Life Is Defined By The Choices You Make

                                                   "Life is a matter of choices,
                                        and every choice you make makes you."
                                                        - John C. Maxwell

Everything in our life exists because we first made a choice about something. We end up with the life that is an accumulation of the choices that we have made, throughout our life. Good choices as well as bad choices.
Every choice or decision we make is going to have an effect on our life. Nothing is neutral. Either it leads us in the right direction or the wrong direction of what we want to accomplish and where we want to go.

Our choices can be our best friend..... or our worst enemy.
Our choices can get us on the right path to achieving our goals or it can derail us and put us far away from our desired destination.

Every decision or choice that we make will start a behavior, that eventually will lead to forming a habit.
There are productive and empowering habits that will take us in the right direction. And there is also the opposite. Bad habits will take us down the wrong path and away from our destiny.
Choose poorly and we might find ourselves back where we started many years ago and now we are faced with making even harder choices.

Sometimes we don't choose at all. We decide that deciding is too scary so we simply ignore making a choice or a decision. Do you think that not making a choice or a decision is safe? Think again! If you don't make a choice or a decision and you are passive..... you will probably receive whatever comes your way. Is that what you truly want?

Every decision that you make, no matter how small will alter the direction of your life.
First you make the choices..... than the choices make you.


                                               "Choices are the hinges of destiny."
                                                           - Edwin Markham


Don't allow your choices to be unconscious. Become aware of what you are choosing and deciding on a daily basis so you won't end up somewhere you didn't want to go in the first place. Awareness is key so that you can decide on the right choices, behaviors and habits that will empower you and lead you down the path to your destiny.

Today become conscious of your choices and habits.
Ask yourself.....
What am I doing that I didn't consciously decide to do?
Why do I continue to do this?

If something is leading you in the wrong direction, you must push the PAUSE button before you are on your way in the opposite direction of where you want to go.

Make sure that you make decisions and create habits that will support you and lead you in the direction that you have chosen for your life.
Your biggest challenge will be to wake up and start making conscious choices and decisions.


Here is great question for your to ponder on today!
What are the choices that are leading you away from your desired destination?
Examine the choices you have made.
Examine your habits.
Write it all down.


It's all about becoming aware of your choices that you have made in the past. The choices that you are not happy with and that did not lead you in the right direction, so that starting
TODAY you can change, and make better and more empowering choices and decisions for your future.


                                    "Your life changes the moment you make a new, 
                                            congruent, and committed decision."
                                                               - Tony Robbins 

                                             Karin Glannstam - Personal Success Coach

                                                          www.karinglannstam.com

What Is Stinking Up Your Life?

                                            "The first step to getting what you want 
                                is to have the courage to get rid of what you don't want."
                                                               - Zig Ziglar

Today I am writing about the stinky stuff in our lives.

Most of us have some stinky stuff going on in our lives. Some have more and some have less.
I have had a lot of stinky stuff in my life, and I am working on slowly eliminating most of the bad smelling stuff in my own life. It's not always easy and it will require some action, effort and consistency.
We have to constantly be on the watch out for stinky stuff around us and making sure that it doesn't get in the way of us living a happy and fulfilling life. A little stinky..... we can deal with. But it's the huge stinky..... like full-blown emergencies and crisis, that will be a little more difficult to handle and that will take a lot of our energy.


Have you ever opened the door to your refrigerator  and smelled something stinky?
I think that most of us have.

What do we usually do when we open the door to the refrigerator and we smell something stinky? Most of us will probably look around a little bit. Maybe we move a few items around trying to figure out where the smell is coming from, and when we can't see it, we just shut the door hoping that the smell will disappear by itself.
Does this sound like you?

The next day it is still stinky but since it isn't any worse than it was the day before, we simply ignore it again, believing that it will probably be gone by tomorrow or maybe some else will figure it out and clean it up so we don't have to.

This goes on for a couple of days, but by the time next week rolls around the smell is so bad that it can't be ignored.

We look in the vegetable drawer and find some "not so fresh" looking veggies and we decide to remove them in order to get rid of the smell. We are now sure that this will fix the problem.

