Let’s start by examining resilience – that powerful ability to adapt positively to challenges and bounce back from difficulties. Early in my entrepreneurial journey, I really struggled with resilience when faced with rejection or failures. I would get mired in self-doubt and harsh self-criticism rather than objectively assessing what went wrong so I could adjust my approach. It was incredibly demoralizing and made me hesitant to take calculated risks that could advance my business’s growth.

For years, I grappled with a harsh inner critic that diminished my resilience during setbacks in my personal development efforts. Any time I’d deviate from a goal like sticking to an exercise routine or intentional spending plan, I would berate myself mercilessly until feeling too discouraged to keep trying. It was a vicious, self-sabotaging cycle. Building resilience meant developing self-compassion – realizing that lapses are inevitable and don’t negate all the hard work. By reframing slip-ups as opportunities to get back on track rather than failures, I cultivated the resilience to persist through ebbs and flows on my journey.

Over time, I learned to reframe those perceived stumbles not as signs of my ineptitude but as inevitable learning experiences on the path to mastering any new skill or venture. Developing this mindset of treating setbacks as insight opportunities rather than indictments of my self-worth was transformative. It gave me the perspective and resilience to boldly keep evolving my strategies based on those lessons learned.

For you, building resilience could involve adjusting your self-talk when you encounter a challenge, leaning on your support network for encouragement during rough patches, or regularly celebrating progress milestones as “resilience wins.” Journaling about failures to extract key lessons can also help maintain an objective outlook. The key is adopting practices that reinforce viewing obstacles as surmountable stepping stones rather than roadblocks.

Let’s now turn our attention to creativity – that boundless wellspring of ingenuity that allows us to approach challenges with novel solutions. Whether you’re an entrepreneur looking to differentiate your business, a professional aiming to bring fresh ideas to your organization, a parent needing creative approaches to modern family dynamics, or simply someone striving for personal growth, consistently nurturing your creativity is vital. However, finding inspiration can often feel daunting amidst the daily hustle of life and work routines.

One creativity-boosting practice that intrigues me is the concept of “creative cross-training” – regularly exposing yourself to new subjects, hobbies, art forms or other novel stimuli outside your typical work routines. From what I’ve heard, this can be an excellent way to keep your mind nimble and primed for innovative thinking. For example, taking an improvisational comedy class could provide fresh perspectives on ideation and spontaneity. Or going on an architecture tour to appreciate different creative design principles. Immersing yourself in these varied perspectives and thought patterns can get your creative juices flowing in new ways, leading to breakthrough ideas you may then be able to apply to your entrepreneurial challenges. I’m really excited about experimenting with “creative cross-training” as a way to nurture my creativity and shake up any staleness in my routines this year.

Another creativity-boosting practice is to embrace “creative inconsistency.” Our brains can get lulled into restrictive patterns when we operate in the same environments and routines day after day. Shaking things up, even in small ways like changing your workspace layout, listening to different music genres, or daydreaming in new physical locations all help jar your mind into innovative thinking modalities. Tapping into your creative energy requires disrupting the patterns and environments that can lead to mental staleness. For professionals, this could mean rotating the meetings you attend or temporarily relocating your workspace to expose you to different perspectives. As a parent, injecting more artistic pursuits, imaginative play, or visits to creative spaces can recharge your mind’s innovative capacities. No matter your circumstances, introducing new sights, sounds, ideas, and experiences into your regular rhythms helps unlock creative insights.

For you, unleashing more creativity could involve simple practices like allocating “daydreaming” sessions to let your mind wander freely, immersing yourself in creative environments like art museums, taking a different route to familiar destinations, or even just people-watching to observe persona new perspectives. The goal is to shake up your routines in ways that jostle your brain into seeing things from refreshing new vantage points. Embrace the mindset that creative inconsistency is vital for dodging routines that confine your thinking to restrictive patterns and ruts. An open, curious stance towards continually refreshing your mind’s perspectives is what allows creativity to become a renewable resource.

As we transition into April and I reflect on my first year of blogging, I’m reminded that both resilience and creativity have been instrumental to my own mindset evolution over these past 12 months. There have been plenty of growth opportunities in the form of setbacks, rejections, and creative droughts. Yet, each was a catalyst for developing greater resilience by adjusting my perspective, which helped rekindle my creative spark when I needed fresh inspiration. It has been an exhilarating journey of personal development that I’m immensely grateful for.

This mindset work is never complete – it’s an ongoing practice of continually expanding our perspectives while bolstering the resilience, courage and innovative thinking needed to embrace life’s inevitable challenges as catalysts for achieving our loftiest visions. As Mindset March comes to a close, I hope you feel reinvigorated to tackle any obstacle through the lens of personal growth.

Celebrate the resilience and creative thinking you’ve already embodied, then look ahead with excitement for the new depths of those mindsets yet to be unearthed on your path of perpetual evolution. Next month, I’ll be sharing highlights and milestones from my first year of blogging – a testament to the power of perseverance and curiosity. Until then, keep flexing those resilience and creativity muscles for limitless growth!

As we have passed the halfway point of Mindset March, I hope you’ve been able to implement some strategies for cultivating a growth-oriented perspective – one that embraces challenges, learns from setbacks, quiets the inner critic, and propels you confidently toward your aspirations. If you’re just joining us now, don’t worry – there’s still time to adopt a mindset reset that can recharge you with unshakable drive for the rest of 2024.

This week, we’re focusing on two formidable inner foes that derail even the most driven individuals: procrastination and self-doubt. Procrastination is likely a familiar nemesis – that sly voice convincing you to postpone tasks under the guise of “I’ll get to it later.” Yet, as we know, “later” is often an elusive mirage where opportunities fade and stress compounds.

