Today be brave.

Be patient with yourself. 

Claim control over your life and business.  Be deeply, wildly proud of your achievements. Stop pressuring yourself to be perfect. 

Define success on your own terms. Stop selling yourself short. Never settle for less than you deserve. 

Push through your fears. Find your own path. Express your unique brilliance through your work. 

Invest your time wisely. Know your personal priorities. Give yourself permission to be incredibly happy.  Cultivate healthy, loving, supportive relationships. 

Turn your focus inward. Awaken your intuition. Trust your gut. Listen to your soul. 
Believe in the greatness within you. Speak your truth.

Are you ready and willing to live you A Life?

The Inspired for Life Sessions, 
will help you up your game and live your best life! 

What are you waiting for? 

Jump on this chance and Be Inspired for Life! 

The road to success is paved with stumbling blocks of all kinds and sometimes the going gets tough and giving up or crawling back to the cosiness of your comfort zone, seems like a great idea. 

It isn't. 

Remember, you are so much more than your current circumstances. 
So, give yourself some credit for everything you have already accomplished and keep going.

I'm here for you and I KNOW you are so much closer to living your dreams than you think.

Your best life awaits you on the other side of fear. Take the leap.

Make Today Count.

Other Posts You Might Love:
5 Tips to Overcome the SoloPreneur Blues 
Kicking Stress in the Butt with Mini Meditation Sessions
Are you holding yourself back? | Break free from your own limiting beliefs, starting today
Overcoming the Fear of Failure | How I Rejected the Illusions of Fear and you can too

About Me

Hi, I'm Nichole, and I am a personal motivator and coach, passionate about reigniting the spark in people both in life and business. My specialty? Getting people to ACT by breaking anything down, into to the next action!

I work with passion driven women to help them set their priorities straight and and thrive in life and business, on their own terms.

Connect with me on Facebook or email me at nichole@take-ten.com

Did you like, what you just read? 
Join our mailing list, to receive our weekly email, directly at your inbox! 

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And even though criticism is inevitable in every aspect of your life, in the competitive business arena, some people will do anything to get ahead, even if that means throwing you under the bus to get there. 

So, the next time you are being criticised, instead of feeling hurt, angry or overwhelmed, try using the following tips, to help you handle conflict with grace!

How can I be sure that it is actually my inner critic the one stopping me from moving forward, telling me this isn’t going to work out and not the voice of reason?

And that was my first question too, when I first started spotting that little voice, I didn’t even know directed my every action and that is why I am really excited to be sharing with you, these 5 Tips to help you recognize your inner critic.

Please read responsibly!

So, are they?

Mine were. I was one of those people who toiled for many years because I doubted my ability to be my own boss. I doubted whether I was good enough to become a solopreneur, to run my own business or to make a difference in people’s lives, in a world filled with extremely gifted life coaches.

And the sneaky thing about those doubts was that they presenting themselves through George – you know George, my inner critic, my sweet little gremlin – . And George used his cunning PR skills to trick me into submission without putting up a fight.

He wasn’t throwing them in my face, he was just covering up for them while they crept into my subconscious so that I didn’t realize they’re there, tugging at me, wearing at me, grinding me to a stop.

But these doubts were there, even if I rarely thought about them. They were that silent voice in my head saying, “I can’t do it. I’m not good enough. I’d never make it. I’d only fail and embarrass myself. Why should I dare dream?”

They were there, and still are some times, and they were more powerful than I can put into words.

So, I decided to start small, with a little facebook page. I posted quotes and thoughts I needed to keep ME motivated. A few people liked my page, and commented on my posts. That was a fact. Hmmm…

I kept doing it, and kept getting good feedback, even if it was just from a handful of people. They believed in me, and encouraged me to continue posting, by commenting, and sharing my posts with their friends. That was also a fact. Interesting…

My wonderful husband Stelios supported me. My friends were proud of me, and that was a fact too. Every new person who liked, commented or shared one of my posts provided me with another proof that what I was doing had an actual impact on people’s lives … and that was a fact too.

