happiness

What We Were Taught About Happiness That Isn’t True

happiness

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn about the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

What are you overthinking or trying to control right now that is getting in the way of your happiness today? What would happen if you let go of the overthinking and the control that too often hinders you? Recently, I had the opportunity to spend a week in Jamaica with my family, where I was reminded of valuable lessons from the people I met there.

In this episode, I share the message I received and provide you with an important tool to shift your energy towards living in the present moment and becoming someone who no longer must manipulate the world to feel ok but instead is happy even when things don’t follow the plan. In a world where positivity can be a struggle, let’s explore how you can improve your state of mind without relying on external circumstances.

Getting away with the family to connect

I recently returned from a vacation with my family to Jamaica. I was late planning the trip; I realized that with three kids ending school at different times over the course of an entire month and with very different activities scheduled, it was important that I get our fivesome to step away from our schedules, if only for a few days. 

I had been given the recommendation to go to Jamaica by a client who discussed the pros of a direct flight and the beauty of the island, and I jumped on it. As we approached our descent, I realized how little I knew about the place I’d booked, and reminded the family that we all needed to keep an  “open-mind.”

When we made it to the hotel, I saw that it was going to be ok. Everyone would be fed and have a clean place to sleep. Then I got the news: Jamaica was just beginning its rainy season. I looked at the weather forecast for the week. Yep. Rain was indeed forecasted every day, holy crud! I started to think about how I could navigate this.

Everything is a blessing

Every time we were at an activity, I’d ask the waitress serving breakfast, the men beautifying the landscape, or the staff signing us up for our tubing excursions, “Do you think it’s going to rain? How long will it last?” The response was always calm and in direct opposition to my own lower frequency.

On our second sunny morning when we went to rent the boat for tubing, I asked the same question of a Jamaican man helping us.  He had a grounded presence about him. He gave me his full attention. I asked, “Do you think it’s going to rain?  When it rains here, how long does it typically rain?” Then he looked up as if to check the skies — and slowly in his Jamaican accent said, “I do not know, but everything is a blessing.”

“Everything is a blessing.” He was right. For over two days the skies had been sunny, the weather beautiful, my family enjoying the adventures, and I was missing the moment. 

How often do we resist or try to manipulate things in our life — even the ones over which we have no control?  How much energy do we expend on living in worry about a future that may not even happen? And how much joy do we lose resisting what is. Certainly, if it rained there was nothing I could do about it.  

It took a few days to break my conditioned pace of trying to line up everything as I thought would be best.  I reminded myself that in reality, I have no idea what is best. How many times have I thought something ‘shouldn’t’ have happened, only later to find out it gave me EXACTLY what I’d needed and wanted from the start?

It turns out that the afternoon rains (more like torrential downpours) did occur. They provided a great chance for our whole family to go back to our living quarters and hang out — which was exactly the intention of the trip.

There are things that do not go the way we think is best — everyday. We miss flights. The project is not received well. We’re late to our kid’s baseball game because we didn’t see the time change. Then there are the bigger things like jobs ending, businesses faltering, relationships ending or we grow tired of doing what we’ve been doing.

Jamaican culture reminded me once again of the importance of slowing down and looking for the backdoor gift or alternative opportunity that is presenting itself.  I saw that savoring the present moment is a choice. That what I’d been taught about happiness isn’t true.  It’s not when all of my external circumstances align. 

The constant rush we often find ourselves in leads to unnecessary stress and prevents us from fully experiencing life’s richness. By adjusting our pace and letting go of attempting to control it all and instead trusting it will all be ok, we heal our nervous systems and create space for what truly matters. Life isn’t a race, and there’s no scorekeeper. 

The importance of embracing the moment

Throughout my conversations with the Jamaican people, I noticed their ability to stay present and appreciate life’s blessings, even amid struggles. They were evidence that life is as we choose to see it.  

Our perspective determines how we perceive difficulties. Whether it’s minor inconveniences or significant setbacks, there is always an opportunity for growth and gratitude. When we accept that everything is a blessing, even during tough times, we can tap into a deeper sense of happiness and inner peace.

What are you struggling with that in your mind is not going as you desire it?

I know it can be hard in the midst of going through whatever the struggle is, to feel happy. Let’s be clear, it’s not about lying to yourself or trying to fake yourself out. Instead, it’s about asking “What blessing am I not choosing to see? What opportunity am I missing?” 

So often our ego is running the show and telling us what it thinks is right. It’s inflated with its opinion. When we recognize that we have always been ok, we currently are  ok and that we will always be ok, we raise our state of mind.  

So how do we shift to a higher state of mind…

We can choose to see life as a blessing by embracing the present moment and quieting our noisy minds. 

We can take time for silence each day to allow us to harness our inner wisdom and navigate life with greater clarity.

We can prioritize our well-being and connect with our Higher Self in order to transcend the distractions of the outside world and find joy within.

We can remember that everything is a blessing if we choose to see it as so.

Happiness is not a destination but a state of being found within ourselves

I was reminded once again that happiness isn’t a faraway thing. It’s not complicated and hard to get.  Happiness isn’t only when it’s sunny, but can be had even when it rains. 

In this episode, I share:

  • How every situation, whether it aligns with our desires or not, can be seen as a blessing.
  • Simple habits to help find happiness within ourselves rather than relying on external conditions, rewards, or circumstances by spending time in silence, harnessing the mind, and not succumbing to the noisy world or one’s own noisy mind.
  • A way to see challenges and struggles as opportunities for personal growth by shifting perspectives and being open to new possibilities, and as a result, we can navigate through them and find a better day ahead.

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

strong coach

How To Hire a Strong Coach In Your Corner

strong coach

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn about the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

 

Do you feel like life is going too fast? Are you tolerating things?  Perhaps you’re going through a transitional phase, or, as a leader, you understand more than ever that it’s lonely at the top.

