Fall is definitely here with cooler temps and leaves quickly falling from trees. Fall is the season of change and it has a lot of my clients thinking about the changes they want to make in their lives. The best way to truly implement positive changes in your career and personal life is by creating goals that are suitable, manageable, and meaningful to who you are and where you want to go.

Yes, it sounds like common sense, but the hard part is the time and planning required in achieving a goal. It also helps to have partners who guide and encourage you to stay on course. That’s why I am offering group coaching programs that focus on making and achieving your goals. I have two distinct six week group coaching programs.

If you are an entrepreneur who is building a new business, my Entrepreneur in Action group is an ideal way to create goals, share ideas, and get encouragement from other entrepreneurs. The group is limited to six participants and includes a one hour group coaching call and private online forum. Participants will get one on one coaching during the group coaching call throughout the six week group class.

I also offer a group goal setting class that is geared towards individuals who want a system for achieving goals. The group is limited to six participants and includes a one hour group coaching call. Participants will get one on one coaching during the group coaching call throughout the six week group class.  

The accountability factor is what makes these goal setting groups so successful. If you are serious about making your goals a reality, these groups are a perfect setting to develop plans and be supported by a positive people. If you are interested in information or signing up for these groups, please visit http://www.corelifedesign.com/ or e-mail Laura@corelifedesign.com

Laura Tirello is a Certified Career and Life Coach who helps her clients learn how to use their unique working style to become more productive and creative in their career and personal life. She helps her clients develop strategies for success by realizing their strengths and individual potential. To learn more about her business, visit www.corelifedesign.com or contact her at Laura@corelifedesign.com
 Enter to win a free life coach session.

Q: When it is time to take an exam, I get very tense and try to prepare myself by studying for hours on end. When I take the exam I still feel tense and don’t always perform as well as I would like to. Do you have any suggestions?

A: When we overwhelm ourselves we never perform to our best potential. I would suggest blocking out smaller time periods for the concentrated studying. Maybe block out an hour or two in your schedule to focus on your studies. Then create some activities that you enjoy after you study. Physical activity releases stress and boosts your energy. You could also go to a movie to get your mind off of the intensity of preparing for the exam. Keep in mind your fun activities should be in small blocks as well. Repeat this process a few times throughout the day and see what the results are for you.

Alternating between small blocks of studying and small blocks of enjoyable activities will reduce your stress level and help your focus. Why? Your mind won’t be wondering to things you want do because you’ve allowed yourself to do them! It does take some discipline to keep to this schedule, but it will create a healthier balance which may allow you to perform at your best during exam time.

Do you have a question for Laura? Email her at:Laura@corelifedesign.com

Laura Tirello is a Life and Career Coach.  Her company, Core Life Design, works with people who are looking to find their highest potential both in their careers and personal lives. She helps her clients develop a life plan for success and create a balanced life. For more information about Laura and her life coaching business, visit corelifedesign.com or email Laura at Laura@corelifedesign.com.

Beginning in early childhood, we are told to be ourselves. It’s the solution for everything from meeting new friends to getting a job. The ironic thing is that very few of us are actually being ourselves. A large portion of people in the United States are all about keeping up with the Jones’. Simply look at the mortgage crisis and bankruptcy rates—many people wallow in debt just to seem like they have what everyone else has. Our children compete to get the same grades, get into the same schools, and get the same jobs. We have been good little students, following others for so long that we have forgotten what we already have learned and know as unique individuals.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of listening to Michele Woodward, Master Certified Coach and owner of Life Frame Works, talk about this very concept. She was discussing how some of us tend to get into the role of seekers and are hesitant to take the step to accepting what we already know. As a seeker, we grasp for more knowledge, more accreditations, and more titles to show that we know our field. By doing this we often fall into the trap of imitating the moves of the successful people who have become before us. And though this may work to a certain degree, you can’t move fully ahead into success if you are waiting for the next accolade. People are looking to follow a leader, not a seeker. Woodward said once we accept where we are and what we have to offer; that is when a true shift happens in our business, careers, and life endeavors. She mentioned the phrase “Be Your Own Buddha”, meaning: follow your own path.

