Women are craving a simple, successful and completely integrated life. We’re done with fractured and fragmented pieces, juggling multiple balls in the air and ineffectively balancing conflicting priorities. Does that mean we’re done with being women? Not at all, but it does mean we’re ready to tackle it differently. Welcome to PowHERhouse.
What is strength? How do you access it? Does strength equal courage? Why is it necessary? Can you reach your ultimate potential without it? What possibilities may pass you by if you are afraid to step-out, step-up and step-forward meeting them head-on with your talents, gifts and energy a’blazing? Where would the world be today if we were all in the habit of stepping up?
These are questions that I asked – and more – when I began to write my book, Gamechanger, to be released early 2014. I wanted to know what powerful women were doing to access their strength, maximize and sustain their energy and tap into their confidence and courage whole-heartedly. To be effective leaders in this complicated and exhilarating world, we need all of our systems functioning optimally and these vital characteristics fully engaged. We need to be 100% fully alive!
Over the past year, I have interviewed 50+ PowHERhouse women. They graciously shared their success strategies, excellence habits and the important routines and rituals that keep them positive, focused, grounded and balanced.
Is life crazy for these women? You bet. Do they have stress? Definitely! Do they sometimes feel like the multiple balls they are juggling will come crashing down? Of course, that’s all part of the territory when you are living slightly beyond your comfort zone with a mission of making a difference in the world. All the more reason our strength conversation is so important – so let’s begin.
Stress and fear are two of our biggest opponents. Many times they cleverly disguise themselves as a lack of time or money but after some honest reflection we typically end up back at the root of our greatest challenge, block or deterrent, stress and fear.
In Gamechanger we talk about developing a proactive practice of exceptional living. If we want to lead highly impactful lives, we must be backed by a daily practice that encourages a foundation of energy, vibrancy, positivity and strength that can carry us through life’s ups and downs with ease and grace. Most importantly, it must carry our mission forward – from a place of strength and courage – with positive momentum.
The HIP (High-Impact Performace) women of our PowHERhouse community understand that building strength is dependent on three key pillars:
• Confidence: Knowing you have a community of supportive women behind you – a tribe – including a PowHER broker and head-hunter for those opportunities that represent a unique fit for your talents and mission builds confidence. Access to an online forum where PH Peeps provide input to your questions, challenges or wild and crazy ideas builds confidence. Expertise and feedback from our team of experts as and when they are available also build confidence. Sound advice with no emotional attachment is a valuable thing.
• Courage: Our courage grows stronger through the daily practice of effective lifestyle management. Fully integrating all of our various pieces helps to strengthen the fabric of our lives, our families and our communities both locally and globally. For years we’ve put “fitness” into a tiny little box and labeled it “weight loss”. It’s time to unleash the true power of fitness – becoming stronger on all levels.
• Capacity: We build our capacity by bridging gaps and finding folks whose strengths best compliment our own through mentoring, collaboration, alliances, communication, performance coaching, webinars and events.
Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. William Feather
Wondering how to finish off 2013 with a bang and prepare yourself for your strongest most successful 2014 ever?
In collecting input for writing Gamechanger and developing my PowHERhouse Performance Coaching Program, I talked to many women. After much filtering and prioritizing, I am pleased to share our Top 10 Excellence Habits. We encourage you to enjoy the entire conversation in my upcoming book, implement the ones that most resonate into your own daily practice, share with us some of your own and remember, the stronger we are, the stronger we are!
- Happy Transitions: HIP women plan. We do our best to ensure healthy eating, regular exercise and grounding rituals are a part of our regular daily routine with seamless transitions in our schedule rather hopeful slide-ins or add-ons.
- Connect To Your Creativity: HIP women recognize we are incredibly high-functioning beings when we operate from a creative place. We prioritize simple activities that connect us with our creativity on a regular basis. If we want to use our untapped potential, it’s time to turn up and tune into our creativity!
- Activate for Actualization: Daily exercise is our time to check-in with our goals and how we’re feeling about them. What if we used our daily activity as an opportunity to also reconnect with our dreams, visualizing their fruition and positively affirming their possibilities? If it works for elite athletes, it can and will work for us.
- Baby-steps for Consistency: Overwhelm is a deadly word. To steer clear of it, HIP women focus on baby-steps. In Gamechanger, learn all about the concept of Ballzy Goal-setting.
- Move to Magnetize: We all want to be attractive – quite literally, magnetic. Energy breeds energy. You need to move to magnetize!
- Stringent Focus: “You focus determines your future.” Athletes set a goal with a future date and work backwards to where they are at the present. What must be accomplished quarter by quarter, month by month, week by week and day by day to reach your goal? Know exactly where you want to go and the steps it’ll take to get you there.
- Sanity Scheduling: HIP women acknowledge a need for regular time throughout each day to recharge – even if it’s only for 15 minutes. Honour the natural ebb and flow of your energy and work with it to maximize your efforts.
- Your Friend, Flexibility: Many of us have forgotten the value of lengthening of bodies, our breath and our brains. HIP women recognize the importance of flexibility on many levels – our bodies, schedules, timelines, expectations and more ~ being kind to ourselves when and where we need it most. Flexibility is our friend!
- Pure and Simple Integration: Women are craving a simple, successful and completely integrated life. We’re done with fractured and fragmented pieces, juggling multiple balls in the air and ineffectively balancing conflicting priorities. Does that mean we’re done with being women? Not at all, but it does mean we’re ready to tackle it differently. Welcome to PowHERhouse. We invite you to check us out more fully.
- Progressive Resistance for Growth: Progressive resistance training is a strength-training method in which overload is constantly increased to facilitate adaption. Progressive resistance is essential for building muscle and getting stronger. In much the same way, living your life slightly beyond your comfort zone is also a strength-building method. In many instances, the only thing holding us back from what we really want is our own lack of confidence. If we use the principle of progressive resistance to slowly but surely strengthen our confidence over time, we build the muscles needed to reach our goals. HIP women agree, it’s high-time we flex these muscles!
In my opinion, strength equals courage. I have outlined some of the ways you can begin to access your own. It is necessary to do so in order to reach your ultimate potential. Don’t let possibilities pass you by. Be ready with your talents, gifts and energy a’blazing. I can’t wait to see where the world will be when we were all in the habit of stepping up, stepping out and stepping forward as High-Impact Performance women.
Wishing you all the very best!
Recommended Fall Reads From PowHERhouse:
Powering UP! Anne Doyle
Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Sandberg, China & Me, Jen Wrigley
Reinventing You, Dorie Clark
