Day 13 RYL

Welcome to Day 13 of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge! It is designed to be a virtual life coaching experience that will equip you with all the tools you need to reset your life. Please spread the word to your friends and tell them to sign up for the program here!

One of the most powerful ways to get clear about your goals and dreams is to visualize them. It can be incredibly motivating and inspiring to really be able to see your desired path in your mind's eye, to go to sleep dreaming about it and wake up thinking about it. Over the past week, you've started to do a bit of visualizing on paper by creating a life map. Yesterday, you even went head to head with your resistance to dreaming big by writing a letter to your lizard brain. So today, there's nothing holding you back from getting even more specific in your visual by imagining what your ideal life would really look like once you put it all together. Today, you are going to write your ideal life narrative .

Estimated Time to Complete: 30-45 minutes

Your ideal life narrative is basically you telling a story about the life you want for yourself. It answers questions like:

• What are you doing on a daily basis in your ideal life?

• Who are you spending your time with?

• How are you earning your living?

• Where are you living?

• How are you spending your leisure time?

The only requirement to this exercise is that you use nothing but present tense statements. You should say "I am" or "I have" to indicate that you are already living your ideal life. To complete this exercise, you will incorporate your goals, hopes and dreams from your life map using these seven specific areas of your life:

• Lifestyle

• Work

• Education

• Finances

• Health

• Family

• Relationships

To express your response to this exercise, you should take a fresh look at your life map and write out in paragraph form exactly what your life would look like with all seven areas combined. You should be as specific as possible - you want to paint an inspiring mental picture with your narrative.

As an example, I share my ideal life narrative below.

Rosetta's Ideal Life NarrativeI am living in Washington, DC, though I spend half the year traveling. I have a large, luxury apartment in the city with a huge gourmet kitchen. Every month, I entertain various groups of friends with themed dinner parties and fundraising brunches. I spend the summer in Paris and the winter in Hawaii and Jamaica. I am a highly sought-after speaker for national and international conferences and conventions. I also have my own popular annual event where I bring together women of color from around the world for professional development and personal transformation. I have published several bestselling books and they have been translated in over a dozen languages. I earn a million-dollar income doing what I love - empowering people to find their purpose and live out their dreams. I have access to a private jet and a personal driver. I have close relationships with my immediate family. I visit my extended family several times a year to celebrate holidays, birthdays and sometimes "just because." I have a handsome, loving partner who supports me in my goals and allows me to support him in his. I am healthy both physically and mentally. I exercise daily and have a good therapist who helps me grow and thrive. I am a lifelong learner and I invest in my ongoing education by attending seminars and reading at least one book a month. I also take cooking, writing and dance classes to feed my creativity. I meditate every morning to connect to the God in me. As a result, I spread as much love as possible on the streets of my journey. Every year, I give away at least 10% of my income to charity and I volunteer on a regular basis.

 

Take Action and Reflect: When you're done, please share your "ideal life narrative" with us in the comments! Would also be great to hear how you felt as you completed this exercise. Did it excite you? Did it clarify your life map? 

 

Wishing you lifelong happiness and success

Day 12 RYL

Welcome to Day 12 of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge! It is designed to be a virtual life coaching experience that will equip you with all the tools you need to reset your life. Please spread the word to your friends and tell them to sign up for the program here!

It's now been almost two weeks since you started the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge. You probably started off with a bang, excited and ready to go. But like most participants, life got in the way and you may have fallen off after just a few days. Don't beat yourself up about being "behind." It's normal at this point to have missed a day or two of the assignments.

You may be in the process of catching up with us from the last eleven days. That's fine. You may even be one of our "silent participants." That's all good, too. Either way, I'm glad you're here. Another possibility, however, is that you may actually struggling right now to push through the assignments and commit fully to the challenge.

If so, what you're experiencing is called resistance. Also known as the lizard brain. Leadership and marketing guru Seth Godin describes the lizard brain this way:

We say we want one thing, then we do another. We say we want to be successful but we sabotage the job interview. We say we want a product to come to market, but we sandbag the shipping schedule. We say we want to be thin but we eat too much. We say we want to be smart but we skip class or don't read that book the boss lent us. The

contradictions never end. When someone shows up and acts without contradiction, we're amazed. When an athlete just does the sport, or when a writer just writes the words, we can't help but watch, astonished at the purity of their actions. Why is it so difficult to do what we say we're going to do?