When starting a business or a new career, remember to stay clear of idol worship. Those who precede you may offer a lot of guidance, but you need to be clear about your own knowledge, worth, and individuality. This puts you on solid ground. Everyone is seeking something, but they want to see leadership in others; a distinction between seeing the value in others’ work and just blindly following it.

Once I looked at the world from this seeker vs. accepter viewpoint, I could see how it played out all around us. Most recently it made me think of Michael Jackson. Though he may have been wildly eccentric at times, he really did become his own Buddha. As the youngest in his family he could have followed his older siblings and molded himself solely in their image. But, through his gift and desire to achieve, he stood out. When his producers tried to tell him how to make an instant hit, he resisted those ideas and created a style of music and video that changed the world. He began to follow his own way, a path that led to a worldwide following.

In a clip shown on TV after he passed away, I heard him say that “the problem with artists is that they try to make the art happen. That’s not the way it is, the art happens on its own, but you have to be there and open to it when it comes.” So while others were seeking, he had the confidence to know that when it came he would know exactly what to do with it.

This technique doesn’t just work with rock stars; it works with anyone who becomes clear about their knowledge. I was coaching a client last week—there are times when you just know where a client needs to go to find the greatest relief and breakthrough. Sometimes it may not be the most comfortable place as a coach because the technique may not be your preferred method. But as a coach, it’s not about you it’s about them. When I was faced with this situation and could clearly see what a client needed, I knew I had to be my own Buddha and use the knowledge I already had to maneuver though this particular method. I had to free myself from how I thought it should be done or my perception of the right way. By freeing myself, I became my own Buddha and this gave my client the space to create her own path. In the end, she came to a great place of enlightenment. Had I just followed the prescribed version of the technique or fell back on how someone else might have done it, I would have lost the client in the process and in turn she may not have found relief.

Start looking at how you are approaching your career and life endeavors. Are you being your own Buddha and celebrating the wealth of knowledge that you already have?

Do you have a question for Laura? Email her at:Laura@corelifedesign.com

Laura Tirello is a Life and Career Coach.  Her company, Core Life Design, works with people who are looking to find their highest potential both in their careers and personal lives. She helps her clients develop a life plan for success and create a balanced life. For more information about Laura and her life coaching business, visit corelifedesign.com or email Laura at Laura@corelifedesign.com.

I received a lot of positive responses to last week’s blog that focused on leaving your comfort zone. It seems that most people recognize their comfort zone and feel an internal struggle of whether to stay in it or venture to the unknown. The people who leave that comfort zone are typically the most successful. It’s hard to believe that risk and all the fear involved can be freeing. It almost feels counter intuitive, but it’s actually not. It’s actually about intuitively realizing that your comfort protects you, but doesn’t promote you.

I was working with a client recently who gave me tons of evidence that she could be successful in her career. She had already done workshops, written articles, and had a following that appreciated her work. However, she was afraid to take the huge step of turning it into a thriving business. Everything that she felt she needed to do: create a business name, website, blog, and marketing plan, seemed so uncomfortable. As she put it “then I would actually have to do it and put myself out there.” This is ironic because the fact is she is already out in the world doing it. She started some workshops for a few interested friends and with only word of mouth referrals, these workshops were packed.

The fact is that we look for evidence of why we can’t do something. This evidence is typically coming from our comfort zone, telling us to play it safe. What we should do is look at the evidence that shows we can do it. My client was far ahead in her business, she was naturally attracting people who wanted to hear her message. Her thoughts and beliefs about success and potential failure were holding her hostage and weren’t allowing her to see all of the evidence pointing to her natural ability to succeed with her business. The tasks that she needed to complete in order to develop the business were not the issue, her thoughts around it were.

Look at some projects where procrastination and overall avoidance come up frequently for you. Is it really that you can’t do it or is it your thoughts about doing it? When clients are stuck in this place and can’t find the precise thought that is creating the suffering, I prescribe some action. Taking action, creating movement, allows them to experience the fear and realize that the outcome wasn’t as awful as they had initially imagined. It helps them to question their thoughts and make a connection to how their thoughts have been controlling their outcome. It doesn’t have to be a huge step. For the client I mentioned earlier, I asked her to just write about an idea she had and not call it a blog, article, or anything else. Just write it. I am certain when she sees it on paper; she’ll know exactly where and how it fits into her business. Her continual “analysis/paralysis” of following the “right way” to create her business was keeping her safe, but not happy, fulfilled, and successful. Look at your thoughts; what outcome are they creating for you?