Imagine how great it would feel to have someone by your side, offering support, and lifting some of that weight off your shoulders. No matter who you are and what stage of your career, business, or life, every one of us deserves to have a strong coach in our corner.

In this episode, I’m sharing what it’s like to receive professional coaching when it’s a good time to hire a coach, and how to identify a strong coach that’s right for you. I’m giving you the gritty and remarkably relevant information you need to know and what those driven to excel are doing differently, so you can achieve your own success. 

Not all coaches are the same.

With varying levels of experience, expertise, methodologies, and styles, the sheer number of options can sometimes feel overwhelming. However, the one common goal shared by all coaches is to help you achieve results more efficiently and with less difficulty than if you were doing things on your own.

When looking for the right coach, knowing what results you want from the process is imperative to determine which type of coach you need.

The Business Coach

A business coach helps you set goals, identify opportunities, and grow your business. Unlike a consultant or boss, a coach holds you accountable and draws out your expertise, experience, and insights. They enable you to see beyond the day-to-day tasks to better understand your business.

The Health Coach

A health coach helps you achieve greater energy and vitality. They assist in developing a strategy for optimal health and hold you accountable. There are various subsets within this category, such as weight coaches and strength coaches, so clarity about your specific goals will make it easier to identify the right health coach for you.

The Personal Life Coach

A life coach is dedicated to helping you overcome both visible and invisible limitations. They assist in increasing self-awareness and eliminating repetitive self-sabotaging patterns or blind spots holding you back. The goal of a personal life coach is to align your life with your priorities, ensuring that all areas of your life are in balance. 

The Leadership Coach

A leadership coach helps you develop the skills to stay motivated, even in challenging times, and positively influence those around you. Personal life coaching and leadership are interconnected because you can’t lead beyond who you are. The extent to which you expand yourself and increase self-awareness directly correlates with your leadership growth, enabling you to support others in reaching higher performance levels.

So, what exactly does a strong coach do?

Coaches are guides to help bring forth your wisdom, your expertise, your existing levels of intelligence, and the resources you already have. They help you achieve higher-level results with less pain and in less time than if you did it alone. Strong coaches engage you in a way that encourages you to show up as a higher version of yourself, to think bigger, and to unleash your potential.

There are five qualities of a strong coach:

  1. They focus on and get real results for their clients.
  2. They support and challenge you in equal measure.
  3. They listen and ask questions that evoke new ideas and expose opportunities you wouldn’t have otherwise.
  4. They have their own coach and continue to grow themselves.
  5. They reflect you accurately, rather than project themselves and their own values onto you. 

The most important criteria for finding the right coach is not who has the most training, certifications or the most followers but who is the best fit for you.

To start your search, reach out to your place of work or ask others if they’ve worked with a coach. When conversing with a coach, ask questions about their methodology or style to determine if it aligns with your goals. Do they meet in the way you want to meet? Do they have one-on-ones or group coaching? Who is their ideal client?

How to know it’s a good time to hire a coach:

  1. You feel stuck. Some category of your life is off, and you can’t progress using the same means as you have in the past.
  2. You’re ready to get to the next level. You’re already successful but want to elevate or expand your abilities.
  3. You’re in a position of leadership. You need new ideas, thoughts, perspectives, and someone to challenge you.
  4. You’re in a transitional period. This can be a divorce, a birth, a death, or a number of things.
  5. You want to change a specific area of your life. This can be a habit or something that is holding you back.
  6. You’re experiencing burnout. The way you live isn’t sustainable, or you’re indecisive and unable to take action.
  7. Fear is getting the better of you. It’s thwarting you and not allowing you to move forward.

Many believe they should be able to do everything on their own. However, this mindset can be a hindrance to personal growth and fulfillment. Putting yourself into a silo limits progress, enjoyment, and overall experience. Our brains often resist change and uncertainty, leading us to believe that things won’t work out. To overcome this, we must ask ourselves, “What if it did work out?” and explore the potential positive outcomes to move past stagnation and allow ourselves to move forward.

Hiring the right coach for you can be one of the most rewarding and life-changing experiences. Let this be the year you come alive and think bigger about yourself and what you have to add to every aspect of your life.

In this episode, I share:

  • What it’s like to receive professional coaching and how to determine which type of coach you need to achieve your goals
  • The five characteristics of a strong coach and the #1 criteria for choosing the best coach for you
  • The significant signs that it’s time to hire a coach and how you can overcome the mental block of needing to do everything on your own

Resources and related episodes:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

michael quinlan

What Does It Take To Transform with Michael Quinlan

michael quinlan

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn about the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future. I’m incredibly excited to have Michael Quinlan with us for this episode. Michael is a regional vice president of sales at SAP, a transformational leader, a father, and a man I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for several years.

 

Michael is passionate about personal development and has a willingness to consider things from a different vantage point, even if it humbles his ego. After attending the SAP Masters program for leadership in London, he published a paper on transformational leadership called What Does it Take to Transform? Michael is joining us to share his story of personal and professional transformation and what leaders can do to evolve themselves and those they serve. 

“My journey into leadership was something that I really never had intended.” – Michael Quinlan

Michael had always envisioned himself as a salesperson who would make his career out of taking down big deals. After 20 years in his role and accomplishing the goals he wanted to achieve as an individual contributor, he had the itch for something more. When he realized the impact he could make by helping others in his company, he decided to step into a leadership position but quickly hit a wall.

“The training that we received was minimal at best. […] There was never any development around what it takes to lead and motivate and develop a team. So my leadership style, since I really didn’t have one, was just imitating what I had seen from leaders that had been over me in the past.” – Michael Quinlan

It’s common for people who excel as individual contributors to step into a leadership role and struggle because they lack the skill set to motivate and develop others on their team. Often, they rely on hand-me-down leadership approaches without fully understanding their purpose.