 

The lizard brain.

Or as Steven Pressfield describes it, the resistance. The resistance is the voice in the back of our head telling us to back off, be careful, go slow, compromise. The resistance is writer's block and putting jitters and every project that ever shipped late because people couldn't stay on the same page long enough to get something out the door.

 

The resistance grows in strength as we get closer to shipping, as we get closer to an insight, as we get closer to the truth of what we really want. That's because the lizard hates change and achievement and risk.

 

The lizard is a physical part of your brain, the pre-historic lump near the brain stem that is responsible for fear and rage and reproductive drive. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because her lizard brain told her to.

 

The lizard brain is the epicenter of fear. Because when we listen to the lizard brain, we make the kind of choices that lead us on a path away from our big dreams. When you're in the clutches of the lizard brain, you begin to doubt yourself. You begin to resent the process. You feel yourself wanting to give up and throw in the towel.

In a nutshell, the lizard brain is what stops you in your tracks and keeps you from moving forward.

But in reality, when the lizard brain shows up, it's simply a sign that you're going somewhere. You're in motion and moving toward higher ground. So the best thing for you to do at this point is to assume the good and operate accordingly. You may be feeling some resistance in completing the exercises we've done so far, and that's OK. Your lizard brain may be telling you that you don't have the time to get through them. That's because your lizard brain is scared. It's overwhelmed by the new revelations that are coming into your consciousness.

What I want you to do though, is to keep going anyway. Because anyone who's ever accomplished anything in life has had to push through the fear and the resistance to get to the good stuff on the other side. And I want to see you there. So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna write a letter to your lizard brain and tackle that sucker once and for all.

Estimated Time to Complete: 30-45 minutes

Write a letter to your lizard brain to acknowledge its presence and declare your freedom from allowing it to rule your life from this point forward. Your letter should reflect your new awareness and be stern, but loving. You may use the format below or freestyle your own.

Dear Lizard Brain,

I've been noticing you popping up at certain points in this challenge and in my life. It seems like every time I want to do something for my own happiness and growth, you show up to tear medown.

For instance, when I tried to __________________________, you showed up in the form of procrastination. I wanted to see it through, but instead I sabotoged my success by ____________________________________.

Another example was when I tried to change my life by _____________________________ and you came along in the form of self-doubt. I knew I wanted to shift gears, but instead, you told me that  __________________________________.

So I see what you're doing and I don't like it. Yes, I know that you're afraid of change. You're afraid of what will happen if I succeed. But what you have to understand is that whatever happens in my life will work out for my good. I was put here on earth for a purpose and you are keeping me from fulfilling that potential.

Well, until now, you have.

I will no longer allow you to stop my progress in living my ideal life. So the next time I see you, I will simply give you a nod and go on about my business.It's been nice knowing you, but now it's time that we part ways.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Take Action and Reflect: Please share your letter to your lizard brain with us in the comments. How are you experiencing resistance right now in the challenge or in any other area of your life? How will you make sure you keep moving forward? 

 

Wishing you lifelong happiness and success

Day 11 RYL

Welcome to Day 11 of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge! It is designed to be a virtual life coaching experience that will equip you with all the tools you need to reset your life. Please spread the word to your friends and tell them to sign up for the program here!

Yesterday, you took inspired action by doing one thing to get to closer to your ideal life. Today, you're going to take that concept a step further and build in some accountability for your long-term, sustained progress. Today, you're going to find an accountability partner.

For me, my mom is the ultimate accountability partner in helping me get to the next level in my business. We talk almost every day and she knows how to ask me the tough questions about how I'm spending my time and reminding me of the goals I set out to accomplish this year. Of course, it helps that my mom is an entrepreneur herself, with a business that's already earning six figures, which is where I want to be! I'm able to get so much more done knowing that she's going to ask me about my progress on a regular basis.

Estimated Time to Complete: Varies

Today's assignment is to find an accountability partner - someone who can hold you responsible for your own success and progress in pursuing your ideal life.