Do you have a question for Laura? Email her at:Laura@corelifedesign.com

Laura Tirello is a Life and Career Coach.  Her company, Core Life Design, works with people who are looking to find their highest potential both in their careers and personal lives. She helps her clients develop a life plan for success and create a balanced life. For more information about Laura and her life coaching business, visit corelifedesign.com or email Laura at Laura@corelifedesign.com.

Enter the Young Money/Core Life Design CONTEST! WIN A FREE SESSION WITH LAURA!

Life & Career Coach Laura Tirello has generously offered Young Money readers the chance to win a free life coaching session. All you have to do is answer this question: What is the craziest thing you’ve done to reach a goal?* Email your answer to Laura@corelifedesign.comand she will choose one random winner at the end of the month.

The winner will receive a 60 minute coaching session from Life and Career Coach, Laura Tirello of Core Life Design. The session will be conducted by telephone at a time agreed upon by the winner. The session will focus on an area in the client’s personal or professional life in which they are seeking improvement. The client will be coached through their particular issue and given tools that may help them continue to create successful outcomes in their personal and/or professional life. The winner will also receive an email summary of the session from Laura Tirello.

You have until July 1 to enter. Winners will be notified by email by July 5. Include a working email address with your answer.

*YoungMoney.com reserves the right to publish your answer. You may request to be kept anonymous.

When looking at the goals you want to achieve and the things you want to accomplish, it is easy to get to the place of overwhelm that I have mentioned frequently in my blogs. When I was first starting my business I had to allow myself to be comfortable with discomfort and overwhelm. Why? Because in order to reach your larger goals you need to get out of your comfort zone.

I attended a goals workshop in the beginning of this year. The speaker introduced me to a concept I had already known, but for some reason, at that point and time, it made perfect sense to me. Instead of looking at something as uncomfortable, you need to look at it as out of your comfort zone. The difference here is you may be resisting something because it feels in conflict with your typical response to situations. It poses a challenge to do things differently than you might have done in the past. For some people it may be doing public speaking or appearing on live interviews. You will know if it is out of your comfort zone if you get a slight feeling of fear. How do you know if the fear is telling you something is wrong? Dr. Martha Beck, my coaching mentor, explained it this way: if you look at the fear and taking the action feels like jumping into a clear pool of water, it is healthy or “clean” fear. If you look at the fear and you feel dread and the water looks murky, there is something in the situation that conflicts with your core beliefs. We call this “dirty” fear. It could be that there is something you have not worked out with yourself or that the situation may be unethical in your eyes. It is up to you to get clear about your true thoughts about your goals. Are you using excuses because it’s out of your comfort zone? This is a common reaction; people will hide behind their comfort and limited beliefs as way to impede their own progress out of fear.

The speaker at the workshop listed the source of the next activity as unknown; then proceeded to draw a circle shape and put a line through the center. She labeled the parts above and below as the comfort zone and the learning zone. She pointed to the center line and called this the panic zone. When you think of a regular goal that is easily attainable you are in your comfort zone. When you make the goal slightly more difficult you approach the learning zone, where you may need to research and play around with logistical issues so you can attain the goal. Coming out of the comfort zone to the learning zone creates personal and professional growth.

When you create what appears to be an unreachable goal, how do you feel? Are you nervous and overwhelmed? Uncertain of the outcome? This is called the panic zone. If you can give yourself the encouragement to push towards the panic zone, this is where accelerated learning and growth will occur. It is this level of personal growth that may lead to a real possibility of transformation. You may develop a renewed sense of personal strength and create a life that you may have seen as impossible in the past.

Set your goals as close to the line of chaos as possible. Sounds too scary? Take it as close as you can and you will notice your creative juices flowing. Then intense learning opportunities will occur and they will manifest positive changes in your professional and personal life. I’ve been getting many responses from readers to this month’s contest “tell us about something that seemed like a mistake or complete failure but then turned into a great success”. Many of you have pushed yourself through the panic of failure and arrived at successful outcomes. Haven’t tried it? Maybe it’s time to examine what your comfort zone is doing for you.

