How many of you have felt like that this last month, or even year?  It seems many have.  Hurry, only to have to wait.

I started to wonder if it was because we intuitively feel something is happening? Something is changing?  Or could it be we are so focused on the next moment, we don't take time to be in the now and miss opportunities, that forces to eventually have to stop, and wait?

I feel it is a little bit of everything.  Yes, things are happening and changing fast.  Business as it was done is having a harder time to continue.  People are not happy getting locked in cable, cellular provider or any other provider services.  It's anti competitive and it sure does not reassure.  The automobile world is in upheaval where for once, mainstream manufactures are trying to catch up to more nimbler start ups who have taken the initiative of electric vehicles.  More and more people want to do something more meaningful than just working to pay taxes.  According to the constant influx of people I meet, almost everyone express a desire to do something better for life, better for themselves and society as a whole.

Are we feeling a deep current change beneath the surface of our fast paced society, more used to lip service and attitude instead of substance?  Have we been pushed too much, too far into consumerism there is a feeling of profound dissatisfaction?  Before we hurry and wait, we need to make sure we have tapped into our source and understand who we are, how we function and get to where we want to be.

I feel I am a master a creating my ideal personal effective daily schedule.   Hum, PEDS.  Yes, I will add that one as a module to my coaching practice

Obviously, creating your own effective daily schedule requires a good insight as to who you are and how best you function.  Often enough, entrepreneurs do not like routines.  That's an understatement!  The same thing happening day after day will send them in the opposite direction in a frenzy.  So how do they establish and efficient schedule?

State goals, keep them in mind during the day and find things that give you satisfaction to fill in between tasks.  Sounds easy, but it is actually even easier than that.  Once you have stated your goals, let's say work on a project, write a few posts, write a passage for a book and answer urgent emails, it then becomes easy to divide your day in a flexible way.

You know you can allocate the morning to the urgent things, like emails, and then start working on that important project.  Here is the key, once you feel discomfort, boredom, frustration, STOP!  Do something that brings you satisfaction for 5mn, get to answer that secondary list of email replies, hunt some fun news, just do something that makes you feel good.  You will feel recharged and ready to continue the rest of your tasks.

It's actually very easy, you just need someone outside of you to help you get organized.  I think they have a name, like coaches or something like that…

Sooner or later, you have to learn something new.  Acquiring knowledge is easy but if it's not followed by a constant reminder and a real actualization of it, it will drift away.  Learning can happen in two ways, understanding something you have just learned and incorporating it into your being.  Both are different and the latter takes more effort but is final. 

Have you ever had one of the Ah ha moment, only to remember a later that the feeling is gone and nothing lasting came out of it?  That's something we are facing in the coaching world on a daily basis.  Many clients will have Ah ha moments but unless they act on it, it won't translate into an actual lasting and definite shift.  None of this has been any clearer than my last ah ha moment I realized I had arrived at a given destination of professional life I had set but without revisiting that feeling and realization, I would have lost the scope and gone right back to who I was before, trying to achieve something I had gotten already.

It's really a question of changing a habit you created in order to get to a certain place.  Once you are there, you need to see you made it and change accordingly, not just contemplate it shortly and assumed it is done.

Hopefully, this doesn't sound too nebulous.  It's actually the fact that when you feel a great change has happened within yourself, you need to own it but reminding you you it has indeed happened.  You are the new person you were looking for.  It needs a constant attention for a few days, weeks or even months depending on how important the change was.  It's not enough to think you've changed.  You need to make it part of you through a constant observation and reinforcing it.

Ah, the things we talk with coaches.

Well, they are only easy once you've decided that you really need and want to feel better.

Give it up!  Give up being right.   It takes too much energy and the payoffs are usually feeling hollow and exhausted.  Even if you are correct, not being able to show it to others will only bring resentment and bring you to a stalemate.   Remember the ancient hermetic axiom: "All truths are half truths"?  How can you create a dynamic and enriching conversation if you fight to be right?  Makes no sense and is not worth the energy for the bad results gained.

Challenge yourself to gauge yourself once in a while.  Challenge yourself.  Ask yourself: "Is what O hold to be true correct or am I relying on something that does not serve me anymore?"  Take time to question yourself, not to madness but to see if you are fooling yourself.

Make sure you have given yourself permission and space in order to grow and move on.  Its remarkable how many times we find ourselves ready to move on but do nothing about it.  It takes more than wishful thinking, contrary to The Secret.  The law of attraction works best when you actually push a few atoms towards the Universe.  Does the space around you reflect you?  Is it nurturing?  Inviting?

Is your routine satisfying you?  As a self proclaimed anti-routine guy I can tell you I worked long and hard to find a routine flexible enough to be fun, motivating and filling me with satisfaction.  Take a chance and try something new.  If it didn't work, great, you will have learned something and avoid it in the future.  If it works, great also, you found something that works even better.  We are creature of habits that need break.  Interesting conundrum, isn't it?

