So many of us struggle with “enoughness.”

Am I good enough?

Thin enough?

Successful enough?

Have I gotten enough done, said enough, tried enough?

Did I put in enough time, give enough, tip enough, work out enough, push myself enough?

Did I spend enough time at the office, on the yard, on my partner, on my kids . . . ?

ENOUGH!

Enoughness even gets in our way when we are trying to break the cycle of NOT being enough.

I don’t know how many women I’ve talked to, struggling to find time for themselves, who have poo-pooed the idea of a simple act because, “that would never be enough. If I’m going to take time for me, I’d need more than that.” So, (as I point out), they choose to go without.

Going to bed a half hour early, “wouldn’t make a difference.”

Ten minutes of focus on something important, “wouldn’t count.”

Ten minutes of walking around the neighborhood “isn’t nearly enough of a workout.”

So they choose nothing.

We’re also scared we won’t be satisfied with enough. A client tells me she is afraid to allow herself to really enjoy, indulge, and savor an excellent piece of chocolate. Because she is afraid she will gobble the whole bar. So she denies herself, feels deprived, and does end up eating the whole thing later—not in a savoring, indulgent sort of way, but in secret, feeling guilty and frustrated with herself.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Not really, I don’t think I really even tasted most of it, I was so mad.”

Do you hear what’s going on?

It’s perfectionism.

Perfectionism is black and white thinking that lies to us that it’s a standard of excellence. What perfectionism really is is a standard of impossibility that paralyzes us, causes us to respond in the extreme, and never allows us to feel satisfied, effective, or good.

Escaping the trap of perfectionism:

All-or-nothing thinking hardly ever works. In your busy life, when do you ever have time for all?

What if you allowed what you really have to give to be enough? If this makes you nervous, add the phrase “for now.”

Small steps count. If you let them.

Last week, I challenged you to commit to small daily acts of self-care. The main requirement was that you pick actions that were really do-able. No day-long spa retreats or tropical vacations. For many of you, thinking as small as I suggested, was new. “I can do it when it’s laid out this way” was the gist of many emails I received.

Are you seeing it? Small steps work. You can do amazing things for your spirit and your self in ten minutes. You can start to build new habits and routines. When you are consistent. When you allow yourself to be present. When you savor.

There IS a lot you can’t do in ten minutes. It’s true. And if you focus on that, you win the argument and you stay stuck.

Escaping the trap sometimes means letting go of your focus on “enough” and breathing into what you have.

Owning your time and being present in THIS moment.

Making deliberate choices.

The big question is this: where in your life is perfectionism and the need for enough sucking you dry and wearing you out?

Consider this: what small shift could you allow? What might change if you focused on changes that felt possible and do-able?

Drinking enough water every day.

Moving from no exercise to a ten minute walk.

Eliminating multitasking when you eat.

Joining the self-care challenge.

Getting more sleep.

Breaking free of perfectionism probably means picking one or two to start—not everything on the list .

When it comes to being happy and successful, enoughness can be a big lie and perfectionism is a red herring. We are the choices that we make. How are you feeling about yours?

Take good care,

Ready for small steps? I believe they are the place to start and recommend the following programs:

The Get OVER Overeating 7 Day Jumpstart: Change your mindset, get new tools, get on track in seven days.

The Success Soundtrack™ : Add more ease, flow, me-time and success in just ten minutes a day.

The How to Put Yourself First 7 Day Blast-off: Seven days of do-able action steps.

Melissa McCreery

How to get rid of mental clutter and create more success

Is your brain working for you or against you these days? Whether you are trying to reduce stress, take more time for yourself, stop overeating, or simply enjoy life more, if you don’t believe you can, you probably won’t. March is National Nutrition month and the theme this year is one I love—Get Your Plate in Shape. While the holiday itself is promoting good nutrition, whenever I hear the slogan I think of everything we have on our plates and how essential it is to take charge of our thinking and our lives if we want to get healthy, get happier, or yes, even stop overeating. One key piece of this process is addressing mental clutter.

My good friend Lorie Marrero teaches people how to de-clutter by going on a Clutterdiet®. It’s a great metaphor because we all know how clutter can bog down our lives and lead to stress and feeling overwhelmed (and if you are looking for help in this area, I strongly recommend Lorie’s program). Clutter goes deeper than our surroundings though. As we head into spring, I’d like to support you in something much bigger than airing out your home and clearing out your closets. While the results from these actions feel great, I’d like to suggest that you can get even bigger results if you focus first on de-cluttering your brain, refreshing your mindset, and doing a bit of internal spring cleaning.