Do you have a question for Laura? Email her at:Laura@corelifedesign.com

Laura Tirello is a Life and Career Coach.  Her company, Core Life Design, works with people who are looking to find their highest potential both in their careers and personal lives. She helps her clients develop a life plan for success and create a balanced life. For more information about Laura and her life coaching business, visit corelifedesign.com or email Laura at Laura@corelifedesign.com.

Enter the Young Money/Core Life Design CONTEST! WIN A FREE SESSION WITH LAURA!

Life & Career Coach Laura Tirello has generously offered Young Money readers the chance to win a free life coaching session. All you have to do is answer this question: What is the craziest thing you’ve done to reach a goal?* Email your answer to Laura@corelifedesign.comand she will choose one random winner at the end of the month.

The winner will receive a 60 minute coaching session from Life and Career Coach, Laura Tirello of Core Life Design. The session will be conducted by telephone at a time agreed upon by the winner. The session will focus on an area in the client’s personal or professional life in which they are seeking improvement. The client will be coached through their particular issue and given tools that may help them continue to create successful outcomes in their personal and/or professional life. The winner will also receive an email summary of the session from Laura Tirello.

You have until July 1 to enter. Winners will be notified by email by July 5. Include a working email address with your answer.

*YoungMoney.com reserves the right to publish your answer. You may request to be kept anonymous.

Q: My husband and I both work and have children. My husband works two jobs so I am responsible for taking care of the children and household responsibilities in the evening. I am feeling very overwhelmed, but my husband insists he has to work the second job to pay our bills. I feel like our life is out of balance and we have to make changes or our marriage will suffer. Where do I start?

A: People often make the assumption if they get help fixing their finances their life will automatically become less stressful. The problem with this kind of thinking is that their finances are not the problem, their thoughts about money and their life in general are. In order to get your money situation under control, you need to look at your attitude towards money. Does this attitude serve you or slave you? Find out your underlying beliefs about money and question whether they are appropriate to your goals and what you want out of life.

A good place to start is looking at your budget. Where and how do you spend your money? Are the things you are spending your money on feeding your personal growth and happiness or just taking up space and time? What could you feel good about spending less on? If you have debt, are their ways to consolidate it so other areas of your budget are freed up? If you look closely at your spending and the thoughts behind it, you may see that there are areas you would feel good about eliminating excess spending. It’s not about taking away from yourself; it’s about giving to yourself and family. You don’t have to do a complete budget overhaul at once; small changes over time can get you to your larger goal.

Many people feel overwhelmed with responsibility and can’t get it all done. I have talked in the past about using turtle steps to create large changes in your life. If you are feeling overwhelmed with household responsibilities, look at ways to get chores accomplished that won’t consume all of your time. Delegate a specific amount of time to each task on a daily basis and walk away when the time is up. Realize there will always be something to do, but you have to the choice of when it gets done.
Do you have a question for Laura? Email her at:Laura@corelifedesign.com

Laura Tirello is a Life and Career Coach.  Her company, Core Life Design, works with people who are looking to find their highest potential both in their careers and personal lives. She helps her clients develop a life plan for success and create a balanced life. For more information about Laura and her life coaching business, visit corelifedesign.com or email Laura at Laura@corelifedesign.com.

Enter the Young Money/Core Life Design CONTEST! WIN A FREE SESSION WITH LAURA!

Life & Career Coach Laura Tirello has generously offered Young Money readers the chance to win a free life coaching session. All you have to do is answer this question: What is the craziest thing you’ve done to reach a goal?* Email your answer to Laura@corelifedesign.comand she will choose one random winner at the end of the month.

The winner will receive a 60 minute coaching session from Life and Career Coach, Laura Tirello of Core Life Design. The session will be conducted by telephone at a time agreed upon by the winner. The session will focus on an area in the client’s personal or professional life in which they are seeking improvement. The client will be coached through their particular issue and given tools that may help them continue to create successful outcomes in their personal and/or professional life. The winner will also receive an email summary of the session from Laura Tirello.

You have until July 1 to enter. Winners will be notified by email by July 5. Include a working email address with your answer.

*YoungMoney.com reserves the right to publish your answer. You may request to be kept anonymous.