I vividly remember a time when procrastination completely derailed the launch of a new product for my business. I had spent months developing this offering, conducting market research, and planning out all the details. However, when it came time to actually build the sales page, film the promotional videos, and get everything ready, I found myself constantly putting it off for one reason or another. “I’ll just tweak the messaging one more time” or “I need to research a few more competitor products before finalizing my unique selling points.” These delays and excuses snowballed until the proposed launch date came and went with no product released. By the time I finally forced myself to take action, the momentum was lost, and I missed out on a prime sales window. Needless to say, I learned a hard lesson about the subtle impact procrastination can have.

Under the surface, procrastination stems from a web of fear, perfectionism, and misunderstanding our own energetic patterns. To unravel its grasp, we must first recognize these underlying drivers. Rarely is procrastination rooted in laziness alone. More often, it’s a coping mechanism masking anxieties about failure, criticism, feeling overwhelmed, or not living up to our full potential.

Powerful tactics for outmaneuvering procrastination include breaking formidable tasks into bite-sized steps and establishing clear deadlines. Massive projects can subconsciously trigger avoidance by appearing insurmountable. However, deconstructing that ambition into manageable micro-goals provides a series of motivating wins. Firm deadlines, meanwhile, create a productive urgency and prioritize what demands our focus.  

For me, a huge procrastination trigger is being overwhelmed from seemingly massive tasks or initiatives. To combat this, I rely heavily on breaking down projects into discrete action steps and developing detailed project plans. By deconstructing any undertaking into a sequence of micro-tasks, the cognitive load feels much more manageable. I can fully focus on checking off one step at a time rather than becoming paralyzed by the enormity of the entire scope. Ticking off those small completion milestones provides a motivating trajectory as well.

As we call out procrastination’s undermining whispers, our growth journey inevitably brings us face-to-face with self-doubt. Whether navigating a career leap, creative venture, or simply pushing into new terrain, that incessant inner critic can leave us questioning our competence and worth.

There was a period early in my management career where I really struggled with self-doubt about being a capable leader. Anytime we hit obstacles or my team experienced failures, I was beset by profound feelings of being an inept, unqualified impostor who was putting on a shoddy performance in my role. This caused me to become overly deferential and hesitant about making decisions for fear of the consequences revealing my perceived shortcomings. The self-doubt made me micromanage tasks and avoid taking calculated risks that could advance our growth. Stuck in this mindset, I realized I was the one setting limitations on our team’s progress and impact. Re-framing my perspective on failures as learning opportunities was crucial for pulling myself out of that self-doubt spiral. I had to develop more self-awareness about when those insecure thoughts started creeping in so I could separate them from reality. With vulnerability and open conversations, my team found ways to productively push through setbacks rather than having me withdraw. It was a transformative experience in truly internalizing that self-doubt rarely represents truth – progress requires normalizing perceived missteps while keeping accountability for constant improvement.

Self-doubt often takes the form of a harsh inner voice warning about potential failure or embarrassment – that perpetual fear of being an “imposter” who doesn’t truly deserve their achievements. These sentiments frequently trace back to attributing success to luck rather than hard-earned skills honed over years of dedication. For many, self-doubt becomes a reflexive retreat into shame or harsh self-judgment anytime we approach the untested frontiers of growth.

However, these instinctive patterns of self-criticism fail to account for the immense effort, creativity and personal evolution required to reach our current levels of wisdom and accomplishment. One powerful practice for reframing self-doubt is making a detailed inventory of achievements, lessons learned, and capabilities cultivated along your journey so far. Periodically updating and reviewing this anthology serves as an antidote to our memory’s tendency to minimize progress.

Building a network of supportive peers, mentors and coaches can further reframe self-doubt as natural growing pains rather than signs of unworthiness. These perspectives from those further along remind us that bouts of insecurity arise for even the most confident high-achievers.

A big mindset shift for me has been consciously separating my self-worth and value as a person from any individual achievement or failure in my work/career. Any time my inner critic tries to latch onto a setback or shortcoming as evidence of my unworthiness, I have to pause and remember – my intrinsic worth is not conditional on external results. Yes, I hold myself to reasonably high standards in my profession, but I am so much more than just my latest win or loss. Practicing this perspective helps me extend myself compassion, understanding that in any endeavor, some failures or missteps are inevitable on the path of growth. Judging my entire self based on those is irrational and unfair. My self-worth persists regardless.

This week, choose one procrastination-fighting technique and one self-belief-bolstering ritual to incorporate daily. Notice how prioritizing consistent action and nurturing self-trust impact your productivity, outlook and willingness to embrace new challenges. Remember, overcoming these self-sabotaging patterns is an ever-evolving practice. However, each step you take to silence your inner critic and boldly show up unlocks new realms of fulfillment and impact.

Whether striving to launch a business, amplify your creativity or ascend within your professional field, procrastination and self-doubt are universal stumbling blocks. Yet rather than allowing these forces to obstruct your potential, you can transform them into catalysts for developing resilience, trust in your capabilities, and a voracious commitment to iterating your way toward growth. Stay dedicated to consistent effort and nurturing self-assurance – that’s how the transformative magic of this life path unfolds. 

I know this battle with perfectionism far too intimately from my own experiences. I let this mindset keep me from launching my business by thinking that I need to have everything in place and just perfect before I even opened my mouth to start talking about my business or the services that I wanted to provide.  Striving for excellence seems admirable, but perfectionism often hampers innovation and paralyzes action. The latter is what it always does for me, perfectionism sometimes keeps me from moving forward.   It stems from a fear of failure, criticism, or not measuring up, leading many to avoid risks, new ventures, or any endeavor where perfection feels unattainable. This fixed mindset stifles creativity, slows growth, and ironically, prevents the very perfection we strive for. The solution? Understand and embrace the power of “good enough.”

