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Confidence is Sexy! Part 2

8/28/2017

A while back I wrote on confidence being sexy and it got a lot of attention.
I received posts on my blog, emails and it even triggered a few people.

Then when I was asked to contribute to FabUplus Magazine on confidence I knew this information needed to come up again.

(BTW make sure you check out FabUplus because they have such a cool message for the world! "Our message is that all women are beautiful, original, not only good enough, but exceptional, not just here, but here for a purpose."

Confidence is inner and outer. How we show up as a person and how we appear to others.

As you can see in the images this woman is confident, sure of herself and not afraid to flaunt it (without having to be naked or show a lot of skin). When women are showing up this way they have better success, more happiness and increase their life satisfaction.

To read the original blog with the "3 Steps to Sexy Confidence" along with do's and don'ts please go to: Confidence is Sexy When Worn Right

Mwah!

4 crucial questions about your life path

8/24/2017

Adults love asking children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I thought about this today because last night I was leading a mastermind for a lady in my tribe. She wasn't fulfilled in her career.

She walked away with a clear solution, but I wonder how she would say.

My first grade answer to that question was “to be a teacher.” Do you remember yours?

It’s an interesting question posed at an expansive time in our lives. The child in us is able to speak without fear of the challenges and with an innocence of possibility.

But this question muddles being and doing together and it lacks some crucial follow up questions to help us get clear on the details about our life path. So, it’s no wonder that many of us as adults come to a point where we feel…muddled!

I certainly did.

I did become a teacher. AND I wasn’t completely happy. I loved teaching the kids and helping them, yet something didn’t seem to fit.

It didn’t feel completely right AND I felt terrible GUILT for it.

(How many of us are familiar with that?)

There I was being ungrateful for what I had (said the saboteur in me!) I had promotions, a good paying job, great co-workers and even a great boss. The child in me was right… I wanted to be a teacher. But the adult in me never asked some crucial follow up questions, such as “A teacher of what?” and “Why?”

If you are feeling a bit muddled about your path (or know someone who is!) now is a great time to ask some deeper questions. Play along with me!

As a child, what did you say you wanted to be?

A doctor, lawyer, engineer?

Now, ask yourself these crucial follow up questions:

What is at the heart of what you truly want?
What is the essence of it?
And what makes that important?

A mind map is a great tool to help feel this out. Here is mine:

You see, the child in me was clear on the first question. I knew I wanted to be a teacher. But it was only when I explored more deeply that I realized coaching was the path for me. I filled in important details.

I love teaching and helping, but I also value variety and going with the flow. Working with clients on their chosen topics and going at our own pace allows for all of that. I found my perfect fit.

So try it yourself! Maybe revisiting the career you wanted as a child will confirm the path you are currently on or will shed some light on what is missing for you.

Let me know if your 1st grader was right or not!

xo
Diane

3 Tips I learnt today at "Fast Track My Sales" with Paul Toby that can boost your reach and your leads...!

8/15/2017

Manifest More with your Vision Board

2/13/2017

Learn from Diane Rolston the best tips and tricks to not only create a powerful vision board, but how to use it and review it so you can achieve more goals, and reach the success you are aiming for.

1st part: "How to Create a Vision Board that Magnetizes Your Desires, NOT Repels them"
2nd Part: “Freedom, Money and Love: Use your Vision Board to Magnetize what you want”

See below the video for a breakdown of each part.
Then head-on over to www.dianerolston.com/UnleashDynamicYou to be an even bigger player in your vision!

