Arminda Lindsay

Being On Purpose

Create 2017

By

While reviewing your year is a great exercise in seeing all you’ve accomplished and recognizing for yourself what an amazing person you are, it’s in the creation of “What’s Next?!” that you really get the chance to shine.

For this exercise to be most effective, I encourage you to schedule some reflective time for yourself without normal distractions. Really get into a different head space before responding. Allow yourself to fully imagine you in the next year; visualize each of these scenarios and from that place, write down your responses.

Don’t self-correct or talk yourself out of what comes forward for you. Write it all down. There is also no rule that you have to limit yourself to just three responses. Go crazy! Keep writing! This is YOUR 2017 and you get to visualize and create it however you like.

If you’d like to share your responses with me (yes, please), then simply send me an email (coach at armindalindsay dot com) with your 2017 projections. I can’t wait to read your future.

1. What are the top 3 things you will achieve?
2. List 3 challenges you anticipate.
3. What are 3 things you need to learn to grow your business?
4. Identify 3 things you want to grow and/or learn about yourself.
5. Which are the 3 relationships you intend to grow and/or develop?
6. Name 3 things you want to create or bring into the world.
7. What are 3 ways you will make a difference in 2017?
8. List 3 ways you will have FUN in your business.

 

The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
— Abraham Lincoln

Frozen Assets

By

frozen-assets

Earlier today as I was walking Eli we came upon what appeared to be a frozen fountain. Upon closer inspection I realized while the fountain’s main water had, indeed, frozen, there was still quite a bit of water still freely flowing, uninhibited by the sub-zero temperatures to which its fellow drops had succumbed.

Earlier this week I conducted multiple coaching sessions with clients who each arrived to our respective conversation feeling stuck and unable to move past what seemed like insurmountable barriers. Here’s a sampling of four of those barriers:

1. Frustration with a business partner whose actions had offended a key vendor
2. A marketing plan that didn’t seem to be producing the desired results
3. Overwhelm from starting a new business and implementing multiple strategies simultaneously
4. Personal issues that were “leaking” into the professional space

Upon closer inspection, some targeted questioning from me, and a safe space in which to review their assets, my clients were each able to see avenues to continue moving forward, uninhibited by the surrounding events previously blocking their path.

When we had completed our time together every single one of those “stuck” individuals experienced an overflow of joy that accompanied their awareness that sometimes, or perhaps especially, when feeling stuck it might do to remember Winnie the Pooh‘s sage advice:

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”

Remember that being stuck is optional and if you need some assistance just let me know what’s in your way; I’m happy to stand on the bottom rail with you.

Loving you,
arminda

Peace by Piece

By

Peace by Piece

Puzzles are curious toys: put all the related, but disconnected, pieces together to form a big picture, but don’t get frustrated in the process and quit, because the reward for sticking with it is intrinsic and will leave the player wanting to do it all over again, only a little bit more challenging next time.

Children learn the system of puzzle solving by first playing with puzzles that have only four or five components. Once they’ve mastered the small picture, they graduate themselves to larger and larger pictures, increasing the personal challenge with each subsequent upgrade in puzzle size, and the bigger the puzzle the more reliant on systems they become. Locate the four corners, then the border pieces, colors become helpful in identifying in which quadrant the piece might fit best, fill in the middle part, and so on, and piece by piece the bigger picture takes shape until it’s all completed, just as the picture on the box indicated it would look.

During a recent coaching session my client shared with me her frustration at how overwhelming her job currently feels to her. She detailed the multiple demands on her time in an effort to explain how impossible it is, and perhaps to justify her exhaustion and frustration. Maybe, she wondered, she’d taken on too much? Or just doesn’t know how best to manage her time?

I didn’t buy it.

Does she love her work? Absolutely.
Is she in her own self-selected ideal field? Definitely.
Is she feeling at peace in her work life? Nope.

This is a classic example of forgetting to remember that the picture on the box is the end objective and that picture is never created by dumping the puzzle pieces out of the box.

Remember that the vision of what it all will look like upon completion is just that: a vision, an image, a picture of what’s possible only after you take a bunch of individual steps to create that bigger picture. If you’re holding yourself to the standard of daily creation of the big picture you will experience overwhelm, frustration, resentment, exhaustion, self-judgment and fear.

But only all the time.

If you’re experiencing overwhelm and are not at peace, may I suggest you test a new system? Locate your four corners, then establish your borders (create boundaries), and notice the colors on the pieces because that will inform in which quadrant of your creation they might fit best, and lastly fill in the middle part.

