Stop Cravings

8 Causes of Cravings that you should know. 

The human body is amazing. It knows when to go to sleep, when to wake up, and when to go to the bathroom. It maintains a temperature of 98.6 degrees, repairs itself when wounded, and knows the miracle of pregnancy and childbirth. Your heart never misses a beat. Your lungs are always breathing. The body is a super computer, and it never makes mistakes.

When it comes to cravings, it is smart to look at the foods, deficits, and behaviors in your life for underlying causes and triggers. Many people view cravings as weakness, but really they are important messages meant to assist you in maintaining balance. When you experience a craving, deconstruct it. Ask yourself, what does my body want and why?

That you are committed to making healthier eating and healthier lifestyle choices, here are 8 causes of cravings to consider.

1. LACK OF FULFILLMENT IN LIFE. Being dissatisfied with a relationship or having an inappropriate exercise routine (too much, too little, or the wrong kind), being bored, stressed, uninspired by a job, or lacking a spiritual practice may all cause emotional eating. Eating can be used as a substitute for entertainment or to fill the void of dissatisfaction in another area of your life.

2. WATER. Lack of water can send the message that you are thirsty and on the verge of dehydration. Dehydration can manifest as a mild hunger, so the first thing to do when you get a craving is drink a full glass of water. Excess water can also cause cravings, so be sure that your water intake is well balanced.

3. YIN-YANG IMBALANCE. Certain foods have more yin qualities (expansive), while other foods have more yang qualities (contractive). Eating foods that are either extremely yin or extremely yang causes cravings in order to maintain balance. For example, eating a diet too rich in sugar (yin) may cause a craving for meat (yang). Eating too many raw foods (yin) may cause cravings for extremely cooked (dehydrated) foods or vise versa.

4. INSIDE COMING OUT. Often times, cravings come from foods that we have recently eaten, foods eaten by our ancestors, or foods from our childhood. A clever way to satisfy these cravings is to eat a healthier version of one’s ancestral or childhood foods.

5. SEASONAL. Often the body craves foods that balance the elements of the season. In the spring, people crave detoxifying foods like leafy greens or citrus foods. In the summer, people crave cooling foods like fruit, raw foods, and ice cream, and in the fall people crave grounding foods like squash, onions, and nuts. During winter, many crave hot and heat-producing foods like meat, oil, and fat. Cravings can also be associated with the holidays, for foods like turkey, eggnog, or sweets.

6. LACK OF NUTRIENTS. If the body has inadequate nutrients, it will produce odd cravings. For example, inadequate mineral levels produce salt cravings, and overall inadequate nutrition produces cravings for non-nutritional forms of energy, like caffeine.

7. HORMONAL. When women experience menstruation, pregnancy, or menopause, fluctuating testosterone and estrogen levels may cause unique cravings.

8. DE-EVOLUTION. When things are going extremely well, sometimes a self-sabotage syndrome happens. We crave foods that throw us off, thus creating more cravings to balance ourselves. This often happens from low blood sugar and may result in strong mood swings.

 

When we FULLY own our power to choose healthy eating and healthy lifestyle habits, when we finally kick-cravings to the curb, the magic of life begins to rise on our horizon in very new and very unexpected ways! Make NO mistake, what I assert here and what I am up to as Health Coach is NOT about food, it is about creating a level of personal power that defies limitation, to access a quality of life that exceeds what you may presently think is possible for you. Oh yes, our plate is a powerful mirror.

What qualifies a book to make my “Favorite Books List?”

Books that caused a shift in my perception. Books that offered me a whole new level of understanding. Books that literally offered me access to transformation.

For me, every book I recommend will either 1) impact the quality of your life for the better, 2) stretch your thoughts, ideas and perceptions 3) ask you to grow, and/or 4), challenge you in some way.

I LOVE books, because I LOVE new learning and every book I share with you has impacted the quality of my life for the better, on some level. And because I believe that we are our very best, and that our lives are greatly enriched from all sorts of new learning, I will offer you books mostly from my 3 favorite genres, nutrition and healthy living, success development and spiritual.

My nutrition and healthy living book recommendations will spin off the plant-based nutrition diet. I wholly believe that plant-food is the key to healing for all of us, and the biggest missing link for many who suffer from all sorts of health matters.