Do what makes you feel good WITHIN REASON, of course.  Meaning, don't go hurting or harming others or anything foolish like that.  But ask yourself what makes you have fun and do it.  We need to balance our lives.  All work and no play makes for very unsatisfied people.  Want proof?  Look at the majority of people in corporations?  And the new trend is to make work fun and challenging.

Thank goodness for coaches!

So what's next?  You've worked well with your coach.  You've achieve secret ambitions you never thought you would, or at least dreamed possible on your own.  Now you are happy.  You find yourself at this plateau where you are comfortable.  Everything looks good.  But wait a second, this is the right time to start looking ahead and planning.

As humans we have a wee bit tiny tendency to rest on our laurels, especially when we find ourselves reaching a place of comfort.  Still, that is the best time to start stretching your horizon.  This is the time when you can safely look around, gauge the situation, take stock of what you have done and start looking for a further horizon.

I noticed this happens a lot in coaching.  You work well with your client and all the sudden it feels as if it is all done and said.  The person you are talking to is a much more different than the one you started the coaching process a few months back.  That person is happier, more centered, more there and fully enjoying their success.  Once they have celebrated, it is time to stimulate their interest and thinking.  What else?  What other alternatives do you see?  What are your options going forward?  What would make you even happier?

These are wonderful questions I am experiencing with some clients at the present moment and the "ah has" are always elating.

As I read the news and talk to different people around me, one thing is for sure, we cannot continue to do business the way we have in the past.

We cannot continue with business as usual for many reasons, environmental obvious dangers, unsustainable growth pace are unrealistic, people are stressed, squeezed and depressed, and everyone seems to want a change.

The Olympics are finished.  Many people watched it but I heard complaints about only showing our own athletes and not other countries.  That doesn't fit the spirit of the Olympics that celebrates athletes across the borders.  It seems many people would have been interested to hear more about other less covered sports and not always focus on our number ones while discarding when we lose.

GM and Tesla is a perfect case of how business was done and how business is being done.  The GM versus Tesla philosophy pretty much captures the current business mood.  GM banked on big, heavy gas guzzling SUV and pickup trucks despite impending warning of unsustainable future growth.  This lead the door wide open for smaller, more nimbler companies to pave the way for a refreshing modern thinking and developing technologies we thought were impossible on a daily basis.  Tesla Motors wanted a small performance electric car, they did it and passe in front of GM who is scrambling to hybridize a fleet of heavy SUVs with little success.

While Charter Communication, Verizon and other big faceless companies enjoy their monopolies, they still rely on annoying weekly spamming with complete disregard for consumers asking them to stop.  This made some so mad they switched to other services, satellite and other carriers, yours truly included.  Same thing applies to other industries, our local Subaru dealer is sending us VW new vehicle incentives.  We drive Subaru, not VW.

Ever since the beginning of the year, my regular email address has been swamped with real estate spams of all sorts.  It has gotten to the point where I will have to change my email because 88% of what I receive are irrelevant real estate spam.  It's sad to see some of these Realtors still don't get it and are doomed to a life of mediocrity.

Basically, can you spell enough is enough?  I have never seen people that fed up around me, unhappy or not satisfied.  It's strange when you consider the many opportunities and things available at our fingertips to make us more happy.  This would explain why coaches are doing so well in this society of over the board consumerism.  No wonder why there are so much self-help books and techniques available today.

In many ways, this is the wake up call our society needed.  It is even more apparent with the upcoming elections, it will be a good test to see how the undecided, in the middle people will chose in the long term when in the end neither candidates are great but one probably is better.  Ah, do we need a real change besides lip service

I wanted to share something that shifted in me this last month.  Something happened and the results are great.

I can finally go through a routine, that I don't see as a restrictive anymore.  As most people, I cringe at the idea of routine.  But something happened.  I have a routine of sorts.  I wake up early, help Virginia, have some time to myself in the garden to reflect, a short meditation and check emails before I get on with it.  After that, I hunt for the news for my other blog at ElectricNick.com.  It takes me about 3 hours to create 4 posts with the research involved.  After I go cross eyed, I need to escape and go to Polly's for a coffee and friendly faces.  Depending on the schedule, I have about 3 to 4 clients a day, mostly over the phone.  After spending some more time researching, writing, studying, I have to go to the gym work out and let go of some of my famous unbridled energy.  If I am lucky and have enough time, I will allow me the luxury of a half hour at the beach where I sit in contemplative mood , reflecting on the sea.  It is a great way to tap into myself again.  Yeay, Tap The Source!

I found for the first time in my life a balance of sorts, a routine kind of way to do everything I love and still enjoy doing it.  I have a great time working with my clients on developing effective and constructive routines.