This might take some practice, but play with it. Ask yourself what one next step could you take toward the bigger picture? Then take it, do it, create it, whatever IT is. Now, rinse, lather and repeat that process until you’ve put it all together and voila! You’ve got yourself a completed picture. Time to create a new vision and play with its pieces from a place of peace because you didn’t quit and walk away when you forgot to remember it was all a game, anyway.

Find your peace, piece by piece.

Loving you all,
arminda

Ingredient List

By

Ingredient List

Best Tomato Salad Ever

Fresh Tomato, chopped in slightly larger than bite-sized pieces
Fresh Basil, ripped to taste
Oregano, to taste
Sea Salt, to taste
Fresh Pepper, to taste
Olive Oil, to taste

Mix all ingredients together and serve

I love food. I especially love when I can taste every single ingredient in a dish and those blended flavors create magic for me.

Basic, fresh, locally-sourced ingredients combine to make the most mouth-watering concoction you’ve ever experienced. Well, at least that I’ve ever experienced. Maybe tomato salad isn’t your thing. No worries.

Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good. — Alice May Brock

Imagine (just for a moment) yourself as a dish of food. What would be on your list of ingredients? Take a few minutes and consider the qualities and characteristics that make you, you. Write them down and hold the list in front of you and read it out loud. Don’t be afraid to identify what’s truly there, each and every flavor whose distinctive essences combine to create the most exquisite flavor palate that is you.

Did you leave off a key ingredient? Add it to your list. Now read it again. Is it complete?

If you’re afraid of butter, use cream. ― Julia Child

The best combinations are those with the fewest ingredients. Don’t compare your list with what you think comprises someone else’s list.

If you show up wholly and completely as yourself, with your basic and internally-sourced ingredients, what makes you amazing?

I know you’re amazing; I just want to be sure you see it, too.

The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star. — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Send me an email {coach@armindalindsay.com} and share your personal ingredient list with me so I can marvel at the magic of the creation of you.

I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work. Let God worry about your modesty; I want to see your enthusiasm. — Robert Farrar Capon

The Writing on the Wall

By

The Writing on the Wall

No one likes being told what to do. And many people have a propensity to do the very thing they’ve been told not to, just to prove that no one is the boss of them. If you’ve spent any time around children you’ll have experienced this firsthand.

Adults are no different. They might dislike being told what to do even more than do children. Yet how often do you tell others what they should and should not be doing? How often do you believe your opinion and your way of doing things is the only and/or best way? How often do you believe that you’re in charge? That you’re the boss? That because you said so, everyone around you should do exactly as you say?

Maybe you are the boss, the one paid to be in charge. Do that title and paycheck legitimize your demands and justify your expectations of how everyone around you should behave in response to you?

What if you played differently in your own sandbox? What if instead of dictating the rules, you share your vision and/or your need and ask for participation and gather agreement from the very people on whom your success is dependent.

You might be surprised to discover how many people now want to play with you because they feel you care about their opinions, feedback and buy-in.

Experiment. Play. Let go of your attachment to telling. Pretend you’re not a dictator. Build a bigger sandbox.

Stuck is Optional

By

We’ve all experienced those times when “stuff” happens, stuff that’s outside of our control, yet its impact is significant. And when those times happen it’s easy to feel discouraged, disappointed, frightened, out of control, stuck, miserable, alone, or even resigned.

During this Ask Arminda session I talk about how okay it is to feel that full range of emotions listed above (and please add the ones I’ve left off the list), but stuck is optional. Every time.

Let me know your thoughts and what your personal experience has been when you consciously rise above your circumstances to create something different.

Loving you,
arminda

Shading & Highlighting

By

Shading & Highlighting

Throughout Italy we encountered artists everywhere: on sidewalks, in city squares, and outside of famous landmarks. They had lots of their pieces displayed, allowing their work to speak for itself while they continued creating, seemingly oblivious to passersby. Following a particularly strenuous climb to Piazza Michelangelo, which boasts panoramic views of the city and a bronze replica of Michelangelo’s David, my daughter and I walked to the farthest reach of the square, noticing only the gorgeous views provided of the city of Florence stretching out as far as we could see in front of, and below, us. It wasn’t until we turned around to contemplate David that we noticed the piazza was teeming with artists and vendors of every kind.

My attention was drawn to one particular artist’s work and I began searching his paintings for the one that might speak to me. Intent to create a customer, the artist started recommending watercolors I had yet to see and still nothing was the right one. As if on cue, the artist turned to a folder he kept at his seat and opened it for my benefit. Inside were two or three dozen more watercolors, each spectacular. It was inside that folder I found the watercolor I’d been seeking and when I told him I’d take it, the artist immediately dropped to his knees and began adding to the piece.

