Let your muse loose!

Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Daily Life Teleclasses

Get on board today for my 3-part “Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Daily Life” 3-part Teleclass Series (1 Hour calls)

Dates: May 29, June 5 and June 12
Time: 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Cost: $47 Includes All Three Classes

There is an artist that lives within each one of you, whether you are writing a blog, designing a business plan or rewriting a recipe you got from your grandma. It is part of your DNA, your Divine Natural Ability, and your ability to tweak the old, to break the molds, to just dive in fresh and new. It is part of your coding.

You have been given special abilities to manifest your dreams that you don’t even know you have until you discover it was waiting for you to take action and do it. Then it appears set free. Magical. You create it — vase, picture, book, movie, song, company, design, poem, recipe, new flower, the sky is the limit in what is possible. It comes from your DNA and surprises the heck out of you. There is such joy at that moment it all gels! It is extraordinary.

Original thought often comes from starting at one point and riding forward carried away with wild play and abandonment and going with the flow. And it can come from an agonizing thought of how to solve a problem, keeping you up at night, and you process and process until a new idea appears. A possible solution appears from the ethers.

Who knows what might show up?

Unfortunately, often one finds themselves talked out of their discoveries. You give up. If only you ignored your inner critic and let your muse have its way with you. Then you will find your inner joy and the adventurer that lives within. Do it anyway. Take a chance. There is no ability required really! Only courage. What you need is within you.

You say you have no time? Yes, you do. There are 168 hours in a week. Let me help you to plan how to manage your time better and change some habits and priorities. How about giving up TV for 30 days? How much free time would you have? Look at where else your time vampires hang out in your life. They are sucking up your life.

If your muse knocked at your studio door tomorrow, would you even notice? You have to open up for your possibilities. I know that where you give your creativity some room, joy will show up. Let your artist have some space and be prepared for more happiness. Just a couple hours in a week can change your life for the better.

Come on, overcome your procrastination. Learn to tame your inner critic. Learn to set yourself up for success. Be willing. Discover and plug into your creativity. Joy, passion and a life of happiness can be yours.

Are you ready? Register for my teleclass calls now!

When I was a girl in school I always hand a pencil in my hand and doodled or drew. It was either horses, ballerinas, or the view out the window. I designed clothes and made paper dolls. I always signed up for art classes in electives and was lucky to have parents who got me additional training when I was in High School. I was an art major when I went to college and attended an arts college when married. I created an arts festival in the community I lived in. I painted and sold them as a young mom. People hung my painting in their living and family rooms.

Then I went to work. And got a divorce. Life holds big changes for women at this point.

For me, raising two children and working, the art went on hold. In my career, after retail, I became a sales manager and had numbers to crunch and my left brain kicked in. I had to learn to be more punctual and organized. I used my creativity for sales campaigns and creating marketing plans.

After a decade I took an art class again. My heart called me to do it. I found that I was more prolific when I was in a class. Periodically over the years I took classes with various people as time allowed. It always filled me with great joy and excitement. I painted a painting and a friend bought and it encouraged me.

Then I started my own business 16 years ago and all the art classes went on hold again. All my energy went to the development of my new Coaching business. That was a creative endeavor! And I was learning so much in technology, entrepreneurship and social media. All my time and energy was focused on making this a success. It was my own business. I had gone from six figures to zero. And it had to work. And I felt it was a Divine idea and my purpose was to help people create amazing lives of joy and passion. And it is. And it worked.

Last year my soul called again and I signed up for an acrylic class. I was in love. I have returned to my roots, to my passion. I coach and I also paint. I started classes in September and am learning watercolors. My teacher has me painting things I would have never chosen for myself and I am loving it. What a wonderful time I am having with that and learning so much about myself. My MOJO is fired up! It has made all the colors in my world brighter. Although I still join my guy for some joint TV time, it is to spend time with him and just chill out. I am loving painting and learning. My heart sings. I sing. My MOJO dances. I am energized. It really fires me up!