But it didn't. And the smell is really getting bad by now. It cannot be ignored anymore. And since no one else seemed to be bothered by the smell we finally decide that we have to look a little closer.

We find some meat that doesn't look to fresh, and we quickly remove it. Thinking that the meat was the problem.

No, it didn't fix it either. The fridge is really stinking now. So we finally have to take the time to empty out the whole refrigerator to figure out what is going on.

After almost everything has been removed we discover some really old fish on the bottom shelf under a lot of other things. It was hidden and we didn't move the things in front of it nor did we remove things on top of it to, discover the rotten and stinky fish.

We throw away the fish. Clean out the whole refrigerator, and guess what.....the stinky smell is gone.
We finally figured out what was stinking up the refrigerator. The fish.


So my question is.....is there something stinking up your life right now?

How about your health and wellbeing?
Are you taking great care of your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health?
Or are you ignoring it, thinking it will take care of itself without you paying any attention to it?
Are you feeding your body and your mind excellent fuel for it to operate on? Or do you mostly feed it junk?
Are you ignoring the signs of high blood pressure or high blood sugar levels thinking that it won't turn it something worse, like a stroke or maybe diabetes?
Are you sleeping enough? Are you drinking enough water on a daily basis?
Are you using sleeping pills to be able to go to sleep? Are you taking pills to relax or pills to get yourself going every day?
Are you drinking alcohol in order to be able to relax?
Is your body and your mind slowly becoming toxic and stinky?


How about your relationships are they healthy and nurturing?
Or are still hang onto some toxic friends and family members because you are afraid of being alone? Are you spending time with people who aren't going anywhere in life? People that don't want to learn, grow and expand their lives? Are you hanging onto closeminded people that have settled in life and that are now becoming bitter and stinky?


How about your job....are you happy and fulfilled at work?
Or are you simply just getting through the day and waiting for the weekend to arrive? Do you feel that your skills are not being used at work and you feel understimulated and unmotivated?
Or is it the opposite? There is so much going on at work and you are highly stressed and feeling that you don't have time to finish everything during the day and you have to take it home with you and spend a couple of hours in the evening completing the work.? You know that if this continues you will eventually have to face burnout from working way to much. Your family is slowly getting unhappy at home because you don't have time to spend with them and when you do, you are frustrated, short tempered and angry. You now have a stinky mess on your hands both at work and at home.

How about your finances?
Are you spending all the money that you make and then some, every month?
Are you wasting money buying things to impress others? People that you actually don't like but you want them to think that you are successful? So you buy things hat you cannot afford, but it is a quick fix and it makes you feel and look good for the moment. Are you in debt, but you still buy stuff ? Do you still believe that a bigger car, a bigger house, a brand new pool in the backyard, the latest designer clothes or new electronics will make you feel significant and happy.
Are you gambling away your money, thinking that the next bet will make you a millionaire?
Are you using your money buying stinky things or behaving in a stinky way?


How about your thoughts?
Are you having a lot of "stinking thinking" going on?
You know, we don't have control over a lot of things in our lives, but we do have control over our mind and our own thoughts. We don't have to participate in negative thinking, gossiping, complaining or worrying. We can choose to stop stinking thinking with more empowering and inspiring thoughts. Thoughts that will actually give us hope and empower instead of breaking us down.


Sometimes we need to stop and smell the stinky in our own lives.
Where in your own life do you have a lot of stinky going on?
Is there some area(s) that need to be checked on and maybe cleaned out?
Are you simply ignoring the smell and hoping that it will go away by itself?
Are you waiting for someone else to clean up the mess?

Why wait until something gets so bad that you are forced the face the really bad smell and then forced to clean it up.
Why not start a little earlier before the small stinky problem, becomes a huge full-blown stinky crisis?

Don't wait. If you can smell something stinky in your life. Stop and take a look at it. Acknowledge the smell and then take action right away. Don't wait, it won't smell any better tomorrow and it won't go away by itself, and most of the time no one else will fix it either.