My success development selections will spin entirely on recommendations that will challenge you and ask you to grow, as well as give you SOLID and tangible ideas to elevate your game of life.

My spiritual selections will spin thematically on all world-religions. Though I was raised Catholic, and identify myself as Catholic, I do not practice one faith tradition any longer. I’ve found my heart, my deepest breaths and Spirit within a broader, more inclusive, one-love philosophy, from the sweet reveries of my Catholic background, to deep inquiry into Buddhism and my now higher level commitment to A Course in Miracles, with a touch of everything in between.

 

My first recommendation is quite fitting, since I’ve read and listened to it more times than I can count, Marianne Williamson’s now classic, “A Return to Love.” In this mega-bestselling spiritual guide, Williamson shares her reflections on A Course in Miracles and her insights on love and the search for inner peace.

For me, Williamson brought Faith to my life in very real, tangible and new ways in “A Return to Love,” by explaining how thoughts & perceptions literally alter our life, especially our thoughts and perceptions on forgiveness.

Simply put, I return over and over to this book, because of it’s larger themes on being of service, as a miracle worker, by accepting God and the expression of love and force of forgiveness in our daily lives. This book is a total game-changer.

 

I’ve read and listened to the “Success Principles,” by Jack Canfield, like “A Return to Love,” over and over, because it is a pure and utter game-changer! Read and reread this book every day and you WILL change your life. Begin with taking on 100% responsibility, and move through 64 time-tested success strategies and watch your life change. The Success Prinicples is a must read for everyone out to elevate their game of life!

 

Heal your gut, and eliminate the root cause of all disease. And because poor digestive health WAS the root of all my health problems earlier in life, I just love to share Dr. Alejandro Junger’s brilliant book, “Clean Gut.” In Clean Gut, Junger offers compelling evidence tracing poor gut health to the preponderance of ailments today, with a complete toolkit to reverse disease and sustain life-long health. Think complete and utter game changer when you purchase “Clean Gut.”

Follow your heart.

Do you believe that anything is possible?

Do you believe that if you wanted to walk on the moon, you could?

Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin did?

Do you believe that you could single-handedly liberate our country, if occupied by another?

Gandhi did.

See, that is the kind of living life fully I am talking about.

Follow your heart.

Do not settle for anything less than the BIG zest of life!

Why would we?

Seriously?

For all we know it’s a one shot deal here.

Idealistic? Ha!

You know me, I’m all for hard work, self-discipline and doing what we need to do to get the job done — but why would I do anything less than what Lights me UP?

Ask and it shall be given.

Allow me to set the scene. Living in Boston. Resigned from teaching. Confused on my next professional steps. 200 job-applications sent out. And plagued by the charge, oh yes, to “go where no one else has gone, do what no one else has done, by the foundress, Mary Lyon, of my alma mater, Mount Holyoke College.

Professionally, I did not know what to do next.

I decided to go and visit my sweetest Aunt Bobby at Mount St. Mary’s Abbey in Wrentham, MA. A cloistered nun for 60 years before she passed last fall, she took my hand in hers and said, “Carol, what do you want to do? Just ask for it. Most of us never ask for enough. We never ask for what we want.”

From that day forward I began my journey of asking for exactly what I want.

You don’t pray you say? (of course that is what Aunt Bobby meant.)

It’s OK. The Universe has your back, cause’ this is STRAIGHT-UP pure, Law of Attraction in action.

And in the world of Law of Attraction EVERYTHING is possible.

What I discovered about this directive of “go where no one else has gone, do what no one else has done,” was actually Mary Lyon’s appeal to me to go for the BIG ZEST of life … and, the ZEST of life was actually in my heart all along!

I didn’t need to do anything, EXCEPT what brought me joy, what made me feel good … what I wanted to do!

Follow my heart.

Thanks Aunt Bobby!

Hello Law of Attraction!

What I discovered in Mary Lyon’s “lofty” charge is, no matter what I do, no matter what you do, we bring to the conversation a Spirit of experience and heart that no one else can. That the only thing that really matters, is that we stay true to our heart and to our lofty ideas of living a life that matters, by OUR definition … and have FUN!

When we are having fun, when we are in our zone, we bring our own unique and very special zest to our life, to others, and to all that we do.

Follow your heart.