Ready to get started? Grab something to write with.

Simple steps to start de-cluttering your brain and refreshing your mindset (so you can make healthy changes):

Let’s start by clearing out some of the overwhelm, time pressure, and to-do list clutter. What are your top 1-4 priorities for the next 30 days? Write these down. Do you know what you need to do to address these? If not, where will you get help? If you know what you need to do, have you allotted time for this in your schedule? If you haven’t, do this NOW. Break things down into even smaller chunks. What is your priority for today? If you haven’t already, assign the space you need to devote your energy to it.

Take charge of the mental clutter that can drain your energy. What is draining your energy or your motivation? List anything that is getting in your way, anything that you are tolerating that isn’t working for you, anything that is distracting you or wasting your energy or focus. Now comes the hard part. Imagine that I’m standing next to you as your life coach. Our aim is to make your life work for you in the best way possible. I challenge you to write down an action next to each item on your list of energy drains. Your choices might be:

1. Stop wasting my time on this. Stop participating in this activity, relationship, etc.
2. Delegate this to _______________________
3. Postpone dealing with this until _______________________
4. Set a date for resolving this and put it in my calendar here:________________
5. Put this on my master to-do list to get to at some future date (and stop worrying about it now)
6. Limit the time and energy I give to this to (choose a specific amount of time or specific hours of the day or month) ___________________________________
7. Acknowledge that this is something I will choose to focus on until (specific date) _______________________ because _____________________________
8. Change the way I’m addressing this by _____________________________

The point of this de-cluttering is to own where you are spending your time and energy.

Take control of mental static. Take a few minutes to breathe deeply and be present with yourself. Stop and consider the words that most frequently flow through your head and the way that you talk to yourself throughout the day. What are you saying and thinking? Be honest here. Write down whatever comes to mind.

Your soundtrack takes up powerful real estate. The way you speak and think to yourself will impact your confidence, your motivation, your energy, and your focus. As you know, we tend to see what we are looking for. If you are living your life in a place of stress and overwhelm, you are likely to notice and collect more of this and miss out on a lot of good stuff that can make life feel good.

Start a collection of messages you want to have in your head—mantras, reminders, encouragement that will help you stay motivated and feel positive. Write these down too. Consider placing these where you will see them and be reminded of them frequently. Choose your most powerful positive message and set a goal of writing it (by hand) ten times a day to help get it ingrained in your mind.

Examine your beliefs. What do you believe about your ability to be successful with stress, with your ability to stop overeating, or with your ability to achieve your current goals? Take some time to really think about this because your beliefs underscore everything you do. Do you have a clear vision in your mind of you crossing the finish line and a belief that you will accomplish your goal? Be honest here. This is a critical piece of mind clutter—because if you don’t see yourself as having the potential to succeed, than your attempts are like rolling a boulder uphill against whatever mindsets and negative beliefs you are fighting.

Write down any negative mindsets you are aware of that are blocking your path. Common examples are “I’ll always be overweight,” “I’m just lazy,” or “I’m not (fill in the blank) enough to (fill in your goal).”

The first step is to understand that these mindsets are roadblocks. The next step is to begin to challenge them. Begin by crafting statements that are positive instead of negative and that focus on what you do believe is possible for you. Don’t worry if your positive beliefs and confidence in yourself starts out small. You will build these over time by focusing on what you can do instead of on what you don’t believe or have confidence in.

Now, you’re ready to start taking daily do-able action. Get a colorful pad of sticky notes and put it in your workspace. At the start of every day, I challenge you to write down your three priority action items, your positive belief or positive intention for the day, and one lovely thing you will do for you. Attention high-achievers: If it doesn’t fit on that sticky note, you are probably biting off too much!

De-cluttering and de-stressing shouldn’t overwhelm your life. Give yourself time to play around with these steps. Pay special attention to any steps that are difficult for you—these are almost always the areas that need the attention most. If you find yourself getting bogged down repeatedly, get some help. You’ll almost always be able to upgrade your thinking and your actions much more quickly and get on the road to making powerful changes in much less time.

Take good care,

PS: All of our coaching and products address mindset and “mental clutter” because I believe healthy thinking is the foundation of lasting healthy lifestyle change. Here are my favorite quick-start tools for brain de-cluttering:

The Success Soundtrack™: Discover and dissolve the big five mindsets that sabotage smart high-achievers and start creating more ease, focus, and success in ten minutes a day.

The Get OVER Overeating 7 Day Jumpstart: Get your mindset, your habits, and your strategies in place to take charge of overeating and emotional eating.