I know it’s a cliché, but your perception really is your reality. What would you be willing to do to achieve your goal? What would you be willing to give up? I was at a conference last weekend and heard a highly successful consultant and writer talking about her business plan. It wasn’t what you would expect from a person earning a six-figure salary working for some of the major companies in the U.S. and abroad.

Why do I say that? She wanted to take a year off from consulting and care for her newborn and launch different areas of her business at the same time. Her plan began by taking a high paying consulting job for a year and saving as much money possible for her year off. She and her husband made the decision to scale back on some of their expenses, but still maintained their comfort level and felt good about their choice.

From this good place, she worked on the new facets of her business and created a blog. This small blog became a large blog with tens of thousand of readers. From there major newspapers began contacting her for articles. Her client base and network continued to grow. After three years she was offered a book deal. Her book has been very successful, leading to workshops and seminars.

So she actually scaled back her lifestyle and then built her business up in a new and exciting way. When I talk to some clients about creating a plan and the issue of scaling back comes up, they automatically go into fear mode, thinking they are trading comfort for scarcity. It is all about perception. If you value your goal and allow yourself the space to make it happen, the temporary scaling back is worth it.

Some people believe you should put your nose to the grindstone and work 24 hours a day making a goal happen. That’s fine if it works for you. However, you can achieve your goals in other ways that may make you feel more empowered, full of energy, and inspired. Look at your goal and look at your finances, what are your possibilities? Keep in mind the changes you make are temporary and can lead you to a whole new level in your career. Something new could emerge that you might not have been aware of in your sleep deprived, non-stop working schedule. Take a breath and really see what your options really are.

Do you have a question for Laura? Email her at:Laura@corelifedesign.com

Laura Tirello is a Life and Career Coach.  Her company, Core Life Design, works with people who are looking to find their highest potential both in their careers and personal lives. She helps her clients develop a life plan for success and create a balanced life. For more information about Laura and her life coaching business, visit corelifedesign.com or email Laura at Laura@corelifedesign.com.

Enter the JULY Young Money/Core Life Design CONTEST! WIN A FREE SESSION WITH LAURA!

Life & Career Coach Laura Tirello has generously offered Young Money readers the chance to win a free life coaching session. All you have to do is Tell us about something that seemed like a mistake or complete failure, but turned into a great success. Email your answer to Laura@corelifedesign.comand she will choose one random winner at the end of the month.

The winner will receive a 60 minute coaching session from Life and Career Coach, Laura Tirello of Core Life Design. The session will be conducted by telephone at a time agreed upon by the winner. The session will focus on an area in the client’s personal or professional life in which they are seeking improvement. The client will be coached through their particular issue and given tools that may help them continue to create successful outcomes in their personal and/or professional life. The winner will also receive an email summary of the session from Laura Tirello.

You have until July 1 to enter. Winners will be notified by email by July 5. Include a working email address with your answer.

*YoungMoney.com reserves the right to publish your answer. You may request to be kept anonymous.

Congratulations to Gary Freedman, winner of the Young Money June Life Coach Challenge.

Gary submitted this story as his answer to this question: What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done to reach a goal?

Back when I was a Manager with Orchard Supply Hardware, a regional hardware chain in California, I really wanted to beat one of the other stores. I challenged the team that if they beat the other store just one day, I would walk down the street in a dress. Well, I lost, and had to complete my challenge.
It was a fun time for all, and I got a lot of whistles…

Congratulations, Gary!

Enter the JULY Young Money/Core Life Design CONTEST! WIN A FREE SESSION WITH LAURA!

Life & Career Coach Laura Tirello has generously offered Young Money readers the chance to win a free life coaching session. All you have to do is Tell us about something that seemed like a
mistake or complete failure, but turned into a great success. Email your answer to Laura@corelifedesign.comand she will choose one random winner at the end of the month.

The winner will receive a 60 minute coaching session from Life and Career Coach, Laura Tirello of Core Life Design. The session will be conducted by telephone at a time agreed upon by the winner. The session will focus on an area in the client’s personal or professional life in which they are seeking improvement. The client will be coached through their particular issue and given tools that may help them continue to create successful outcomes in their personal and/or professional life. The winner will also receive an email summary of the session from Laura Tirello.

You have until July 1 to enter. Winners will be notified by email by July 5. Include a working email address with your answer.

