losing sight of my big dreams and goals anymore – a chronic illness I’d been battling for years without success.

What follows are three of my best tips when it comes to using a planner, taking right from the tranchees where little guinea pig called moi tried and tested them out first. (You’re welcome :))

How to use a planner?

• Take time to plan things out

If you want to take full advantage of your planner, you’ll need to take time to plan things out, and write them down in it. There’s simply no way around it. For your planner to be an effective goal-slaying companion, you need to give it the right stuff to eat: tasks. Planners are crazy about those little finger-licking sweets. They can eat them by the thousand. The more you feed it to them, the happier they get. But the problem is, planners count on YOU to get them. So make a habit of sitting down with your planner once a week (or every other regular interval that works for you) and write out the tasks you’ll take on together in the next period (that would be a week for me, but could vary depending on your chosen interval).

• Keep your planner on your desk

Writing down tasks in your planner is only half the job. Once they’re in there, you’ve got to review them, focus on them, and make them happen. That’s why I love to keep my planner on my desk. I open it to today’s date and work my way through the tasks I’ve set. When I’m done with one, I cross it out (greatest feeling in the world). When possible I start with the big, important ones and work my way down to the smaller, easier ones. So make sure to check in with your planner every day and keep it on your desk.

• Don’t be afraid to experiment

Every year I publish a round-up of my favourite planners. I do this because I’m always on the lookout for the ultimate planner – the one that will be absolutely PERFECT for me. That planner, unfortunately, doesn’t exist yet (I’m still working on putting it together), so what I’ve learned to do instead is to experiment, and tweak my planner so that it works best for me. If you’re planner doesn’t have a habit tracker for instance, why not add it in yourself? Or if you need a space for gratitude, why not use sticky notes? Whatever it is you’re missing in your planner, there’s always a way to add it in. Remember that you’re planner is supposed to work for you, not the other way around.

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How to nurture your creativity

You are a creative super star! It might not be what you think you are, but I guarantee you that creativity is in your DNA. The problem is, most of us have gone through a creativity killing process called education. It’s when we inherited dreams we didn’t choose for ourselves, and forget about our own.

But let’s try to remember for a minute. All the dreams you had, the stories you performed, the endless imagination you brought to the table. Where’s that magic spark? What happened to the crazy life you were going to live? The unique career you were going to have?

They was slowly filtered out of you.

As you made your way from teenager to adult, there wasn’t much left. Your fidgeting, playful, passionate, insatiable self made way for a more manageable version. One that had a nicely predefined place in society, a clear role you’ve since then learned to perform well. So much that you’ve come to believe that this role you’re performing is, in fact, who you are.

The trouble is, it isn’t.

When creativity dies, big dreams often die too. And with them the stardust that makes us unique.

I’m a example of this. By the time I was 20 there was little creativity left in me. As a child I always had the wildest dreams. I wrote, painted, danced, sang, put plays together with my cousins, made things. There wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t creative.

As I grew older the pressure to conform, to perform, and to make something of myself increased. Creativity became a time waster, and I felt guilty for having so many interests, passions and for being unable to focus on one thing as I was expected to. Well to the dismay of my parents I decided to pursue a degree in Philosophy. Career outcomes were so insubstantial to them that they often told people I was studying to become a psychologist (slaps hand on face).

By the time I graduated, they had convinced me I’d wasted four years of my life. Although I contemplated an academic career I knew it wasn’t what they wanted. I had to make something of myself. Show them I was worth the investment. So in the final months of college I started working as a freelancer. I’d always been around computers, and it was all I’d ever seen my father do. With Internet emerging, and my DIY experience in building websites (hello 1998!), I landed a job as a freelance web project manager.

That first job turned into many other projects and clients, and eventually in me starting my own web agency. Although I’m proud of my accomplishments the truth is I pursued everyone else’s dream but my own.

Building a career that wasn’t meant for me turned the creative, multi-passionate big dreamer I was into a perfectionistic, people-pleasing workaholic.

The unhappiness I felt made me try harder. Always chasing the next thing, without taking a breath to enjoy what I’d already achieved. Or reflect on what I really wanted.