Then Michael came across the SAP master’s program on leading sales transformation.

“Transformational leadership is absolutely showing up in front of your team with trust and with vulnerability. In order for somebody to feel like they can transform, you really have to do it yourself first.” – Michael Quinlan

Transformational leadership requires self-evaluation, personal growth and actively engaging with your team to create a supportive environment. When you care for your employees and help them overcome their weaknesses, you build trust and increase productivity and performance.

“The hardest thing to do in coaching is to not give the answer.” – Michael Quinlan

Bosses give the answer; coaching managers ask questions that prompt self-reflection and empower the individual. This approach enables employees to take ownership of their words and actions and fosters personal development. When we give the answers, we reinforce an individual’s insecurity and uncertainty, taking away their power and making them more dependent on us.

There are three obstacles to transformational leadership inside a corporation:

  1. Mislabeling the type of problem
  2. Corporate hierarchies and centralizing decision-making
  3. The perception of risk

“People in middle management positions can have a big impact on the world that we live in.” – Michael Quinlan

Middle managers bridge the gap between resource-rich corporations and individuals who can execute the initiatives that would create positive change. It becomes disconcerting when these corporations have the resources to make these changes happen but aren’t willing to transform.

In a survey of 3,400 people, 70% said that their mental health is as influenced by their boss as by their spouse.

We need to acknowledge the level of influence we have to empower and bring out the best in our employees. By bravely stepping into the role and embracing vulnerability, we enable others to follow suit.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • Michael’s journey into leadership and the challenges he faced
  • The principles of transformational leadership and how they can positively impact teams and organizations
  • The three major obstacles preventing us from the transformative change in the workplace
  • Michael’s advice for transformation as an individual, leader, and team

Resources and related episodes:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

christina woods

How To Break the Habits That Limit You with Hypnotherapist Christina Woods

christina woods

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn about the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

In 2019, I was attacked by two men in a parking lot. After this experience, I began to respond to harmless situations as if they were dangerous. For example, when I would walk out of a door at a department store and someone was standing there, I’d respond as if I was being attacked. 

Because of this, I became fascinated with the subconscious mind. Shortly thereafter, I discovered hypnotherapy, a form of therapy that talks to the subconscious mind in a way the mind listens. After trying hypnosis, I found I was calmer and the old triggers no longer set me off.  And this was not just as it related to the attack but in other areas of life where I felt anxious or guilty for reasons that were not logical. 

I found hypnotherapy to be a remarkable way to create profound behavioral change and began using it with my clients too.  The results they saw were profound. 

That’s why I was excited to have Christina Woods join us for this episode. Christina is a licensed Rapid Transformational Therapist®, clinical hypnotherapist, empowerment coach, and reiki master. She combines her background in corporate leadership with her life experiences in dealing with trauma and abandonment to empower other women to trust their intuition and set themselves free of self-doubt.

As the CEO and Founder of Wise Woods Hypnotherapy and Coaching, Christina has extensive experience working on complex challenges and pulling potential out of others so they can become even more extraordinary.

95% of what we think about ourselves, how we perceive the world, and how we feel comes from our subconscious. 

Hypnotherapy allows us to quiet our conscious minds to tap into our natural subconscious state and get to the root cause of the behavior, pattern, or feeling we’re experiencing. 

“It’s like gardening – you don’t just chop everything off the top, you literally need to pull out the root, or it’s just gonna keep growing.” – Christina Woods

Hypnotherapy is becoming more mainstream as people begin to realize the power of our minds. Everyone from doctors, lawyers, and athletes to stay-at-home mothers are now using hypnotherapy to shift how they view past experiences so that they can rewrite the stories that no longer serve them.

“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood if that wasn’t what you had. You can literally rewrite your story.” – Christina Woods

Our habits and patterns of behavior today are often determined by experiences we remember from the past. Sometimes we’ve interpreted events in a way that causes us to become emotionally stuck. These moments that we attach meaning to often stem from our childhood. 

“To be able to look at that now and say, ‘Oh, they had to pick me up late because they actually had two jobs and were trying to get there on time. Wow, I can see how much they loved me and were trying. They were doing their best now, but at the time, I was the last kid picked up in the dark. It felt like nobody cared about me then.'” – Christina Woods

Trauma is like a tight muscle; hypnotherapy allows you to release that tightness so the blood can get through and start circulating again. It enables you to understand what is blocking you and reframe these memories so your subconscious can release them. When you begin to acknowledge and process one experience, it can have a ripple effect and positively impact other areas of your life.

——

The Epidemic Of Not Feeling ‘Enough’ 

We live in a world of comparison and keeping up with the Joneses. Social media has wired us to never feel good enough, smart enough, skinny enough, and even spiritually enough.

Christina has found that most of her clients feel this way because somewhere along the line, they stopped trusting themselves, stopped listening to their inner voice, and gave away their personal power.

“If I get that raise, if I do this thing, if I look that way, then I’ll be enough. […] When we do that, it’s never enough; it’s a constant chase.” – Christina Woods

When we feel inadequate, we break down and fail to set boundaries, leading to resentment and a cycle of negative emotions. 

Christina’s solution is to not only find the inner voice and believe that you’re already enough but to truly feel and become the person that already has what you desire.

Most of us start backward by saying, “I’m going to do this, then I’ll have this, so then I’ll be happy.” What we really need to do is start at the frequency in line with what we want so that we can naturally decrease the cognitive dissonance between our thoughts and actions. We need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable so we’re not unwittingly self-sabotaging.

“It’s easy to become the over-doer, the hustler, the victim, one of these archetypes, when we’re trying to be enough.” – Christina Woods

This memorized state can become so ingrained in us that we wonder why we can’t change or why we keep returning to the same place, even when our external circumstances change. 