The How to Put Yourself First 7 Day Blast-off: Learn how to put yourself first and prioritize your needs and wants without feeling selfish.

Melissa McCreery

An important post about overeating, willpower, and beliefs that may be sabotaging you

She called me to schedule a consultation to discuss coaching for emotional eating. Her overeating was causing her to regain weight she had worked extremely hard to lose–and she had lost a lot of weight. Like many of the high-achieving women who seek me out, she is an incredibly determined woman with a lot of willpower. She’s known for setting a goal and sticking to it. She’s been an example and a mentor in her local weight loss community—in great part because of her smarts, her get-it-done attitude, and her perseverance. But now, her weight has begun to creep back.

It’s an all-too-familiar story. The plot has different turns and twists each time I hear it, but essentially, her willpower and determination ran out. Life happened, she hit some extremely gnarly patches, and she relied on her sole strategy of toughing it out and staying the course. We all have our limits, and eventually she hit hers. The willpower and self-control weren’t enough to make her do what she didn’t really have the resources to do. And she began to falter.

She’s a lovely woman. But she has relied on herself for so much that she’s not very good at asking for help. In fact, she’s pretty skilled at turning the tables and helping you instead of letting you know what’s going on. She started to get scared and stressed and worried as she saw herself losing control of the number on the scale and of her eating. Her stress makes her overeating worse and her confidence shaky. Reaching out to me to ask about getting help was a very big deal for her. But she was still fighting a bigger battle about letting the help in in her mind.

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going” is the kind of thing she tells herself. She’s come to see me about coaching for emotional eating, because a part of her knows she’s really not sure what to do with her feelings and because the weight is steadily coming back. But that voice in her head is still whispering about how she just needs to get tough again. She’s focused on that, she’s following her plan rigidly. She’s getting tougher because she is afraid. But she still doesn’t have the tools for dealing with reasons that she overeats. She has toughness, but for all of us, toughness has its limits.

We talk about emotional eating and overeating. We talk about coaching. We talk about how uncomfortable this whole conversation and asking for help may be for her. We talk about the investment that coaching for emotional eating is—what she hopes it will help her achieve and the costs if she doesn’t do something to make a change. It’s hard for her to think about what weight regain may cost her–because she feels too afraid to think about it. We talk about how hard it is without tools to help her with her feelings. “Yes,” she says, “That’s why I eat.”

But that voice in her head keeps whispering—it’s getting louder—and even I can hear it now. It says she just needs to be stricter. More disciplined. She needs to get on track. Get working out. That will do it. Except, I know that this is not true. Perseverance and discipline are great strengths, but they are not enough.

And then I hear the lie. The lie that so many people tell and so many people believe. As she explains why her self-discipline is so important, she says, “I guess I’m just not like a thin person who can eat whatever they want without thinking about it.” And, I’m pretty sure, with that statement, she decided that for now, what she needs, is to just keep focusing on being strong and tough.

I can’t be certain, I’m not her after all, but I’m pretty darn sure that she’s missing a piece of the puzzle—and I’m worried about her. The story she is telling herself is that thin people eat without awareness and without making deliberate choices. And that she is different because she needs to have self-discipline.

Here’s what’s dangerous about that. The piece of the puzzle she’s not acknowledging in this conversation includes the strategies and tools and resources that people use instead of overeating. This includes tools for comforting yourself, strategies for responding to stress, relaxing, dealing with conflict and anger and disappointment, celebrating, treating yourself, coping with boredom or disappointment or a broken heart or any other feeling or situation that may be your personal trigger to overeat. It also includes feeling alright about letting help in.

While I am sure there are exceptions, people who are thin and who don’t overeat do not mindlessly eat whatever they want AND they don’t all possess ungodly amounts of willpower. People who don’t rely on food (or other substances, etc.) to cope with life, usually have a whole extra skill set that many people who struggle with overeating haven’t developed or have underused, or maybe don’t even know exists.

This is good news. It means that if you struggle with overeating, there is HOPE. It means that you don’t have to spend your life struggling harder, getting tougher, and depriving yourself MORE. It means that with help and learning to do it DIFFERENTLY (that means getting more tools for emotional eating), your relationship with food can actually be easier and a whole lot different—maybe better than you ever imagined.

I haven’t heard from this bright, high-achiever since we spoke. My guess is that she has gone back to try willpower one more time. My hope is that she starts to shift her focus to the reasons that she overeats—so her life can get better. And that she lets some help in.

Change is not a one-shot-deal and it’s good to assess your progress along the way. Are you letting new tools in? Are you struggling to be tougher, have more willpower, or resign yourself to deprivation? Your choices are powerful. Let me know if I can help.