• a friend, family member, co-worker, mentor, coach or someone else you can trust to help you keep a commitment

• someone on the same path as you or simply willing to help you in your specific journey

• someone who can help you stay on track toward reaching your goals

• someone who stands firm and won't let you get away with making excuses or procrastinating

• someone who will ask you all those difficult questions we tend to avoid

It's so important to have someone - paid or otherwise - to help keep you on track with your goals in life and business. It's so easy for a year, five years, or even 10 years to go by and you still up there talking about how you're "trying" to start a business, lose weight, get back into the dating game, etc.

There's nothing wrong with asking or even paying someone to help you. It just means that you're serious about your goals. And if you're really serious about changing your life, wouldn't you WANT someone to make sure you keep moving forward? Otherwise, it many never happen for you!

 

How to find an accountability partner:

• Ask a trusted friend, family member, co-worker, or mentor to help you. Make an ongoing weekly or monthly appointment to share a "progress report" by phone or in person.

• Hire a coach. The benefit of a coach is that she will be objective in helping you reach your goal, whereas sometimes our loved ones can have ulterior motives in the advice they give. It's not on purpose or in any kind of malicious way, it's just that they typically want what they think is "best" for you.

• Seek out online communities where there are people who have the same interests and goals as you. You want to surround yourself with other people who are making positive changes in their lives, because they will be more likely to want to help you do the same thing. Personal growth is contagious! A great online community for black women entrepreneurs is Black Business Women Online, which is run by the fabulous LaShanda Henry aka Sistasense.

Take Action and Reflect: When you've secured your accountability partner, tell us who you chose and in the comments! If you already have an accountability partner, how did you find them? 

 

Wishing you lifelong happiness and success!

Day 10 RYL

Welcome to Day 10 of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge! It is designed to be a virtual life coaching experience that will equip you with all the tools you need to reset your life. Please spread the word to your friends and tell them to sign up for the program here!

After creating a life map yesterday, now it's time to take some action on those goals! It's nice to take time to be dreamy and in your head (and we will do even more of that in the upcoming days of the challenge), but for you to really get reconnected to your dreams, you will need to start putting some real stuff out there in the universe. Like right now.

Today, you will do one thing to move yourself closer to your ideal life. We will be embarking on some more in-depth action planning later this month, but today's exercise is meant to begin building some initial momentum for your journey.

Estimated Time to Complete: Varies

Today's exercise is NOT related to your everyday to-do list. You are being asked to complete one task that is personally significant to you and your ideal life. This task should help you get started on a specific goal you've identified during the challenge, either from your life map or your personal mission statement. Your "one thing" should meet at least one of the following criteria:

• Something you've been procrastinating on

• Something that terrifies you

• Something that inspires you

The main requirement for this exercise is that the action you take must be tangible and measurable. Basically, if I were there with you looking over your shoulder, I would be able to see clearly with my own eyes that the task was completed.

Some examples to jog your imagination:

• You want to have better relationships with your family.
Call that aunt you haven't spoken to for three years. Buy a plane ticket to visit your brother.

• You want to go back to school.
Research some programs online and call or email to request information packets from the ones you like the best.

• You want to own your own home.
Sign up for a homeownership class or buy a book about how to begin the process.

• You want to be healthier.
Throw out all the junk food from your cabinets. Then go grocery shopping today and only buy healthy foods. Or sign up for a gym membership.

• You want to save money.
Open up a savings account. You can do that online now with most banks from your computer or phone. Then set up a recurring direct deposit from your checking account.

• You want to improve your credit.
Obtain your current credit report. If you haven't done it yet this year, you can get one free here.

• You want to start your own business.
Complete the necessary forms and register your business name with your state.

• You want to find a romantic partner.
Approach someone you like or find attractive and ask for their phone number. Or sign up for an online dating service

The possibilities are endless! Whatever you do, make the task specific and only focus on that one thing for today. I know you're busy. But no matter how busy you are, you can always do at least one thing every day to move yourself closer to living the life of your dreams. And really, isn't life too short not to?

Take Action and Reflect: When you're done, tell us about what you did in the comments! Also let us know if any immediate results have occurred, either with an outcome or simply a change in your frame of mind.  How did completing this exercise make you feel?  

 

Wishing you lifelong happiness and success!

Day 9 RYL

Welcome to Day 9 of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge! It is designed to be a virtual life coaching experience that will equip you with all the tools you need to reset your life. Please spread the word to your friends and tell them to sign up for the program here!

