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A woman in my Dynamic Women Global Community asked me, “How do I become stronger in decision-making?” I love giving straightforward, tangible actions to questions from my clients and community. So over the next three blogs, I will share with you a 3-phase process to making great decisions.
 The troubles that come from not being strong in decision-making When you’re not strong in decision-making or you don’t feel like you’re making really good decisions, it can cause a state of worry, anxiety, procrastination, and perfectionism. If you don’t make a decision…
 If you don't have the tools or the skill set to make strong decisions, then you're going to avoid them. You might make the wrong decision out of fear. You won't go for the opportunity that is more exciting, which could also feel riskier. Instead, you…
What You Can do Now in Advance of Making Any Decision 1. Make a Life Plan It's really important to design your life. If we were putting together a business, we'd have a business plan, but so many people don't have a LIFE plan. That's the sad part because if you are not going to design your life how you ideally want it to be (not just based on reality), then you can end up making decisions according to what other people want… other people's agendas… other people's desires. Looking at the Wheel of Life helps (this is a professional coaching tool I use with my clients). We look at all 10 areas and go through them to see, Where are you now? Then, Where do you want to be? When you know your life plan, when that's super clear, it's so much easier to make decisions because you're going to compare it to what the ideal vision is and you’ll ask yourself, “How do I want my life to be and is this going to affect it?” 2. Be clear about your life purpose I do an activity around getting your life purpose statement. What I found in clients is when they know what their life purpose statement is, it helps them to make decisions because they know the path they're on. It's more obvious which decisions will take them away from that purpose, so they can choose wisely. 3. Know your current goals When you know what you want your ideal life to be and what your life purpose is, it’s much easier to create your goals. Then when you have your goals front and center, you will make decisions based on achieving those goals and it’ll be easier to stay in alignment with them.  If you do end up having to make a decision that takes you away from your goals, then you’ll have clarity on what you are saying yes to and can make a plan to adjust your current goals or create space to add in another one. When you have these three things, you will have a strong foundation to be able to not only make a decision but then to go after it with more confidence and more focus. Stay tuned for the next 2 blogs in this series where I will share what to do in the moment of making the decision so it’s easier and after it to stay strong and confident in your decision. If you have any questions, just send me an email [email protected].
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No one has time to be sick, including me. I got COVID last February. I had an intense cough, body chills, body aches, and headache that I just could not break. In this blog, I will share with you five things that I know through the coaching world that can really help you in times when you're sick, have an injury, even when you're having emotional struggles or there’s a tragedy that's going on in your life.  (Full transparency: I'm sure you already know this, I am not a doctor. This is not official medical advice.) These are lessons that I learned along the way and things I'm quite proud of myself for actually putting into place when normally my default would have kept me working and not recovering quickly. 1. Be self-aware. Listen to how you're feeling. This is going to help you to be able to know when you’re mentally, physically, emotionally not well, or if you are getting sick in another way. It's going to help you catch it a lot sooner. On my COVID journey, I first had a cough I felt was not normal. I knew I needed to deal with it and figure out what it is. Listen to yourself, not just in the beginning, but all the way through whatever is happening to you. Then you can make better choices. You'll be able to make choices to not push yourself. I had to make a tough decision to cancel a whole week of clients. Day 3 was the hardest because it was the start of my Dynamic Year Program and I really wanted to do it. I was thinking, how can I do this? Maybe instead of a two-hour session, I could do a one hour session. Could I record something and send it? In the end, I thought: What am I doing? Why am I asking myself, “How can I make this happen?” I need to just rest! I know what the answer was… It’s because my values of commitment are so strong. I thought I can still make this work, but to what damage? How tired would I be that day? Are my clients getting the best of me? Are they getting me as their most amazing coach or are they getting the sick me that's just trying to throw things together? When you're self-aware, you can really check in with…