Breaking the habits that limit us from the change we want requires that we work with the subconscious mind in the way the subconscious listens.

Christina’s Practical Tips For Reprogramming 

The Morning Ritual

Christina’s approach extends beyond in-person hypnosis sessions. To start reprogramming the subconscious, she recommends a morning routine incorporating stillness and self-reflection, even for just a few minutes. Journaling and meditation are simple but effective ways to listen to your mind without distraction.

  • Journaling – An easy prompt to start with is ‘I, (your name), feel….’
  • Meditation – If you’re new to meditation, start with a couple of minutes per day. Think of a moment in the last 24 hours when you felt calm or positive, close your eyes, and allow that moment to move through you. This exercise can also be used when you’re feeling triggered.

In this episode, Christina shares:

  • The importance of understanding and reframing traumatic experiences that can block you from moving forward in your life
  • How hypnotherapy helps to tap into your subconscious and uncover the root cause of beliefs, emotions, and behaviors
  • What you can expect in a hypnosis session and ways to start reprogramming your subconscious today

Connect with Christina:

Resources and related episodes:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

leading and parenting

Leading (and Parenting) In Uncertain Times

leading and parenting

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn about the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

Uncertainty is wreaking havoc in our offices and homes. For the last few years, we couldn’t even be sure what would happen 48 hours from now. This tension ultimately destroys performance, connection, and the contributions we’re here to make. It’s important that we become better leaders for these uncertain times so that we become part of the solution rather than unwittingly contributing to it.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to appear on Oprah, but not for the reason that someone like me would dream of. When my oldest daughter was 10, she was interviewed by a popular conscious parent coach named Dr. Shaefali for a two-part series on relationships between parents and children.

During the taping, my daughter shared that sometimes when she talks to me about feeling the pressure, she doesn’t always need me to go into working mode on how to solve the problem; sometimes, she just needs a hug and the reassurance that it will be okay.

This internationally humbling experience made me realize that while I was trying to be a present and considerate, loving mother, I was too focused on fixing things and putting out fires. Even as a teenager, when she came to me with a struggle, I found myself trying to solve the problem instead of just being there to support her.

It took some time for me to realize that I was busy trying to fix something that she wasn’t asking me to fix. I was likely pushing my own agenda to get things accomplished or attempting to remove her pain because of what I may have interpreted that meant about me as her mother. 

What’s more, I realized that each time she came to talk to me and I was providing ways to fix her struggle, I was actually making her MORE uncertain and insecure.  

What does this have to do with becoming an effective leader who engages and empowers individuals, teams, or cultures to achieve great things together? 

When I talk to top performers, experts, and leaders, they often say the same thing my daughter said: “My manager doesn’t get it. He doesn’t listen. He’s not changing.” Or “She’s got her own way of doing things. She’s not interested.”

The worst part in these moments is not what’s said on the surface; it’s the underlying message that’s often interpreted and delivered when we try to solve their problems or fix things when they don’t ask us to. We may inadvertently send the message that we don’t believe in their abilities enough for them to figure it out on their own or that we are so insecure in ourselves that we need to provide solutions in order to take us out of our discomfort. Neither of these makes another more certain or more secure.

Why is this important?  

Because insecurity masks wisdom.

Insecurity is a result of uncertainty. And insecurity blocks our wisdom, which leads directly to disengagement, disempowerment, and underperformance. 

Insecurity leads to the very things we don’t want. Yet too often we are contributing to increasing uncertainty and insecurity without being aware of it.  In this way, we contribute to the very problem we are seeking to solve.

In a survey of 3,400 people published in January 2023 by human resources software firm UKG, Inc., nearly 70% said bosses influenced their mental health as much as a spouse or partner. This figure does not surprise me but does confirm the importance of your role as a leader — especially in these uncertain times. 

I know it’s not easy being a leader when there continues to be so much happening in our world. Take the swing of the markets, the decreased reliability on banks, shootings, and not to mention the host of things we face on a personal level; then you add the weight of knowing that you, as a leader, have that level of influence over others. Whether right or wrong, it’s real. It doesn’t mean your job is easy, but it does mean it’s important. 

We spend 66% of our adult lives at work. This is why improving our ability to lead during uncertain times is so important. What you do, what you say, and how you treat others matters in ways you probably aren’t aware of. We must be conscious of the messages we send to those we lead and choose to be positively infectious leaders. 

Nine out of the 10 people that you lead are not lacking the skill set or ability to make significant contributions. What gets in their way is not their skill set but their uncertainty and insecurity. We, as leaders, have an opportunity and responsibility to do what we can to help them break through it. 

Inspiring confidence is key to managing people, especially in uncertain and changing times. 

Now more than ever is the time to acknowledge the anxiety those around us may have, as well as to value their work. Not just their outcomes, but their efforts too. 

I’m sharing with you three ways to lead in uncertain times so that you can create an empowered and engaged culture – one individual at a time. 

3 Shifts to Make in Uncertain Times

  1. Have a process to grow your inner game. We have to have a strategy to process life.  We can’t lead beyond ourselves. Being able to process our own stuff and become more self-aware is the #1 advantage. Your business and leadership grow in direct proportion to your growth. 
  2. Know your intention: Ask yourself – “Am I speaking to cultivate the best version of the individual I am leading or my own agenda? Am I leading from my own insecurities or my wisdom?” Understand that when you take care of your people, business takes care of itself. 
  3. Listen before leaning in & show appreciation. Validate the person’s feelings rather than trying to take them out of their struggle immediately. After that, ask better questions to help them access their own wisdom and eventually be able to do it independently. We also need to recognize people’s anxieties and the value that they bring and share that with them. People want to know that you know them, and we all need encouragement these days.

By making these shifts, you can be magnanimous and positively infectious wherever you are serving others.

