Let me ask you this question first: Which one is more important? Life or Business? Of course the answer would The post Create Your Life and Business Vision For A Work-Life Balance appeared first on Building Blocks Coaching.

Let me ask you this question first: Which one is more important? Life or Business?

Of course the answer would be life right? Well, that’s so obvious because business is just a part of life. But do you run your business or your business runs you and your life? Most people will set business goals but they forget to set their life goals and they get stuck in their business 24/7 and forget to live their life. They might too busy dealing with stress.

To be both successful and fulfil, you need to design your life first before you design your business. Ask yourself this question: “What kind of life do I want to live?”, “How do I want to live my life?” Once you have the answers, now set your business around your life.

Let’s say you are a family person and your family is everything, but your business takes so much time away from your family. Even if your business is successful, but you are still not 100% happy, because your family is the source of your happiness.

Over the last while, I’ve asked 3 foundational questions for your life and business success.

1. The first question was, “Do you know who you are?”
2. The second question was, “Do you love who you are?”
3. The third question is, “Do you live the way you are?”

These questions help you develop self-awareness. Self-awareness is essentially the foundation of personal development. Without it, you won’t be successful or happy.

But what does knowing who you are have to do with creating the life and business you want?

Well, let’s think of a map.

When you use a map to find your way in a mall or in a community, the first thing you need to know is where you are. You know – those “you are here” maps with the big, red arrows? You can’t get where you want to go until you know this foundational piece of the puzzle.

Well . . .

I suppose you could get where you want to go. You could travel around in various different directions until you happen to stumble upon your destination.

Not very efficient though!

It’s much easier if you start out knowing where you are. Then you can clearly see your destination in relation to where you are and you can plan your route.

The same idea applies to your life and business “map.”

The first thing your map needs to tell you is where you are. But in this case, where you are isn’t where you are physically in space. It’s who you are.

Here are some important questions to find out who you really are:

The post Create Your Life and Business Vision For A Work-Life Balance appeared first on Building Blocks Coaching.

I wrote recently about creating your vision and I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. There’s often confusion and The post Are You A Vision Control Freak? appeared first on Building Blocks Coaching.

I wrote recently about creating your vision and I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. There’s often confusion and disagreement about something related to this – – the role that taking action has in manifesting your dreams. Your view of taking action could turn you into a vision control freak and mess with your success!

There are 4 general ways that you can go about things:

1. You can focus on taking action and do, do, do, do, do (related to the whole vision control freak thing).
2. You can sit back and do nothing.
3. You can do something in between.
4. You are very tight with your time.

It’s a really interesting concept and it’s an important one if you want to actually want to get what you want (your vision).

Here are 5 signs that you’re a vision control freak and might not get what you want:

1. You’re frustrated because you’re not seeing results.
2. You’re not feeling joyful about what you’re doing anymore.
3. You feel desperate, frantic and panicked and you do stuff to make your dreams happen.
4. You have to have results now!
5. You have doubts and your mind goes to negative places.

This is probably because you’re focused on doing, doing, doing. And it makes it a little tough to achieve your dreams. Doing nothing also makes that a little tough. The secret is to do something in between.

Let’s take a look at each way of going about things to make this clearer:

1. Striving to Make it Happen

The process here goes something like this:

• you decide what you want and “put it out there” (ask, create a vision board, pray, visualize, do affirmations)
• you strive to make it happen, almost in panic-mode
• and you don’t make much progress

2. Sitting Back & Doing Nothing

The process here looks like this:

• you decide what you want and “put it out there” (ask, create a vision board, pray, visualize, do affirmations)
• you do nothing in terms of action
• and . . . you don’t make much progress

3. Doing Something in Between

The process here goes like this:

• you decide what you want and “put it out there” (ask, create a vision board, pray, visualize, do affirmations)
• you release it to God or Spirit or the universe (however you view that) and let go of the outcome
• you receive your desired outcome and believe that you have it (you can let go of the outcome because you know that you have it)
• you expect success and act accordingly, taking steps that are necessary to reach your dreams and steps that you’re inspired to take . . . but you don’t act in vision control freak mode
• and you watch your dreams unfold

Do you resonate with this?

If you really want something . . . and really need something . . . you can fall into this control mindset (I did). What’s messed up is that it actually keeps you from getting what you want and need. By striving and controlling and grasping and hanging on and being attached to the outcome, you actually repel what you’re trying to achieve. You push it away and wonder why you’re not seeing success. And you create a yucky environment within yourself in the process.

It’s so much different when you become aware of what’s going on . . . when you realize that not striving doesn’t mean that you stop acting (that whole doing nothing thing doesn’t work either) . . . when you realize that it’s all about letting go.