In our social media-saturated world, it’s far too easy to fall into the trap of comparisonitis – measuring our unique journey against the seemingly perfect highlight reels of others. This inevitably breeds feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, and discouragement. However, every path is different, filled with its own challenges and victories. A mantra that I constantly remind myself, “My journey is my journey”.

The key is acknowledging your journey’s uniqueness and setting personal milestones instead of comparing yourself to others. Define what success looks like for you, whether that’s a revenue goal, a number of lives impacted, achieving work-life harmony, or something else entirely. Celebrate progress toward those benchmarks, allowing yourself to feel accomplishment without obsessing over lofty final outcomes.

Shifting from a perfectionist to a progress-oriented mindset requires some adjustments:

• View mistakes as opportunities, not failures. Every successful entrepreneur, athlete, artist – anyone reaching big goals – has grappled with setbacks. Resilience and the ability to learn from those experiences sets them apart.
• Set realistic, flexible goals focused on incremental progress rather than perfect final results. Celebrate small wins along the way, as those are the steps forming a staircase to greater achievements.
• Embrace vulnerability. Sharing your challenges and lessons learned can deepen connections with your audience and foster a culture of openness, growth, and continuous improvement.
• Practice self-compassion. You are your greatest asset, so treat yourself with kindness and understanding. Allow space to experiment, fail, grow, and evolve without harsh judgment.

This growth-oriented mindset creates room for taking imperfect action, which is precisely what I encourage you to do for the rest of this month. Reflect on where perfectionism has kept you stuck, identify one endeavor you’ve postponed due to intimidating standards, and take an imperfect step forward. Progress, not perfection, unlocks potential.

In our goal-driven lives, it’s easy to overlook milestones while hyper focusing on the future. Yet celebrating progress – no matter how small – is crucial for maintaining the positive, growth-oriented mindset that facilitates success. Recognizing achievements, even tiny ones, provides a sense of accomplishment that boosts motivation and reinforces resilience. It encourages you to pause, reflect, and integrate key learnings. For entrepreneurs with teams, publicly celebrating milestones strengthens morale, unity, and a shared sense of purpose.

Overall, celebrating progress affirms that your goals are indeed attainable through dedication and persistence. It sets the foundation for future growth by allowing you to feel the tangible results of your efforts. So, make it a practice to celebrate each step of your imperfect journey:

• Set regular check-ins (daily, weekly, monthly) to review progress
• Share achievements with your team, community, supporters
• Keep a success journal to document growth over time
• Build in rewards for hitting milestones

Incorporating intentional celebration maintains the mindset and habits needed to continuously evolve.

Your path is wholly unique, filled with unpredictable twists, turns, and awakenings. So define what success looks like for you, unhindered by comparisons. Have self-compassion when you stumble, knowing that falling is just part of the journey. Most importantly, celebrate every imperfect step along the way, allowing the magic of taking action – however imperfect – to unfold. Perfectionism and self-doubt may have kept you stuck before, but no more. This month is about shedding those self-imposed limitations in favor of a mindset oriented around lifelong growth. It’s about embracing missteps and stumbles as integral to the dance of your becoming. It’s about letting yourself be delightfully, unapologetically imperfect while continuously taking steps to become more fully yourself.

So, emerge from March with a recharged spirit embracing the worthiness of progress over perfection. Your dreams & goals are attainable, but only if you extend yourself compassion, commit to incremental yet consistent action, and celebrate each beautifully imperfect step along the way. That’s how you’ll experience the transformative magic this one life has to offer.

In keeping with Thanksgiving and with November being National Gratitude Month, I wrote earlier this month about the healing power of gratitude and expressing gratitude.  To close out November, though, I decided to do something a little different: share my personal testimony of gratitude.  I’ll be honest, writing this takes me a little bit out of my comfort zone! If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that while I sometimes share a few brief examples of how each week’s blog theme resonates with me, I haven’t written extensively about my life for two main reasons:  I tend to be a private person; but more so, I also never wanted this blog to center around me but rather to be a resource for you, my readers, and share advice and tips that you find helpful and can take into your own lives.  For that reason, I debated whether or not to share my story, but finally decided it was worth writing about here because my goal is to provide inspiration and hope to others by sharing. Also, I realized that I often encourage my clients and readers to celebrate the “wins” in their lives—so maybe I should take my own advice too, every now and then!

So, here’s my win: only a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving (talk about good timing for gratitude!), I received a letter with news that I was not expecting, at least not for a number of years. The letter was from MOHELA, my student loan servicer, informing me that all of my student loans had been completely forgiven! I could hardly believe my eyes, so much so that I called my sister on video and asked her to read it to make sure I was reading it correctly.  And then I had to thank God as this is something that I have been praying about for YEARS!!!

But let me pause for a minute and share some more background with you.  For decades, I’d been one of the 43.6 million borrowers in the U.S. with student loan debt.  I probably don’t have to convince any of my readers that we’re in a student debt crisis in America, but to put another staggering figure to the problem, according to recent data, this student loan debt totals $1.766 trillion (yes, that’s trillion).  The average federal student loan balance is $37,718; and the average borrower takes 20 years to repay their debt and accrues an average of an additional $27,000 in interest over the life of their student loan. 

Of course, I didn’t know any of this when I was taking out my first student loans to pay for college all those years ago, and I didn’t know that these averages—troubling as they are—don’t even fully capture the magnitude of the debt crisis, and the disproportionate impact of student debt on students and borrowers of color.  Research has documented that “racial disparities throughout the student loan lifecycle begin long before a promissory note is signed or even before the financial aid award letter arrives”: longstanding and persistent racial wealth gaps mean that Black and Latinx families on average have less wealth than white households and therefore tend to have fewer resources available for a parent contribution to higher education and are more likely to need to take on student debt. After graduation, racial income gaps and persistent inequity and discrimination disproportionately hamper borrowers of color’s ability to repay their student loans.