Find what Lights you up! Give us the best you’ve got to give! Find your Moon to walk on … and have GRAND FUN!!

Neil Armstrong and “Buzz” Aldrin, did. Why shouldn’t we?

As poet Mary Oliver wrote, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”

We can change anything when we trust ourselves. Do you trust yourself?

“My new doctor said he is absolutely open to working with me to reduce my insulin in the future, but said I can’t do your detox. Not yet.”

Italian. Gorgeous. Smart. Successful. Creative. And sick.

I met this gorgeous, up-to-the minute, woman, with an unmistakable zest for living life fully at a conference. She came up to me near the end of the event and said, “I know you … well, I’ve heard about you and the work you do, so when you stood up at the podium and said your name I knew I wanted to come and say hello.” She shared with me all her hopes and dreams for her life, and her trials and tribulations. Cancer. Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. — in remission. And Diabetes. Stage I.

Undaunted by these diagnoses, Nicole shared with me all that she wants to create for her life, but how the diagnosis of Diabetes was getting in her way.

Slowing her down.

Hampering her ability to create what she most wants for her life, because the symptoms and care for the disease required her micro-focused attention.

Nicole signed on as a full-time client.

She saw an opening of possibility for her in me, because I shared with her my journey from illness, to wellness, to creating a life once not even on my radar.

Over the first 2 months of my 3 month program working together, Nicole integrated all of the success strategies I taught her about shifting her whole life, not just her health. And while she made huge inroads into her whole outlook on living healthfully and living fully, her insulin levels continued to fluctuate and cause her great concern.

And then she made the convicted-decision to take-on the elimination diet that I recommend to everyone I work with, in spite of her doctor’s recommendation to wait.

Nicole chose to judiciously go ‘rogue,’ eat clean, and to monitor her insulin levels herself … oh, did I say she is a very feisty-bull too?

After 4 weeks of clean eating, and very close communications between the two of us, I received this from Nicole:

“So here is the hard evidence that I just received from my GP last week. I have been able to drop my insulin from 43 units a day to12 units a day. My A1c has dropped from 8.3 to 7.2 in less than 3 months. It is truly remarkable even my doctor couldn’t believe his eyes!”

Nicole offers us all so much to glean from her choice to trust herself:

• Nicole took on 100% responsibility for her life, yup CEO-style of Nicole Inc.
• Nicole dropped the stories of fear and is actively shifting the whole course of her life with her commitment to being the very best Nicole she is meant to be — of course she meditates, I’ve impressed upon her that meditation is one of the most powerful mind-training techniques to incorporate.
• Nicole took action.
• Shows us all that is possible when we trust ourselves.

From our work together, Nicole learned to place front and center her Why-Power, her purpose in life, which she leveraged in her decision to work with me, and to take charge of her health and her life — Nicole Inc. sounds so awesome, doesn’t it? NO more victim to life’s circumstances! 

THE ‘BEST’ PUMPKIN-PIE SMOOTHIE

• 1 cup of almond milk
• 1 cup pumpkin, chunked — raw or lightly steamed pumpkin (or sweet potato)
• 1 banana
• 1 serving of chai flavored protein powder
• 1 Tablespoon chia seed
• 1-2 dates 1 teaspoon vanilla

*Add a cup of romaine to get your greens in

**use pumpkin spice to taste if not using chai protein powder

Add all ingredients to high-speed blender and blend until thick, creamy and delicious!

Cheers!

People often talk about all the ways that they are enlightened and that they’ve arrived in life, but are they congruent?

I ask, do you want to take your life to the next level?

I mean really take your life to the next level?

Or do you want to just talk about it?

Talk about getting to the next level, like it’s the trending thing to do and puts you ‘in the know,’ shoulder-to-shoulder with others striving to the next level, or do you want to do what it really takes to get to the next level?

Physically? Professionally? Emotionally? Financially? Spiritually?

Every area of life.

I say this, your diet, your plate, IS a VERY powerful barometer of where your word matches your actions, or not.

Look at your plate, it reflects back to you your commitment to taking your life to the next level, or not.

Does your word match your actions?

Is your diet congruent to a higher level of being?

OR, do you indulge in the mind-blowing preponderance of nutrient-devoid choices of gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, blah, blah, blah processed foods and consider yourself healthy? Consider yourself successful?

Controversial?

NO doubt.