In this episode, I share:

  • A lesson I learned from my daughter to show how easy it is to unwittingly contribute to the very problems we are seeking to solve
  • Why knowing how to lead in uncertain times is more critical than ever 
  • The three fundamentals that every leader should apply to engage and empower cultures, teams, individuals, and even children in these uncertain times

Resources and related episodes:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

making-the-pivot

Making the Pivot You’ve Been Contemplating Real This Season

making-the-pivot

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

Have you been thinking about making a significant change in your work or your approach to it?  

Maybe your friend calls with a business idea and wants you to join him. You read a Patrick Lencioni book and are inspired to bring a new vision to your workplace? Or you see a need and feel called to fulfill it because — in most moments — you believe you have what it takes to be successful?

If so, you’re being called to one of life’s pivots. It’s natural. The seasons have changed and you’re not the same person you were in the past.

Through the years, I’ve had my own pivots and been a part of hundreds more.  And whether our pivots are forced upon us or we choose them, the reality is pivots can be scary, painful, and downright embarrassing!  

The good news is that there are ways to successfully navigate these transitions with greater ease, grace, and peace of mind. 

Too often in these moments, our first move is to want to dive into all of the things we need to do. But to achieve your goals, you don’t need to focus solely on doing more. 

You don’t need another training or strategy. You don’t need to do more networking, cold-calling or goal-setting; you need to understand what it takes to change your thoughts and beliefs.

In other words, you need to look at who you need to become to create a new ending to the story you’re writing. 

You can’t create anything new if you don’t understand and remove your blocks to magnetize success. This means a successful pivot begins with strengthening your mindset. Here are three of my favorites for your next pivot.

  • Have a process to process your pivot.  

Having a process, system, or person to help process life and all its disruptions and resistance is critical to your pivot. In the process, you’ll likely look at where you’re resisting the success you desire. 

Ask yourself, “Where am I blocking the success I want?” “What story needs to heal that is unsupportive of where I’m headed?

  • Know your ‘why’

It’s important to understand that your ‘why’ changes throughout your life. It’s crucial to regularly connect with your ‘why’ so you can identify areas of misalignment and make the necessary change. We also need to understand why we want to make the change because it will keep us motivated and committed to our goals when things get tough. You’ll know you’ve found your ‘why’ when you feel emotional thinking about it.

Ask yourself, “Where am I not congruent with my ‘why’ today?

  • Write the ending to your story

Imagine being in the future and looking back at your pivot. What story would you want to tell? For example, I got divorced, and then I reconnected to my ‘why’. I became the most amazing parent, changed to my most incredible supportive career, and attracted a loving relationship.

Pivots are an inevitable part of life. By having a process to do the work, knowing your ‘why’, and writing a new ending to your story, you’ll be better equipped to lean into your pivot and magnetize your success – no matter what it is.

In this episode, I share:

  • The importance of having a process to navigate through life’s transitions
  • The importance to acknowledge the situation we’re in, even if it’s painful or scary
  • How to be honest about where we are and what we want 
  • The significance of knowing your ‘why’ and identifying disconnect
  • The benefits of writing a new ending to your story and mentally rehearsing the outcome of your pivot

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

How-to-Eliminate-the-Pressure-so-that-You-can-Enhance-Your-Career-Anytime-You-Want

How To Eliminate the Pressure So That You Can Enhance Your Career Anytime You Want

enhance your career

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the science-backed practice that not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

When I’m asked about careers, it usually falls into one of three categories – how to enhance one’s career, achieve a specific goal, or transition into a new one. 

Regardless of the reason, there are three biases that repeatedly show up in these conversations. These biases are the very things that create the pressure cookers that prevent individuals from making the decisions and taking the actions to make the changes they want, whether that’s more satisfaction, revenue, impact, or a combination of all three.

In order to dial down the pressure you may also be experiencing in your career, you first need to understand these biases and the importance of acknowledging and overcoming them to catapult yourself forward.

The first of the three biases is the LINEAR BIAS. The linear bias is the belief that our life and work should always be moving forward and upward. 

While society tells us that we should always be progressing, life just doesn’t work this way. Sometimes it pauses; sometimes it oscillates; sometimes it moves two steps forward and one step back. 

In the book Life is in the Transitions by Bruce Fellier, he identifies over 116 disruptors, including lay-offs, illness, births, moves, and divorce. He points out that this expectation around life being linear puts a great deal of anxiety on us. That pressure to always be ascending causes us to be in a constant state of self-judgment. This self-made pressure leads to underperformance and undermines our careers.  

If something happens, it’s supposed to happen. You can fight it or not fight it, but it’s still real. 

That judgment and resistance to accepting what’s happening is part of the additional pressure we unwittingly allow into our world. This results in the inability to break through to new levels or enhance our careers at the rate we want. 

When you release the idea that you need to be constantly progressing, you’ll find you can relax, trust yourself, and have your eyes open to the golden opportunities in front of you. 

The second bias is the SCARCITY BIAS. The scarcity bias states that there is not enough of what you need. 

You may feel there isn’t enough opportunity, time, or money to be successful. You may think the industry is too saturated and there’s not enough need in the marketplace for your talent.

You and I both know your talent is needed. Has anyone ever been grateful for the service you offered? I’m betting they have. People need what you have to give. Don’t let this bias that there’s not enough, hold you back from leading your desired career.

The third bias is the HARD WORK BIAS. The hard work bias is that success is a result of hard work.  We know this isn’t true.  If it was true, everyone who worked hard would be successful.

This unconscious idea that achieving your goal needs to be difficult is precisely why so many people’s days are ruled by low-grade stress, and it gets in the way of building your career to the level you want. 

We don’t get what we want in life; we get our habits. 

I was talking to an attorney, James, this week.  As a partner at his firm, he’s responsible for bringing in new business. Three years ago he landed the firm’s largest account. Since then he hasn’t brought in any new business. Because of this, he says his confidence is shattered; he wonders what is wrong with him and why he can’t follow through on his good ideas.