Over the past few days, you've reflected about the current state of your life through assessing your values and actions. Now, you'll get a chance to begin to go in-depth about your goals for each of the seven areas of your life identified in Day 2"s life assessment exercise. Today, you will create a life map.

 

What is a life map?

 

A life map is essentially a visual/text representation of what your ideal life looks like. It's really and truly one of the most powerful personal development tools for both envisioning and creating a "map" for the path to your own happiness.

Last year, I made a video about how to create a life map and how the process actually led my mom to start her own "side hustle" three years ago, which has since blossomed into a profitable, full-time fitness consulting business. This is powerful stuff!

Keep in mind that your life map should be in accordance with your values and your personal mission statement. The idea is that now that you've got a sense of where your life is, you can begin to think more clearly about where exactly you want it to go. Ready?

Estimated Time to Complete: 60-90 minutes

Please download the Life Mapping Workbook to assist you in creating your life map. It's a 13-page easy-to-use PDF guide to creating your own life map with colorful worksheets like the one you see above. You will want to print it out and follow the instructions inside.

Download the Life Mapping Workbook

Take Action and Reflect: When you're done, please share your life map with us in the comments!  

Wishing you lifelong happiness and success,


http://happyblackwoman.com/

Day 8 RYL

Welcome to Day 8 of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge! It is designed to be a virtual life coaching experience that will equip you with all the tools you need to reset your life. Please spread the word to your friends and tell them to sign up for the program here!

"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle or you can live as if everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein

Over the course of this month, you will be manifesting new habits and wonderful outcomes for your life. Sometimes though, we have to learn how to be grateful for what we have before the universe will give us more.

Today, you will keep a gratitude journal. Studies have shown that cultivating a sense of thankfulness in your everyday life is good for your mental health and emotional well-being. In fat, UC Davis psychologist Robert Emmons has demonstrated such in his research:
The evidence that cultivating gratefulness is good for you is overwhelming. Gratitude is a quality that we should aspire to as a part and parcel of personal growth...Specifically, we have shown that gratitude is positively related to such critical outcomes as life satisfaction, vitality, happiness, self-esteem, optimism, hope, empathy, and willingness to provide emotional and tangible support for other people, whereas being ungrateful is related to anxiety, depression, envy, materialism, and loneliness.
Indeed, in times like these, we need more gratitude. More optimism. Not more stuff to be happy about, just simply more expressions of being grateful for what we already have or experiences we've had in the past.

Estimated Time to Complete: 30 minutes

Today's exercise requires you to be very conscious and mindful of the blessings - big and small - that surround you. Throughout the day, write down everything that you're grateful for. Your list should contain at least FIVE items. It may be helpful to ask yourself the following questions over the course of your day as "gratitude prompts":

What am I thankful for in this moment?
What's working for my good right now?
Today, I'm grateful for . . .
You may answer with things, people, emotions, circumstances, et. It's up to you to take stock of whatever the universe is providing for you.

Take Action and Reflect: When you're done, please share your gratitude journal with us in the comments! What were the five things you were most thankful for today? Start your comment off with "Today, I am grateful for . . ."

Wishing you lifelong happiness and success!

Day 7 RYL

Welcome to Day 7 of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge!

Congratulations! You've made it through the first week of the 31 Days to Reset Your Life Challenge. In case you missed it, I posted a handy Guide to Getting the Most Out of Your #31DayReset to ensure you are maximizing this experience. For most participants, it has been a productive and enlightening week. For others, it may have been a bit more difficult to keep up with the daily assignments. That's why today is dedicated to giving you time to catch up and reflect on the past week's exercises as well as to connect with others in the challenge.

Estimated Time to Complete: 30 minutes

Today's exercise is an opportunity for you to rest from all your inner work this week as well as reflect on your learning and share in your fellow participants' progress over the past few days. Being able to compare and contrast your experiences and offer encouragement to others can be extremely useful as you move forward in your personal development journey! If you missed any of the assignments this week, this is also your chance to catch up.

Reflect
What was the most important thing you learned about yourself this week?
What has been your favorite exercise so far? What did you like about it?
Which exercise did you struggle with the most and why?