Even if I didn’t know all of the statistics and the broader context of inequity underpinning the student debt crisis when I was pursuing my degree, I felt the burden acutely as I took out student loans first for my bachelor’s degree—which I saw as a necessary pathway to a stable, family-supporting career—and later for graduate education that many employers in my field at that time deemed essential for growing into higher-level positions.  (I should note here: I love education and I’m proud of the degrees I earned, but I’m also encouraged to see greater awareness these days of living-wage career opportunities that don’t necessarily require a four-year degree. And I’m happy to see more employers embracing a “skills-based hiring” approach that focuses on practical skills and experience gained and doesn’t unilaterally or arbitrarily exclude workers who don’t have a college degree.)   

I wouldn’t trade my college and graduate school experiences for anything, but that doesn’t mean the student loans weren’t a heavy burden on me as I continued to build my career. Two bright spots emerged, though, the first in 2007 when the federal government created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which allowed borrowers with certain types of federal loans who were working in nonprofit or government to potentially qualify for student loan forgiveness after making 120 student loan payments (or a total of 10 years’ worth of payments).  This was exciting to me, since my growing career was in the nonprofit sector—but still, 10 years seemed very far away, and to be completely transparent, there were times when I couldn’t make my monthly student loan payments and I was in deferment or forbearance.  PSLF was a light at the end of the tunnel to me, for sure, but the tunnel still seemed endless!

Fast-forward to 2022, when thanks to interest accruing and some of my past periods of deferment or forbearance, my student loans were still very much weighing on me. In fact, it felt like I had barely made a dent in the balance!  By this time, PSLF had been around for over 10 years and more eligible borrowers were reaching the threshold where they qualified for forgiveness. I started seeing more and more jubilant posts on social media from Individuals getting their loan forgiveness notifications and I celebrated them—but I can’t lie, I was a little envious too (then I remind myself that what God has for me is for me)! Even though I’d been employed at nonprofit organizations all that time and I knew I’d made some payments on my loans, I still thought I was years away from my own loan forgiveness date.  

Then, the second bright spot emerged: I heard about the special PSLF waiver opportunity that the federal government had announced in 2021, with a deadline to apply for the waiver by October 31, 2022. I’d heard bits and pieces about the PSLF waiver here and there, but I hadn’t paid much attention until shortly before the deadline. Honestly, the information was confusing, and I was discouraged enough by the weight of my loans at that point that I didn’t really understand what the waiver applied to and I’d convinced myself I probably wouldn’t benefit anyway. (The limited PSLF waiver allowed borrowers to potentially receive credit toward the 120 payments for past periods of repayment that otherwise wouldn’t qualify.)

Then a phone call from a former colleague changed everything. I hadn’t talked to this former colleague in a long time, but she was applying for the PSLF waiver herself and had actually called to ask if I had any advice about how to get records to certify her employment at the nonprofit organization where we’d both formerly worked that had since shut down.  “Jen,” she told me, “you have to submit your PSLF waiver form, it’s so important! Even if you think your loans won’t be eligible, you need to at least try—you never know!” 

Her encouragement got me in gear, though the process wasn’t easy. I had to fill out the form, get my nonprofit employment certified by my current employer (who thankfully, was very responsive!), and then fax it to MOHELA, which was the student loan servicer in charge of processing PSLF waiver applications.  I can’t even remember the last time I’d sent a fax and because I was traveling for work I was frantically searching for free online fax options pretty much right up until the October 31 deadline, but I got my form in. And then I waited…and waited…and waited…only to get a response back in February stating that my form was incomplete because it had my digital signature instead of a “wet” (signed in ink) signature. I was so discouraged! The correspondence wasn’t clear on whether I could resubmit my form or whether this meant I’d missed the deadline entirely—but I resolved not to give up.  I re-signed the PSLF waiver form in ink and then re-sent it to MOHELA, again figuring that I at least needed to try.

So many little barriers popped up along the way to applying for student loan forgiveness (including an initial letter in the spring from MOHELA stating that my loans didn’t qualify for the PSLF waiver), but I didn’t let them derail me.  Finally, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, I got that life-changing message that my student loans had in fact been forgiven under PSLF! Honestly, I’m still on cloud nine about this news, and thinking about the impact it will have on my budget and on opportunities for wealth-building (not just for myself, but to leave a legacy for my daughters and goddaughter). That almost $800 per month that would have continued to go to student loan payments might just be the difference that allows me to invest in homeownership, increase my retirement savings and/or start investing, and that’s incredibly powerful and transformative.

I’m also reflecting back on Candace Junee’s Go Getter Retreat that I attended early December last year. She asked us to write down 23 “Dream Big Statements” and I remember that exercise so clearly; getting free of my student loans was one of those statements that I wrote down. I specifically wrote “I believe that my student loans will be paid in full in the next 10 years”. It’s an incredible feeling to reach that goal so much sooner than I even dreamed! It’s a reminder to myself—and all of us—to dream big and not let those bumps in the road derail us! I’m grateful for my colleague who encouraged me to send in the PSLF waiver form and for the student loan policies that made PSLF possible.  And I’m grateful to you, my readers, for letting me share my story in this space. What are you grateful for this November and what big dreams are you determined to pursue?

As I close today’s blog post I want to share this worship song that has been a blessing for me and hopefully it will be something that will carry you through the end of this year and into 2024 – God Problems by Maverick City Music.

I’ll be back on Thursday, December 14^th for my final post of 2023. 

