Last week I flew to Dallas for  Mastermind.

What is Mastermind? It’s the annual gathering of certified Life Coach School coaches. A few years ago it started out pretty small, but this year it has grown to about 450 of us. It’s so fun to see all the good these women (and a few men) are doing in the world.

Because I took all my coach training online, I knew so many people I had never met in person.

It was so amazing to get to see them and hug them and we were all super excited. There were lots of “you have legs!” and “you’re taller/shorter than I thought!” exclamations happening.

I love that we could all do this from our own homes and then meet together.

I had a really long month with my husband traveling a lot for work. Getting away for a few days ALONE was just perfection! I love my kiddos, but I definitely needed a break.

But it wasn’t all relaxation. Brooke Castillo doesn’t mess around. Both days were from 9-6 with only a lunch break. We began with so much inspiration and teaching from Brooke.

We talked about becoming thought leaders, and how much good we can do to help others with coaching. That is what I love about this school, and what drew me in. It is completely about lifting each other and empowering our clients to find their own answers to the problems in their lives and showing them all the possibilities they have available.

We talked a lot about questioning everything, and really making our minds work to see all sides. I felt a little like it would be in high school debate when you get the side no one agrees with except magnified. We chose beliefs that would be universally accepted and questioned them.

This exercise just helps you see that anything you believe can be examined from a different perspective. Anything. 

A great way to do exercises like this is setting aside time to think. On purpose. Our lives are so filled with constant noise and busy-ness. We don’t prioritize our mental health maintenance very high on our lists. We also generally wouldn’t give ourselves time to stop when we are in the middle of a challenge and just be with our brains. But what if we did? What ideas could we come up with? What problems could we solve. For ourselves, our families, our work.  The key is you have no distractions at all. No phone.  No noise. Just you and maybe a notebook. No multi-tasking.  Most of us are still going to believe that this sounds nice but we have no time. Or we might try to fit it in after everything else is taken care of. And if you actually get quiet alone time you might want to just take a nap.  I hear you. But why not try it?Do you think you could just super think for an hour? I’m going to do it and I’ll report back! If you do it I’d love to hear how it goes. Especially if you have something you want to focus on resolving.

Another amazing concept that was taught by Corinne Crabtree is that we need to learn to allow 1000s of mistakes as we work toward our goals. And we need to normalize it. Failure is normal! You are learning or succeeding, accept nothing else. We live in a society of perfectionism and it holds so many people back. But done is better than perfect, and B- work can move you forward. It is so important is continuing to take action, even when it is hard, uncomfortable or when you fail. When we take away our excuses and just keep doing the work, that is when the magic happens. And that is when the growth happens.

Another incredible session was by Rachel Hart (and really, each of these deserve their own blog post, it was so good). She taught about embodying our feelings. So many of us don’t want to feel. We are out of touch with our bodies almost completely. We have so many ways that we avoid our emotions that we don’t even know how to allow them if we tried. We are also out of touch with the physical sensations in our body so we don’t answer the useful messages, like not drinking when we are thirsty. She started a practice of daily movement where she would pick an emotion and ask herself “ how would _______ move? And then she allows her body to move.  Of course this will be challenging and awkward at first! But she showed us how powerful it is to really be able to embody those emotions.  That way, we can  truly feel what it is to be alive.

I’ll end with the amazing Stacey Boehman and I will share more of what I learned another time. She taught about living in breakthrough. One of the best quotes is:

“We are capable of way beyond what we think we are.”

And to reach that potential, we really have to examine the thoughts and beliefs we have about ourselves. Because we are the only ones holding ourselves back.

We need to find the beliefs we want and choose them, every day and every moment.

This can apply in business, but also just working towards any goal. It could be improving a relationship or working on our own self-development. Maybe it is reorganizing your house. Whatever it is, you have to believe that you can do it first, and then keep working towards that end result you want. Don’t create your own brick wall. Open up to the possibility that this is really going to happen for you.

So if you have something you want to do, ask yourself: Are you just dipping your toes in or are you ready to cannonball into the water?

If you want help creating an epic splash….I’m your girl. Or even just getting started with the ankles, I’ve got you.  Click here to sign up for a free mini session.