*YoungMoney.com reserves the right to publish your answer. You may request to be kept anonymous.

Mistakes? How do you perceive them? Do you avoid them or learn from them? How you react to life circumstances that seem like mistakes? Your responses to these questions tell a lot about your approach towards success. I have not come across a successful person yet who did not have their fair share of mistakes and yes, failure. In fact the most successful people in general have the most failures. Why is this? Because taking risks reaps the greatest reward, this reward might not be solely monetarily. What you learn from and how you respond to failure often leads to the next, bigger, better, success. Afraid to fail? Avoid it all costs? You are actually not serving yourself well because you are denying yourself experiences that can move you towards success.

As I mentioned in the past I am a recovering perfectionist and avoided failure or anything that looked like failure at all costs. What I learned was that the fear of failure was actually holding me back from moving forward in my life and career. I was at a standstill for many years. If you follow the fear, it becomes a pattern. But patterns, like habits, can be changed.

So how did I change the pattern? I learned to tell my story backwards. It sounds strange, but has unbelievable results.  I started looking at situations in my life I was pleased with. Then I traced those situations as far back as possible and recalled all the steps that it took to get to the ideal situation. When I looked back, I saw there were many obstacles and “perceived” problems along the way, which looked like mistakes and failure. But out of these “failures” came new paths and solutions that led to my ultimate goal. Cheryl Richardson, renowned Life Coach, said it best “I see every obstacle as a steppingstone that leads me to an even better outcome”. When you learn to take lessons from all of your life’s experiences you can create your own outcome. Waving the white flag and surrending to the defeat will just leave you stuck which leads to frustration or worst yet, sitting on the sidelines just waiting for life to get better.

So I already hear the cynics, of which I once was, looking for the proof. A few years ago I picked up the book Rich Woman, written by Kim Kiyosaki, business partner and wife of Guy Kiyosaki, famous for the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book. Kiyosaki very honestly describes the difficulties she and her husband faced when building their businesses. Mistakes were made, things failed, and at one point they were totally broke. Instead of giving in and going against what they wanted to accomplish, they pressed on and turned their misfortunes into a huge, profitable company. Too many times people respond to their present experiences from fears stemming from past experiences. They use the fear as an excuse because pushing past it requires a lot more work. If you learn to use fear as an asset, you grow in your professional and personal life, because when you do push past it the outcome feels like pure freedom.

Cathy Black, Hearst Magazines CEO, wrote a book called Basic Black. In it she discussed pushing past failure and changing what we make it mean. She discusses the importance of taking risks and how it benefited her throughout her career. At one point she left a good position at an east coast magazine to move to California to work on a start up magazine. The start up didn’t produce enough interest and was shut down in only six months. Instead of running back to New York and grasping for any job that was available, Black took a few months off to ski and think about her options. When she was ready she jumped right back into the publishing world and continued her move up the career ladder. She took a risk, learned from it, and moved on. We have the choice of how much power we hand over to our perceived failures.

It is important to note that none of these individuals came from privilege or wealth. They had ordinary childhoods and parents who worked for a living. What allowed them to succeed is their ability to face fear and failure head on and make it an opportunity, not a deterrent to success. So how is failure playing out in your story?

Do you have a question for Laura? Email her at:Laura@corelifedesign.com

Laura Tirello is a Life and Career Coach.  Her company, Core Life Design, works with people who are looking to find their highest potential both in their careers and personal lives. She helps her clients develop a life plan for success and create a balanced life. For more information about Laura and her life coaching business, visit corelifedesign.com or email Laura at Laura@corelifedesign.com.

Enter the JULY Young Money/Core Life Design CONTEST! WIN A FREE SESSION WITH LAURA!

Life & Career Coach Laura Tirello has generously offered Young Money readers the chance to win a free life coaching session. All you have to do is Tell us about something that seemed like a
mistake or complete failure, but turned into a great success. Email your answer to Laura@corelifedesign.comand she will choose one random winner at the end of the month.

The winner will receive a 60 minute coaching session from Life and Career Coach, Laura Tirello of Core Life Design. The session will be conducted by telephone at a time agreed upon by the winner. The session will focus on an area in the client’s personal or professional life in which they are seeking improvement. The client will be coached through their particular issue and given tools that may help them continue to create successful outcomes in their personal and/or professional life. The winner will also receive an email summary of the session from Laura Tirello.