Picking up from last week’s theme, I wanted to share some additional tips for making discipline a habit.  Some of these may be familiar concepts to my regular readers–for example, accountability.  Accountability with a trusted friend, colleague, or family member can help with developing discipline.  Many people think self-discipline means doing it all on your own, but it does not mean that at all. In fact, having a coach, or a group, or an accountability partner can really help you to develop more discipline.  An example would be when someone puts off housework until they know someone is coming over, and they race around to get the house all tidy before their visitor arrives. It is far easier to give in and be less disciplined when you just have yourself in the picture. When you have a person or people hold you accountable, though, you are far more likely to make sure it happens.    

An accountability partner is someone you set up a contract with to hold each other accountable for reaching goals. This is a mutual pact and is probably the easiest to set up. The goals do not have to be the same ones, the point is to connect on a regular basis, often once a week, and share with each other how much you have accomplished.  The best way to do this is to break up the task into daily chunks and do each one each day so that you are not trying to finish up the project the night before you meet with your accountability partner.  (For more on accountability, check out this blog post from April 2023.)

Using Challenges to Develop More Discipline

One way you can develop more discipline is to use challenges. This makes it more like a game and less like a chore. Also there can be the element of friendly competition with others and having others help hold you accountable which improves your odds of success.  Challenges are very popular and you can find them in many places across the internet and social media. Or you can make up your own and share it with a group of people. However, you end up doing it is up to you.

When looking to see if a challenge will be useful to you, there are some factors to look for, so you can best benefit. Is the challenge realistic? You want to stretch yourself, but not to the point where it might be too difficult to succeed. For example you could challenge yourself to cook all your meals at home for the next 30 days in order to save money on take-out or restaurant food, but that might be challenging if, for instance, you have travel planned away from your home during that time, or if you have an especially busy few days with work, kids’ activities, or other family obligations on deck. You also want the challenge to not be too easy. You need to see if you have the time to devote to it. Be sure to include time for learning new things, for example if you challenge yourself to build a new blogging website in 30 days, remember that if you have never done one before, you will have to learn some things and that will be extra time above just writing the blog posts.  (Having launched this blog earlier this year, I am all too aware from personal experience the time it can take to learn new website-building systems! )  

If the challenge is a large one over a longer period of time, are there clear-cut milestones along the way to help you have a sense of accomplishment? If your challenge, for example, is to find a new job or change careers entirely, you may want to build in smaller steps and milestones along the way–such as making a list (written or mental) of what you’re looking for in your new career, writing or revamping your resume, researching job leads, networking informally or through informational interviews with people in the field you have your eye on, and so forth. 

When you do a group challenge, you have some added benefits. There is a sense of camaraderie when working together on a goal that you don’t get when just “competing” with yourself. Other people can give you ideas, too. For example, if you are in a group challenge focused on cooking more or eating out less, the group members can share recipes and support.

Organization Is a Major Tool in Developing Discipline

If you want to develop more self-discipline, it helps to get organized. Organization helps you feel less overwhelmed and makes it easier to get things done. You also can focus easier on your goals if you have a structure to both your day and your work environment.

For example, say you have a goal of writing a book. Lots of people want to write books, but many never end up finishing one–why? Because a monumental goal like that requires discipline and organization, and especially if there isn’t a fixed deadline imposed by someone else, it’s easy for our goals to fall to the back burner as day-to-day obligations get in the way. You cannot successfully write a book if you only write when you feel like it. You also are less likely to get much writing done if you are not organized. If your research for your book consists of pages that you have to search through every time you need something, or worse yet, find the notes buried in a pile of paperwork, you will find you spend more time on finding things instead of actually writing.

Scheduling your day is another way of organizing that will help you develop discipline. This is more than just having a to do list. You need to look at when you get up, when you go to bed, and block out times like work hours that cannot be used for accomplishing your goals. Then you need to take a look at the time left over and figure out how to best use it. One of the ways a lot of people add more time in their day is to get up an hour earlier and devote that time to their goals. Some people go to bed an hour later and use that time. Be realistic about how much time it takes to do the steps needed to accomplish your goal.

Organizing your workspace and your files on your computer are also ways to help you with developing discipline. By making sure you cut down on the time it takes for related tasks to accomplish your goals, you allow more time to actually do the work of the goal itself. To go back to the example of writing a book, if your research is well organized either in your workplace or in well-marked files on your computer, you will spend less time looking stuff up and more time actually writing. This will lead to faster writing as well since you are not interrupting the flow to spend time searching for something.   You will then be far more likely to actually finish writing that book. 

This is another example that really resonates with me from personal experience. In 2022 I was invited to contribute a chapter to The Entrepreneurs’ Toolkit for Success and I got a taste of the organization and discipline that writing required–and that was for a single chapter, not even a whole book!  Some of the tips and techniques that I described above really helped me stay on track, and I definitely plan to use them when I tackle my next writing goal of writing and publishing an entire book someday!  How have discipline and organization helped you get closer to achieving your goals?   

This week and next, I’m focusing on the topic of discipline: how we can develop it and how we can use it to our advantage in our learning and development journey.  Many of us might have an initial gut reaction to the term “discipline” that isn’t the most positive: perhaps we had childhood experiences that cause us to associate discipline with punishment; or even if we think of discipline as being more along the lines of self-discipline, it’s also common to think that self-discipline revolves around rule-following, working, or denying yourself treats or other indulgences. But productive, meaningful discipline shouldn’t be punitive, and it doesn’t have to be a chore. Instead, we can harness the power of discipline for our learning and development.     

Benefits of Self-Discipline

When you develop self-discipline, you have many beneficial results. These include a sense of accomplishment, more self-respect, and a better understanding of what you can do.  Discipline is not always easy, but it is well worth it. When you set goals and work on them every day until you accomplish the goal, you feel proud of yourself. Not only because you accomplished the goal, but because you did not quit. You stuck with your goals and made them happen. Think back to when you had a goal and worked on it every day until it was done. How did you feel?

