We make many choices every day that keep us in our comfort zone.  There is nothing wrong with our comfort zones....unless we don’t get out of them on a consistent basis or never get out them at all.  A few indicators you might be stuck in your comfort zone are:

• Boredom
  
• Uncreativeness
  
• Feeling trapped
  
• Low energy levels
  
• Inconsistent positive mood
  
• Analysis paralysis
  
• Feeling weighed down (sometimes shows up as physical body weight)
  

How often do you say, “I don’t have time” or “There just aren’t enough hours in the day”?

I hear statements like these at least once a day, sometimes more.  It always strikes me as bullshit.  Why? Because it really isn’t true.  We all have the same amount of time available to us each day.  It really boils down to the choices we make in our lives daily, monthly and yearly.

Pantries are one of the most used areas of a living space.  Because of this, they tend to be vulnerable to clutter and disorganization.  Without a plan and structure, they often fall back to disorganization quickly.  An organized pantry gets a lot of traffic---so when it is cluttered, it can directly affect your mental space.  (see my post on the link between mental space and physical clutter here.)  Are you ready to be done with a cluttered pantry?  Below are some basic guidelines to help you get it organized.

Many people go to the grocery store without a plan.  Without a plan, it often means you spend more, buy stuff you don’t need, don’t buy the stuff you do need and basically waste time.  Unless you LOVE to grocery shop, the 6 tips I offer below will help you save money and get in-N-out of the grocery store fast and effectively.

**Organized Food Shopping = Saving $$$**

Write a list!  Start it and add to it as you go along.  Check your pantry BEFORE going to the grocery store.  Don’t rely on your memory.   I have a good memory and I always forget something if I don’t have my list.

Do you answer Yes to any of the following questions:

• Have you ever missed an event because you misplaced the information?
  
• Would your life be easier if you improved your paper habits?
  
• Do you keep things because you might need them later, then rarely look at them and when you do, declare:  “I might need them later?”
  
• Do you delay tidying up cluttered areas because you fear the task will turn into a long, involved project?

Many people struggle with being disorganized.  We hand control over to the things we own:

1. Embarrassed to have people over
   
2. We can’t find things
   
3. We can’t move freely in our space
   
4. We struggle with mind clutter

These are all things disorganization places on us.  We feel overwhelmed mentally and our living space reflects the overwhelmness.  Then they feed on each other--it is an endless cycle.

I typically struggle to explain mind clutter to people. If you look at the phrase literally, then one might think it means having so many thoughts going on in your mind you cannot think straight. However, one could argue everyone has a million things going through their mind, so does that mean everyone has mind clutter? Not exactly. Mind clutter exists in people who have so many things going through their mind it’s preventing them from achieving other things.

Let me explain with an example. The other day I was discussing mind clutter with a friend. In a sort of “aha!” moment, she said, “Oh, so there’s this penny that fell on my living room carpet on Saturday. All weekend I walked past that penny, noticing it, but never taking the time to bend over and pick it up. Finally, on Monday morning, I picked it up and placed it on a table. What’s funny is I have a loose change jar. So, even though I picked the penny up, I still haven’t completed the process of putting it away. I wonder what’s holding me back?"

Stop “talking the talk” and start “walking the walk.” I ask this of clients all the time because it's so easy to fool ourselves we’re doing enough, when we really aren’t. I recently experienced this myself! I thought I was not fooling myself, but that’s exactly what I was doing, in more than one area of my life. I kept bemoaning, “Why, oh, Why?! I’m working so hard to change!” Yet, life was showing me a different reflection...the opposite of what I supposedly really wanted.  When I looked closer at the reflection, I had to admit, maybe I was actually getting what I was asking for.  Yep, I was in denial of what I really, really wanted. It was bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Leaders are made, not born.  Of course, some leaders have natural ability, natural charisma, they may be extroverts, charming, enchanting.  But that doesn’t mean they know how to effectively lead a group of people.  When I work with business owners, a common area they are looking to develop is leadership.  Business owners intuitively are driven to make effective decisions to make their business successful, but they aren’t always effective in translating these skills to their employees.  Coaching helps bridge this communication gap.   

When you think about it, leadership encompasses many things, and most, if not all of us, have no training on the dimensions of leadership.  But we can learn and most importantly, we can adjust accordingly, depending on what group you are leading.

There are 17 definitions of ‘lead’ on dictionary.com, I just picked three of them I thought were the most relevant to leading an organization and/or business:

When we think of compassion, we may think of offering it to others, but not necessarily to ourselves.

First of all, why would we even need compassion for ourselves?  Don’t we only need compassion when we are going through a very difficult time in life or are experiencing horrible physical pain?

Yes, compassion is needed in those situations, but those are only the extremes.  Why not offer ourselves compassion with any kind of suffering.?  You are suffering when you resist what is present in every moment.  You are suffering when you are waiting in line and you get angry or irritated.  You are suffering when you are sitting in traffic and feel antsy and trapped.  In these cases, we direct our anger at the person or car in front of us. We may also get angry at ourselves for not being patient.  But the anger at ourselves for feeling this way is just more suffering.

Do you commit to a book even when you are bored with it?

In 2010, Google managed to count the amount of books in the world--128 million. If you read one book a week and live to your mid-80's, you will have read 4100 books. That's 0.003% of the books in the world.  You won't even skim the surface.

Now imagine if you only read one book a month.  That's under 1000 books.  Your lifetime reading accomplishment stat goes to 0.00075%.  

All this tells me life is very short.  When it comes to reading, make your time count.