Take good care,

Melissa McCreery

Five Beliefs that May be Sabotaging Your Success

If taking control of overeating and emotional eating was easy, you probably wouldn’t be reading this right now. The truth is, once you know a bit about nutrition and the basics of “eat less, move more,” finding success with overeating usually boils down to how you manage choices, thoughts, and feelings in the rest of your life. Emotional eating is a big reason women overeat, but the way we think can also impact our success.

When it comes to breaking free from emotional eating and overeating, the head game is huge. If you feel trapped in vicious cycles with overeating and weight or if you aren’t creating the success you want, it’s probably time to take a look at whether your beliefs are sabotaging your efforts.

Five beliefs that may be sabotaging your success with overeating:

All-or-nothing thinking. All-or-nothing thinking is really perfectionism in disguise. It’s the belief that you’ve either succeeded or you’ve failed. It’s a way of approaching life that may lead to thoughts like, “I’ve blown it, now I might as well finish the leftovers because I’m going to have to start over again in the morning.” All-or-nothing thinking never allows you to feel good about what you are doing, because no one can get it all right all the time. The truth is that your relationship with food unfolds all day long. You’ll have good moments and not-so-good ones, but whatever happened a moment or an hour ago does not erase your ability to do something positive in the present. Instead of focusing on getting it perfect, think about doing your best—one step at a time.

I don’t deserve it. One of the biggest reasons women overeat is because they are using food as a substitute for something else—Overeating becomes a sneaky way to give yourself a treat or a break or to comfort yourself when you don’t feel entitled to let yourself have what you really need. Here’s another hard truth: we tend to attract people who treat us the way we treat ourselves. Treat yourself with pride and respect and indulge in and savor what you crave and you are likely to start commanding more of the same from those who surround you. If you feel like the people in your life don’t treat you very well, take a look at the beliefs you have about what you deserve.

It’s not okay to be selfish. Many of us were raised with the idea that we need to put others first or focus on taking care of the people we care about. There’s nothing wrong with being kind and nurturing—it’s a fantastic strength to have. However, it can lead to self-sabotage if you aren’t also prioritizing your self and shining your nurturing and your compassion on yourself along with everyone else. Putting yourself first isn’t selfish. It’s what helps you to bring your best version of you to your life, your relationships, and your work.

I “should” be able to figure this out. This self-sabotaging mindset is frequently accompanied by self-blame and angry judgments with yourself because you can’t figure it out. This belief tends to lead to feeling alone and isolated and not getting the help and support that you need. Living alone with the feeling that you are failing when you shouldn’t be can also create even more shame and loss of confidence. This is a particularly sticky trap, but it’s also one where you can have an amazing impact if you break free. Many women are astounded by what happens when they reach out for help, share their struggles with another supportive person, or start looking outside themselves for the resources and tools to take control of overeating.

The “should” trap. “I should be able to figure this out” is only one should that sabotages success. Shoulds in general are something to be careful of.  Real, lasting success is created when we combine solid information, strategies, and tools with what we know about ourselves and what works for us. Too many shoulds can disconnect you from yourself and your own inner wisdom. They can lead to overwhelm and can incite your inner rebel to throw in the towel. Ask yourself if your should is really an I want to. If it isn’t, do you have a compelling reason for using it? My client could not get enthusiastic about her doctor telling her she “should” lose eighty pounds. She did get motivated when I helped her find her want. Once she got clear that what she really wanted was to be healthy and fit enough to go bike riding with her daughter again, she felt ready to do some hard work. The should dragged her energy down. The compelling reason she found lit her up and got her moving toward a goal.

Are you trying to break free of vicious cycles that you keep getting caught in? Don’t ignore your head game! Stay tuned, because I’m going to share more beliefs that you might want to challenge in a future post.

Take good care,

Melissa McCreery

When you are struggling with too much—whether it’s too much weight, too much to do, or just too much stress, setting goals and deciding to change can feel impossible.

“I know where I want to end up, but when I look at how far I have to go, it feels overwhelming,” a client in one of my emotional eating coaching programs shared. “How am I going to make all the changes I need to make? When I look at the weight I need to lose (135 pounds), I feel hopeless.”

When you are overwhelmed, overloaded, or overeating, the hole you see yourself in can feel pretty deep. If your stress level is high to begin with and your calendar is crowded, thinking about your weight loss or life balancing project can exhaust you before you even really get going.

What do you do when change seems insurmountable?

Dream big and step deliberately. This is a theme that has been coming up quite a bit with my private coaching clients and I want to share it with you.