Not, how can I still live up to all of my commitments and responsibilities right now? That's not the question. When you are sick or you're going through hard times, think about how YOU are doing and give yourself what YOU need. 2. Say ‘Yes’ to help. You may be thinking, “I was sick before and no one helped me. I don’t need the help.” But the key to this is letting other people know you're sick and just how bad you are. This is not to say you go on social media and say, “I'm very sick, people. Come and help me.” But let those close to you know, like neighbors, family and friends. For me, I also let my women’s church group know. Then when they offer help, say “Yes”. They may offer something physical. They might just tell you they're going to do it. Like I had some lovely people say,
Sometimes it's easier to receive when people just do it. But if they say, “Can I pick anything up for you? Can I get you anything?” Answer “YES!” I've had someone pick up a couple of things I needed, and when she asked I felt comfortable saying ‘Yes.’ She got me some vitamins and some other things I really needed like groceries. That was just so helpful because at the time, I didn't even feel like getting up to go get more water or to go to the bathroom. So say ‘Yes’ to these people. Give them the ability to support you because you would probably support them (or maybe you already have), so why not give them the chance to reciprocate back to you. I was also lucky to have a girl from my soccer team tell me she was going to chop up some vegetables and get some chicken and some broth and bring it so it’d be easy for me to make soup. I really appreciated that. My kids normally walk together, but because my daughter had band practice before school, my son had to go to school about 50 minutes later. I was so worried, How am I going to get them there? I cannot function. I cannot get in the car and drive them. I can't walk them, what do I do? I reached out to my neighbors to ask if they would bring my kids to school. To have them help was just so wonderful. Also, have others pick up the slack for you. This might mean delegating something that you normally do. Pass off work to team members and chores to family. For the most part, my husband was not sick in the beginning. So I thought, “No, it's okay, he can do these things instead of friends.” But he has to take care of other jobs and take care of me. I'm glad I said ‘Yes’ because he had his own things going on. You have to ask yourself, “Is my head is above water?” If Yes, how long will it be because as soon as my husband and my kids started getting sick, I actually had to step into the nurse role, which is often the case for moms so I didn't really get to rest fully. 3. Up your nutritional intake. You know if you put good food in you, you're going to heal a lot faster. So those soups and other clean foods are a great idea. But also think about supplements, vitamins, tinctures, teas, even IV drips, whatever it is. For my vitamin C, I tripled it. But instead of taking it all at the same time, I took it throughout the day - morning, lunch, dinner.  Also taking way more vitamin D than I normally take. As well as listening to others and their approach to getting healthier. I heard that Selenium and elderberry gummies are good. Don’t be afraid to ask friends to drop off more vitamins, supplements, fruits, vegetables, clean food and to even have them prepare it. If that means you pay them for it, or they just make it out of the goodness of their heart, that's fine. I had someone say she’s going to Costco and asked if I needed anything. I gave her a full list because I knew that that would get me through many days of not having to go to the grocery store. I really, really appreciated that. The next two items my Naturopath reminded me to do and I was a bit annoyed to have to do them. 4. Prioritize your health. Now, this one is super hard for me. In the beginning of being sick, it was easy because I couldn't do anything. I was just lying there. I couldn't read. I couldn't get my head around things. I did not go into the office at all. I just canceled everything and prioritized myself. If I want to get healthier and recover, I have to prioritize my health. It sounds obvious, right? But I thought I could play soccer. My Naturopath said, “No, Diane, you should wait two to three weeks.” I was asking, “Well, is it just the cardio piece of it? What if I was just to play a little bit? Or what if I was just going for light runs or just do pilates?” She said, “No, you shouldn't. You shouldn't do any of it for another couple of weeks at least. Then ease back into pilates and some walks. Bring soccer back last” It was so frustrating because I've spent so much time being injured that I'm finally back into soccer. I'd be missing a whole lot more games, which was really hard for me because commitment is such a huge value of mine. Also, I just wanted to play since I was injury-free. But to give up soccer, pilates and hiking and these things that I just physically could start doing was so frustrating. I just felt gutted. I had to say no to things I love. Things that I had already prioritized. Things that I committed to. That's what was really, really hard. But at that moment, I needed to prioritize myself and my health. That's the same for you. So I said ‘Yes’ to working a light schedule. I said ‘Yes’ to pushing off some of the things that didn't have to be done right away and I did my best to prioritize my health. Sometimes you need to hear it from a doctor so you don't make the decision for yourself and someone else steps in and advocates for you.  All of these four really come down to the last one. 5. Rest. Rest is so important. You might be thinking you can rest at night or take a nap in the day. That's great. But are you getting enough rest entirely throughout the day? OR Did you just jump back into your schedule 100% ? That's not easing back in. That's making it really hard for yourself. While you may think, “It's okay I can do it.” You may be getting through it, but at what cost? Sleep is crucial. When I had COVID, there were nights when my sleep sucked. I kept waking myself up coughing. My problem is I like achieving and so even when I’m sick, I want to listen to a podcast, read a book, and move myself forward. What if achieving was, how good can you get it resting? How good can you get at being kind to yourself? I hope you can avoid getting COVID. You may have had it already. No matter what, at some point, you're going to get sick or you're going to hurt yourself or you're going to need a mental health day. You're going to have a tragedy or something and so remember these five things:
Now again, I'm not a doctor. But what I have found from personal use of these as well as talking with clients is that we push ourselves so much that we don't always let ourselves just be present and be in flow. Care for yourself, because really, you are the most important person in your life. You are worthy of being cared for not only by yourself, but by others. If you want to chat about being overwhelmed or having a hard time doing these steps, contact me at [email protected] and let’s see how I can help you to move forward. Read my other blogs here:
Have things felt a little bit crazy for you? Are you going through a hard time? Well, you're not alone. It’s been more than two years since the pandemic started, and it’s unclear if it will ever end.  I was honored to be invited to put my story in for 100 Empowered Voices: Stories of COVID-19 Lockdown, volume 3, which was published in the UK. It's compiled by Carol Azams. In this blog, I will share with you the five ways I kept my business and life going during the pandemic that I shared in the book. If you feel that life's a bit crazy right now and has been since 2020, you're not alone! When the pandemic hit, I was on the other side of Canada and had a whole week of business scheduled. I had to cancel it all. On and on, the pandemic has continued, with no in-person events, mastermind discussions, and programs. As a specialized coach of female business leaders, community and connection are crucial to my work; COVID restrictions and lockdowns changed it all. I needed to find a new way forward. As difficult as it has been in business. In 2020, the fabric of our family was torn apart suddenly by the death of my father. I was unanchored, struggling personally with the loss, and heartbroken seeing my mother without her husband. The loss compounded as my children continued at home without the daily structure of school and friends. Life felt overwhelming. I can't lie; there were dark moments, but I knew I needed to rise and change things, not only for myself but for my family and my business. I love what I do, and it fuels me. This fuel allowed me to create strategies to help me through the pandemic-related business upheaval and create space to allow myself and my family to heal. I employed five strategies that allowed me to protect my mental health and stay on track, enabling me to create a new business success model. It is these five ways that I want to share with you. It's important to note this can be used at any time. Anytime there is some struggle or obstacle or a consistent strain in your life, you can come back to these five ways even if it's a small thing that's happening in your life. These five different ways will really help you to move forward and to make life easier. 1. Change your perspective As a coach, I know perspective is vital. Instead of feeling stuck, we can look to our point of view, and if it’s not supporting, helping, or keeping us in a positive frame of mind, we can change it. COVID created the opportunity of a perspective shift from: "I’m restricted! I have to stay at my home.” To, “I now have time to get caught up and enjoy my passions." To go from "I can't do business like I was. It’s going to be so much work." To, “Here is an opportunity to streamline things and do less travelling.” Ask yourself, what’s your current view of your situation? What are some new perspectives you could have? Try them on; new perspectives shift you from being a victim of your circumstance to step into more positive energy and resourcefulness. 2. Look inward. Don’t look to outward things to calm yourself and to make you feel good. Instead, we need to go inward into ourselves and reflect on what we need right now. Do you need meditation? Prayer? Sleep or reading? Maybe you want to spend time with yourself and your passions. Look inward to see what you need because that's where you can feel fulfilled and recharged. Focusing on yourself will build your inner strength. I slowed down, joined Grief Share at my church, took naps and went on hikes. Going inward is going to develop your emotional stamina and increase your emotional and energy bandwidth.  