If you would like to know how you can kick up your MOJO, I hope you will join me on a *FREE* “Be Your Own Muse” teleclass on Tuesday, May 15th at 7 PM Pacific time. I’ll talk about creativity and your inner muse. I am having so much fun, I want to share it. Please visit my website and sign up on the Home Page under “Be Your Own Muse.”

I have learned in the twenty years of Coaching people on life transformations and transitions, that the body gives clues to how your life is going. I have seen migraine headaches go away after a divorce and back ache disappear when a person has created more healthy support in their life. I have seen the body react from what is going on in your inner world.

My husband and I divorced when I was 31 and I was a single Mom for sixteen years. During those years I worked in retail and then in business development. The first years were pretty rough financially and we lived month to month on the money I brought home. Later, after finding a career that used my strengths and skills and creating success, I had more money to spend on fun and on me. Spending money on the kids or family activities was great with me and I was happy I could do it, but spending money on me was a different matter.

During the summer one year some of my friends from work asked me to go to the desert with them for a weekend, stay in a hotel, and go shopping. The kids were spending some time with their Dad and I was free, so after some thought, I said, “Great”. We went to a wonderful resort and were having a super time. It was very beautiful there. I was in the pool and noticed some tingling on my face. I asked my girl friends if they could see anything on my face and they said, “you have red welts on your face”. I had broken out in hives!

I had hives once before on a very emotional day; the day my husband came home to pick up all of his things after finding his own place to live when we separated. My body had spoken to me. It was in distress. I was in distress.

When I vacationed with my friends I was stressed by spending money on me. I was not used to taking a few hundred dollars to go on a “solo” vacation all about fun. My whole life focus had been on my children and what their needs were and I had not paid equal attention to my own. I felt guilty for having fun and enjoying myself. I felt guilty to spend what I considered a large amount of money on me. I felt guilty to be away in that lovely place without my family. I did not know how to take care of my needs.

Today, I know good self care is taking care of you in ALL ways. Time with friends talking, playing and having fun is crucially important. Taking trips to change your scene, explore, learn, and just get-a-way are important for the soul and the spirit. And if you have children you are teaching them self care through your actions. They learn by watching how their parents live their lives.

In coaching, I do a life wheel and together we look at how my client’s life is balanced. Most often it is not. And more often than not, one area that is really not satisfactory to them is the area of fun and recreation. We as adults are not playing enough. We are not spending enough time with our partners playing. We are not in integrity with our own inner needs and balance. Most of us need more play, more fun, more laughter, and more quiet time to watch the sun rise and the clouds go by. We will be healthier by doing so.

Your body gives you the signals. What is your body saying to you? Ask your body. What do you need?

Kathy Nelson provides Life Coaching in San Diego and also via teleconference worldwide

Listen To The Event Live CLICK HERE!

Life Coach Kathy Nelson, founder of On Track Success Coaching, is pleased to announce the launch of a new creativity coaching series. On March 11, 2012 Nelson presented, “Be Your Own Muse—Using Your Inner Creativity in Your Everyday World” to an audience of business entrepreneurs. With this kickoff lecture event at the Cardiff-by-the-Sea Seaside Center for Spiritual Living, Nelson introduced the attendees to creativity awareness strategies they could apply to their personal and business life.

The On Track Success Coaching series includes: speaking engagements, group teleclasses; and one-on-one coaching sessions.

The “Be Your Own Muse” Coaching Series covers creativity from birth to adulthood. The premise of childhood creativity is not original, but the methods Nelson shares in how to reconnect with childlike intuitive freedom for one’s personal and business success are.

During the live teleclass session attendees will learn:

• Why letting go of resistance is a critical step.

• How to turn off the rational mind and access intuitive thoughts.

• When is tuning into one’s inner muse appropriate in business settings.

• What to do when others start to criticize or make judgmental statements.

• Why exercising one’s creative muscles may lead to more energy and better health.

• How to successfully combine playfulness and discipline.

• Why it is okay to take risks and break with the safety of tradition.

Nelson is presenting a one-hour complimentary teleclass on the topic of “Be Your Own Muse” on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time. Interested individuals are invited to sign up here and enter their name and email.