If you are a high achiever who expects a lot of herself, this can be a delicate balance, but it’s the key to really getting where you want to go, not selling yourself short, and not creating a lot of stress and overwhelm that sabotages your success.

Here’s what you need to do.

Set your GPS. Define your destination. This is the big, bold, juicy place where you want to end up. Don’t short change yourself. Dream big. Your vision is about thriving not just surviving. Set your sights on what you really, truly want. It’s okay if your goals feel too big to even wrap your head around.  This is your vision. It’s the destination that’s off on the horizon. You don’t have to get there tomorrow, but you do want to be navigating in this direction. In the meantime, your focus is going to be on your feet.

A marathon is just a series of steps.

I began running marathons a few years ago. In the process, I’ve met a lot of people with incredible stories—women who went from not being able to walk two miles to running 26.2. Women who lost 100 plus pounds and changed their lives—inspiring stuff. But here’s the deal. They didn’t do it (and I didn’t run my first marathon) by simply going out and running 26.2 miles right away. We set our vision and then we put our trust in a series of actions and smaller goals—which we took one small step at a time. We ran a marathon by taking a first step. And then another. And then, as it got easier, a bunch more.

When I trained for that first marathon, I never looked farther ahead than the week I was in. It would have been too scary. I had no idea how I was going to run a marathon, but I could take on the challenge of that week’s training plan. When I got to the starting line in Portland, I didn’t think about mile 25 or mile 26 (I never do). I thought about the first mile.

Getting where you want to go doesn’t need to be overwhelming, and it shouldn’t add stress or overload to your already busy life. Set your GPS and then focus on where you are going to put your foot down next. Take steps—steps that are the size that work for you. As long as you keep your feet moving, and your GPS calibrated, you’ll be fine.

Take good care,

Melissa McCreery

The term “life balance” comes with a lot of baggage—especially to many women who are stressed and busy balancing work, family, relationships, and more. I’ve encountered everything from anger to extreme defensiveness when I’ve brought up the term.

More than one successful woman has told me “I don’t believe in life balance.” “Work-life balance is a myth,” and even, “balance isn’t possible–it just sets us up for failure.”

Gulp. Strong feelings. The idea of creating balance in a busy life is overwhelming, emotional, and feels like a dream for many.

I got my haircut last week and that meant leafing through some big, fat, ad-filled magazines that I don’t normally read. I reached for O and ended up reading Oprah’s interview with Mehmet Oz (Dr. Oz) in the December issue. They were chatting away, covering ground I am familiar with. Eating well, learning how to say, “No.” The importance of setting boundaries so that you can take care of yourself. And then Oprah fessed up. She offered Mehmet Oz “. . . some advice, even though I’m not taking it myself.”

Oprah went on to say that she believes it’s important to make a conscious decision to create balance in your life—but she’s not doing it. She even said she’s not making any more resolutions until she creates more balance for herself—and Dr. Oz says something like, “Well when you figure it out, let me know, because I don’t know how to do it either.”

If this is something that you struggle with, you are in good company.

Maybe it’s just me, but it all sounded a bit like lip service. Like these two incredibly influential people don’t really believe this whole balance thing is possible. It reads a bit like “yeah, right. Balance is nice, but if you want to  be successful….”

I may be wrong about this. Oprah and Mehmet, I’d love to hear from you.

If Dr. Oz and Oprah can’t figure it out, can you?

Of course you can.

First off, stop getting all tied up in knots about the concept.

I’ve heard the arguments. “Balance is always changing.” There is no “perfect” balance. “Rhythm” or “flow” are better words to use. “I don’t balance, I dance.”

Great. Here’s what I think. I believe that when most of us talk about “life balance (or whatever words we choose),” we’re speaking about creating a way of spending or budgeting our energy and time that feeds us and that is aligned with our priorities. Yes, it’s different for everyone. Go ahead and use whatever words you want. But rolling your eyes at the idea is really an expression of feeling stuck or powerless or (maybe) content with the way things are.

Some high-achievers hide their fear of being stuck or incapable by pretending they like things the way they are or by pretending that it’s silly to want anything different.

Are you living your best life? I believe that you were put on this earth to be your best, unique version of yourself. If you aren’t spending your energy and your time in a way that allows you to bring your gifts to the world, something is out of whack. That’s my belief and my litmus test for balance. You are free to have a different one.

Want to create better balance in your life? I absolutely believe that it’s possible. Of course, it’s usually not an instant, “snap your fingers” kind of shift, but there is almost always a way to make things work better.