In 2010 I was forced to pause, and finally do some thinking.

I saw the dreams I’d been pursuing for what they were, and decided it was time for me. The problem was, I didn’t remember my dreams. They’d been buried so deep beneath everyone else’s that I couldn’t come up with a single idea.  

Because I couldn’t figure it out, I decided to just do something.

That let me back to creativity. Slowly at first, because making stuff was now so far out of my comfort zone. But as time went on, and I tried out new things, my creative multi-passionate self resurfaced.

Creativity was my way back to me. And to my big dreams.

I believe it can be yours too.

How do you nurture your creativity?

• Try things out

It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you allow yourself to play. I’ve done everything from writing workshops, dancing and cooking classes, to screen printing, improv theatre, drawing retreats and piano lessons. Recently I’ve realized that I need at least one creative outlet a week in order to be happy. And the more I do, the easier it gets. Pick something, and just do it! Like I signed up for a 5-day theatre workshop (dipping sweat off forehead) just before finishing this post.

• Let go of control

Creativity is a process that you can prepare for, but that you can’t control. There’s no way to know when you’ll have a creative spark, make something amazing or experience flow. Things simply unfold. This little perfectionist had to learn this the hard way. Not being able to create what I had in mind made me want to scream and run more than once. That’s what happens when you believe you have a say in the creative process. By letting go of control you’ll be able to create freely and to experience moments of pure bliss and freedom that will help you to believe in yourself and your dreams.

• Make it a practice

Creativity is a muscle, you have to train it to make it work. Doing something creative once a year is better than doing nothing. But the effect won’t last long. That’s why you should make creativity part of your daily life. By doing something out of the ordinary regularly you’re strengthening your creative dream muscle. You realize that you can do much more than you think, that things aren’t that hard or scary after all. The more you do it, the more you’ll want it. So make sure to do something creative regularly, to challenge yourself to try unfamiliar things. It really helps to dream bigger. And – more importantly – to dream you.

If you want more Dream Bigger Tips, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How to visualise your dreams so they come true

What we focus on becomes our reality. This basic and simple truth holds so much power, yet is it so often overlooked, dismissed, or not even known about. We’re taught so many things at school, but this absolute key piece of success isn’t one of them.

Think about it. What are the things you think about most in your life, and what is actually present in it? This notion goes further than mere physical things. The thoughts you repeatedly have, I’d argue, account for as much as the external things you focus on. What you tell yourself over and over will manifest one way or another, just like what you think about all day long.

It’s not a magic trick, it’s not even spiritual. Our actions and thoughts are so intertwined that one simply follows from the other. And guess what? The same is true for our dreams – duh!

Dreams get born as ideas. Or wishes turned into words. Or heartbeats turned into thoughts. However they start, they eventually find their way from our subconscious to our conscious mind. All of a sudden they’re there. We “think” about them. We have a dream, and it’s taking shape in our head.

The more we think about them, the more our dreams have a chance at being realised.

The problem is, life gets busy. Staying focused is hard. A lot can get in the way of our dreams. Literally. People, circumstances, twists of fate. If we’re not careful we might forget about our dreams altogether. Sometimes for a few months, often for years, in some cases for life. Until we wake up, and finally remember.

That’s why it’s so important to stay focused on our dreams.

A surefire way to do this is to visualise them. This makes them palpable. As if you’ve already achieved them even before taking the first action-step toward them.

How to visualise your dreams?

• Imagine you’re already there

From sports science we know that the brain doesn’t distinguish between imagined action and physical action. That’s why athletes now spent parts of their training imagining running around a track or jumping as far as they can. It fires off the same neural networks as physical training, and thus helps make the athletes better at their sport.

I believe the same is true for our dreams. Imagining and visualising our dreams helps strengthen our creative and action-taking muscles. It creates new neural pathways in our brains that will make the impossible seem possible, and will pave the way for us (to become the person we need to be to) achieve our dreams.