You have until July 1 to enter. Winners will be notified by email by July 5. Include a working email address with your answer.

*YoungMoney.com reserves the right to publish your answer. You may request to be kept anonymous.

All month I’ve been talking about goals: how to make, schedule, and achieve them. I have some clients who say “I’d like to have goals but I don’t know where to start or I am not really interested in changing my job, I’m content, but still feel something is missing.” Goals don’t have to be geared towards building high-powered careers or businesses. They can be living your passion and achieving happiness in your personal life. The objective is finding the part of your soul that feeds you and following it to the places that bring you joy. Whether it’s a career, spiritual or physical endeavor, everyone has something they are wishing, dying, or dreaming to do.

You really need to look at the perceived obstacles or thoughts that are holding you back. When we are stuck it’s usually because we are focusing on what our lives “should” be like, not necessarily what we want them to be. I have a friend from my college years that always brings a smile to my face and inspiration to me when I am feeling stuck in my thoughts. His goals did not include having a well-paid career, social status, and a 4-year college education. His goal was, and still is, to be on the mountain and in nature as much as possible. He worked whatever jobs enabled him to be on the mountain and were flexible enough to allow him the time to enjoy it. At the time, some people looked at him like he was living a “goal less” life; but he was actually living according to his own plan. Pessimists might say: so where did this plan leave him later in life when his youthful energy and spirit started to wane?

He now has a career and family, but you’ll still find him on a mountain doing a 50-mile bike ride on a Sunday. He went back to school in his 30’s and pursued a career in which he has a 4 day work week; giving him ample time to spend time with his family and pursue his athletic goals. For him the dream was to be hiking the mountain and fly-fishing with kids in tow, and he made that happen. He designed a life that fit who he was as a person, not sacrificing any part of himself.

Goals should be a reflection of who you are as a person, so if it’s climbing Mt. Everest or starting a business, it has to be about you. If your heart’s not in it, accomplishing goals will feel like a chore. So how do you start working towards those big goals?

In my coaching training, we were all required to write a highly improbable goal. We had to come up with the large goal of exactly where we wanted to be in our business and personal life in just a few years. It felt overwhelming initially. Then we had to carefully break the goal into parts. Here’s a suggestion of how to tackle that huge goal:

•    On one sheet of paper write down what your hugely impossible goals are. Put that paper on the wall.
•    On another sheet write where you are now. Place that on the wall on the other side of the wall.
•    On a 3rd piece of paper write X. Place this paper between the two and write the steps it will take you to get from where you are now to your goal. Make the steps very small.
•    Create those small turtle steps I discussed in previous blogs. Make each step for a specific amount of time. Use post it notes so the steps can be placed wherever you need them (in your office or on your bathroom mirror).

By becoming clear on your large goals and creating time bound small goals, you can design a life that manifests all of your wildest goals and dreams.

Do you have a question for Laura? Email her at:Laura@corelifedesign.com

Laura Tirello is a Life and Career Coach.  Her company, Core Life Design, works with people who are looking to find their highest potential both in their careers and personal lives. She helps her clients develop a life plan for success and create a balanced life. For more information about Laura and her life coaching business, visit corelifedesign.com or email Laura at Laura@corelifedesign.com.

Enter the JULY Young Money/Core Life Design CONTEST! WIN A FREE SESSION WITH LAURA!

Life & Career Coach Laura Tirello has generously offered Young Money readers the chance to win a free life coaching session. All you have to do is Tell us about something that seemed like a
mistake or complete failure, but turned into a great success. Email your answer to Laura@corelifedesign.comand she will choose one random winner at the end of the month.

The winner will receive a 60 minute coaching session from Life and Career Coach, Laura Tirello of Core Life Design. The session will be conducted by telephone at a time agreed upon by the winner. The session will focus on an area in the client’s personal or professional life in which they are seeking improvement. The client will be coached through their particular issue and given tools that may help them continue to create successful outcomes in their personal and/or professional life. The winner will also receive an email summary of the session from Laura Tirello.

You have until July 1 to enter. Winners will be notified by email by July 5. Include a working email address with your answer.

*YoungMoney.com reserves the right to publish your answer. You may request to be kept anonymous.