I’ve discovered that with diplomacy and great respect, I can talk about any topic considered taboo with you, but if I talk to you about what you are eating, ahhhh, that IS where very murky resistance rises.

Yes, and often quite virulent resistance.

But food DOES screw with our physical, emotional, mental and Spiritual wellbeing!

Our diet is straight up non-negotiable when it comes to wanting to really move to the next level and congruency makes ALL the difference!

I am reminded of this really great story that Anthony Robbins tells about a deal he was about to make. Actually two deals he wanted to make. He wanted to close on a big contract AND he wanted a date with the woman he was making the deal with, but he didn’t get either.

At the time, Robbins was a chronic nail biter, so when he extended his hand to shake on closing the deal, the woman noticed his chewed up nails, withdrew from the handshake and told him she could never do business with someone who had no self-control.

No deal.

No date.

Robbins deemed himself a ‘power player’ at the time, with the ability to influence and greatly impact others, but yet could not control his nail-biting obsession.

Does your plate and diet reflect back to you what Anthony Robbins’ one-time nail-biting obsession reflected back to him? Does your plate reflect back to you a lack of congruency to being fully empowered in your body, mind and Spirit? 

Is your diet congruent to you moving to the next level of your life?

For me, Robbins told this story for one primary reason, to illustrate one way that his word did NOT match his actions as a teaching tool for us. That the congruency of our word to our actions, or lack there of, reflects back to us what we are really up to in our lives. That the results we are producing show us in tangible and literal ways how our word matches our actions, or not.

And the most badass thing about matching our actions with our word is, with every new empowered action we make to get to the next level, our congruency-muscle just keeps growing.

We can train and develop ourselves in every area of life and create great success, but if we can’t create healthy eating and lifestyle habits that mirror back to us our commitment to be our very best, Higher-level selves, do you think the results you produce now are sustainable? Do you think you can continue to produce lasting and beyond-your-wildest dreams results with poor health and no energy? Do you think your dreams-come true vision and goals will emerge from a half-baked commitment to help you get to your next level?

Like Robbins, where do you not get the date? The deal? Does congruency really matter?

Have you joined the ‘smoothie-revolution’ going on today?

Green smoothies ROCK! Oh, yeah!

When I make my green smoothie EVERY morning, I laugh and say to myself, “My goodness, it’s just not possible to get a breakfast as nutrient dense, with such a plethora of nutrition as my green smoothie offers!”

Green Smoothies can change your life nearly overnight because of the enormous health benefits they offer. Think of adding smoothies to your daily meal planning this way, ‘its what you add in, and what you take out.’ You add in nutrient-dense and take out nutrient devoid to literally change your life.

Smoothies are essentially a veggie, fruit and superfood shake — that’s it. Pure unadulterated, nutrient-dense goodness to fuel you as a meal replacement, or even a snack. Pure-nutrient dense goodness to totally sky-rocket your energy and rebuild your body!

NO. I am not talking about any one of the new fandangled powders or potions, which are inherently a poorer source of sustenance simply because they are processed. I am talking about raw, enzyme, vitamin and mineral-rich shakes laden with phytochemicals and antioxidants made from ingredients that offer live bio-available nutrition!

Here are my 5 top reasons why I say green smoothies ROCK (thought the list could be endless, really)… and very good reasons you should add them to your daily regiment:

1. NUTRIENT-DENSE. Forget your morning vitamin supplement. A smoothie, if properly made, offers you every micronutrient and macronutrients your body needs to run efficiently. By blending fresh, organic produce, and adding clean, easily digestible plant-based protein, with healthy fats, like avocado or coconut oil, you give your body an oxygen, vitamin, mineral, phytochemical, antioxidant and enzyme rich meal that is load with protein, carbohydrates and fats, while maintaining the fiber necessary for healthy digestion.
2. HEALTHY FAST-FOOD: In the world of the fast-food economy, what could be faster and healthier? IF you find yourself so busy some days, you could literally drink smoothies all day long and get everything your body needs… and then some. Why do I say that? Because as you grow more acclimated to the benefits of incorporating more fruits and veggies ‘for breakfast,’ you will begin to learn more about the explosive benefits of so many superfoods available today, like acai, goji berries, maca, raw cacao and bee pollen. Seriously, the benefits of each of these is endless, and the list of superfoods is just as endless. I recommend that you begin experimenting with a few at a time, to find which ones work best for you.
3. WEIGHT LOSS: You WILL find your ideal weight, IF you follow through with healthy eating in the other meals you eat. Yes, there are many weight loss programs out ‘there’ today that make many promises, but diets can actually cause you more harm than good, because of the ways they impact normal metabolic function. Whole-food, superfood smoothies however offer you natural ingredients that your body recognizes as whole food. And the cool thing is, you can control what you put in your whole-food smoothie yourself. As you grow more accustomed to all the sorts of things you can add to your smoothies, you will learn that ingredients like coconut oil offer medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) , which can increase energy expenditure compared to the same amount of calories from longer chain fats. Yes, the means it can help you burn fat
4. DETOXIFYING: Think chlorophyll. Yes, greens are LOADED with chlorophyll, that IS why you hear, the greener the better. The greener the vegetable is, the more chlorophyll it offers. But what is chlorophyll? Chlorophyll is the green pigment and the single most important substance in plants, because it is responsible for photosynthesis — the chlorophyll draws in the light from the sun and converts that gorgeous sunlight into usable energy for the plant… and for you and me too! A fun little factoid you may enjoy, known as ‘plant-blood’ among many ‘plant-enthusiasts,’ chlorophyll closely resembles the structure of human blood, with the difference in, chlorophyll has magnesium as the central atom, human blood has iron as the central atom. Because of chlorophyll’s rich mineral content, high fiber and it’s so-close-resemblance to human blood in nutritional value, you just cannot eat too many detoxifying greens. It literally shakes up our blood and encourages our cells to release toxins that have been trapped, due to a poor diet. Do note, however, I HIGHLY recommend that you alternate the greens you include daily.
5. GET-YOUR-GLOW-ON: Who, may I ask you doesn’t want to look their very best? Marketing mavens and PR execs might want us to think that women focus more on looking their best than men, but dare I say, the men I’ve worked with, and the men I know also want to look and feel their very best. And honestly, NOTHING will help you get there more than water-rich, oxygen-rich, nutrient-dense smoothies! Smoothies ARE nutrient-powerhouses! The plethora of nutrition reduces inflammation and heals our digestive system, which, yes, equals gorgeous, glowing skin. Add to boot, vitamins like C and E, phytochemicals, antioxidants, lutein, and carotenoids and #fuhgetaboutit — Green = glowing, beautiful skin.

Click here to get my Free Smoothie Guide to energize you and your life! 

Cheers to your great health!

 

 

Do you ever feel stuck, like something is blocking you from feeling empowered in life? From feeling your very best self? From feeling like you can freely express yourself, emotions all in check? You know that ‘over-the-moon’ confidence and happiness and joy that those you admire most seem to exude, but it eludes you… and you just don’t know why?

And now you find yourself complaining about… this person giving you a hard time, or that person is so difficult. Perhaps your chronic complaint is you’re just flat-out exhausted, maybe even overwhelmed too. Maybe it’s your job, or your body, or your health, your spouse, your children, the weather? If not that, maybe it’s politics, or… you just can’t seem to even stick to healthy eating and healthy lifestyle practices?

You feel disempowered and stopped by endless reasons, but don’t know what to do.

Shift your feelings. Now. Because you say so. Because your CEO of your life, not whimsical and fleeting emotions.

These negative thoughts are NOT who you are. You are powerful and kind and good and the negativity holds you back from experiencing, expressing and BEING your personal best!

Choose to be powerful now. Just choose!

OK, I get it. You don’t know how to ‘just’ turn off this negative way of thinking. If you did, you would’ve by now. Right?

One very effective way  to reclaim your power is,

Find your leverage.

Find your pain-spot.

Find a moment in your life that REALLY hurt you. Deeply. And go there. Yes, go there and get inside the pain and feel it… and then BLOW IT OPEN to the brilliant lesson it offered you and let it go. Feel the gift of the strength you gained from that experience. That IS your leverage.

Ah, but you will have to drop the “poor me” victim story to tap into your full expression of personal power.

You do get that you can’t own your power if you are a victim, right?

Let me give you an example:

Life offered me a GORGEOUS moment of GINORMOUS leverage when I had no family support and no where to go with my newborn son.