And with every new, undisputed fact that came in, I was becoming more and more sure that my old doubts, were wrong. They were just flimsy façades that I had built up into something so solid they seemed indestructible. They seemed so real they were unquestionable, the foundation for my everyday reality.

But they were wrong, and now I had facts and solid data to prove it. And the very realization made me shiver. How could everything I had believed all these years be so wrong?

My reality today is different, because even though I had doubts, I still went ahead and did it anyway. I started small and I tested the waters. I was mindful of the results. I paid attention. And though I still have self doubts, I no longer let them define my reality. They’re just hypotheses, waiting to be tested by actual facts, waiting to be disproved.

Everyone has self doubts. That’s no excuse of not living your life the way you like it best. Just start doing it!

I have done it, thousands of others have done it. We are not better than you, we just did something relatively small, to test our doubts and then waited for the actual data to come in. We got the feedback, we disproved our doubts and we kept going.

If you are ready to swift gears in your life and make the rest of 2013 ROCK?

The Inspired for Life Sessions, -Six Hours of infinite possibility infused coaching for 100$- will help you reach more into yourself and be empowered by your own dreams! 

What are you waiting for? 

Jump on this chance and Be Inspired for Life! 

I’m already proud of you, just for reading this far, even though you have doubts about me and this blog. And I am proud you are willing to let some small light shine on the doubts quivering in the darkness.

Have you ever doubted your self and your ability to live life on your terms?
How do you handle your doubts?

Share your truth in the comment section bellow. Remember, we are all in this together...

Other Posts You Might Love:
7 Easy Steps To a Happy Life | Surprisingly Simple Ways To Living a Life of Happiness
Happiness | 5 Tips to help you work your way from grumpy to happy
Back to the Basics | The Importance of Picking your Battles in Everyday Life
Overcoming the Fear of Failure | How I Rejected the Illusions of Fear and you can too

About Me

Hi, I'm Nichole, and I am a Life Change Architect and a Motivational Speaker, Coaching, Writing and Running Workshops about Personal Growth and Positive Change. 

Connect with me on Facebook or email me at nichole@take-ten.com

Did you like, what you just read? 
Join our mailing list, to receive our weekly email, directly at your inbox! 

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Sometimes overanalysing situations, labelling events and trying to micromanage the universe, gives us a false sense of control or security. Locked into only one possible outcome we eliminate all other possibilities and that in it self can be comforting. But life is all about wonderful possibilities, continuous change and an infinite string of unpredictable moments that we are meant to experience as they come. 

I used to attach meaning to everything that happened to me. And I mean everything, from a client email, complaining about the service quality he has receiving to a broken pipe in the bathroom that flooded my entire apartment while I was at work, everything was immediately labeled as good or bad. And then I would spend countless hours thinking about it, feeling trapped in my own interpretation of what happened or in the meaning I have attached to the situation. 

But sometimes what now seems like a wonderful stroke of luck, might turn out to be something less fortunate after all, while a misfortune might bring you everything you ever wanted. Everything in life is cyclical and attaching meaning to every little thing that happens to you, is nothing but a big fat waste of time. 

I have now, learned to accept what happened for what it really is. I got fired. I broke up with my boyfriend. I had a fight with my brother. No matter what happened, I no longer stay attached to it, I do not try to interpret it, I do not foresee the end of the world because of it. No matter what it is, I now, know, it will eventually pass. After all nothing is permanent.

Good. Bad. Who knows? The story is not over yet.

So, now, no matter what happens, I take the time to internalise it properly, acknowledge it for what it really is, accept the feelings that emerge from my experience -anger, fear, joy, excitement- find the lesson or the blessing it carries and then I gently let it go. 