Details regarding the teleclass logistics will be emailed to you when you sign up! (Sorry, this event is no longer open for registration).

“Creativity and inspiration are brilliant pathways to a more incredible existence,” said Life Coach Kathy Nelson. “As a kid you had a wild imagination. Is it still free or have you tucked it away in some safe place? Have you had longings to break out your paints, write a song or poem? With the ‘Be Your Own Muse’ series, I want to give people ways to tap into their creative side. When you ‘get it,’ whether your muse is cooking, gardening, writing software, or designing a building, you are transformed and experience joy in your everyday world.”

It has been said that we reflect the five people we hang around with and the last five books we have read. I would put this book, Nonviolent Communication on my list of most important books of my life. Why? Because Marshall Rosenberg’s teaching about compassionate communication can improve all your communications, whether with your parent, your spouse or your boss. And I am it’s champion because learning about listening and expressing in this way imporved ALL the major relationships in my life for the better. This theory is about learning to listen with compassion so you really ‘get’ the other person and because of the feelings you express, they really ‘get’ you. Can you imagine a more wonderful experience?

I read the book and I signed up for a few months of groups sessions with a practitioner of this information in order to practice how to do it until it became natural for me, because this was not the way I learned to communicate. You have to put your training wheels on. I learned how to be vulnerable, as a giraffe with its neck out, and how not to judge and criticize, as a jackal might. We all learned to ‘feeling talk’, men and women alike. I grew up in a home with abuse and a strong authoritative parental model and I was defensive and angry as a young woman. Learning compassionate communications was a whole new and a brilliant idea that I saw deep value in and took to heart.

There are few more important things to do in life for the benefit of ALL your relationships that learn to be a better communicator and being a better communicator is about how well you listen and understand others. It has led to great joy and moments with friends and family that are rich, deep and satisfying.

These same techniques are used for peace talk around the world and within corporate environments as well. They can bring us together in order to tolerate, to understand and to embrace ideas that are outside our comfort zone. Fear often comes because we feel threatened by something we don’t understand. These techniques help bridge that gap and allow for understanding even if we don’t agree. They bring out the best in any conversation using them and allow people to express the feelings of their authentic selves in a safe environment of mutual respect.

Kathy Nelson is a Life Coach in San Diego

Today my own plans would have had me having lunch in Seattle at the restaurant, The Redmond Grill where my son is the Chef. I am scheduled to give the ceremony for my granddaughter’s wedding tomorrow. It is to be a blessed day! But, due to the snow storm Seattle has experienced, here I am in sunny San Diego with a day open to other choices. The last twenty-four hours have been interesting as I stepped out of my life and looked at what was going on around me.

We live in a culture where we are encouraged to be in control of what is happening and especially with own life. But sometimes, nature and the Universe seem to have something else up its sleeve. So do we freak out or learn to go with the flow and do the best we can?

As a personal life coach one of my major lessons in my life has been to , “let go of those things you have no control over and go with the flow”. I am three quarters Irish and as a young woman had a very short string when it came to patience. Now as an older and wiser woman with tons of experience under her belt, I have many more choices which allow me to stay calm, centered, and go with whatever is happening in my world. I live in more trust and I have learned how to manage my energy better. Being with a man who also keeps a very calm and cool head has also been a great benefit. It has led to much less stress and less adrenaline rushes which is ten times better for health and happiness. I appreciate this about him.

One of the most important books I have read is FLOW, by Mihaly Csiksezentmihalvi. There are many corporations that are teaching these principles today to their leadership teams. It is early day positive psychology and has been incorporated since into a wide variety of fields. Flow is a mental state and once you know how to tap into it for work, motivation and harnessing emotions for single-minded immersion to your tasks at hand, it can become your second nature for whatever it coming your way. People have asked me how I stay so upbeat and happy and I think FLOW is part of the answer. I believe that Flow is our original and true nature. I also believe we can learn to be more optimistic and not to let disappointments and changes in plans throw us over the edge into drama and crisis. We can go inward to our heart center and spirit and know that it is all working out for the very best. And book tickets for a later flight affirming that the snow will melt and it will rain and clean everything up so the roads are open.

