I believe that there IS enough for all of us, and that we are all here to tap into the many blessings that have been provided to us. Shifting from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset may take time, depending on how habitual scarcity thinking is for you. It’s commonly suggested that just “thinking positive” will magically cure all the negative thinking, and that we’ll be floating in a bubble of happiness. Well, it’s not that simple.
Yes, thinking positively and having an attitude of expectation is important, but I find that, unless I anchor my thoughts in a way that I can actually feel myself moving forward, no real change takes place.
Here are some questions to begin gaining clarity on how you can start journeying towards abundance:
What often feels scarce or lacking in my life?
What effect do these scarce feelings have on other areas of my life?
How would I like to feel instead?
Feeling abundance in this area of my life would….
It’s true that we may experience things that cause us to feel vulnerable or limited in our lives. However, a scarcity mindset is a CHOICE we make, just as an abundance mindset is a CHOICE. We get to choose how we feel about the things that we observe in our lives, and this empowering gift to choose is what allows us to attract or push away what we most desire. Choosing to see things differently doesn’t ignore the fact that challenges exist. By seeing things differently, we stretch into newer versions of ourselves that ultimately allow us to attract those higher vibe things and experiences that we want in our lives. Why? Simply because we’ve changed on the inside, and once that inner change takes place, the outer reflects who we’ve become. It’s beautiful when that happens.
So, how can you move away from scarcity thinking and embrace an abundance mindset even more?
Written by Milissa Harding
Jump in with Both Feet.
Here’s the thing. Life can get tough, it can get real tough. As women and men, we are faced with decisions we need to make every single day, small daily crisis’s and sometimes big ones. We have bills to pay, mouths to feed, little people to nurture and care for and for many of us, we have elderly parents to care for. On top of that, we have jobs. We have people we are accountable to, and people that we lead. It’s full isn’t it?
We go through the motions. We do life. We just do it.
And that’s all good, and that’s admirable. But there is usually more. A lot more. And sometimes life can kick us in the pants.
We can get hurt. We aren’t treated well by our boss, or by our company. We ‘thought’ we were getting that promotion. We don’t feel fulfilled at work. Our leadership is lack lustre because we may be feeling inadequate, or insecure. Maybe you are running your own business and you feel lost, alone and fed up. After all, you do have 1.2 million daily responsibilities.
But here’s the thing, you’re a go getter. You’re a savvy business woman, you take no prisoners.
Yet… the past hurts keep you up at night.
Yes, been there. Felt it. Damn near killed me.
Here is what I know, and I was reminded of this when I was in church on Easter Sunday morning in Mexico. My good friend Bob reminded us of this; Don’t let past hurts or failures stop you from believing what you know to be true. Don’t let them stop you from moving forward’.
Of course, we can apply these simple, yet powerful words of wisdom to almost every aspect of our lives. Our belief system, our faith, our workout goals, our marriages and relationships, our careers and most importantly, our life’s purpose.
We’ve all been hurt. We’ve all been mistreated, we’ve all been disillusioned by someone or something. I take comfort in knowing I have a fellow sister tribe of others who have experienced the same thing. Vulnerability is okay, and I know I am not alone. Vulnerability is courage.
I truly believe those hurts, those lessons and those moments of WTF in our lives, are designed to make us BETTER. STRONGER. WISER. AUTHENTIC. COMPASSIONATE.
Truthfully, do we have a choice? It’s best to rise up. It’s not about winning or losing, it’s about thriving, moving forward and empowering others.
As a coach, helping others discover their superpowers and really dive into their leadership and influence in my passion, it is without a doubt what I was put on this earth to do- to pull the greatness out of you. It really was. My coach once said to me, ‘Katy, people are like your food and water, aren’t they? You just love to be with people?’ Absolutely, 100%. Thus, I know that my failures, my hurts and my disappointments only compel me to be an outstanding coach. I’m using what I thought was once going to kill me, for good.
So, do this. Sit back and think about those hurts and disappoints and think about what you can pull out of them to help YOU move forward by giving back to someone else. Discover what your passion is, and chase after it, chase after what you love and what lights you up.