So take time regularly to imagine your dreams. I do it a few times a week, sometimes more when I’m trying to put together a clear plan to achieve a goal. I take out my list of goals and read through it. I close my eyes and imagine what it’ll feel like and be like to have achieved them. Sometimes I focus on one goal, sometimes I think about all of them. It depends on my mood, and the time I have available.

• Create a vision board

I’m sure you’ve heard of vision boards before. They’re so simple to put together and often referred to as this magic thing that will miraculously make your dreams come true. Cut out images you like from magazines and glue them together on a large sheet of paper and you’re done. Tada! You’re dreams will follow. Really?!

That’s how I felt when I put my first vision board together. I didn’t believe it would make a difference but since I was desperate for change I was ready to try anything. The whole experience felt silly. As I was cutting out images and gluing them I kept on wondering what I was doing. But when I was done there it was: an inspiring and soulful collage of all the things I wanted in my life. Looking at it made me feel so happy. I hung the vision board next to my desk. Every day I looked at it, for about six months. That’s the time it took to achieve the things I’d glued down on it!

The vision board reminded me of my dreams in such a vivid and persistent way that I achieved my goals faster, and in a more systematic way.

Since that first vision board, I’ve created many more. In fact, I use this technique not only to help visualise a goal, but to organise my thoughts about it too. Seeing the end picture helps me to put the plan together, and to define the steps I need to take to get there.

• Keep a dream jar

This is a cool technique that mixes together visualisation and imagination. You take a jar of any kind, and you write down your goals on pieces of paper. You put the pieces of paper folded in the jar and every day you randomly select one piece from the jar. You look at the goal on it and visualise already having it in as much detail as you can.

Grappling in your dream jar is something you can do once a day, or a couple of times a day. My jar sits on my desk so I often do it when I’m taking a short break from work. It relaxes me and inspires me at the same time. I love the feeling it gives me. Plus it helps me to stay focused on my goals!

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How to Write down your dreams to manifest them faster

Writing things down has many benefits. It helps to remember the important stuff, to clear our minds, even to feel and work through our emotions. When it comes to dreaming bigger, writing down your dreams is essential. Not only because of all the benefits stated above, but mostly because writing your dreams down will help you to clarify them, prioritise them, and to keep you motivated.

The busyness of life is something we all have to deal with to some extend. It’s easy to get swept away by it. When we’re running from A to B, tending to everything and everyone, trying to stay on top of things we can literally forget about our dreams. Sometimes for a little while, in some cases for years or decades.

We’ll attend to them soon, right after this one last thing is done. Or we’ll get started as soon as work is not so busy anymore.

If this sounds anything like you, know that you’re not alone. This was me for so many years too. I would keep on pushing my dreams further in my future, waiting for this one last thing to be done first. The problem was, there was always a next thing. Then a next one. And so on.

Until I started writing down my dreams.

About ten years ago, at the turn of the old to the new year, I stumbled upon Danielle LaPorte's Desire Map. I’d never done such extensive prep work to organise my goals or what I was planning on achieve the year ahead but something triggered me. I wanted to try.

What convinced me was what Leonie said about the type of people that actually achieve their goals. According to research 80% of people do not even think of goals (that used to be me). From the 20% remaining, 16% don’t write them down. From the 4% remaining only 1% writes goals down AND reviews them regularly. They have the highest success rates when it comes to achieving their big dreams.

Writing down my goals and sticking to reviewing them throughout the year was eye-opening for me. The first time I did it, I reached more goals in 12 months than I’d achieved in the past 10 years combined.

I’ve kept on writing down my goals ever since, tweaking and fine-tuning the process as I went on, and have become absolutely convinced it is an essential practice to achieve your dreams. We create what we focus on.

How to write down your dreams?

• Reflect on what’s important to you

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, it’s easy for life and work to get in the way of our dreams. The busier we get, the less we remember what’s really important to us.

Make sure to carve out time regularly to reflect on what’s most important to you and to assess whether you need to make some changes to move toward your dreams.

• Create dream mantras

I love to work with goal or dream mantras with my clients. Instead of writing down pragmatic goals (which are great to have!) I love to go a step further, and infuse those goals with soul. That way the dream mantras become more than simply goals to achieve, they become an inspiring way of life, a path to our dreams.