Through our conversation, I saw that he held all three of these biases.  They were affecting how he managed his days and the results of his career.

Biases shape our habits, so it’s important to be aware of them when looking to build a rewarding career. 

Do you insist that you should be farther than you are today? Do you seek opportunities or tell yourself there isn’t enough time, opportunity, or support to succeed at your greatest desires? Do you make things harder than they need to be? 

If any of these apply to you, the best way to have a massive shift in your career is to recognize these biases and understand that when we’re coming from these low-grade emotions, we’re actually resisting the very thing we say that we want. 

Here’s the practice that will allow you to eliminate the pressure and enhance your career anytime you want.

  1. Get honest about your biases. Step outside of yourself and become the observer. How do you resist allowing yourself to expand? Do you spend everything you make? Are you addicted to the adrenaline of being too busy?
  2. Think of a client that you’ve already helped or a time when you succeeded in doing what it is that you want to do more of now. Write it down. Recount the experience and how great it was for the client you served. Then, consider what might have happened if you weren’t there. When life feels like you’re in a pressure cooker, return to this moment to remember your ‘why.’
  3. For one week, bring this same set of feelings to as many as you can. Focus not on what it will do for you or your career.  Instead, focus on what you are able to bring to others.  Then give it away for one week without attachment to the outcome.  Without any meaning other than you are doing your most important work.  That you are moving in your ‘right’ direction.   

We all have moments of pressure and stress. You can turn this around by dropping your old stories and your past and looking at how to give more of yourself. When you do this, your work opportunities will increase, your business connections will improve, you’ll feel better about yourself and your relationships, sleep better, and the stress and pressure that has become a habit over the past few years will dissipate. 

In this episode, I share:

  • The three major biases that are causing resistance and stopping you from up-leveling your career
  • How these biases form our habits and affect how we move through life
  • The practice that will allow you to make a quantum shift and experience a breakthrough in your career 

Resources and related episodes:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

write your new future

The Most Influential Practice To Write Your New Future

write your new future

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the science-backed practice that not only changed my life, but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

There are a handful of days in my life that stand out in my memory because of their mind-blowing impact on me. One, in particular, was the day I was given a life-changing practice that taught me how to overcome what was keeping me from making the necessary changes in my life so that I could enjoy more happiness and success. I doubted it when I first received it, but then I saw its effects on my life and the lives of people just like you over the last two decades.

Today, we’re continuing our 3-part series where you will get just what you need to do your most satisfying work and create meaningful change and the life you really want. 

In Part 1, Get Your Great Goal Down, we talked about overcoming the #1 mistake high achievers make when setting goals and how to overcome it. 

In Part 2, The #1 Ability You Need to Elevate Your Life in 2023, we covered what self-aware, high-performers understand and do to raise their performance and satisfaction at work and in life. 

In Part 3, I’m teaching you something you absolutely cannot ignore if you want to do the best work of your career — the simple, science-backed practice used by some of the greatest change-makers in history to create things that have never before existed. It doesn’t take hours to do, but without a doubt, because it works with the brain in the way the brain works, it will create and allow for the change that you desire.

If you think about the great leaders in history – Gandhi, Thomas Edison, Martin Luther King, Jr. – they all shared one common thing: they each believed so strongly in a future that was so real in their minds that they began to live as if it was already happening, regardless of their circumstances.

Those who have achieved great things in life once became so possessed with a future vision that, although it could not yet be seen in their current reality, they behaved as if that vision was already happening. When they did that, their environment bent to their behavior. 

The key to writing your new future and creating the life of happiness that you desire is to become unconditionally committed to your vision regardless of your current circumstances.

While coaching a CEO the other day, I challenged her to put this practice into action. Whereas her company had always been the manufacturer of an automotive line, in her vision, she created products for an entirely new industry: medical. But, her current reality didn’t reflect evidence that that was even possible. Regardless, she became completely immersed in the reality of her vision getting her to the future reality in advance. I know that the same has happened to you, you probably haven’t recognized it yet. 

How often have you stopped working on a goal or an objective because your environment didn’t show evidence that you need to stay the course?

Perhaps you were waiting for your work environment to reflect leadership that publicly endorses your special project. Perhaps you are waiting for employees to like coming to work before you make any changes in your leadership style. 

Oftentimes, we are waiting for some type of evidence in our environments before we actually begin to believe in this new vision and take action. But, it’s in these moments when we let our environment control us instead of communicating with our brains to take action that will then change our environment. We think the environment should lead with change and then we will follow suit, but that’s absolutely backward. This is the #1 reason why so many of us in this overstretched and the unfocused world won’t get the change we want this year.

Greatness, however you define it, requires you to hold onto your dream, your vision, or your goal regardless of the circumstances in front of you.

So, how do you do this when the reality is staring you in the face and your brain has given you 100 pounds of evidence that it’s not going to work out? You mentally rehearse it.

Those great leaders often reminded themselves of the reality they were envisioning and to do this, they had to have mental rehearsals. Having a mental rehearsal means stepping into the state of being of your future vision. This state of coming from your thoughts, your feelings, and your behaviors. Stepping into this state of being means understanding how you would think, how you would feel, and how you would behave in this ideal future and then –and here’s the key – leading your present life in that way.

Does this sound at all complicated? Well, here’s the truth for you: we are all mentally rehearsing something. 

We’re mentally rehearsing whatever is ruminating in our minds all day long:

  • I never have enough time
  • I’m in trouble
  • This isn’t going to work
  • These people are all the same
  • It’s never going to change

What brain science demonstrates is that what we mentally rehearse, we create. Oftentimes, we are mentally rehearsing an unwanted past or a dreaded future. That alone is why we may continue to repeat the limited reality we have come to know and dream to change.