                                                            www.karinglannstam.com

Are You Willing To Do What It Takes To Change Your Life?

                             The opportunity for a better life ultimately comes down to you.
                                                  You must be willing to change.

You can't get in shape by watching other people workout or watching some kind of sport on TV. Watching people in the gym lifting weights, will not increase and strengthen  your muscles. You have to lift the wrights yourself. To get in any kind of better physical or mental shape, you actually have to do the "getting in shape" part yourself.
No one can do it for you.

A couple of weeks ago ran into a good friend of mine that I had not seen for over a year. We talked a while about was going on in our lives. I remembered that a couple of years she had mentioned to me that she had gone to see a chiropractor for her back problems, and right now I am looking for a good chiropractor, for myself. So I asked her about her experience with this chiropractor. If he was any good and if she felt that she got the help that she deeded?

Her response was that she thought he was okay, but in the end she didn't feel that he helped her a lot with a her problem. And beside that she said, it was pretty expensive to go and see him.
So I asked her if she would recommend him to others? And she stated that he was probably like most chiropractors and that he did and okay job.
Then she said, "well part of the problem that I didn't feel much better was that he gave me some exercises that I was suppose to do on a daily basis in order to get better, and I didn't do them.
So I am partly to blame for not getting to feel better."

Can you relate to this!!!

Here is a great example...…
You start on a new diet. You are excited for a while, convinced that this time you will be able to shed those stubborn 20 pounds that you have put on during the past 5 years. You follow the diet for a few weeks .You hit the gym several times per week, but when you don't see the instant results that you have hoped for, you get discouraged. You quit the diet and you blame the diet for not being a good one.
In a few months this starts all over again with a new diet and a new attempt to shed the pounds and getting in shape.

Here is another example.....
You have decided to get in better mental shape, reduce stress and become more mindful. You start reading all the self help books out there that you can get our hands on. But after a while you quit reading, because you don't feel like the books helped you become more inspired, enlightened and motivated and beside that you can't really see any huge difference in your own life, anyway.
But did you apply any of the tips, ideas that the books recommend that you had to do in order for your life to change?

How many courses or seminars have you attended live or online to learn, expand and grow?
Did you apply any of the tips, ideas and strategies that they recommended that you have to in order to accomplish what you wanted in your life?

Have you ever decided on a new goal, maybe a new financial goal or relationship goal? You went to the seminar, you read the books and articles. You discovered  brand new ways of doing things that would definitely help you in creating a better life for yourself and your family.
Did you apply what you learned, in your own life, or did you just decide that it wasn't for you?
Or did you decide that the course wasn't any good and you regret going and spending money on it?
The teacher, coach or the leader of the course wasn't any good and you already knew everything they did and taught?

Did you decide that the self-help books that you read was a waste of your time and those tips, ideas and strategies would never work in your life anyway, so why even bother trying to implement them in your own life and you decide that self-help books wasn't for you?


                                              If you're not willing to change,
                                       don't expect your life to change either.


In order for our lives to improve and get better, we have to do the work required. No one can do it for us.
You can read all the self help books out there, but if you don't apply what they tell you to do, all those books won't do you any good.

You can watch others play sports, walk, run or lift weights. But you won't get in shape simply by watching others exercise.

In the end it comes down to what are you willing to do in order to make your life better?
Sitting on the sidelines, glued to the TV, binge watching your favorite sitcom, constantly scrolling thought FB, checking your emails or talking on the phone, won't get you were you want to go.
But hard work will. Applying new ideas, tips and strategies will. Creating a vision for your life and setting goals will.


Are You Willing To Do What It Takes To Change Your Life?

                                                             www.karinglannstam.com

Old Ways Won't Open New Doors

                                         The most dangerous phrase in the language is....
                                                   "we've always done it this way."

When your computer is slowing down and not functioning on the most effective level, it might need to take a step back, to download and update some new programs. Maybe it also it needs to get rid of a few viruses. To do this it will have to shut down for a period of time. It will be a waiting period before you can use your computer again. It will take different length of time depending on how many old programs that had to be removed, before it could do all the updating and re-loading of new programs.

