Insights for the Savvy

Issue #14

October 3, 2003

Claudette Rowley
MetaVoice Coaching & Consulting

Welcome to our many new subscribers! Thanks for joining us.

Does your vision need a tune up? Starting this month, I'm pleased to offer a new service: Vision Tune Up sessions. These sessions are one hour long, and designed to help you explore, articulate and focus on your vision for business, life or career. Click here for more information.

My best to you for a great month!

Claudette

Insight of the Month

Take a Stand for Yourself

Maintaining balance in your life is a common concern these days, usually posed as an issue of work/life balance. People who seek work/life balance often want to work less and have more time and energy for family or for other interests. However, this month, I'd like to look at balance through a different lens.

At its core, I believe that maintaining "balance" means examining how fully we value and honor ourselves. And to fully value and honor ourselves, sometimes we need to take a stand. We already take stands for causes we believe in, we advocate for our children, and champion our friends as they go after their dreams. Yet sometimes we forget that the most important person to take a stand for is the one we greet daily in the bathroom mirror.

Taking a stand means different things to different people. Here are some examples:

• In the midst of a successful career and a growing family, your political consciousness is activated and you join in a protest about an issue close to your heart.

• You buck the family expectation that you'll use your law degree in a big downtown law firm. Instead, you use your legal skills to protect the environment.

• You're from a family of artists and writers, but you go to business school instead.

• You tell your family and friends that you are going to take care of yourself first -starting now.

These are big, life-altering examples. You also take a stand for yourself when you say, for example, "I'm not cooking dinner on Friday nights" or "From now on, I'm leaving work by 5:30pm" or "I'm for the first time committed to losing these 20 pounds".

Sometimes the stand you've taken may not be popular amongst those nearest and dearest to you. And sometimes, you'll feel everyone is cheering you on! Sometimes it's a little of both. In any case, you have stretched into unknown territory.

Tips for taking a stand:

• Gain clarity: What do you want? What action, if any, do you need to take?

• Carve out some time and space to reflect and listen to yourself. What does your intuition tell you?

• Recognize that your energy for taking a stand ebbs and flows.

• Engage your support system. Talk about your goals with people who know you and truly listen.

• Know that you always have a choice. What may feel like balance one day may not feel like it the next.

When you take a stand for yourself, you contribute to the world in a bigger way than you could ever imagine. The ripple in the pond analogy fits: When you value yourself and what you need, you inspire others to do the same thing. What would the world be like if each of us took a stand?

Now It's Your Turn

• Where do you need to take a stand in your life? What's the biggest obstacle, if any? Who do you need on your support team?

• This week, take one step toward honoring yourself more fully. What do you want right now?

Here's What You Need To Know

• NEW Vision Tune Up Sessions! I'm now offering you the opportunity to spend one hour exploring, articulating and focusing on your vision for business, life or career. To schedule your session or for more information, please contact me today at info@metavoice.org or 781-676-5633.

• Order your copy of A Guide to Getting: A Clear, Compelling Vision today! Click here for more information and to order http://www.metavoice.org/book

• For a list of articles available for free reprint, send e-mail to articles@metavoice.org, or visit my website at http://www.metavoice.org.

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Different Voices

• "If we allow ourselves to always choose in the safest way - a way that has been adopted for us by others, we will never honor the real life in us." - Marsha Sinetar

• "The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably in thought and act." - Orison Swett Marden

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