Whenever you have a challenge, don’t lose your cool. Ask yourself, how can I step into it and find a positive solution. Are there other any out-of-the box possibilities? I think challenges come up for us to see if we can solve them creatively and produce better answers. I ask myself “what would a genius do in this situation”? What would Leonardo da Vinci do? What would my grandfather do? Who do you really admire and think is super smart? Who do you think is amazingly creative? Who is practical? Sometimes you have to step back and let it work itself out and sometimes you have to just let it go after checking out the alternatives and be at peace with it.

Hopefully, tomorrow I will be speaking the words we designed and marry my wonderful granddaughter and her Fiancé and celebrate their great day. Stay tuned and watch for the posting of pictures on Facebook.

Kathy Nelson is a Personal Life Coach in San Diego, California

Business Coaching 2012 – It’s second week of the first month of a brand spanking New Year! You might have been gone over the Holidays, but now you are home and settled with all the Holiday things put way. So now what?

Very few people plan in the fall, so you might not have made any real plans yet. It is not too late, but it is important that you carve out some planning time now. You don’t want to let too much time go by just doing the same old thing. Why plan? No plan, no direction. Those with plans succeed more often than those without them. It’s proven as the best way to go.

Plus, how you start out is important. You want to set the tone for the year. Jump on it. Set your yearly intentions. Write out your Dreams. Know what you are going for, what is most important to you, how you want it and you to show up in the world. This is critical to fire your “rockets”! You want your dream to be so big and exiting that it fuels you.

If you feel unexcited about the year, it is because your goals and dreams are too small. Step up! Allow your dreams to excite you with the possibilities. Make your plan sweet and tantalizing to you.

Here are three business coaching ideas to bring it about. You will want to strategize the how, the goals, and create the systems to put it all together!

1. Masterminds: The concept of the Mastermind Group was formally introduced by Napoleon Hill in the early 1900′s. In his timeless classic, “Think And Grow Rich” he wrote about the Mastermind principle as:”The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony.” What I love about a Mastermind is the synergy of energy, commitment, and excitement that participants bring to a Mastermind Group. The beauty of Mastermind Groups is that participants raise the bar by challenging each other to create and implement goals, brainstorm ideas, and support each other with total honesty, respect and compassion. It is a very bonding experience where all learn from one another. Each participant brings their best to the game, is supportive and acts as a catalyst for growth and sometimes plays the role of devil’s advocate.

2. Coaching: Wikipedia defines business coaching as: “Coaching, with a professional coach, is the practice of supporting an individual, referred to as the client or coachee, through the process of achieving a specific personal or professional result.” Coaching is differentiated from therapeutic and counseling since clients are in most cases considered healthy (i.e. not sick) and move forward based on their desires and strengths from their present situation. The structures, models and methodologies of coaching are numerous and are predominantly facilitating in style. In its purest form the coach mainly asks questions and challenges the coachee to find answers from within himself/herself based on their values, preferences and unique perspective. It is based on the client’s agenda. Today there are also coaching programs that will have an agenda and goals that the members individually work on achieving. Two years ago I took a program called 6 Figure Coaching which really make me step up and get some major things accomplished to take me to my next level. It was a program and we were able to meet on the side in small groups to reports success and talk about challenges and hold each other accountable, similar to a mastermind. There are many niches for coaching today, some of which include executive coaching, life coaching, business coaching, career coaching, mindfulness coaching, relationship coaching and wealth coaching. As more and more coaches develop additional niches develop for different interests and causes. Coaching is a great confidential partnership to help design and achieve goals and dreams. It provides accountability and focus by meeting weekly.

3. Buddy System: If these options are not available to you, you might look for a mentor you look up to who has achieved what you would like to achieve. Or someone who has the kind of character and success you would like to have.

Or you might look at your friends and relatives and see if there is someone with whom you can safely share your dreams with who is a good listener, supportive and encouraging. You do want to choose someone who would be willing to talk on a regular basis and be a sounding board for you to check-in with for your monthly and weekly goals and accomplishments. You will want someone who will honor your agenda and not try to stir you in the direction they believe you ‘should’ go. It needs to be someone who supports what you want and will give you support for what you want to create or where you want to go.