To create a dream mantra start by writing down your goals.

Then, for each of them, write down how achieving that dream will make you feel and why you want to achieve it. Use the answers to those questions as building blocks to put together your dream mantra.

Prompts to help you craft your dream mantra:

I want to ….
so that I can / have  …
achieving this goal will make me feel … .

I want to write a book
so that I can share my story and inspire others to dream bigger
achieving this goal will make me feel proud, fulfilled, happy

Dream mantra: Be fulfilled and happy by writing an inspiring book about dreaming bigger.  

Once you’ve created your dream mantras write them down in your planner, on a sticky note, in your journal. Make sure to read them out loud at least once a day, preferably a few times more.

• Make it visual

There are many ways to write down your dreams. There’s the obvious note, journal or planner entry like I mentioned above. But it’s not because your goals are written down that you’ll actually remember them. In order for that to happen, you need to “see” them.

It’s a great idea to use sticky notes with your goals throughout your house or office. Places I particularly like for dream cues like that are the fridge, the bathroom mirror, my computer screen, a picture wall, and the pages of my planner. The point is to create a reminder system for your dreams.

Another way to visualise your goals is through a pictures.

I use a combination of Pinterest, pictures on my kitchen walls, and an art journal to keep track of the goals I’ve set for myself. Every day I’ll spend a few minutes browsing through my boards, or looking at the pictures either on the wall or in my journal.

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How to stay motivated when you don’t see results

One of the main issues that big dreamers encounter almost on a daily basis is the lack of big dreamers around them. A question I get asked often is how to dream bigger when everyone around you isn’t.

It’s true that the path to bigger, better dreams is often paved with the advice of well-intentioned people stuck in inherited dreams. I know them all too well. In my own life, and that of my clients, they often cause more harm than good. Of course, you can’t blame anyone for wanting to warn you about the “dangers” of going after your passion, and doing your own thing. The problem is not with them but with the world we’re born into. It simply isn’t made for big dreamers.

That’s why it’s important to get the juicy stuff elsewhere, to go in search of big dreamers and their stories.

One of the places I’ve found a lot of support and inspiration like that is biographies. Reading the biography of someone who has done it, who – against all odds – persevered, believed in herself and showed everybody wrong is one of my favorite ways to challenge my own inherited dreams, and that of the naysayers around me.

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of overnight success, and believe that the people we look up to today were just lucky, or that their success came out of nowhere. The truth is, no matter where they are today, everyone starts somewhere (probably at the bottom). By reading their stories we’re reminded that it’s possible, and we’re inspired to open our mind to new possibilities for ourselves.

How to read inspiring biographies?

Not all biographies are created equal. Some of them might be great stories but if you can’t identify with the person who went through it, you won’t be inspired. There’s a science to this madness! Here are my three tips on how to pick and read inspiring biographies.

• Make sure the story resonates with you

I love reading biographies of women. Being a woman myself, this is one of the easiest ways for me to resonate with someone else’s story. But it’s not the only one.

Reading about the success stories of people who started where I started, who went through similar struggles as I did, who had the same inherited dreams or social background… it all helps to make sense of their story and see how it could apply to me. For if they could do it, why couldn’t I?

• Find a common interest

Sometimes it’s not the person but the achievement or that person’s interests or focus that inspires most. I love reading stories from people who’ve made it in finance for instance, because smart money is something I care about. I also love to read biographies of entrepreneurs, and people who’ve spent their life fighting for a good cause.

When there’s a common interest, it doesn’t matter so much what that person’s background is, or where they started. It’s why and how they did what they did that interests me, and that I learn from the most.

• Identify with the person you’re reading about

Here’s a third and final tip about reading biographies. When you’ve picked one up that resonates with you or that is interesting to you my advice is to read it actively. What I mean by this is that you shouldn’t just read it as a spectator. Put yourself in the shoes of the person going through the story. Imagine it was you. Feel into what that would be like, what your life would look like if that story was yours.

Visualizing is a powerful tool to dream bigger. Biographies are a great way to practice those skills! It will help you to be inspired and to take action on your own dreams.