And no, it is not always easy. Sometimes I get a strong impulse to over-analyse what happened, to tell myself dramatic stories of how it is going to play out eventually, to have a definite opinion about why it happened and whether it was a good or a bad thing. But now, I have the tools to use to simply make peace with the moment, as it is and move on to the next one, keeping my commitment to living my best life.

After all, there are no guarantees in life, so no matter what happens make a conscious choice to experience, appreciate, learn and grow from it, until something new happens, a new experience that will carry you further on your way to the person you inspire to become. 

If you are ready to swift gears in your life and make the rest of 2013 ROCK?

The Inspired for Life Sessions, -Six Hours of infinite possibility infused coaching for 100$- will help you reach more into yourself and be empowered by your own dreams! 

What are you waiting for? 

Jump on this chance and Be Inspired for Life! 

Other Posts You Might Love:
7 Easy Steps To a Happy Life | Surprisingly Simple Ways To Living a Life of Happiness
Happiness | 5 Tips to help you work your way from grumpy to happy
Back to the Basics | The Importance of Picking your Battles in Everyday Life
Overcoming the Fear of Failure | How I Rejected the Illusions of Fear and you can too

About Me

Hi, I'm Nichole, and I am a Life Change Architect and a Motivational Speaker, Coaching, Writing and Running Workshops about Personal Growth and Positive Change. 

Connect with me on Facebook or email me at nichole@take-ten.com

Did you like, what you just read? 
Join our mailing list, to receive our weekly email, directly at your inbox! 

Sign up for our free newsletter

You must be shaking your head by now, thinking "what is she even talking about?" "What's a steamy bowl of dreams, anyway?", well I get that a lot. 

And to be honest, I used to feel quite uncomfortable expressing myself authentically, in front of others and sometimes I still do, but most of the time I consciously chose not to. 

And, yes, I might be, less conventional than I used to and even slightly on the weird side of human nature but it's still who I am. It's me and I am not going to cover up my silliness, or lessen my dreams, or twist my truth to fit into whatever is considered as "normal" these days.

TakeTen would like to welcome our first, extremely talented blogger Nina Shadi. I am a frequent reader of her blog With an Open Heart and I just love her. So, I am honoured to have one of her blog posts shared here on TakeTen. Here a few words from Nina. Enjoy! 

Personal growth and self-discovery are at the heart of what I write about on my blog, With an Open Heart. So, when Nichole wrote to me and asked if I would be interested in guest posting for TakeTen, I was beyond thrilled. It also validated that the work that I do as a personal growth blogger, as well as a therapist, has me headed in the right direction toward happiness and self-fulfillment. 

The post I will be sharing is from, The Awakened Heart Project a 52 week series designed to help you to release your fears, awaken your heart, and grow into the person you were meant to be. I hope you’ll check it out; it’s never too late to grow into your best self!  

Nina

One common example of this is the career-focused person who thinks they’ll be happy at the top of the company. They work like crazy for years. They sacrifice friends, family, and leisure time. They tell themselves things will be different and easier at the top and then they’ll have time for x, y, and z. But when they get to the top they realize the hours are still long, they’re disconnected from friends and family and they missed out far too many experiences to count. Reality sets in and they realize everything they lost along the way wasn’t worth the gain.

Granted, not everyone feels this way when they get to the top. And many people feel this way without ever getting to “The Top”; whatever place that may be for you. What’s important is that you’re headed in the right direction for you. YOU are the only one who can decide what direction is the right direction.

A toleration is anything --and I mean anything-- you put up with, at home, at work or in your community. Anything that bugs or annoys you about other people or yourself. Even something you are settling for, like an unwanted weight gain, is a toleration.

I was stunned, to know that tolerations can fall into so many categories. I honestly had no idea. So, it's not just the big stuff that we endure --as I thought-- like a dead end job or an unsupported family, that constitute a toleration, it is also the hundreds of tiny nuisances we put up with, every day, like an overdue haircut, a messy desk or a burnt out light bulb. 

Now, here is the deal.