The good news is that we can change our brains,  and in order to live a life of happiness and success, we have to change our brains. We have to create a new way of being for ourselves and we can do this just by thinking differently. 

If we repeatedly think about something to the exclusion of everything else, we will encounter a moment when the thought becomes the experience.

When this occurs, neurons fire together and start rewiring your brain. Your rewired programming then creates the results you want. Let’s face it.  Your existing hardware is not going to take you to that new reality. If it could, it already would have happened.

The best way to begin your mental rehearsal practice and write your new future is with these two questions:

  • What would it be like to live in that reality?
  • What if I was the person living in that reality?

Once you begin to immerse yourself in these answers, you will feel it. Then behave like that in the present time. In time, you will see that your environment bends to you and your success.  

Your Call To Action for this week is to practice mental rehearsal daily.

It doesn’t need to take long, perhaps just 2-4 minutes, and it’s best done in the morning or right before bed. This is when your brain is most receptive to suggested thoughts. You can either write something down and read it to yourself each day or envision it in the silent moment. During this process, understand that emotion is the ultimate conductor to fire those neurons and to really get your brain to change. 

I’d love to hear from you when you’ve done this practice. Commit yourself to mentally rehearsing like the leader who simply saw their idea as so, before it ever came to be. Become obsessed. 

Share what you find with me below or over on Instagram at @ritahyland. 

In this episode I share:

  • The simple, science-backed practice I once resisted but provided a massive desired change in my life once I accepted and implemented it
  • An example of this practice in action with a client and how it can elicit a completely different future reality
  • What really keeps you stuck in a limited reality (that should have been taught in school) and what you can do to more easily create life-changing work and a life guided by your design 

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

the 1 ability you need to elevate your life in 2023 playing full out rita hyland podcast

The #1 Ability You Need To Elevate Your Life In 2023

the #1 ability you need to elevate your life in 2023 rita hyland playing full out

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn what self-aware, high-performers understand and do to raise their performance and satisfaction in life and why it’s the #1 ability you need to develop this year.

Sometimes when we want to get to elevate an area of our lives, we believe we need to move faster and work harder.  As a result of the stress, we lose our focus and any hope of executing our best ideas, work, and creativity.   

We’re continuing our 3-part series that will teach you just what you need to do your most satisfying work and set yourself up for the life you really want. In Part 1, Get Your Great Goal Down, we talked about overcoming the #1 mistake high achievers make when setting goals and how to overcome it.  

Today, I want to show you the #1 ability you most need to hone your focus so that you make decisions from your highest level state of being instead of from the rampant stressed-out level and pace that too many are seeing as ‘normal.’

Let’s start with a story about a man named John

John, a respected leader in his field of work, came to work with me with the goal of managing the increasing stress levels and pace of his life. He’d been feeling overextended at work and absolutely exhausted from the stress and pace of his life. He noticed he was more irritable and anxious than he used to be. 

He didn’t feel there was ever any time for what he really wanted: freedom to focus his time and energy on his priorities. 

John and I have worked together for a few months and recently had a conversation that was notably different than prior ones. This one was about his recent experience when his teenage daughter came home sick after drinking at a party. 

At the time, John’s wife was out of town and it was just him and the kids.  He was unsure of how to respond to his daughter and noticed that he was both worried and angry. He noticed his stress dropping and rising as he watched his daughter. He also noticed his immediate pull to react impulsively.  

Where he typically would react by reprimanding his daughter, by raising his voice to command attention, he instead paused and observed.

At that moment, he stood next to his daughter at the toilet and searched Google for an answer. In his search, he clicked a link that said, “Stay calm. Your child is in a vulnerable state.” These words were just enough to allow him to recall the work we’d done together.. 

He’d recently gotten feedback from his team that he was impatient, intimidating, and not listening well. This was holding him back, it was holding his team back from fully trusting him, and holding everyone back from achieving as much as they could together. He knew this same reactivity had impacted his personal life too. The relationship between himself and his daughter had deteriorated too. 

Stress steals our focus. When this happens, we are no longer in control of our lives.

We start living in survival mode (flying in late to meetings, being annoyed at colleagues who aren’t doing things the way we do them, being hard on ourselves, yelling at our kids, and more) as our normal way of being. So, we race harder. We move faster until we’re further stressed out. Simultaneously, the goals and commitments we’d love to prioritize have no way of being executed.

The 1 thing that’s robbing us of the amazing capacity we have to get our lives back is our ability to move fluidly between the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS).

Think of your SNS as your “Survival Mode” and your PNS as your “Peaceful State” and both generate their own types of emotions.

Survival Mode emotions include:

  • stress
  • imbalance
  • breakdowns
  • contraction
  • fears
  • struggle
  • frustration

Peaceful State emotions include:

  • expansion
  • health
  • order
  • trust
  • repair
  • love

Each of us is familiar with Survival Mode. It’s an ability we’ve been gifted with to protect us in the presence of danger. It alerts us to a threat and powers us to escape. This was especially useful during caveman days when we needed this stress response to escape animals seeking to hunt us. But in modern days, we get these same triggers when we’re stuck in traffic or we’re late for a meeting. Unlike animals and our caveman ancestors, we don’t come out of these stressful states as easily. 

We don’t realize when we are leading our lives from triggered, stressed-out states. As a result, it prevents us from going after our most desired goals and priorities. 

In order to begin allowing yourself to fluidly transition between your SNS and PNS, I want to challenge you for the next week to be aware when you are operating in your SNS and then recognize any thought, behavior, or emotion you’re holding that is unloving to yourself. This is going to be the beginning of a detox that will liberate you, your body, and your emotional addiction to whatever it is that you worry about. 

What this exercise will do is begin to impede the signals of survival emotions from conditioning you any further. This will help you begin to tune those out which will free up energy that you can then use for something more beneficial. 