1st part: "How to Create a Vision Board that Magnetizes Your Desires, NOT Repels them"

Vision Boards are a fabulous way of bringing to life internal desires and create focus and clarity for what you want in your future. However, not all vision boards are created equal, some will actually throw us off balance or bring us what we don’t want. The sad thing is it’s our own doing.
What you put on your board and how you choose the images determines whether you are successful or not.
In this presentation, Diane will describe the Co-Active Life and share how you need to ‘consciously feel’ the right vision, then ‘unconsciously choose’ the right images. This process will ensure you magnetize the right desires and not sabotage them.
By the end of the time you’ll be able to:
•   Have clarity on your most 8-10 most important desire areas
•   Create balance in your life by doing this one key step on your board
•   Design a vision that is more powerful than just having S.M.A.R.T. goals
•   Ensure you don’t jinx your intended results by making these two mistakes
•   Replicate a process to clearly and confidently produce a vision board that converts

2nd Part: “Freedom, Money and Love: Use your Vision Board to Magnetize what you want”

One of the worst things you can do is make your Vision board just another forgotten project or a piece of art that blends in, rather than the catalyst of your year. It’s a powerful tool when used properly to bring you what you want and keep you focused and motivated.
By the end of the event you'll be able to:
1.   Increase your focus, motivation and drive to achieve your goals.
2.   Design the most powerful habits for you to attract what you want.
3.   Identify how you’ll become a stronger player in your own vision.

Then head-on over to www.dianerolston.com/UnleashDynamicYou to be an even bigger player in your vision!

Work when you can: 6 tactics to get more done in less time

5/25/2016

I write this as I miraculously got both kids to nap at the same time. (Mom's get this and will cheer!) The toddler was easy, but the 4.5 yr old is a little older and a little wiser. “I don’t need a nap!” was said so matter of fact and if you didn’t hear the tone that went with it you might have believed her.

She is now the queen in my bed. I'll admit though that I did have to fold laundry in the room until she was asleep. Lucky or unlucky for me (depends on your perspective) I had plenty of clothes to put away.

So what do I do with time to spare? Haha! Time to spare? I have a huge list of to do’s and project after project along with two businesses to run. I start with a shower because as soon as the hubby gets in I’m flying down the Sea-to-Sky corridor to lead Dynamic Women™ in Action Squamish. This is the only pocket of time I have to get rid of my ponytail hair.

I now have time to write this blog… the clarity of what to say is pressured by the looming cries of a little one who could awaken at any moment. You know how it is… the days you have to be somewhere they don’t wake up and the days you need to be home and get things done they wake early.

So it brings me to my topic: How do busy parents or even people get things done? How are they super productive? and run one or like me two businesses?

We work when we can.

I’m sure you have figured a lot of this out already, but my goal is not to earn authorship awards for AMAZING new ideas, but to make them more accessible, digestible and unforgettable.

Let me break this down.

In the car: After getting my new car (a Toyota RAV4) I finally have a Bluetooth option so my calls come through my car. I explain it like this because my dad didn’t really get what I meant and maybe some readers won’t either. When I have a busy day and know I have calls to make I do it in the car. I’ll reply to an email with, “Yes, of course we can chat. Let me call you at 1:30pm when I get on the road.” This also helps me to manage the time of my calls to the length of the trip. I hope it’s obvious that I don’t coach clients this way (I wouldn’t be as effective), but calling a friend, a colleague, my mom or even the dentist to make an appointment makes complete sense. Oh and I’ve even been known to use Siri as my assistant and use the voice commands to text people, post to Facebook and listen to my voicemail.
Waiting: It’s actually sad that most people no longer bring books to waiting rooms, on public transit and when waiting to meet or pick up someone. Reading is hopefully not a lost art. But in these moments I jump into my email and send 3 liners, delete emails that clutter my inbox space and add in special dates into my calendar. Of course I could call people, but we all know how annoying it is to have the LOUD person on their phone in public. Even being quiet is a little infringing on those around us.
Pockets: Not pant pockets, but pockets of time. You have an extra 10 minutes before you have to leave. You’re next call is 15 minutes away. You’re meeting finished early. What do you do with these pockets of time? Don’t go on Facebook….. WORK. Set the timer, pick a task and DO IT! The problem is we can’t capitalize on these times if we don’t know what to do, so create a list of 10 minute tasks and start crossing them off.
Early or Late: Get up early or stay up late. Enough said. Make the choice and use the time to get stuff done. Maybe don’t do both though because sleep is super important.
Double tasking: I absolutely love double tasking – taking a simple task that doesn’t require a lot of focus and combining it with a task that does. Like a walking coffee date; you get your exercise and to chat with someone. Or data entry and listening to a podcast. This leads me to…
Double Duty: Doing one thing that crosses two things off your list. Like recording a webinar and also getting it transcribed to use as blogs. Inviting someone you need to connect with to an event you are already going to.