Decide and ask.

Release and let go of the outcome.

Accept the result.

Expect success.

Take the actions you need to take.

Make sense?

So, how are you doing on this? Are you a vision control freak, or are you able to release the outcome? Let me know in the comments.

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Living in a modern world, besides learning how to manage your daily stress, you also need to learn how to The post 7 Tips For Effective Time Management appeared first on Building Blocks Coaching.

Living in a modern world, besides learning how to manage your daily stress, you also need to learn how to manege your time effectively.  I’m known as the queen of successful time management in my mastermind group. I’m constantly asked how I’m able to get insanely huge amounts of stuff done in short periods of time.
So, I thought I’d share my top 7 tips with you today.

It can be tough sometimes. As online home business women, there’s so much to distract us online, not to mention all the stuff we have to do in life in general! Just online there are newsletters that we’ve subscribed to coming at us in our inbox, courses being promoted, other emails we have to deal with, Twitter and Facebook posts we feel we need to read, chats that scream in our faces, games that tempt us to play on Facebook and lots of learning opportunities we could pursue.

It all seems great and useful and necessary . . . well, except for the games . It’s like we’d be missing out if we didn’t pay attention to all the offers, all the tweets, all the posts and all the info.

But think about it like this. What if you had a traditional job, let’s say in an office? What if you had a job description with certain tasks to do in a day so that you could complete a project or meet certain company goals or commitments? What if, instead, you stopped to talk with co-workers every time they passed by in the hall outside your office? What if you kept looking at stuff out your window? What if you decided to get into a game of Monopoly during your break that you just couldn’t stop . . . so you kept playing for a couple hours? What if you spent half a day reading up on how to do the thing you had to do? You’d never get your work done.

Now, my example sounds kinda silly. And ridiculous, even. But why is it any less ridiculous when it comes to our online home businesses? What’s interesting is that you wouldn’t call it “work” if you did all that stuff at the office. Actually, if you did it too often, you’d probably get fired. Yet, we somehow think that doing all those things is part of our online business.
Is it, really? Well check this out:

And if you think some of it is part of what you need to do in order to build relationships with people, for example, then how can you better structure it for greater productivity?

Here’s what I suggest for successful time management:

• Get clear on where you’re going. If you don’t have a clear plan, it’s easy to get sidetracked because you’re not really sure where you’re going.
  Decide what you need in terms of resources to get it done (e.g. the courses, newsletters, info). Stick with 3-5 information sources that will really help you move forward in your business. Say no to the rest.
• Set clear goals to get you where you’re going. Write them down and write them as SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, with some risk, and with a time frame).
• Set a strategy for social media. Know what you’re doing on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites so you stay on track and don’t waste time.
• Take steps that will help you get it done (e.g. turn chat off, cancel games, remove the fluff stuff from your streams or feeds so you only read what’s necessary or just decide not to read it all).
• Plan your stuff for the day the night before. Plan 3 things and do them first.
• Stick to those 3 things until they’re done.
• And then go and reward yourself with a break . . . and hang out chatting and playing games on social media .

Those are my 7 tips for successful time management. What tips do you have to share?

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Things can get stressful, busy and overwhelming at times when you’re a work at home mom . . . especially The post Top 10 Things To Do To Relieve Stress and Anxiety appeared first on Building Blocks Coaching.

Things can get stressful, busy and overwhelming at times when you’re a work at home mom . . . especially during the months when your kids are off school, or when they just want to get the heck out of the house!

It’s important to incorporate some fun stress relief activities into your day in order to care for yourself, spend some time with your kids and take a break from your business.

Here are my top 10 fun stress relief activities that you can do alone, or with your kids:

1. Skip down the street (when I was a kid we called this “hippity-hopping”). It’s really fun to do this while holding hands with your kids. And it’s just simply crazy to do it alone!
2. Have a water fight.
3. Do some face painting and keep the designs on all day . . . yes, even if you have to run out to the grocery store.
4. Blow bubbles. There’s just something about bubbles (I think it’s because taking deep breaths is built into it). I love them!
5. Dig in your garden just for fun . . . and maybe make some mud pies.
6. Make funny faces.
7. Color. Seriously. It’s fun and it’s therapeutic. Use different coloring tools and create pictures in wild colors.
8. Write with sidewalk chalk.
9. Jump in a jumpy castle (or whatever kind of inflatable jumpy thing you can access).
10. Run a lemonade stand . . . why not have fun and teach your kids about business at the same time?

These activities can provide quick breaks, some quality time with your kids (unless you do them alone, which I do challenge you to try) and a lot of laughs. What stress relief activities do you like to add to your day?

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