When you discipline yourself to accomplish a goal, you also increase your self-respect. Think of the people you have the most respect for, and why you respect them. Chances are one of those reasons is that they have self-discipline. They set out to do something and they accomplish it. By doing the same for yourself, you can have more respect for who you are as a person.  You learn more of what you can do. When you set goals and challenge yourself to meet them, you will find out that you can overcome obstacles that you might have thought were too difficult. You learn more about who you are and what you can accomplish when you set your mind to it.

Many times, we put limitations on ourselves that aren’t really accurate.  In the coaching world, we sometimes call this phenomenon “limiting beliefs” and they can pertain to topics large or small, specific or wide-ranging.  “I’m not athletic, I could never run a 5K race (or a half-marathon, marathon, etc)”; “I’m too old (or too young) to do ____”; “I’m not creative enough to be an entrepreneur”; “I’ll never get ahead in life” are all examples of limiting beliefs that can hold us back. These beliefs can be shaped by a whole host of deep-seated factors, sometimes going as far back as our childhood.  Many of us have limiting beliefs that were influenced by the habits, mindset, or circumstances of our parents or our extended community–perhaps without us even being consciously aware of it at the time. Or negative experiences in school or the workplace might have shaken our confidence and caused self-doubt to take root in our minds. Limiting beliefs can be powerful, pervasive, and persistent.  

Think about something you think is not possible. Is it really impossible or are you setting a limitation that is artificial? One way to find out is to set a goal and make it happen. Obviously, some goals won’t happen overnight. Progress might be slow and gradual, depending on your starting point, the magnitude of your goal, and the distance between those start and finish lines. (If you’re really feeling bogged down by your limiting beliefs and need some extra support, a skilled coach can be a great resource for helping you get “unstuck” and chart a new path forward.)

You can use this mindset to practice embracing some of the benefits of discipline. Figure out a goal that you want to do and set up milestones along the way. Then each day do something to make those milestones happen. It doesn’t have to be anything major, just one more small step on the way to your final goal. When you reach that final goal, take stock of how you feel about yourself and what you are capable of doing. (For much more on goal setting, see my April 2023 blog series.)

Discipline in Bite Sized Steps

But what are some ways to begin practicing self-discipline that are manageable, achievable and don’t reinforce those negative perceptions of discipline as being too limiting and deprivation-focused?  One of the ways that people struggle with developing self-discipline, is trying to make too many changes at once–not just by doing more than one goal at a time, but by making those goals way too large. Either of these approaches can lead to us feeling deprived, discouraged, and ultimately demotivated.

An example of too many goals at once might be someone choosing to quit smoking, improve their eating habits, exercise regularly, build a successful business, and get out of debt, all at the same time. All of these goals are common things that many people strive to achieve and that can be beneficial for our longer-term health, wealth, and quality of life.  But if you try to do them all at once, though, you will probably find it to be too much and quit. This is one of the reasons why some of those big, bold New Year’s resolutions that we make every January 1 tend to fizzle out as the year goes on. Instead, focus on one or two of your goals for the first several months, to give yourself time to make new habits, notch some small “wins” to celebrate, and use that momentum to move on to other goals. 

For example, if your most urgent goal is to quit smoking because you’re concerned about the long-term health effects and the day-to-day impact on your budget, you might start by focusing just on that goal. You could spend a couple of months getting rid of the cigarettes and using aids like the nicotine patch to help. Then once you feel that you’ve reached a place of stability and confidence in meeting that goal, you can move on to tackle others.

You may find changing your diet and exercising more to be really overwhelming goals because they are huge ones–and so generic that it can be difficult to pinpoint where to start. So, another tactic to help you with discipline is to break them down into smaller goals. If you look across your food and drink consumption and decide that you want to focus on cutting out soda, for example, maybe you break it down into this week you cut your soda intake in half, then week two you cut it out completely. If you do this week by week making one small change, you may find it easier to stay in control.

Another way you can break it down is by intensity. So, say you want to exercise more, but you have not exercised in years. If you start with something like a full workout, you may give up or get injured and then be unable to exercise at all. So instead of going full tilt, you can start by doing mini workouts at a lower intensity for a few days, and over time add more minutes to your workout until you reach at least 20 to 30 minutes of activity. You can also over time increase the intensity of your workout as you get stronger and in better shape. By breaking down the goals into bite-sized steps, you can make it easier to develop the discipline you need to accomplish them. You will also improve the chances of success in changing your habits.

Self-discipline doesn’t have to be a practice that we dread or fear! When we start to see discipline not as something that’s imposed on us but as a tool that we are in control of, we can use it to further our personal and professional development goals.  Next week, I’ll share more tips about how to practice discipline in a healthy and effective way, and in the meantime, feel free to share any examples of a time when you broke discipline down into some bite-sized steps!     

We’ve probably all heard about “self-esteem” as a buzzword and gotten messages from friends, family, social media, or other sources about how important it is–and that’s certainly true. Self-esteem is paramount because it’s difficult to have good mental health if you don’t have healthy self-esteem. This means that it is every bit as important as people say. But what exactly is self-esteem? And how do you cultivate it or improve it? 

While self-esteem has many components, it comes down to one thing: how you feel about yourself. Do you like yourself? Do you believe that you are worthy and valuable? Do you respect yourself and insist that others do the same? Those all contribute to healthy self-esteem (a phrasing that I tend to prefer, compared to talking about “good” vs. “bad” self-esteem, though I sometimes use those terms).  The components of self-esteem include one’s sense of identity (do you know who you are?), one’s sense of purpose (why you do what you do), a feeling of belonging, feeling secure (mentally, physically, and emotionally), and feeling competent at one or more things.