Sometimes you might belong to an association or network group that would be a fertile ground for beginning a Mastermind or finding a buddy that would be a great mutual fit.

The truth is we do better faster when have a cheering section, be it one person or more. Plus it just feels good!

Warning: Please don’t be a Lone Ranger. Thinking you can do it all by yourself is short-sighted, controlling and limiting. We need perspective and we don’t get that alone. When you think you have it all handled, you might. It is still great to have a sounding board who will give you honest feedback whether you are on the right track or not. If we think we don’t need anyone else to ‘help’ us, it is often our ego talking. I have seen people derailed and slowed down by being short-sighted, distrusting, controlling or too caught up in going it alone.

Kathy Nelson is a Life Coach for Personal Development and Growth in San Diego, California

In 1994 I bought my second Camero. My teenage son had totaled my first one. It was long, black and beautiful with a tee-top for summer time in Southern California. I love that car as much today as I did 18 years ago. Yes, I still drive it, mostly in the summer.

I never had ‘vanity’ plates before, and thought it would be fun to put them on ‘her.’ (Yes, my car has a gender to me. Am I alone in that?) I had thought of, “ImUrRep,” since I worked as a Business Development rep. My daughter said…”No, Mom, that is not you.” She told me, “That is what you do, but it is not you; it is not who you are.” So of course, I asked her, “Who do you think I am?” And she picked up a piece of paper and wrote one word on it. PASSION.

When I went to register my car, the proper spelling was taken, so I chose next best. PASCHUN. As a life coach I realized I needed to own who I was. It needed to be my filter, my compass, my guide in what I choose in every big and small decision. It is one of my top values and describes my approach today to many things. I have been called enthusiastic by many. One day in class someone told me I was too enthusiastic, so I looked up the word to see if I agreed.

The origin of ENTHUSIASM is Greek enthousiasmos, from enthousiazein which is to be inspired, irregular from entheos inspired, from en- + theos (god). Since the word comes from the root word, en theos, which means In God, I am perfectly o.k. with it. I gave myself permission to now own it. God is in me. I am in God. No wonder I feel so good. No wonder clients have called me Sunshine when I walked in. No wonder I feel peace at my core.

Because of someone else, I had tried to tone that energy down, thinking maybe I was too much of something…. Now I am just me. It is not my problem anymore. There comes a time when we accept ourselves, our dreams, our gifts, our wants, and stop trying to please everyone else. I love how I feel about the things I care about.

Sometimes I am opinionated, and it feels good to speak my mind. I was raised to be a child who was seen and not heard. Today, I am free of all those old, stale, inhibiting, soul crushing, suppressing beliefs. I have worked hard to give up those beliefs with many classes on personal development and spiritual growth. I am not trying to please relatives or fulfill their dreams. I am in charge of my own.

How can you start a business without feeling passion about your ideas — the ones you want to grow into an enterprise?  Passion gives the fuel. Everything starts with an idea… if you feel passion about it, you might want to birth it into a system, a book, an innovation, a business. I bet Steve Jobs and Oprah were passionate about their ideas.

Where does passion come from? Why is it intense? It feels more like an energy within my body that a thought within my head. Where does your passion come from? Do you know when you become aware of it?

I think passion and joy can be connected feelings. For me, I know I want to feel a lot more passion this year and a lot more joy. When I am involved in activities I feel passionate about, I find I am full of joy and great energy. I have made up my list of what I am doing when I am feeling these very alive ways…and I want to live from it. I want to own it. I want to be a warrior for living with Passion.

Ask yourself: When do you feel passion or joy? Are you alone or with someone? What are you doing? Where are you? How can you have more of it? Where does it show up in big and small ways?

I am interested in when and where your passion shows up for you and if you live from that sweet spot? Do you tame yourself down or suppress your joy or do you nurture it? Have you always been true to yourself or was it a journey and process? How do you hold on to it?