If you don’t know where to start, here are a couple of inspiring biographies to get started with.

All Things at Once by Mika Brzezinski
Chanel: A Woman of her Own by Axel Madsen
Never Tell Me Never by Janine Shepherd
The Road to Someplace Better by Lillian Lincoln Lambert
Suits: A Woman on Wall Street by Nina Godiwalla

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.

How to identify the beliefs that hold you back

In my coaching practice I meet women when they’re at a crossroads in their lives. When the life they’ve been living for a long time – and the goals they’ve pursuit – don’t work for them any more. When I ask these women what their big dreams are I’m often met with silence. Many of them simply don’t know. Or if they do, their big dreams often come with a big list of why they’ll never achieve them.

From personal experience, and listening to what these women tell me over and over again, I’ve learned that one of the main blocks to overcome in order to dream bigger are the beliefs we hold true for ourselves.

We live in a world full of rules and regulations about who we’re supposed to be and what we’re supposed to want. This is especially true as women. We’re expected to be a lot of things. Most of them in service of others. These unwritten rules or social expectations are often disguised as internalized beliefs. It’s simply the way culture works.

Being a good daughter for instance might mean you believe you need to listen to your parents when they give you advice about your career choices. Perhaps they want you secure your future by staying in a job you dislike, or earn a degree in a field that doesn’t interest you. The belief that you need to listen to them might make it hard for you to follow your own path, and choose your own career.

The good news is, once we identify the beliefs that hold us back, we can let go of them. We do this by replacing them with new beliefs based on who we are, what we really want, and what we actually belief about the world.

How to identify the beliefs that hold you back?

• Reflect

The best way I’ve found to identify internalized beliefs is to reflect on them. You can do this by journaling about them. Writing down what you believe in can be difficult. What’s internalized isn’t always visible on the surface or conscious. Here are a few prompts that can help you get started.

Pick a dream you’d like to achieve but have trouble getting started or following through with. Start writing down all the associations that come to you about this dream. Don’t edit or limit yourself.

Ask yourself:

• Do I think I deserve this dream?

• What will happen if I achieve this dream?

• Why do I think I won’t make it?

• What don’t I want about this dream?

• Why am I having trouble achieving this dream?

Go over your list and make a note of all the negative things you wrote down. What do they have in common? What do they say about how you see yourself in the world? What beliefs do they bring forward?

If your dream is to become a freelance writer you might think that pursuing this dream is risky, or that you can’t because you don’t have the right degree. Both of those things – risk and degree – are beliefs you have about who can, and can’t start a business.

The question is: is this really true? Do you really need a degree to become a freelancer writer and is it really that risky to work for yourself? Spoiler alert: it’s not! You only believe it is because you’ve been conditioned to.

• Listen to your inner voice

We all have a mean inner voice. It’s the one that tells us we can’t do something, or that we shouldn’t. She’s always there with an opinion about everything. Guess what? That opinion are your internalized beliefs.

By listening to your inner voice, especially when she’s being critical, you’ll be able to identify the beliefs that hold you back.

My inner critic has a tendency to tell me that I’m not good enough, that I don’t have what it takes to succeed at my dreams. For a long time this held me back from doing what I really wanted to do, and forced me to stay small. Once I realised she wasn’t telling the truth I was able to let go and make decisions without listening to her or my internalized beliefs.

• Question your inherited beliefs

Inherited beliefs are the beliefs that are passed down to us in childhood. A lot of them come from our parents, the school we went to, the social circles we grew up in. They’re closely related to our inherited dreams, something I resist and fight against in the work I do with my clients.

We have inherited beliefs about everything. Most of them came from the people that had the most influence on us, that we cared the most for or that we looked up to the most.

Questioning your inherited beliefs is an exercise in reflection like the first tip above. The difference is the focus of the question. Instead of asking yourself what you believe about something, you focus on someone else: your mom or dad, your siblings, a school teacher maybe. Anyone that had an influence on you growing up.

Ask yourself:

• What did my mom teach me about money?

• What did my dad teach me about work ethics?

• What did my fifth grade teacher think about creativity?