Well, I hear the cries of a small child. So which of the six tactics did I use today? The car as we went to Costco, the pockets while the kids finished their lunch, the double tasking with the laundry and soon double duty because this blog will become my social media posts.

Let me know which ones you will put into play and which ones you already do. Have another one? Tell me by commenting below and I'll add it to my list!

And I hope you can find more opportunities to work when you can, so you can have time for all of your priorities. I’m off to play now!

Mwah!

A Woman's Guide to Business Survival

5/8/2016

Have you ever questioned how some women do it all? Have you ever questioned whether confidence is an innate quality that only special women have? Or that some women are just stronger than you?

Being a successful mompreneur takes a lot of confidence and resiliency. As a mompreneur and high performance coach even I’ve questioned myself at times! So rest assured, you are not alone. But here is my promise to you: you are not without tools to learn how to train those muscles up! Let me show you where to start.

First off, let’s agree to think of confidence and resiliency as emotional muscles that need to be built out from a good solid foundation.

In my experience, the keys to a good foundation are:

Letting go of comparison
Getting unbiased support

We are each trying to find our own way as a mom and a business owner, so naturally we look to others and see what they are doing. But I can’t think of a quicker way to crush confidence and resiliency than comparison. We really don’t want to place ourselves above or below anyone else. It’s important to compare yourself to yourself, or compare yourself to your goals. We all start from different places, so comparison is never fair. For example, someone else may have a large extended family that can provide free child care every day of the week. That person will logistically be able to do different things with her business and at a different pace than others.

Another downside of comparison is that it leads to competition and that can damage having an essential support network. Every mompreneur needs a support network. (that's why it’s the next key) Instead of racing against each other, we can be on paths beside each other and unfold wonderful relationships, support, and mentoring. (Want a great community of like-minded supportive women? Then click here to RSVP to a Dynamic Women™ event.)

Unbiased support in a mastermind group or from a coach is the other key to a good foundation. Your supporters are able to see accomplishments you may be overlooking and help give you boost of confidence. Have you ever heard of the phrase “You can’t see the picture if you are in the frame?” Last year my mastermind group had to remind me that having a baby was a huge accomplishment! I completely overlooked that in the face of feeling like I hadn’t got much done in my business.

Once you have a solid foundation, then comes the rest of the training plan. This consists of:

Creating relevant and obtainable goals
Consistently pushing your boundaries
Building on past success

Relevant and obtainable goals are really important for confidence. Goals have to be a good fit for your situation. Setting the same goals as someone else doesn’t make them very attainable or useful because you and your situation are unique. You will know if a goal is attainable if you can commit 100%. For example, if you want to loose 10lbs but can’t get up early in the morning, what you may focus on is drinking 8 glasses of water a day and getting to bed by 10pm. Those things are doable and will definitely increase your energy allowing you to take the next step – getting to the gym.

Consistently doing small things that scare you (ie. pushing your boundaries) allows you to feel the thrill and pride of doing something new. (Check out my full blog article about this here) It maintains and builds future confidence. And as long as you are practicing consistently, the next big scary thing you try won’t seem as scary because you have trained your confidence muscle up.

Have you ever thought back to something courageous you did when you were younger? Whatever was in you that allowed you to be that way still exists! Now how can you pull from that past experience to get traction for your next goals? This is how we build on past success. We look back on what worked, who we were, and what conditions were possible for us to succeed in that moment, knowing that we can create a new similar situation again. Not everything has to be the same – we look at the essence and themes and carry them forward. Looking at the past can help us feel resilient when we face current challenges. We know we have succeeded before, or that situations have been resolved, or that we learned a valuable lesson.