SNAP! Oh, yes, creative genius was reborn with that pain-spot!

That moment gifted me with a level of tenacity I challenge you is unmatched.

I cornered the market on creative genius at that moment in my life.

Heck, yeah I found a way to be mother.

I let go of the story of poor me and stepped into my power. With nothing. And I mean. Nothing.

I learned of Foster Care and VERY willingly placed my son in a foster home for 4 months.

It was A choice, my best choice, the choice that was better than no choice.

Choice, not chance, determines destiny. 

I lived with a friend and her family.

I went back to work 1 week after I gave birth.

NO. I did NOT have a car.

Yes, my 18 & 19 year old friends picked me up everyday and drove me to visit my son, and then drove me to my waitressing job.

Against the doctors orders? Dangerous to my health you say? C’mon?

I learned to spit nails at that time. Spit nails? Frig, I made those nails. I made those nails and I spit those nails out!

NOTHING could stop me from achieving my role as mother.

My pain-spot?

Standing at the end of the hospital corridor watching Tina Marconi, a state-assigned Department of Children and Youth Services worker, carry my son out of the hospital. Of course I remember her name.

UNSTOPPABLE. I became UNSTOPPABLE.

Life offers us all moments to step into our power, or to be a victim. There is NO in between.

Every single moment we get to choose to BE powerful, or not. 

In those moments I got to choose my power, or hold a story of limited possibility and weakness.

In your life, you got to choose your power, or hold a story of limited possibility and weakness.

CHOOSE YOUR POWER NOW. CHOOSE.

And the cool thing is, it really is that easy.

We choose. Right now. In this moment. We drop the limiting stories and step into our power to tap a Force that lives in us that is utterly unstoppable. 

Drop the limiting stories and train yourself every moment, every day to own your power personal power.

Want to ‘play’ like you mean it? Want to cause a powerful shift in you life beyond the next best recipe? Want to find find freedom and FUN beyond the limiting stories that hold you back? Want to learn how to use ALL your life experiences to your advantage? 

Hire me. As a Board Certified nutrition, lifestyle and success coach, I offer you 25+ years seeped in education, extensive training with cutting-edge leadership, training and development groups and advanced training in transformation, performance, communication, accountability and effective training methodologies. I offer you my new 28-Day Program, which closes September 13th at midnight, and 1:1 coaching. Both programs can happen via phone or Skype. 1:1 coaching can happen in person.

Or my 1:1 coaching here. 

My mission: To empower smart people to live their life fully.

I grew up in middle America like most and large living, living BIG was not the norm.  Like most families in our community, we ate dinner together, we went to church together and we went on vacations together. Really nice life. I mark my childhood as quite wonderful. Really.

And within this cultural norm, I learned that there were some things that I ‘should’ do, and somethings I shouldn’t do. I should go to college. I should find a nice man. I should get married and I should have 2 children, a boy and a girl. A white picket fence? C’mon. I’d be royalty then!

But within this world of shoulds, I dreamed of adventure, of maybe being a fashion-designer in NYC. I dreamed of traveling and meeting new and exciting and interesting people from far beyond my hometown. Heck, beyond my community, men were walking on the moon, women were burning their bras and… OMG… John F. Kennedy came to town! Beyond my world of shoulds, some people were living life really BIG!!

But, “who do you think you are” percolated ever so insidiously underneath the parameters of “be a good girl” and “do it this way.”

So, I, like many, was being taught to be both “normal,” AND to really go for it BIG!

But because I had NO role models to show me how to LIVE BIG, I slipped into the world of following societal expectations of me. Oh, yeah, straight-up, good and normal! Alas though, betrayal of my dreams for adventure and fun and excitement began its very quick demise.

And though life as a single-parent seemed perhaps different in some ways, I got fully on board of the “we do it like this” Stepford-wives train with a vengeance. Oh yes, I created a home from Better-Homes and Gardens. Interior designer this and Ivy-League school that. Imagine the most gorgeous icing-on-a-mud-pie life… I created it brilliantly.

And then this near violent moment came when I was walking my sweet little Shana, my dog of 17 years, near my home in Brookline, MA. Tears flowed uncontrollably. I remember this so vividly that it causes tears in my eyes to rise now as I write. I looked up at the sky and declared in that moment that I would NO longer put a lid on this thing within me that needed to express itself. It was a Sacred moment, no doubt, when Spirit rose up within me. (Have you ever had a Sacred moment like that, when you intuitively knew you needed to heed the dictate?)