• How were my parents raised?

• What did my parents believe in?

These questions will help you to identify the beliefs that you’ve inherited. Once you have I invite you to ask yourself if they’re true and relevant to you. If not, don’t be afraid to change them to alternatives that work better for you. Your big dreams will thank you.

How to enjoy the journey as you move closer to your goals

When working on big dreams it’s easy to get caught up in them. We get so focused on the end result that we lose sight of all that we already have. I know this is something I used to deal with a lot, and that I still need to be careful of.

It’s great to want things, and work toward them. But not to the extend that you’re unable to enjoy where you are right now, or what you’ve already accomplished. In fact, I believe you’ll have a better chance at achieving your goals if you find joy on the road that leads to them.

There are a few reasons for this, but the most important one is that the happier you are, the better you’ll be able to work on your goals.

You’ll have more energy, greater creativity and problem-solving skills, less stress, and more resilience. It will be easier for you to stay on track, focused, and to see things through when they don’t turn out as you’d planned.

How do you enjoy the journey?

There are many ways to enjoy the present moment, big and small. Here are three that I’ve found to be most helpful to me. They might be helpful for you too.

• Meditate

Having a daily meditation practice has changed my life. When I signed up for a transcendental meditation initiation I had no idea I needed it so badly. I remember the teacher talk about the benefits of TM to ground yourself in the now, to find more inner peace, to reach a state of bliss. I believed in the benefits of meditation, but I was still skeptical.

After about a month of daily practice (two sessions of 20 minutes each, one in the morning and one late afternoon) things started shifting. I became more aware of myself, and my surrounding. My perception of time changed. Where I was always in a rush before, I suddenly had more than enough time for work and play. I started looking at productivity in a different way. The relentless pursuit of productivity, a byproduct of the dominant economic system based on never-ending growth, didn’t work for me anymore. I wanted – and needed – a system where work was fun, sustainable, soulful. One that would take me into account, without being only focused on the end result.

If you never meditated before, I want to invite you to try. There are plenty of apps and websites out there that will help you get started. Even five minutes a day will make a difference. If you do have a meditation practice, or if you’ve tried it before I want to encourage you not to give up. It took a while for meditation to become a daily practice that I enjoy, but the benefits absolutely outweighed the effort.

• Take a break

Sometimes what we need to find our way back to the present moment is a break from our dreams. Yes, I know how this sounds 🙂 But I’ve done it a few times over the years, and it works.

Especially as multi-passionate creative women it’s so easy to fall in the trap of busyness, to ambitiously and relentlessly keep working towards what we want to achieve. The more we work on something, the more new ideas we have about all the other things we want to do. Soon enough it feels like we have no time left, the urgency sets in, we get overwhelmed.

When this happens, take a break. In the end, you don’t need to do anything. I repeat: you don’t need to do anything. There is no outside force pushing you to achieve the goals you set for yourself. The pressure you’re feeling comes from within. So give yourself a breather. Drop everything. Convince yourself that you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to (which is true by the way). Take some time to relax, have fun, enjoy the present moment. Soon enough you’ll be back on the saddle (you can’t help yourself) and slaying at those dreams again – in a more mindful way. I promise.

• Count your blessings

There’s no better way to enjoy the journey than to be grateful for what you already have. So much has been written and said about gratitude. There’s a good reason for that. Having a gratitude practice shifts your mindset over time. By giving yourself a few minutes to feel grateful every day you’re allowing positivity into your life. These few minutes add up over time, and ripple into every other aspect of your life.

There’s plenty of ways to be grateful. A popular one is to reflect on three things that made you happy at the end of the day. I’ve had that practice for a long time, but eventually found myself repeating the same things a bit too often. My gratitude practice now includes a few minutes of deep breathing, smiling, and thinking about one thing that makes me happy in my life or my business. Sometimes I’ll pause and do it a few times a day (the endorphin release is addictive!), other times I’ll pause when I’m walking down the street and feel the warmth of the Sun on my face. It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you make it a conscious and consistent choice.

If you want more tips to get unstuck, I’ve got great news for you! This tip is part of a series, you can find all entries here.