If you want more ease, flow, or balance in your life, here are some ways to get started:

Stop believing (openly or secretly) that it’s impossible.  You may not have a clue how to get there, but that does not mean there is no way out of whatever trap you find yourself in.  Does Oprah believe she will ever be able to create that balance that she craves?  I really don’t know. It sure sounds like she knows that she’d benefit if she could achieve it. Most of us know that if our life worked better for us we’d sleep better or stress less or lose weight or whatever. But do we really believe it’s achievable? That’s the first step. Faith that your best life is out there and that it can include more of the good stuff that feeds your spirit and your soul is an essential key to creating balance and ease in your life.

Give yourself space to start figuring out what better balance looks like and feels like for you. That’s not always easy and there is no cookie cutter formula. It involves listening to yourself. Don’t worry about the big picture and how you are ever going to balance the bajillion things you have going on. That’s a trap that may overwhelm you and keep you stuck. Start small and do-able. You are creating a path, one step at a time. Tune in to the path and the steps you need to take by carving out me-time religiously—just like you make time for brushing your teeth, commit to making time for yourself. Don’t worry, you don’t have to take a weekend retreat on a deserted island. My Put Yourself First 7 Day Blast-off and my Success Soundtrack™ program show you how to make incredibly productive use out of just ten minutes of me-time a day.

Finally, don’t get freaked out when you don’t have the answers. Doing some things differently may mean that you are going to need to acquire some new tools or expertise to move forward. Give yourself permission to know where you want to go and seek out what you need to figure out the best way to get there.

And Oprah and Dr. Oz? I’d love to take a stab at helping you define your paths. You’ve got the potential to help so many even more than you already do. Please, please, please, don’t lose your faith in the possibility of a life that works better.

Take good care,

Melissa McCreery

Stop “not thinking about it.”

How often do you end up shoving your plans and priorities or even your thoughts and feelings to the back burner because there are so many other things you feel responsible for?

Guess what? “Not thinking about it” doesn’t work. It’s also a way of not taking yourself seriously.

I hear it all the time from clients:

“I don’t want to feel angry.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it so I eat.”

“I’m trying not to focus on it.”

Denying your thoughts and feelings is a major source of stress, a major cause of emotional eating, insomnia, procrastination, misplaced irritability and problems focusing.

Here’s another important piece of information (especially for all you high-achievers and perfectionists!):

Taking your thoughts and feelings seriously doesn’t mean you have to know what to “do about them.”

Too many of you are prolonging your stress and creating problems for yourself because you’ve decided—“It’s pointless to think about this because I can’t do anything about it.”

Important feelings and thoughts don’t go away just because you ignore them. Too often they build up, get tangled up around other issues, and trigger self-sabotaging behaviors like stress eating, comfort eating, avoidance, lack of motivation in other areas . . . you get the picture.

Here’s your bite-sized challenge for today. I want you to separate the process of acknowledging and respecting your feelings from the task of problem solving.

Today—right now if you can—start a list of everything that you are currently tolerating. Everything you can think of that is sub-optimal, isn’t working for you, is driving you crazy, causing you stress, distress, sadness, or just bugs you a teensy tiny bit.

Put it on a list. Nothing is too small or too outrageous. If it helps to compartmentalize, make separate lists. I have one for work and one for my personal life.  Start the list and add to it as things occur to you. Then watch what happens.

I’m going to predict at least two results.  Once you start noting things like this—actually writing them down—you are automatically paying more attention to your feelings or needs. This is the opposite of the head-in-the-sand approach. Take note of where it leads you. Most people find that noting what they are tolerating causes them to be more aware of what they want and what they don’t want. You’re also likely to find that simply putting some of these items on your list seems to lead to easy resolution. The truth is, sometimes the act of saying, “this doesn’t work for me.” Is enough to create change.

Make your list and see what happens. Leave a comment and share your experience.

Take good care,

Melissa McCreery

I’ve had many emails and conversations related to my recent post about how we underestimate what we can accomplish in a year. Some of you told me you appreciate the reminder. Others shared that the idea of thinking about setting and accomplishing twelve month goals feels overwhelming and even scary. Someone said that thinking about all that it would require to succeed at her goal feels like “too much work.”

Goals are important, but life is too short not to feel like YOU are in charge of it.

Goals can be valuable, but don’t let a time frame short circuit your creativity or your dreams. Some busy women have an over-developed “let’s-be-realistic gene” that keeps their lives and even their relationships and professional pursuits too small.