When you finally turn on the computer after it has downloaded all the new programs or updated excising programs, it will sometimes feel awkward and frustrating because you can't find some of the old ways of doing things. You have to learn new ways. The old programs are not working the same way as they did before the update.
This means that you can't go back to the old way we did things on the computer before the new updates and downloads. You are forced to learn new ways of doing things.
In a way the computer has cleaned out the old to make room for the new. It also means that the new programs and updates will make your computer run more smoothly and it will be able to do things it couldn't do before. Maybe it also has more speed and capability.

Is this what is happening in the world?
The world was forced to slow down by this virus. The world was forced to take a step back. The world was forced into a period of waiting.
We couldn't do the things that we were used to do. Some people couldn't go to work. Some people had to work from home. Kids couldn't go to school. We couldn't meet our friends and family.
In other words, we couldn't do what we usually did. We were in a waiting period.

After this waiting period there will be a re-charging period and new things will be downloaded.
New ideas, new dreams, new perspectives and new opportunities.
We are being prepared to go somewhere where we have never been before. We are being prepared to accomplish new goals and dreams that we thought were impossible before.

The key is that we can't go back to doing the things the same was as we did before.
We must open our minds and our hearts for change, or the recharge is not going to work.

Are you making the most of your life?
Are you living the life of your choice, or are you living a life that someone else designed for you?
Are you pursuing your dreams, or maybe you need to dream a new dream?
Are you spending your time wisely?
Who are you spending your time with?
Are you spending time on a job that gives you purpose?
Have you outgrown some of your relationships?
Are you fulfilling your purpose?
Are you just going through the day, not excited, stuck in a job or in a relationship where you are not fulfilled?

Now is the time to make adjustments. Stay open for something new. What worked in the past, may not be good for right now and where you are going.

Don't get stuck in the old. It's time to re-focus.
Old ways can't open new door.

We must come out of this crisis with a new mindset. We must get a clear vision and we must learn to re-focus.
We must be open for new ideas. New job opportunities. New relationships and friendships. New open doors.
We must get out of our comfort zone and try new things.
We must letting go of old things and ways of doing things in order to discover new and more exciting ways.

Time to try new things.
Look for the new open doors and stop staring and hanging onto the old doors that are closing or have already closed.

It's easy to stay in the comfort zone. It's easy to get comfortable. But complacency will keep us stuck where we are right now and it will prevent us from accomplishing our dreams.

At this time we are being forced to move forward. Don't fight it. Move along instead.
Open your heart and your mind and start looking for new open doors, new opportunities, new dreams, new jobs and new friendships.

It's time for a new assignment. It's time for a new dream!!!

This is what happened to me back in 2012, when I had to go through the biggest crisis in my own life, so far. I had 3 huge losses in less than 4 months. Almost all doors closed around me and only one opened. But I took the open door because it was no use in hanging onto the shut doors. because they were not going to open again. I was also in a waiting period of  about 6 months before I came up with a new vision for my life. During this time I had to let go of a lot of old things and relationships in order to make room for new ones. It' was total uncertainty and most things and people around me were new.
Was this waiting time easy? Heck NO!!! I was scared to death!!!
But I also knew that the only things I could to was to stop fighting for things to go back to they way they used to be and to move forward. I couldn't  look back at my old life, because it was never ever going to be the same again.

But new ideas were born during this time. A new vision for my life was born  A new business was born. New relationships were born. New opportunities were born. A new mindset was born.

Today my life is very different. I have grown a lot. I have learned many new things. Accomplished huge goals. Met new people and created new relationships. I have done many scary things. I have faced my fears and I will continue to do this.


Is it time for a new assignment in your life?
Is it time for you to create a new dream?
Is it time for new ideas?


                                               Life is an amazing opportunity.
                                              Don't be afraid to try new things.