Do what you just can't stop thinking about! Just jump!
Keep shining!
Katy
Katy Loewen Co.
Remember that famous Beatles song, "All you need is love?" It's really true isn't it? Yet we often forget how vital it is to our well being in the hectic world we live in. So why not take a moment now to receive and spread some love? Let's fill up your cup to the brim with its nourishing goodness!
Ask yourself these questions:
- What's filling up your cup lately?
- Where does your energy want to go?
- What have you been dreaming about doing in your life?
Contemplate your answers and choose an activity that lights you up right now and then make it happen! Here's how:
- Commit to a date to do that specific activity
- Hold yourself accountable (put it in your calendar etc.)
- Gather the support of a friend by telling them what you are up to
And set yourself up for success by carrying out your passion activity first thing in your day. Then enjoy how the rest of your day effortlessly unfolds when you put yourself first! Schedule in your passion activity weekly and see how your mood and energy begins to soar!
Lift up your love life
Often when you have many demands on your time, your relationship suffers. Here are a few playful invitations to boost your love life.
Switch sides of the bed
This exercise is a great temperature check of the state of your relationship. Is it flexible and open to change? It keeps things fresh AND it gives you a different perspective of your relationship. Change it up every 6 months. Be open to it. Don't knock it until you try it!
Create space in your bedroom for your lover
Are you pushing your partner out of the bedroom because you have too much of your stuff in it? If you are taking up more than 50% of the closet or 50% of the drawer space, you are literally and physically pushing your relationship out the bedroom door. The energy is out of balance. So pare it down, declutter and get rid of your extra stuff; those shoes, purses, clothes and items you are not using and begin to create some space for your love relationship.
Write love notes
Pop a love note into your partner's lunch bag, place it on their pillow or tuck it into a book they are reading. And you never know; maybe your lover will reciprocate and you will get a love note back! Either way, do it without expectation. Do it to express your love. And I tell you, this alone will make a huge difference.
Invest in new undergarments
Ditch the old bra and undies. Get rid of them. If you want to have more romantic energy in your love relationship, go out and splurge on beautiful matching undergarments. Not only will you feel beautiful every day when you put them on, your partner will appreciate it too. As they say, "out with the old and in with the new!"
Early to bed
Gently take your partner’s hand and lead them into your love nest an hour early. Maybe you want to have amazing conversations for that hour. Maybe you’re going to make love for that hour. Or, maybe you'll snuggle together and get more rest!
And hey, if you are single, you can do all of the above relationship boosts for you!
Infuse your life with some L.O.V.E. Soul Sista! Fill yourself to the brim!
One day I’ll write a book. I know I will. I just need to live more, I need to get a lot of living done so I can earn more wisdom, insight and perspective before I write about it.
Life has many more lessons to teach me. To date, my best teach has been my mother.
My mother was a Remarkable woman. She encouraged me to write. In fact, after the birth of our first child, I was so overwhelmed with this new kind of love that I had never experienced that I starting writing a book then. I said ‘Mum, I need to write a book! Having Mikey has been amazing, I’m so undeserving!’.
She reminded me that I am 100% deserving, and yes love, you should write all about it, all of the time. My book was/is titled ‘This Mother’s love’.
Life catches up, and we put aside the very things we feel so passionate about, I’m not sure why this happens, but it does.
Recently, my company just finished up a 3 Part Series of ‘Creating your Life’s Blueprint’. It’s not super fancy, the graphics could be better, the videos could be better….but you know what, it’s powerful as stink, and it gets us thinking about moving outside of our own heads. It’s an incredibly powerful exercise. I was taught this by my mother, a remarkable woman.
She didn’t sit me down one day and say ‘Katinka, here’s the 3 steps to creating your life’s blueprint’. No, she taught me through her actions, her life and her legacy. She has been gone now for almost 13 years. Her gifts and teachings continue to flood my memory. They inspire me and bless me.
Yes, she called me Katinka.
My passion is to give back to the world a little bit of what my mum gave me, she taught me so many beautiful things, and impacted our family tremendously.