This IS the month where everyone is talking resolutions, goals, and how to succeed. And while there is potential value in all of this, I want to encourage you to take a giant step back—or more accurately, up. Imagine yourself talking a helicopter ride up above “reality” or zooming out from your current perspective with a wide-angle lens. Take a step back from the day-to-day of your life and allow yourself to see and think big.

Never fear, there is no to-do list attached.

If your goal is to create your very best version of your life, your goals and pursuits should not be a reaction to what feels realistic or possible or even allowed. I’m going to challenge you to start from a different place entirely—the driver’s seat.

Set “reality” to the side for now. Grab some paper and something to write with. Forget about what’s possible and what else you “need to do.” Stop worrying about money, schedules, and other people and any limiting or “controlling” factors that come to mind.

Spend some time brainstorming what you really want.

No worries about how to make it happen.

Simply—what do you want?

Who do you want to be?

What do you want to do or create or achieve?

The idea is not to get caught up in when or how or if. The goal is to allow yourself to paint a picture—as clear as you can of who you want to be and where you want to head. Don’t worry about the next steps just yet.

I’d love to hear what you come up with!

Take good care,

PS: Some of you may find it challenging to get the time you need to brainstorm and even think about where you really want to go. If this is you, the Put Yourself First 7 Day Blast-off can make a huge difference–your commitment? Just a few minutes a day.

Melissa McCreery

Happy New Year!

I’m back in the office today after taking two weeks off to spend time with family, enjoy the holidays, unwind, and relax. My mind is full of new ideas and I am so excited about the possibilities that 2012 holds for all of us.

I have a message to deliver. You are capable of more than you think. And it gets even better. Odds are, you are capable of accomplishing amazing goals with less stress, and more ease than you currently see possible. If you are overwhelmed, overloaded, or overeating it’s very likely that you can untangle some stuff, have less stress, do less, and create better results. Not by working harder, but by taking simple, do-able steps that make sense for your life.

I’d love to help you keep a focus on this kind of focus in 2012. This year, I’ll be in more frequent touch, with bite-sized tips and information to help you break free of the three Os (overload, overwhelm, and overeating) and create more ease, joy, and success.

January is a month when there is a lot of momentum and emphasis on moving AHEAD, starting new things, and setting intentions, goals, and resolutions for the year ahead. I hope that as you do this, you also spend some time reflecting on the twelve months that have just passed. Here is what I know. We underestimate what can happen in twelve months when we look ahead, and when we look back, we often forget much of what we have done.

For some of you, it’s much easier to see what you didn’t accomplish in 2011 than what you did.

Please don’t stop there.

As you dive into this New Year, I want to encourage you to do some reflecting.

Make a list about 2011. Include everything you can think of that you accomplished, everything significant, life or lifestyle changing that happened, and anything that you survived or overcame. Take note of where you spent your time and energy. Write it all down. You might be surprised.

Don’t stop yet.

Go back through your calendar from 2011 and remind yourself where you were and what you were doing eight, nine, and twelve months ago. Get a clear picture of where you were last January. You might be surprised. When I reviewed my year, I find all sorts of growth and changes that had become so routine that I had stopped noticing them. New habits, new ways of eating, heck—I moved my office in 2011 and radically changed my work schedule. It works so well, I almost forgot to add it to my list of accomplishments!

Last January, I had a vague goal of “someday” running the New York City marathon. In February, I had the unexpected opportunity to work with world-class coaches who encouraged me to set a clear plan for doing so. In May, I ran a half marathon I’d never thought of running with the goal of finishing with a time that qualified me to run in New York City (this was a time goal I had never thought possible for myself). Running that time was amazing. And in November, I accomplished another huge goal. I hit the streets of New York City and ran in a race I’d dreamed of running for years. I never dreamed all that would happen back in January, 2011. But it did.

Don’t forget the positive changes that you’ve maintained over the past year. Sometimes it takes great effort to keep things the same. Have you kept weight off, maintained a fantastic relationship, stuck with your yoga practice or your commitment to me-time? These accomplishments count and they count big.

I’m betting some things have changed or you did some things you forgot about in 2011. If you are like me, you may have accomplished major goals that weren’t even on your radar twelve months ago.

My point is this—don’t sell yourself short. Knowing what you are capable of and knowing what you have done and have endured or survived can be a major source of power and confidence as you step into your bold new year.

I will never encourage you to live in the past, but I want you to take from it what can propel you in the directions that you want to go.

What did you almost take for granted about 2011? What unexpected fantastic new living may await you in 2012?

Take good care,

Melissa McCreery

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

When it comes to weight loss and trying to change habits like overeating, or other unhealthy habits, too many busy women know exactly how true this quote can feel. The plan, idea, goal, or fitness plan might sound good, it might even feel like a good thing at first, but too often, the change you are trying to make has slipped away or drowned in your full schedule of responsibilities and commitments.