3. Show gratitude. Negativity doesn't serve anyone. We all know those people who complain about the weather today and something else tomorrow. All this attitude does is welcome more negativity and more stress into your life. You’re doing yourself a disservice by focusing on the negatives. I faced ongoing business challenges throughout the pandemic, including my Facebook account being permanently disabled; consequently, I lost 15 years of friendships, photos and some of my business pages and groups. I did not let it stop me. I showed up in gratitude, sharing my first-hand experience and instructing others how to protect their Facebook profiles, groups, and pages by doing a two-part blog series in addition to an episode on my Dynamic Women Podcast. Was I ticked? Of course! But staying focused on that didn't help me to get my Facebook page back. I also lost all of my Facebook ads. I looked at it as a chance to start fresh and to only add back in friends and connections that add value to my life. (Side note, if I didn’t add you back it could just be that I haven’t found out you were missing yet.) 4. Focus on systems. You might be feeling overwhelmed, talking about your problems, and concentrating on the challenges that are happening in your business. You're focusing too much on what’s wrong. When in fact, you should be focusing on how to fix it with your systems. When we focus on what's wrong, we are not seeking to understand how to improve it. For systems, I’m referring to step-by-step processes combined to tell you how you will do something. I spent time looking at how I was running my life and business. Our family embraced positive habits and routines. I brought in two Virtual Assistants and started to hone the systems and processes we used while also delegating and empowering more. We can move forward more easily when we run on consistent, repeatable actions and procedures.  5. Get creative. COVID has been challenging. It is hard to take the blinders off when we are feeling stress. Yet, we can move forward by putting our energy into being creative. For example, perhaps you can get creative in cooking or making sales and shift the lens in approaching challenges. I got creative with the in-person Confidence Summit. I moved it to an online platform and brought in the Confidence Fast Start Online Course and Experience box that I shipped to attendee’s homes. It became a new creative experience. I knew we all needed to connect and feel part of a community. It was a huge success and expanded my coaching practice. Now I ask you, which of these five strategies will you implement into your life and business? Reach out to me and share your response. Even if you can only pick one right now, imagine how much better your life would be! I could have chosen to be unmotivated and spiral down from the events of Covid time, but I decided on taking action with these strategies. So can you. If you need more support with some coaching to take action, reach out to me. Let's have a chat to see what your needs are and how I can help you to reach your goals faster.
In my last blog, I shared with you a story of where I judged myself. I also let you know about the four reasons why you might judge yourself, too.  Now I’ll share how you can stop judging yourself, but first another story… I was a very avid rugby player until I was 29 when I tore my ACL. Back in my glory days, I played for my city in a highly competitive league, and I also played varsity rugby for my university. I remember when we got into the championship final with my Brantford Harlequins team. We had to travel 1.5 hours to Niagara Falls and play the top ranked team. They are from a larger city, so they have a larger pool of girls to choose their team from. Us, on the other hand, were begging people to just show up and play. Playing short… playing in the heat… playing the top team… We were definitely like a David and Goliath situation. We dug deep. We had trained all season to be in the best shape of our lives. What it really came down to in the end was we needed one more try to win. During the game, I kicked a bunch of points through the posts. That was one of my roles on the team. In the end, I scored the final try - kind of like a touchdown in football. We knew we had the win. There wasn't enough time for the other team to be able to come back and score. The final thing to do to kill the time was for me to kick it through the posts. Because I had scored a good try right between the posts, I was able to set up right in front and it was super easy. But for some reason, I MISSED. I missed the easiest kick ever! I was so embarrassed. Everyone was watching me. Everyone saw how terrible that kick was. We ended the game without the points. But… We still won. It didn't matter at all. Thanks to me, the points I'd kicked before, and that try I just scored. We won the championship! I should have been happy. We came back. We had our David and Goliath moment. We won. Yet, I started crying because I missed the kick. I was judging myself so hard. My self-worth was at its lowest. My teammates were consoling me and reminding me that I helped win the game and that it was my try that won the game. SOOOO me missing that kick didn’t matter. I can still see the championship team photo. The girls jumping and holding up the number 1 finger. Then me standing there with other girls’ arms around me and my face in sadness. I couldn’t enjoy the win because I was judging myself. Now ask yourself:
I'm super passionate about this because I see this in my clients and I've suffered from it. I still have to keep myself in check because there are different areas of life where I judge myself. It makes me sad because I see what my clients are missing out on in their lives because they judge themselves so harshly.  We always feel we can be better, and so we're always striving. That means we fill up every moment of every day constantly trying to be better. That we're joining this or joining that or reading this or listening to that. It's tiring. It's overwhelming. What if we loved and acknowledged who we are today? I realized we have a day to honor our love for our partner, but we don't really have a day to love ourselves. So what do you love about yourself?