Being a mompreneur is challenging! There is no doubt about that. We can be quite hard on ourselves or overlook our accomplishments as mothers and business owners. We can let the ‘not doing’ gremlins be noisy and easily loose confidence in our abilities. Getting back up when things don’t go as planned is a testament to our resiliency. But both confidence and resiliency are part of your character! They are not a special quality only special people have. Using this training plan will help you grow in both these areas. And if you need a little extra one-on-one, personal training? I am here for you!

Mwah!

Baby Steps in Business and Life?

4/27/2016

There is something really unique from the vantage point of being a mompreneur that nobody else has. Do you know what it is? It’s the opportunity to witness the power of small steps. We get to watch our babies master their skills little by little and hit developmental milestones. And it turns out, when we follow that example in our business and take small steps that scare us, we nurture our own confidence and growth from a place of ease and joy instead of fear.

Wait a second, I actually reduce my fear by taking small, scary steps? Yes, that is exactly what I am saying!

I’ve just reached six years in business and my growth has kept pace with my daughters’. I was still in the early stages of business startup when she was born. In my newborn stage I wasn’t completely secure or confident in all areas of my business. But fortunately, I observed how to gain confidence through taking small steps at a time.

My son just a few days old. Photo Credit to Jenn Di Spirito.

My growth has unfolded in the process of reasonably pushing my boundaries a little further every month. I like to make that distinction because so often I encounter clients who go after these massively huge goals with a lot of excitement and then fear shows up and stops them dead in their tracks. Can you relate?

Let me share a few reasons as to why this happens and a few tools you can use to shift your perspective and start harnessing the power of small, scary steps.

How we perceive goals makes a big impact in what we do with them and how we act (or don’t). Somewhere along the way we bought into the story that goals have to be HUGE to be ‘good enough’. We also adopted the belief that the outcome of the goal is the only point. We believe the result we create is the only thing that dictates success or failure. Do you hate setting goals? Could it be because of these beliefs?

Let’s shift perspective by considering:

The size of the goal has no relation to the power it has to move you forward in confidence & growth, ie. big things come in small packages.
The process of who you become in completing a small, scary goal has big value and long term traction, ie. we acknowledge process goals as well as outcome goals.

Can you think back to watching your child go from rolling over to sitting up? There were lots of small developments in between. And learning to sit was a precursor to developing the core muscles needed to walk. It makes sense that when goals are out of proportion to where you are now with the skills and resources you have, you may commit to a huge goal but not be able to follow through. Do this enough times and your trust in your own abilities takes a nosedive.

Here are some suggestions:

Make a stretch goal that is in alignment with the next step of your evolution from where you are now. For example, if you dream of running sold out seminars but public speaking scares you, start with emceeing small networking events.
See a goal as a series of phases carried out over time instead of trying to do everything at once. Otherwise you are in constant learning mode and that is exhausting! As moms we have to be conscious of our energy expenditure!
Shift your perception to embrace process goals vs. outcome goals. Focusing only on the result misses the huge value of noticing who you are becoming while working on the goal. The personal pride you can take in doing something that scares you for the sake of doing it can be immediately gratifying and confidence boosting.

By consistently doing things that are a little bit scary you work up your confidence muscle in pace with who you are becoming. You give yourself time to catch up to your striving. When I first started doing free discovery calls, I was a little terrified of pitching my coaching services. But the more I practiced this, the easier it got until there was no emotion attached to it at all.

Do you think shifting your perspective on goal setting and using small powerful steps could make your business growth feel easier? I’ve noticed it certainly changes the nature of how we do things and how much joy and confidence we feel when we do. Approaching ourselves with the same nurturing touch we give our kids makes room for celebrating our growth too.

Mwah!