Each time this happens, it becomes more difficult to get motivated to try again one more time. Confidence falters. It all feels more daunting. It’s enough to make many reach for a chocolate chip cookie . . .

Change isn’t easy. Habits take time to develop and it takes a while to develop new tastes and preferences and routines—but millions of successful women will tell you that change IS possible. If you’ve been on the weight loss hamster wheel for a while, it might be hard to believe that lasting change happens. But please know that it does. I’m not talking about holding on by willpower and the skin of your teeth—I’m talking about making changes that go so deep that you rarely think about how it was before, because the new habits and changes you’ve created have just become a part of who you are.

I’m talking about changes that last. They are possible. I’ve made them and I delight in seeing my clients make those enduring changes too.

That said, there are a few tricks or secrets to keeping your goals on your radar and staying in action.

Here are four strategies you definitely want to use if you want to achieve your weight loss, health, or wellness goals:

• Schedule yourself and pay yourself first. This is the step that sounds like a no-brainer and it’s also the one that many of you reading this will think you can skip. If you don’t skip it, you may be tempted to “do it in your head.” This means, you’ll make a mental note of when you will set aside the time to do the workout or cook the healthy meal, or take the me-time but you won’t officially put it in your schedule. No one will know your plan is there, and you are likely to find that it is easily pushed to the side when something else comes up. Treat your commitment to you as something as valid and legitimate as you treat your commitments to others. Not only should you be formally scheduling time for you, you should pay yourself or put yourself first. Make sure to schedule your needs in early at the time that works for you (probably not at the end of the day when you’ve given all you’ve got away and are completely out of mojo). Once you have your me-time commitments scheduled, allow your life to flow around them. This will probably feel much different than trying to squeeze yourself into nonexistent cracks in your life!

• Find the right people. Although you may feel shy or self-conscious, going it alone is almost never the best option when you want to set yourself up for success. Whenever possible, find at least one other person who can be a companion on this journey. You want to focus on finding someone who is at least as motivated as you are. Your goal is to have someone else who will inspire, motivate, provide accountability, and hopefully, make this all more fun. Beware of choosing people who aren’t committed to succeeding. This is not a time that you want to spend with whiners or naysayers. In addition to a companion, you also want to look for someone who is ahead of you—someone who has found success or has the tools and expertise that you need. One of the easiest things you can do to be successful is to set yourself up with someone who can provide direction and show you that success is possible. There is no need to reinvent the wheel when others have gone before you.
   
• Be concrete. Be really clear with yourself about what you expect to do and to accomplish. If you focus on “getting to the gym more” or “eating less” you are more likely to be wishy-washy in your actions and unclear about what you are really accomplishing. If you are going to stop eating after dinner or start packing a lunch or go to the gym every Monday and Wednesday and Friday morning, you will know whether you are on track.

  This is another success secret that many women find themselves resisting. When I say be concrete, I mean write out your goals and the action steps you are willing to commit to. Keeping them “in your head” or “knowing what you need to do” doesn’t work as well. There is one more important reason that you want to be concrete and clear. It helps if you tend to be too hard on yourself. As long as your goals and steps are do-able, you won’t be able to deny the fact that you are accomplishing something. Giving yourself credit for steps achieved is important to creating lasting change.

• Create rituals. Successful business owners rely on systems. So do most busy people. Interestingly, even the most organized and systematic often ignore this success secret when it comes to taking charge of their own weight or wellbeing. The easiest way to create lasting success is to keep it simple and avoid having to make more decisions or tough choices than you have to. One way to avoid this is to create rituals or habits or routines around the changes you are trying to make. Set aside a regular time for journaling or meal planning. If you are chronically sleep deprived, set some ground rules related to when you WILL go to bed. Create a systematic way of making sure you have the groceries that you need, a standing date with your support buddy or coach. Focus on creating systems that allow your action steps to flow.

I’ve already warned you. These tips are very powerful and deceptively simple. If you are tempted to nod your head knowingly and still skip them, it means you need them more. Put these strategies in place and your hard work will take place on a much stronger foundation.

Take good care,

A success ritual I strongly recommend is taking a few minutes of time to connect with yourself and set your course at the start of every day. My fully downloadable Success Soundtrack™ program helps you do just that. If you’d like to be able to hit “play” on your mp3 player and spend ten minutes getting clear on your intentions, your action steps, or your plan for being effective. This is the resource that I recommend.

Melissa McCreery