I was shocked and delighted. I thought it was perfect when I found it in that folder, but to the artist, the piece was not yet complete, and I watched him lovingly put the finishing touches on his work, his painting, his creation, before gently turning it over to my care.

We are each of us responsible for our own creation. The creation of you. And only you — through your artist’s eyes — can see where and when some additional work might need to be done. No one else gets to decide that. Others might make suggestions or provide feedback (sometimes requested and oftentimes not) but only you can see what you’re creating and what your ending might look like.

A word of caution: don’t be so caught up in the long-term view you neglect turning around to see what’s right in front of you. And just like my artist friend in Piazza Michelangelo knew his creation needed some additional shading and highlighting, you, too, might see some corners that could use some softening and some talents that desire to shine.

Art is about rearranging us, creating surprising juxtapositions, emotional openings, startling presences, flight paths to the eternal. –Rosamund & Benjamin Zander, from The Art of Possibility

You are a magnificent work of art. Display yourself. Pay no attention to the passersby. Keep creating.

Loving you,
arminda

Echoes from the Past

By

Echoes from the Past

If you look closely you will see the handprint on the wall.

I am not ashamed to admit I left it there in its perfectly-smudged form for about ten years and every time I flipped on the light in that room I could see that handprint, an echo of my past.

No one else knew about that hand smudge; it was my secret ritualistic game to look for it always waving at me every single time I entered the room.

Some months ago I had the entire room painted, including that spot, although for a brief moment I entertained the thought of framing that handprint and painting around it so as to preserve that tiny reminder of what used to be.

That handprint is a lot like our real-life made up echoes from our past. We’ve all got them. They’re the stories we believe about ourselves and about:

  • why we are who we are
  • why we do what we do
  • why we can’t help ourselves
  • why we behave in cyclical patterns that show up again and again, on repeat

Those are echoes, stories, see-able only by you every time you walk into that room of your past, the one with the handprint still on the wall because you’re holding onto it for sentimental reasons, and you have a ritual of seeking it out without anyone else noticing it waving at you.

Does that handprint/echo/story really serve you to keep it there?

Just as I could have easily wiped down the wall and erased the handprint, you, too, can erase the handprints that you’re currently keeping. Those handprints might be holding you back, inviting you into a past that no longer exists.

Say goodbye to the handprint, acknowledge the lessons and the blessings you’ve learned because it was part of your journey, and grab a sponge, a magic eraser, or a bucket of paint and gift yourself a clean wall.

You can only be held back by your past if you use it to reject yourself in the present.    — Robert Holden

Learn. Erase. Grow. Repeat.

002: Star Light, Star Bright

By

Star Light, Star Bright

The All Arminda Virtual Show, episode 2

If all you “have” to do is make a wish for something to happen, then you’re probably missing out on some massive opportunities.

Wishing and hoping are just passive thinking.

Stop the wishing, and start the creating and get into action in your own lives.

Loving you,
arminda

Drawing Skills

By

Screen Shot 2015-09-07 at 9.37.42 AM

Isn’t the knowing of a child the most beautiful thing you ever experienced?

I love remembering my own sense of knowing during those years when I knew what I knew. And what I didn’t know, I imagined until it felt more real than what I knew.

Do you remember knowing you were amazing? At drawing, perhaps? Or riding horses. Or reading out loud with just the right inflections. Or hopping on one foot longer than anyone else. Or climbing trees. Or tap dancing. Or writing stories. Or molding clay. Or blocking all the goals. Or organizing clubs. Or giving recitations. Or calming a fussy child. Or performing tricks on your bike. Or knowing the alphabet backwards.

Do you remember when life got too serious for childhood games and make-believe?

What if tomorrow when you wake up you could be anything you want?

What if you could draw “a picture of a house that was so good, [you] had to hide it so nobody would steal it”?

What if that picture of that house was the remembering of amazing:

  • letting go of a fear that’s been holding you captive
  • having a conversation you’ve been avoiding
  • getting back to something you used to love but somewhere along the way forgot to keep loving it
  • planting the seed of a new possibility
  • exploring an option that didn’t exist today
  • sharing a talent
  • smiling from your inside out
  • not caring what anyone else thinks
  • going on an impromptu adventure
  • staying out late to star gaze
  • writing a poem
  • calling a friend
  • speaking your truth

What if you play a game today and engage with your thoughts and your to-do list as if you were a child again.

What are the “a lot of things” you can create when you come from that place of knowing you’re amazing?

allarminda.com | 2024