Why?

WHY? Such a powerful three-letter word…..I might be a little late to this, but this TED talk I recently heard blew my socks off and is totally relevant to what Mind Your Strength Coaching is all about. British author and speaker Simon Sinek brilliantly describes our biology as it relates to decision making, inspiration, and the importance of knowing and communicating your WHY. In his talk ‘How great leaders inspire action’ he emphasizes “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”, so it is essential to communicate what you believe to your target audience long before explaining how it is done. This talk was like hitting the pause button on the old remote and helped me recognize the importance of telling all of you the purpose of what I do, what I believe in, my Why…….Why?

Short Answer: To lessen emotional suffering. Why? It’s more fun and empowering this way. Our emotions drive our behaviors and once I learned how to manage them, through thought work, I found the answers that ended a long fought battle with weight, self-hate, and irritability. My two young daughters served as an essential reason I was driven to find these answers in the first place, WHY? 

There are three reasons why I wanted to improve my thoughts. First, because I didn’t want to model these unhealthy behaviors to my kids. Children ages 0-11 are most influenced by their parents, so modeling healthy actions at this stage of development is crucial to healthy well-being.  

Second, I felt that I deserved better than to be irritated at every turn and was sick of reacting to all the bothersome circumstances around me, whether it be the weather, or the slow person in the check-out line at Target. I wanted to find an alternative to feeling annoyed or angry. 

Third, it would fuel me to fuel YOU to inspire YOU, to empower YOU to get the results you want in your life. My goal is to help you train your mind as hard as you train your body to lessen the emotional pain you may otherwise experience.  You can learn to respond to circumstances vs. react to them, or feel like you don’t have a choice.

Life is difficult for all of us, emotional pain comes in many different shapes and sizes. Half of our lives will include negative emotion, accepting this and learning tools that can help manage emotions can only make life better, richer, more fulfilling!  Our brains as amazing as they are continue to get us in trouble emotionally.  When you dig deep to understand your purpose for doing what you do, it gives rise to being more mindful, more intentional. To begin this process we have to start to be aware by practicing mindfulness.  Why?  We can’t change anything we are not aware of in the first place.

Attuning to the present moment consistently gives us insight into how our minds operate. If your mind is anything like mine, there can be some scary pitfalls in your daily experience and lots of self-blame to go along with it. This work can help you stick with negative experiences instead of escaping them through food or any other pleasurable activity that can later cause problems in your life. There are several tools to help untwist and strategize new thought processes that serve you better and stave off disempowering tendencies. At the very least it can provide options, opportunities that you may have not even realized were available to you in a stressful situation.

I would welcome the opportunity to help you uncover your passion, tune in to what inspires you and the ability to communicate it with others.  Together we will learn ways to be with negative experiences and avoid the tendency to distract. It can make all the difference. Why not?  Till we meet again mindfulness seekers. And as a reminder, complimentary mini-sessions are available @ mindyourstrength.com