Life & Retirement Coaching: How to Kick Anxiety to the Curb & Get Laser-Focused in 2018

Life Coaching / Retirement Coaching / The Artist's Way

What have you done lately that you’re proud to recall? This is a natural place to look in the first week of a brand spanking new year! How did something YOU did in 2017 make a difference?

Answering this question takes a few minutes of honest reflection and being gentle with yourself. First thoughts may be about what you neglected to do:

  • Didn’t get a raise.
  • Forgot to ask for a raise!
  • Didn’t reconnect with cousin Isabelle (although that was at the top of your resolution list in January 2017)
  • Didn’t lose those pesky ten pounds (although you joined a club AND reached out to a personal trainer)

What a dull, sad way to start a new year. In the beginning of the new year, we can beat ourselves up with these negative thoughts … or we can find a way to approach things differently.

When we push ourselves to do do do from a place of fear, anxiety or insecurity, the results aren’t ever what we really want. How would we start to feel if we focused more on loving ourselves instead?

2018: The Year of Focus

Have you heard? Anxiety is the new depression. Recent research shows anxiety, characterized by constant and overwhelming worry and fear, is now 800 percent more prevalent than all forms of cancer. Talking about “getting focused” or making New Year’s resolutions can actually create a lot of anxiety for us!

Here’s the sad truth:

  • 42% of us make New Year’s resolutions
  • 9% actually keep them

New data from the National Institute of Mental Health suggests that prevalence of anxiety disorders in the U.S. may be as high as 40 million, or about 18 percent of the adult population, making it the most common mental illness in the nation.

I believe that today’s technology pulls us in all directions at once, and can be very anxiety-producing. Comparison-fraught social media that encourages us to review other people’s “highlight reels” can push us into despair when faced with the reality of our own day-to-day. Smartphones that never stop buzzing and all we are required to do, be and know just to get by in today’s busy world can drive us to distraction.

I joke about thinking I’ll get wiser and more calm as I age, but truth be told, I feel less calm and find myself needing to practice meditation daily to maintain and enlarge a semblance of inner peace. I find this to also be true of my life and retirement coaching clients.

Life & Retirement Coaching for Laser-Focus

Being self-employed isn’t exactly calm-inducing. As a life and retirement coach myself, of course I believe in this process, and have a coach myself. As a coach-of-coaches, her expertise is different from what I provide to my clients. But we have some similarities.
What does a coach do that a personal trainer, well-meaning friend, counselor or therapist does not do?
  • She keeps me on course for my values and dreams
  • She works collaboratively with me
  • She is completely independent (i.e. she has no vested interest in the outcome, so better able to be my ally)
  • She keeps me accountable to help me change my behavior (so different from instructions or advice!)

When I suggest veering off my path of commitments she steers me back to that vision she helped me create to begin with. It helps that she is a student of the coaches training institute where I trained to become a life coach myself 17 years ago! It also helps that our relationship is built on transparency and trust. Working with her brings me an immense sense of calm and focus.

Why Hire a Life or Retirement Coach?

January is one of the best times to hire a coach. Imagine how much different 2018 will be if you do so! Examine your own desires and expectations:
  • What are you seeking that a coach can help you uncover and guide you towards in a timely manner?
  • Are you capable of being open, honest and willing to move forward in your actions and behaviors in order to find gratification in specific areas of your life?

This is how I work with my life and retirement coaching clients, whether they’re working with me 1-on-1 or join group coaching sessions on The Artist’s Way, my teleclass starting January 22nd at 8pm CT. Participate from the comfort of your home, grow as a group and get a taste of coaching with me for a fraction of the cost of individualized coaching.

As someone who’s experienced the anxiety of chasing goals and resolutions, trust me, focusing on what I want to create and enlisting the help I need to create it is so much better.

  • When you diet because you hate your body, you’ll be left with lingering self-loathing, despite a smaller dress size!
  • When you make money because you fear bill collectors, you’ll be left with fear and scarcity even with a robust bank account! (i.e. a “Scrooge” mentality)
  • When you find love for the wrong reasons, you’ll end up clinging to a partner because you think you’ll be lost without him. (or loneliness even with a warm body sitting beside you!)

Talk about anxiety!

Let’s commit to creating what we want in 2018 together. Let’s reach our goals from a place of abundance – because we know that reaching them doesn’t guarantee that we’ll get what we’re really after – and because we know that happiness is an inside job.

For my clients, accountability through COACHING is the key – whether they’re working with me 1-on-1 or via my group coaching sessions on The Artist’s Way, my teleclass starting January 22nd at 8pm CT. (Participate from the comfort of your home, grow as a group and get a taste of coaching with me for a fraction of the cost of individualized coaching.)

Click here to Request a Complimentary Consult with me, Life & Retirement Coach Karen Carr (just fill out the pink box to schedule a time).

Click here to learn more about & book your spot in The Artist’s Way group coaching teleclass.

 

 

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