So, being the daughter of a remarkable woman means I have big shoes to fill (although her feet were tiny) and to start dreaming, creating and building my legacy. What is that going to look like?
At the end of the day, what truly matters is our legacy. The footprint we have left, the impact we have made within the world, and how we have treated people
Every little and big thing we dotodayimpacts our tomorrow. Here’s the magic, we get to choose if it is going to positive or negative.
My mum taught me abundance. She taught me that I need to always ‘expect more’ for my life. Her greatest lesson was ‘Expect more for yourself and you can give more’. I love that.
She taught me to always go to the dentist looking sharp, the doctor looking well, and look your verybest when you go to get your hair done. ‘If you don’t value yourself Katinka, why should anyone else?’ She instilled confidence in me like crazy.
As the year is beginning to wrap up, it’s ideal to take some time out for yourself and reflect. Think about your accomplishments this past year, think about your failures, think about how you treated people, think about how you showed up everyday. Who has been a positive influence in your life, and who hasn’t. How do you feel? What can you improve? What failures have led you to the greatest opportunities?
For me, I have much to be thankful for. I have had a year of learning, discovering, celebrating, disappointments, struggles, and some sadness. All of this is designed to teach me something. I’m thankful for discernment.
So, here’s to a wonderful year ahead for all of us, here is to uncovering and leaning on our greatest teachers, here is to abundance.
Be remarkable.
In Strength,
K
Katy Loewen Co.
Leadership & Success Coach
www.katyloewen.com
katy@katyloewen.com
Since becoming a certified coach, specializing in strengths, I’ve been really intrigued with the discussion and practise (yes, practise) of empathy.
Often when I’m coaching clients, if they have Empathy as one of their top 5, they often respond with a ‘Really? I was really thinking I would have Competition, or Command. Enter sad frustrated face.
Let me say this. I get so excited when I can coach an Empath. Why? As a leadership coach, I know for certain that empathy is required to truly lead.
There are a few reasons I get so pumped about Empathy as a strength, two of my favorite writers speak on this topic frequently.
Simon Sinek talks and writes a lot of Empathy. Brene Brown also writes and delivers keynotes about empathy. I believe the world is in desperate need of more empathy. Desperate need.
Here’s what Simon Sinek has to say about empathy.
“Empathy is being concerned about the human being, not just their output.”
Leading with empathy may look something like this; ‘Hey, I’ve noticed there has been some blips in your work lately. Talk to me about what is going on? Is everything in your world ok?
How can I support you to get back to where we all need you to be?’
As opposed to: ‘Hey, I noticed you are not hitting your mark at all. In fact, your numbers are way down, the vibe of your team is low. I’m not sure how long this is going to carry on for, but it’s not going to be good for the company, or you’.
Ouch! The second example creates fear. It’s threatening. It’s aggressive. It’s de-motivating. It sucks.
The first example is a tough conversation for sure, but those tough conversations are a lot easier to have if you are having daily interactions with your teams, with those you lead.
Coming away from the first example will leave that person empowered, cared for, and she knows she is valued by you, and the whole team.
Isn’t that what leadership is all about?
Looking at empathy through a relationship lens, Brene Brown has this to say; ‘Empathy is the thread that connects us to other humans. When empathy is used in everyday life, it makes us feel more connected to one another. And when we feel connected to those around us, we turn into better, more compassionate people’.
Brene and Simon are incredible authors, and I’ve learned so much from them. Their whole vibe is about loving others, adding value and treating people with incredible respect, regardless of race, colour, religion, gender etc.
I’m also a little ‘extra’ about empathy too, as both my adult children share Empathy as their top #1 Strength- which is very cool.
Both are as different as chalk and cheese, which makes this even more fascinating to me. They have different ideas about life, about money, careers, etc. But the one thing they both have in common is their incredible love for children and animals. My son could tame a wild horse, a rabid dog or a chipmunk (I’m being ridiculous, but you get me).