Since self-esteem is so important, it makes sense to talk about its components and what causes it to rise and fall. The various components of self-esteem–identity, belonging, security, competence, and purpose–are affected by things that happen throughout life. Having a healthy amount of all five components is necessary to have good self-esteem. You cannot have a   critically low level of one component and have healthy self-esteem no matter how high you score on the other components. Adverse events in childhood (bullying, trauma, detached parents or relatives, for example) are a common cause of low self-esteem.  Adult-onset cases of low self-esteem can also occur due to life events such as job loss, setbacks on a career or personal goal, health crises, divorce, and so forth.

Regardless of the causes of low self-esteem, for many of us, there are things we can do to improve it.  However, I also want to note that there may be times when we can’t think, read, journal, meditate, etc. our way out of low self-esteem or mental health struggles–and for those of us in that situation, it is so necessary to know that you don’t have to do it yourself.  It’s OK to reach out for help from a trusted, expert health/mental health professional. (My expertise is in coaching and I’m a true believer in the power of coaching to help folks get “unstuck” or find clarity on their goals and a roadmap to achieving them. But us coaches are also trained to recognize that coaching is not therapy or mental health care and that there are some circumstances that a licensed mental health professional is best-equipped to address.)

That’s all to say–use some of the below tips to reflect and do some “DIY” self-esteem work, but also take care of yourself and seek additional professional support and help if you need it!

Recognizing Self-Esteem

Before you can learn how to raise your self-esteem, you need to first be sure that you are dealing with low self-esteem. How can you tell if someone has low self-esteem? These are the most common symptoms, but this list is by no means comprehensive.

• Self-Criticism and Denigration. Being constantly negative and self-critical is one of the surest signs of low self-esteem. It is not okay to put anyone down, and most especially not yourself. This includes all forms of denigrating oneself, including in a joking fashion.
• Thinking Other People Are Better Than You. Every person is valuable and has inherent worth just by virtue of being human. No one person is better than any other. Feeling less than or less valuable than any other person is a flashing warning sign about low self-esteem.
• Lack of Boundaries. Some folks who struggle with boundaries tend to be chronic people-pleasers. Not being able to say “no” to something you do not want to do or take on is its hallmark, whether at work or in personal affairs. This can also show up in an inability to end or set firm rules around toxic or abusive relationships.
• Focusing On The Negatives. Is everything negative? Is there no good to be found in anything? Of course not! But when you have low self-esteem, it can seem that way. Those with low self-esteem tend to focus exclusively on the negatives and cannot see anything good.
• Fear Of Failure And/Or Criticism. The fear of failing and of not being liked are tied together in those with low self-esteem. They are often afraid to do anything for fear that they will fail. Likewise, the thought of being criticized for anything can send many with low self-esteem into a panic or a spiral of shame and self-hatred.

Interrupting And Changing Negative Thought Patterns

One of the first steps to improving your self-esteem is to interrupt the patterns that help keep it low. When you have low self-esteem, many of those thought patterns are negative. You have to interrupt those patterns if you want to raise your self-esteem. Then you have to change them. The first step in this process is to begin to pay attention to those patterns. Start noticing your self-talk. That is the way you talk to yourself about yourself. Notice what sets off a pattern of negative thoughts about yourself and where those thoughts tend to go. What sends you into a shame spiral or makes you feel worthless? What are the patterns?

Next, you have to learn to interrupt those thought patterns when they start. You have to consciously stop them and go “No–this is not true,” and add something that is true. You have to do this over and over again. Sometimes you will fail, especially at first, but you just have to keep going and try again. As you work through this process, you will begin to lay down new patterns and form new connections to replace the old.

Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

It has been said that comparison is the thief of joy. Well, it also steals self-esteem. Nothing will kill your self-esteem faster than comparing yourself to another person, especially someone you feel like you are in competition with for one reason or another.

• Remember That You Do Not Know Everything. All you know about this other person is what you see on the outside. Even if it is a friend or relative, you do not know their thoughts and feelings. There are things they do not tell you. They have struggles and challenges you know nothing about. They might even be struggling with low self-esteem themselves. (I’ve often been surprised to learn that someone who–to me–seemed abundantly and effortlessly confident was in fact having the same self-doubts about themselves that I experienced myself!)
• Avoid Your Triggers. What causes you to play the comparison game? Chances are, it only occurs in certain situations and does not happen every day. Think back to the times it has happened and see if you can spot any patterns. Look for specific people and/or specific events or social functions. When you figure out what triggers it, start avoiding those situations until you have improved your self-esteem. 

Practice Accepting Yourself

All people share certain things in common, but we are also all unique. Each human being is born with a combination of skills, talents, interests, personality characteristics, and so forth that have never been seen before and will never be seen again. When you have low self-esteem, it is unlikely that you accept this premise, and even if you do, you probably still do not think much of yourself as a unique person.

Start to change this narrative by making a list of your good qualities, strengths, and things that make you unique. After you have made the list, read it several times each day, for example once in the morning and again in the evening. Repeat it whenever you feel down on yourself.  Work on forgiving yourself for not being perfect. No one is, but somehow you have gotten it into your mind that you should be the exception and are comparing yourself to an impossible standard. Look yourself in the eyes in a mirror and say “I’m not perfect, but no one is. I’m fine the way I am.” (It might feel a bit silly or unnatural at first, but I’ve practiced affirmations and mantras more over the past few years, and it’s surprising how powerful of an effect they can have!)

Learn to let go of the things about yourself you cannot change. You cannot change the past, or your natural talents, or certain aspects of your body or personality. Stop trying. It is just going to hurt your self-esteem even more. As you do all of these things, they will slowly come to be a part of your makeup and affect your subconscious. As time passes, you will accept yourself more and more.