When was the last time you actually wrote down what you love about yourself? Never or can’t remember? How about today?  When are you going to love yourself? And what do you currently love about yourself? Not just what you loved about yourself before because then we might get into judgment about how you're not that anymore. I mentioned in my last blog that we’re not giving ourselves grace for mistakes. I was probably the worst at that. It stopped me from being in the present because I was judging myself in the moment. Now, I'm just okay with what is. I give myself grace because I'm not perfect. I now have more of a growth mindset, knowing that every time I do something, I will grow. Every time I do something, especially when it's new, I'll make a ton of mistakes. Four steps that you can do to stop judging yourself First thing you can do is review past accomplishments and let disappointments go. I do this in the Dynamic Year Program. Reviewing past accomplishments is just stage one of the program. It's very simple, three stages, but so powerful. By reviewing past accomplishments, we can see all the good we have done. One of the years I did this with two other coaches because I make sure that I go through the process as well, every single year. I said, “I don't think I accomplished that much last year.” The ladies laughed, and said, “You're missing one major thing. You had a baby.” I'm like, “Yeah, but that was gonna happen anyway.” I diminished the fact that I grew a human being in my body and then delivered that baby and nursed that baby and kept that baby alive while still running my business. I diminished all that. That was nothing. That was gonna happen anyway. But when I review my past accomplishments in Dynamic Year, and then let my disappointments go, I get motivation from those accomplishments. I get the “I am amazing feeling”. I get to boost my “I am enough” confidence and in letting disappointments go and grabbing the wisdom from them, it’s so amazing to be able to rid yourself of the negative looping that happens in your brain, “I shoulda, coulda, woulda done that better.” The second thing is to unfollow or reduce notifications from people who trigger you. If you're on social media and it just annoys you to see someone achieving so much it might be good to get some coaching on that, first of all, to see what it is about them that you really wish you had or could be. But if you're working on your own journey of self-love, then maybe it's time to unfollow them, reduce the notifications sent from them, at least for a little while. Take a break for a week. Take a break for a month, and then get the underlying reason for it. If you are experiencing this, then I encourage you to email me [email protected] so that we can have a coaching conversation on this. The third thing is to practice daily self-acknowledgement. I have created the Dynamic Year Journal. It's nothing you've ever seen before. It has the ability to boost your confidence. You’ll be able to bring in your accomplishments and grab the learning from them so you can see, “Wow, look at all the awesome things I've done” and celebrate them. If you want one of the Dynamic Year Journals, you can get them on Amazon. Or if you're close to me, I live in North Vancouver, BC Canada then you can come grab one. The fourth thing is to surround yourself with women who will be your fans. Women who will cheer for you. Women who will support you when things are hard or when you're really at a low point. Women who will hold up the mirror to you to remind you of how awesome you are. Now in the She's Goaled Program, there is that opportunity to have not only me be your support, me to bring you up, but also to be with other female business leaders who can really be on this journey with you. To give you a little pep talk when you're down on yourself and to really hold you up high. So many times in my life, being in a mastermind with other women, having them believe in me more than I believed in myself has been crucial for my success. I've had so many moments of doubting myself and judging myself, and to have them reflect back to me, who I truly am, has helped me to strive for more… has helped me to really step fully into the person I was meant to be. As I wrap up here, just want to say, I really hope you find time every day to love yourself. That you catch when you're judging yourself and you turn it around and stop your saboteur in its tracks because I know there are great things meant for you, but it first starts with loving yourself. P.S. Get your free copy of the Balanced Leader Cheat Sheet so you can create a more balanced life.
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