Our Definitions

During my Life Coach Certification training, one small assignment required us to interview a friend for 15 minutes about a specific goal they want to accomplish in the New Year and to truly listen to their words.

A component of this exercise was to hear the words and phrases that are common in that person’s conversational vocabulary. This exercise was extremely beneficial to me in more ways than I realized.  The next day I decided to interview myself!

Because of past experiences we tend to define our lives with certain beliefs and definitions yet forget to really stop to understand the context of our words.  For example, the word success to me could be defined by you in a completely different manner, using a completely different vision.

For example, when I say that I want to be “successful,” someone else might describe their end goal as being wealthy.  But what do these terms mean to YOU and have you ever really taken the time to understand your own beliefs surrounding your descriptive concepts?

What I had to do was write down what the word successful means to me.  Does it mean having more time, earning more money, paying off bills?

Life tends to move quickly and at this time of year as the New Year begins, setting goals is common and writing them down is annual ritual for many people.

This year, take a moment to truly understand and verbalize the words you choose to describe the path to your goals.

When you set a goal of losing weight to look and feel better, take a moment to write down what looking and feeling better really means to you.  When you commit to a goal of saving more money, what does saving really mean to you and how will you specifically save?  When you decide to finally try online dating to find a good man/woman, write down exactly what you mean by a good man/woman.  This not only embellishes the specifics, it allows you to understand things in a more definitive way.

Understand your own concepts and the fact that previous experiences automatically create filters through which we define our words.  Each of our lives is unique and therefore each of our perceptions filters through the comfort zones we’ve created.

Define your goals, but also remember to disseminate what you need to see, feel and hear to know in your heart that you are achieving success and achieving your goals.