                                                               www.karinglannstam.com

Losing Motivation

                                         "People often say that motivation doesn't last.
                      Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily."
                                                               - Zig Ziglar

I don't know about you, but I feel like I have lost some of my motivation during this past month.
I believe that a lot of people feel fatigued, a sense of burnout, overwhelm and stress right now due to the conditions around them. It feels like that we have lost motivation.

Or maybe we haven't lost motivation at all?
Maybe it's still there?
Maybe we just simply stopped doing the things that motivated us in the past?
Maybe we lost touch with our ideal future?
Maybe we put our dreams on hold?

Can we get our motivation back?
What can we do on a daily basis to get going, create momentum and feel motivated again?

Right now most of us are obsessed about the news, what is going on in the world, what is going to happen tomorrow, the inconveniences, the threats and social media. We are constantly paying attention and consuming what is in front of us instead of taking the time to shift our focus and visualize what could be instead. We have put our dreams on the backburner. In a way a lot of people have paused a lot of things to see how everything is going to turn out.

But instead we must get obsessed about our vison and our goals again. It's time to re-connect with our ideal future.
In other words, we need to activate our dreams again.

Motivation is actually triggered by ambition or having a burning desire and action.

If you want to have a better life, better and more fulfilling relationships, a better job, a healthy body, a balanced lifestyle, peace of mind, more happiness, more joy, more love and abundance in any area of your life...that is ambition or a burning desire.

Your minds need more that simply surviving the day. It needs to be engaged in something that will create your ideal future. Something that will make you grow, expand, thrive, or you will loose motivation.
You need to make positive progress every single day.


Here are a few tips to get your motivation going again!

Connect With Your Dream. 
It's really important that you don't loose your connection to your ideal future.
Write down your vision and your goals. Create ways to achieve your dream.
Do some brainstorming.
Visualize your ideal future.
Write down some action steps for you to take.
Take action on a few steps every single day.


Create A Morning Routine.
Take a least 30 minutes every morning to connect with your vision or dream.
Visualize your ideal future.
Look at your goals every single day. Write them down. Think about them.
Get obsessed with your dream instead of what is going on in the news and social media.


Listen To Motivational Voices
Listen to positive podcasts, online seminars, read books, listen to audio books.
Listen to messages of faith and hope by your favorite pastor.
Listening to positive messages will rewire your brain and it will silence the voices of anxiety, worry and fear.
It will make you more positive and it will create a more positive mindset.


Spend Time With Happy People
Spend time with people and friends that are positive. You might not be able to spend time with them in person but Zoom, Skype and FaceTime is always an option.
If you have someone close to you that is very negative you might want to make them aware of this.
You don't have to blame them you can simply make them aware of the fact.


Self Care.....Exercise, Diet & Sleep
The more that you consume of what makes you tired will also lower your motivation.
The wrong foods, too much alcohol, lack of exercise and not enough sleep, might leave you with an hangover the next day.
If you consume a lot of news and social media especially during the evening hours, the harder it will be for you to get a good nights sleep and you might wake up with a hang-over the next day and then you will experience a loss of motivation.
If you engage in unhealthy consumption of food, drugs, alcohol, news or social media, motivation will drop.
Overconsumption will slow you down.
Don't steal from your self care by overconsuming unhealthy things.

I don't consume a lot. I don't watch TV or spend time on social media, and I only check the news once a day for a few minutes. But during this past month I felt like my motivation was fading and I had to up my game when it came to listening to positive podcasts, audio-books, reading books and also listening to my favorite pastor. I increased my "POWER HOUR". It's longer than one hour right now.

I also had to re-connect with my ideal future. I had stopped visualizing and I had stopped looking at  my goals on a daily basis.
I had gotten consumed with what was in front of me instead of visualizing what could be.
I also have consumed too much sugar and gluten for a while and it has made me sluggish and unmotivated. So now I have decided to cut it out of my diet as much as possible.
I am also stepping up my exercise routine. I stopped doing yoga 2 months ago, but last week I started my yoga practice again.


Do something simple today that will have a positive impact on your future.
Action leads to momentum and that leads to increased motivation.

                                                          www.karinglannstam.com