I am totally passionate about the New Year’s vast opportunities. I have joined a major Mastermind and am totally excited. I know that what I learn will help me inspire you to be passionate and do your best too.

I hope if you see me driving down 101, you will give me a honk and a thumbs up. If you want some personal development coaching to explore more about living from your own passion and joy, give me a call. We can have an interesting conversation about authenticity and happiness. In the meantime, here is to celebrating your passion!

Does Your New Year’s Day Feel Like Ground Hogs Day?

Have you found that each New Year Day for the last few years feels just the same? With just the same wish list for new behaviors, better health, love, and more money? Have you been setting the same goals year after year with little or no progress? And more importantly, are you ready to really make a difference in your own life?

Here are a couple of life coaching tips to help you take control over your year.

First write down just what you life looks like right now. Today. Dump it on paper. All of it.

Now, set yourself up in a really nice environment, comfortable chair, your back yard if it is lovely outside, a beautiful hotel lobby, outdoors on the sand if you are by a great beach, and most importantly, away from interruptions and distractions. You need your own quiet space.

Secondly, imagine you are in January, in 2013, and you are reviewing all the great things about 2012. What would you really love to see happen in your life if nothing was in the way of your fabulous life? What if you had all the money you want, you had your perfect work, in the perfect place, and you were fit, healthy, and had great relationship? What if you had the best vacation you ever imagined? What if you were doing things that were so exciting and made you feel so alive? What if your life was like the dream life you imagine….

Dreaming about our perfect life starts our engine running. We start thinking of the things we can do, large and small to take the steps to help create it. We write out a plan. We take the plan and see what steps we could take. A plan without action does not go anywhere. We have to take the action.

Last year I decided I was going to make some big changes in my life. This year, I walked my first 5 K on July 23rd, my daughter’s birthday. It was amazing! This year, I started painting again and learning about watercolors and I am hugely loving it. You can catch some of my paintings on my Facebook page. It is something my heart has wanted me to do for a long, long time. I finally have made the time for it in my life. It is making me feel so happy and is one of my favorite things about this year. This year, I joined Weight Watchers and have lost almost 25 pounds. Next year I will stick with it! I feel great about this and love the group I belong too. It is fun and helpful to take on something and then have great support to reach your goals. It is amazing to love your year and love your life! This has been a wonderful year!

The secret to not having Ground Hog New Years is put it out there on paper. Open yourself to what you want. You can plan and take actions to create different experiences in your life. You might change your thinking when you get some new ideas, create new habits and new behavior, and it is all for the better when you love your life. If things aren’t working, ask yourself what you want and move and work towards that. As a good friend says, Change your thinking and you change your life.

Most of all… I wish you the best year yet in 2012. The beautiful year you want with the sweet and spice in it. You deserve it!

As a Life Coach in San Diego, I help clients to really look at their life in greater detail, I call it the ant view; and I help them look from a much larger view, again called the eagle view. Both give totally different perspectives.

This year one of my biggest wins and challenges was walking a 5 K in July. I found that the start was great, but then we started up hill. I was huffing and puffing… and I heard the little voice in my mind start telling me that I couldn’t make it. It was the ant view that started nagging me and tried to make me stop. Just quit right then and there, just as I was getting started. My own thoughts were beating me up. When I looked up it was hard. I looked around me and noticed some other people who were not thin or tiny and they were steadily working their way up the hill. It gave me hope. When I looked down at my feet and just kept listening to my coach, my daughter at my side, and just kept putting one foot in front of the other and I climbed not only the first hill, but the next one which was even steeper. I found I had a drive and a strength that surprised me when she coached me up that hill and I listened to my big voice which cheered me on. I knew I was in a ‘coaching moment’, and had a lot to learn from it.

I wondered how often my clients are in that moment when they are taking on something new and that little voice tells them they can’t make it. If you’re fortunately, you have a coach to listen to. If not, then you want to listen to your own inner big voice in your head that will lead you up your very own side of the mountain to the top and to your own victory. You can be your own cheerleader and enjoy the view from the top!
Me, I am looking for my next 5 K in the New Year! Maybe I will see you there too.