I’ll be honest, this work isn’t easy! It can be difficult to heal from adverse childhood or adult experiences that affect our self-esteem.  Those persistent, ingrained thought patterns are hard to disrupt. Like other aspects of self-improvement, self-esteem is a journey and building healthy self-esteem takes practice. Challenging ourselves can be good for our growth, but make sure you’re giving yourself grace and patience as well. I’ve struggled with self-esteem too, though I’m proud of the progress that I’ve made–with the support of friends, family, colleagues, coaches, and mentors–and I’ve seen how better self-esteem gives me the confidence I need to step up to my full potential in my work and in my business.  What wins are you celebrating in your self-esteem and self-improvement journey?      

 But what is self-reflection, exactly? Self-reflection is the act of evaluating our own thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and actions to better understand ourselves. Self-reflection is an excellent tool to evaluate any circumstance we find ourselves in to consider our role in the situation and what’s in our control to do differently in the future. Looking within helps determine what we may be doing in any given situation that is causing us friction in our lives. Self-reflection can help with:   

• Better understanding your current situation
• Helping you take ownership of the situation
• Making an effective plan to improve or take action on something
• Setting healthier boundaries with others
• Increasing your self-esteem

It may not seem natural to evaluate yourself and look for ways you can change, but it is a powerful way to improve your health, relationships, and overall quality of life. Understanding that you have the power to analyze your role in nearly every scenario and situation you’re in can help you grow, mature, and live a healthier life.

Looking Back is Just as Important as Looking Forward

We’ve all heard the encouraging mantras designed to keep us moving forward in life: “keep your eyes on the prize,” “inhale the future, exhale the past,” “the windshield is larger than the rearview mirror,” and so on. These powerful statements are designed to motivate you to leave the past behind you and focus on the future.

Looking forward is important. In some ways it’s true, you can’t change or control the past, but perhaps you can change and control the future. When we feel stuck, scared, or overwhelmed trying to manage life, it’s important to keep moving forward. Step by step, we can overcome any setbacks and achieve our goals. Some great ways to keep moving forward include:

• Take it one day at a time. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too much at once. Making changes in any area of life isn’t easy. Take one day at a time and be proud of your progress.
• Stay positive. Your mindset is powerful. If you adopt a positive mindset about change you can manage the bumps in the road as a necessary part of evolution.  (Having said that, know that it’s also OK to feel frustrated, “stuck,” or sad sometimes too. “Positivity” shouldn’t be a source of stress or something you feel pressure to maintain if it’s not your authentic mindset in any particular moment.)
• Slow and steady is the perfect pace. Taking things one day at a time can help you keep a steady pace with change and keep your eyes focused ahead towards progress.

Looking forward is important and powerful when it comes to making changes or reaching your goals, but there are times when looking back before going forward is actually just as, or even more, important.

We often discourage looking back thinking it’s useless when it comes to progress. Dwelling on the past or ruminating over things that have already happened is often seen as a waste of time, but to a degree, it’s important and helpful.  Looking back will help you better understand yourself: We often live our lives moving forward but understand them looking back. Self-reflection provides an opportunity for analysis on our thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes. This can help us better understand why we act, react, or do the things we do. Looking back can help us determine if we want to do things differently moving forward.

Looking back can also figure out if there are patterns or habits that aren’t serving you anymore–and give you a starting point to change those patterns. We all have some regrettable memories in our past, times that maybe we missed the mark or suffered an unexpected outcome. In the moment, we may not have realized how our behaviors or thoughts would impact the situation but looking back it’s evident. Self-reflection can help us recognize where we contributed to an unwanted outcome and make a better plan moving forward.

While it’s very important to keep moving forward when it comes to change, it’s also important to strategically look back to evaluate and analyze what needs to change for a successful future. Self-reflection is an excellent tool that can keep you from taking one step forward and two steps back.  But how does one self-reflect? What does that process look like?

Asking Open-Ended Introspective questions? The Key to Healthy Self-Reflection

Knowing that self-reflection is a good idea is the first step, the second is discovering how to self-reflect.

• Self-Reflection Requires You to Pause. In order to self-reflect, you’ve got to get quiet. Healthy and effective introspection requires hitting the pause button and stopping the chaos long enough to get a clear head that can process important information. Getting quiet and concentrating on yourself is important so you can uncover the ways you may be getting in your own way and falling short of your goals, hopes, and dreams. One of the best ways to self-reflect is asking yourself open-ended questions. Asking these types of questions can help you fill in the blanks or explore things in a deeper way. Here are some examples of questions that are great for introspection: What motivated my actions? What factors contribute to this recurring pattern? What prompted their reaction towards me? What shapes my current thought processes? By inquiring into motivations behind your actions this can help you stop and think about the things that trigger you into behaviors or habits you want to change or wonder why certain things keep happening. It’s important to look for clues that alert you to what’s going on deep down.
• Keep a Journal to Help with the Process. Journaling is a great way to keep track of your self-reflection and understand the reasons behind the situations and outcomes you experience. You can simply ask yourself exploratory questions and record your thoughts in your journal. Over time you can see patterns develop and use them to make changes. Journaling has helped me get my thoughts and feelings down on paper, and I’ve found that sometimes the act of writing something out lets thoughts flow that might otherwise not have surfaced if I was simply mulling things over in my head. (I have lots more thoughts about journaling–look out for that as a blog-series topic in a future month soon!)   

If you’re ready to do some healthy self-reflection, start by asking yourself some open-ended introspective questions? These questions have the power to unlock a world of information that can help you change the way you think and act, making it easier to achieve your goals.

I hope this post has given you some insight into why self-reflection is an important part of self-improvement and how to begin self-reflecting. If you’re still feeling a bit stuck, coaching can be a great way to kick-start self-reflection with some support and a framework (coaches are trained and skilled at asking some of those “powerful questions” that prompt self-reflection) but the beauty of self-reflection is that you can do it anytime, anywhere, and with anyone or in solitude with yourself–whatever approach feels right for you. Try taking a few moments this week to self-reflect, and feel free to let me know what you learn and how it feels!