How To Easily Attract Your Dreams

4/20/2016

Have you ever sat back and stared out the window, and sighed to yourself wishing your life to be a certain way other than what it is? You have many dreams but you just don’t know how to go about them; so after awhile you finally give up and follow the norm.

Stepping out of your comfort zone and going after your dreams takes a lot of courage, yes. However, you deserve to be happy. It is actually our birthright to live the life of our dreams. So where do you start?

I have found vision boarding to be a successful tool I use to coach my clients. The process involves cutting and pasting pictures of all that you desire on a simple bristle board. The attraction comes from consistently visualizing these pictures every day and seeing them as your reality. Witness the attraction and success of Fatima Sumur and how she visualized her dreams into reality with her blog post …“The Power of Visioning Your Dream and Future.”

Here's a little from Fatima's Blog:
"There are two trains of thoughts when it comes to living a life of all the luxuries and dreams. One is through the traditional approach go to school get a good 9-5 job and stick to a detailed life plan based on others thoughts and expectations as to what will make you happy. The other approach is through envisioning your dream future through vision boards and a constitutional declaration of what makes you euphoric and having faith in yourself and God/Source. Both methods do require you to put effort, work and energy into them." Please click here to read more.

Mwah!

Is Your Business Taking Over Your Life?

4/13/2016

I remember the exact day and moment I was able to quit my full time job and become the entrepreneurial businesswoman I always wanted to be. A sense of freedom, joy, thrill, determination and a little fear, ran through my bones!

As my business grew, more and more responsibilities piled on my plate.
Operating a full time business and family now began to take over my life. Slowly my, “me time” became less and less.

A blessing in disguise, in my pursuit to find balance in my life, I learned a strategy that is now a program I teach my clients. Hear Johanna Hunt’s experience and how she overcame her need to find balance in her business, in her blog post…”Never Get So Busy Making a Living That You Forget To Live Your Life…”

Read Johanna's first paragraph ...

"This month I celebrated my 4th year in business. I’m big at reflecting on whats working and whats not working on a regular basis, and you may remember from some of my past blogs, I was starting to feel stuck in my business, and wondering what direction I was heading. It is not that I feared I was not going to reach the goals I had set out but was finding that I wanted to enjoy my journey more."
Please Click Here to Read More ...

Mwah!

What does your Social Media say about you?

4/7/2016

Love it or hate it social media is a key marketing tool for your business. We use it to inform, educate, persuade and convert.

Facebook ads, posts and comments.
Twitter tweets, favorites and chats.
Instagram. Periscope. Need I go on?

There are a lot of options and each platform can have it’s own purpose. You may use one to build your network while another to sell and yet another to drive traffic to your website.

Do you know what the purpose is for each of your platforms?

I’m not going to pretend that I’m a social media buff or a marketing maven, but I am in the business of asking powerful questions. Making you come up with answers so you can have clarity, gain confidence and get into action.

So I’m curious, what does your activity on social media say about you? What does it tell potential customers about your business? What is it confirming in your clients?

Try this activity:
Go onto each of your platforms and scroll through your feed. You can do this with your business, your personal one or both.

As you go through look for patterns in your activity. Then decide what is coming across as your purpose?
Now, scroll through again and come up with a list of words that describe you and your brand. Narrow it down to 3 and make sure you have proof to back it up.

These 2 are creating a snap shot of a potential experience for a client, colleague or future customer.

Obviously, if the purpose isn’t what you had hoped. For example, if you hoped to educate, but every other post is a sales pitch then you’re not living up to your purpose. It’s time to re-evaluate.

Is the way you show up in-line with your brand? Do those 3 words really describe you and/or your business? If not, work with the person in charge of your social media (so maybe you’re chatting with yourself) to re-establish the way you want to come across online. Then create your content according to that.

Remember that it’s great to get in action around tasks, but better to know exactly what your intention is 1st then move with purpose. Then review every now and again to make sure you haven’t deviated.

I’d love to know your brands 3 words. Share below!

Mwah!