I resigned from teaching and began my journey to recover my inner Light and personal power.

YES. Oh, yes, we most certainly do lose our personal power when we put a lid on who we are meant to be! Try as you might, can NOT mince that!

Though my journey has been a circuitous one, and though I plan on never getting off the new-learning path, I’ve learned to not only move far beyond the oppressive lid of “normal” and what you think is best for me, to creating GRAND adventure, and over-the-moon excitement… and dreams-come-true.

I highly endorse getting off the slow moving train of normal, and getting on the fast, FUN, exciting, adventurous train of living BIG and shining your bright Light.

Are there steps I can offer you? ABSOLUTELY. Hands down! Join me in my 6-Week BIGLIFE Starterkit group program. Think heal your body. Train Your Mind. For Unstoppable Success. Think a detox on steroids, with mind shift training exercises to produce results that last.

C’mon, you know focus IS non-negotiable when you want to produce really BIG results! Fortunately for me, my life taught me early on that I HAD to develop laser-focus IF I wanted to achieve anything of merit in my life.

Holding laser-focus is another matter for many of us, with all of the distractions that exist in our work spaces. For me, because my business is online, the very nature of my work requires that I frequently engage social media and the online-programs I offer. So, in a sense, distraction is built into my work. But I know you experience distractions in your work and life too, so we still share in common the challenges of creating focus to produce results.

If we don’t ratchet up our focus-game, we won’t accomplish nearly all that is possible. This I know for sure. Since implementing these 5 new things into my success-strategy-game, I’ve made HUGE differences in my performance and productivity.

MY 5 Tips to Create Laser-Focus:

1. I root down into my WHY-Power, my purpose, and what I know I most want to achieve in my life, my vision, with meditation and prayer time every morning, before I do anything else. These practices are flat-out non-negotiable. These few morning practices may seem unrelated to focus for you, but when I root down into why I do what I do, it’s like a magnet pulls me right into my soul. By zeroing in to my purpose and my vision consistently everyday, without fail (yes, I even have these recorded to listen to on my phone), I OWN my self in ways that peripheral and worldly distractions can’t touch me any longer, even when they try.
2. But I have put structures in place that support fewer distractions.
   • From 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, I block email notifications AND social media notifications from popping up on my computer screen. Those pop-ups are such a distraction and time waster. But I do schedule email-check times, and social-media engagement times at set intervals. I have to if I want to be productive, so I respond to calls and emails when it works for my schedule. Just because I don’t check in to an office any longer, and you may not either, doesn’t mean our time and our objectives are less time-senstive.
   • I also shut the ringer on my phone off  from 9:00-5:00 on “desk” days, unless I am expecting a call, which was once something I would never have considered. Ha! This one strategy alone has made a HUGE difference in my productivity!
3. I excel exponentially when I create completely undisturbed windows of time. Because I know this about me, I’ve structured into my work days 2 undisturbed “work cave” intervals, with each at the minimum 2 hours long. When I go into my work cave, it is literally like I am not on this planet any longer. You can not reach me. Everything is in shut down mode, to safe-guard my productivity, as well as my creativity. I’m sure you’ve had the experience too, when you are in high-yield or deep-creative mode, and the phone rings, or your email or text dings! I’ve completely lost my creative flow at times like that, and that is like losing connection with the “ether-world!” NO go!! That does not work! When I created this structure, it made a literal night and day difference in my productivity and performance.
4. I’ve also scheduled windows of time for social media engagement. This alone positively impacts my performance 100%, because my focus is no longer preoccupied or diminished by the obsessive attention social media triggers. Ummm, I HIGHLY recommend this tip!
5. I created for me what I call an empowering spin on the distracting email pop-up. In my calendar, I scheduled 3-timed pop-ups that remind me to “focus,” and “stay focused” throughout my day. The coolest thing about these reminders is I literally get an adrenaline rush to really zero in on my work!

I could NEVER have created what I have in my life thus far, without laser, single-pointed focus. I hope what I offer here helps you also rid avoidable distractions, to tighten up your focus, to produce all the results that you’ve been wanting!

Can’t expect to win, if we don’t play to win!