When you do this repeatedly, you will begin leading from your parasympathetic nervous system  (PNS) instead of your sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Think survival mode. 

Remember, you are not hardwired to be a certain way for the rest of your life. You are not hardwired to be riddled with stress on a daily basis.  And nothing profound was ever created in survival mode. 

Your ability to fluidly shift from your SNS to your PNS will be the #1 ability to elevate your life this year to create your highest levels of performance and satisfaction.  When you do it you will gain a significant advantage in business and life. 

In this episode I share:

  • The #1 ability you need to develop to elevate your performance
  • The most important thing you will do to hone your focus this year
  • A personal story exhibiting this ability in action and how it can play out and create new, ideal relationships and performance

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

the #1 ability you need to elevate your life in 2023 rita hyland playing full out podcast

Get Your Great Goal Down

get your great goal down playing full out rita hyland

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn what to focus on as the year takes off so that you can do your most satisfying work and set yourself up for the life you really want.

It’s 2023, can you believe it? The new year is here and it’s going to be a fabulous one!

I know this for certain because you have never been more experienced, wiser, and ready for what’s to come. This year is filled with an abundance of potential, and it’s the perfect opportunity for you to take advantage of the fresh slate that the new year brings.

This is your year to get your best and most satisfying work of your career out into the world and enjoy a vibrant life with the freedom to do whatever else it is you want.

However, what I see happen all too as the year progresses, among fast-paced, high-contributors like yourself,  those who are serious about growing themselves and making a real difference in their businesses and at home is that they get caught back up in the fast-paced work environment and personal lives that they lead. 

Unfortunately, this can lead to distraction and frustration, and it’s at this point that many people make one killer mistake: they begin to think that their vision isn’t that important.

But let me tell you, it is! Like an airplane needs a runway to take off, you need your vision to take off too.  As I experienced on an airplane recently, without an assigned runway,  we simply remain stuck on the tarmac. 

Without a clear vision, you’ll find yourself floating through life day-to-day, keeping yourself busy and eventually realizing you have nothing to show for all the time that’s passed you by. Maybe this feels a bit familiar to you. Maybe you’ve started your vision and you had the best intentions for it, but you’ve become distracted from it. You begin to say, “I’ll do it later.” Maybe you’re no longer lit up by the vision you’ve set out for yourself.

Friend, I want you to know that you are not alone and you are not behind. You are right on time. Each one of us has felt this in some way, so today I am going to get you back on the direct flight pattern to guarantee that you can get your vision down so you can  get started immediately. 

I want you to have the freedom to focus on planning your dream vacation to Italy  you want and to work on your business without wondering what you’re missing or second-guessing if you are doing enough.  

Let’s start by covering the biggest reason that we miss creating a vision and great goals each year and how to resolve it.  

The big mistake we make when it comes to goals is that we make our goals mean something they do not.

The first way we do this is by attaching our own personal value, worth, or adequacy to the goal.  We believe that if we hit the goal it means we’re good enough.  If we don’t, it validates our inadequacy.  

The second interpretation we put on goals is that we believe that the bigger the goal, the bigger its meaning.  If we shoot a basket in our backyard and miss, no big deal.  But when we take the same shot at the United Center, we make it mean something entirely different.  Or if we say we want to build 100 widgets instead of 10 widgets, that extra zero means so much more. 

The meanings we give our goals riddle us with stress which then contracts our ability to deploy our talents and ingenuity.  A lot of times the meanings keep us from even setting our goals. 

What we can do to resolve this is to first understand that goals are neutral. They are directions to guide us to our next action. Nothing more.

The meanings you give or don’t give to your goals change everything. When you view your goals as neutral, you will feel a sense of relief that will lead you to taking focused and deliberate action. 

Remember that our goals are not designed to assess us or our worth. Our goals are designed to guide us, to give us direction. Be aware of when you are leaning towards creating a goal that you think is going to validate you in some way. 

Once you change your mindset around goals, you are ready to clarify and declare them. I’m here to help you get that done.

  1. Begin by answering what on December 31st of this year would make you shout, “This has been an incredible  year?” Jot down 5-7 things that would light you up and excite you to experience, build, or achieve.  
  2. Once you do this, your next step is to narrow your focus. Circle 3 of those that are the most significant. Once you get your top three, highlight the ONE that you know is calling you and cannot wait.  This is it.  Your #1 goal.  It’s the goal that excites and inspires you to show up as a greater version of who you are today. 
  3. Know who becomes better off when you achieve your goal. Why does achieving your great goal matter? What is the cost and who is hurt when you don’t achieve your goal? Why is it so important? When you understand the impact of your one great goal, it’s going to help you move towards your goal when difficult moments arise.  Knowing your ‘why’ becomes your fuel in the inevitable tough times. 

That’s it. Once you do this you will have done more than 98% of the world will do this year when it comes to setting goals. 

BONUS: To get yourself going, write down the next 5 to 7 action steps you will take to achieve it.

By following these three simple steps, you’ll be able to sharpen your vision, focus on what’s important, and take action that will lead you closer to your fabulous year. 

Stay tuned for the next episode of this series where you will dismantle the hardest part of starting and following through on the best and most satisfying year of your life… learning how to identify and overcome the mental blocks. 

These are the things that keep well-meaning high-contributors stuck working too many hours and not enjoying the freedom in their lifestyle that they want. You’re here to achieve great things and live a full and vibrant life.  Let’s make sure that happens this year!

In this episode I share:

  • Part 1 of my 3-part series to help you get the focus so that you have the freedom to achieve your best and most satisfying work and vibrant life this year
  • 2 key reasons that make setting our goals difficult and how to get relief immediately 
  • 3 simple steps to take to sharpen your vision, get focused, and take action
  •  The right order and approach to narrow down what you REALLY want

 

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

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About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

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