My daughter has the most incredible way with children, all children. She picks up on their emotions very quickly and draws them in with her smile and gentle touch. Watching them both in Africa and Guatemala has been one of my many joys in life. To watch children climb all over them, and squeezing them so tight, is an image I will carry forever in my heart and head.
This is how their empathy shows up.
I will never forget this funny little story. We were in Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe in 2010. We were shopping at a market and the kids had some allowance burning holes in their pockets. We also went equipped with extra ball caps, socks, flip flops and granola bars.
We were in a safe place and let the kids roam free to a certain degree. Within a very short time, Mikey came back with his sack of goodies empty. He had great intentions to bargain….but it didn’t happen. I think he paid more than asking price for his carvings, and also threw in socks. In fact, he gave the shirt of his back to a child.
Now, the little one (our daughter) was a master negotiator and was overheard saying ‘Come on, I’m a broke kid from Canada, I don’t even have a job, I need a better price’. You see! Different as chalk and cheese, and both equally amazing.
Their common thread is empathy, and their dad and I are beyond proud.
So, how do we get more empathy? How can we practice empathy in our leadership and in our relationships?
Here are a few tips:
Get outside of your own head
Practice gratitude daily
Stay away from the news
Find a child and an animal to love unconditionally, no strings attached.
Think of your legacy and step (or run!) right into your leadership with both feet.
In Strength,
K
Katy Loewen Co.
Leadership & Success Coach
www.katyloewen.com
katy@katyloewen.com
Lead with Strength first. As a Strengths Coach, this just makes sense. In fact, it makes sense to most of us coaches out there. Easy to say, not necessarily easy to incorporate or live out daily.
What is this strengths stuff we are always on about? Well, let’s start with Talent first. According to Dr. Clifton, the Father of Strengths-based Psychology and the Grandfather of Positive Psychology, he believes talent is a person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors that come naturally, and are the greatest source for true potential and power. Thanks Dr. Clifton, couldn’t have said it better myself.
So, what is strength then? Strength is the ability to consistently produce a positive outcome through near perfect performance in a specific task. So, finish with Strength, but start with talent. Again, thank you Dr. Clifton.
What really drew me to becoming a Strengths coach, is the philosophy behind Strengthsfinder. Why waste time trying to perfect our weakness’s? The world is real quick to point out where we lack, what we need to get better at, and where we suck. It’s awful, and its not right.
Instead, let’s work on our alreadynatural talents, develop the hell out them and live life truly, in our very own strengthszone, yes? Yes. Yes. Yes. This was and still is very attractive to me.
So, this is where the ‘get a coach’ comes in.
The tricky part about leading with Strengths first, is that it probably won’t just naturally occur without a little support, coaching and spending time developing yourself. Enter ‘get a coach’.
We need to understand HOW to utilize our talents, partner and pair our talents, and which talents to pull out in certain situations. We need to be reminded and asked about times when we REALLY rocked it, when we were literally unstoppable…on fire if you will. Those are the moments we want to re-create, we want to live those moments again and again and again. Chances are, we are so caught up in our daily lives and telling ourselves ‘I suck’….that we have forgotten how truly powerful we are.
So, talent x investment = Strength.
As my friend John Maxwell always says, ‘Anything worthwhile is uphill.’ The most beautiful things in life take work, time and investment.
Becoming a coach has been a life changing experience for me. I walked away, literally…from a healthy 6 figure income just over a year ago to chase MY dreams, instead of someone else’s. I walked away because the values were no longer in alignment with mine. So, am I serious about strengths based leadership, absolutely. 100%
Helping people develop their greatness is the most rewarding ‘job’ I’ll ever do. I firmly believe this world needs a complete shift in how we view employee’s, management, leaders, and of course women (don’t’ get me started on that…we’ll save that for another day).
We need to celebrate success. Not consistently point out flaws. We need more ‘heart’ in the workplace, and we need confident forward thinking, strength based people to help us get there.
I’m Katy, and I want to lead with strengths first. Join me.
In Strength,
Katy Loewen Co.
Leadership & Success Coach
www.katyloewen.com
Katy@katyloewencom
