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Goals – How Slow and Steady Wins the Race

July 21, 2021/in coaching, Uncategorized, writing /by S.K. Lamont

Race winning as the tortoise vs the hare.

I had a bit of an epiphany this morning, as I wrote in my journal, and to be honest it’s been a long time coming.

I have a confession to make: I’m a bit of an adrenaline junky! All hype, speed, running around in circles trying to catch my tail. If only I could catch my tail, if only I could catch my tail. Then I’d have made it. Then I’d be happy. But after writing in my journal this morning I realized fast is not the only way. I noticed a pattern. I noticed what makes me happy.

How I have accomplished goals in healthy, happy ways in the past.

I’m beginning to believe the relentless putting one tiny step in front of the other is the only true way to get to a goal in a healthy way. Then you sit back and wait. Allowing the weight of steady progress and time to chip chip away at your goal and eventually it will carry you over the finish line.

Persistence is the Key

Now you can also do it the other way—pushing with all your might. Going hard. But in the end, the fruits of that labor (I have found) are stress and anxiety, even anger. Burnout is a byproduct of cajoling, pushing, criticizing myself to finish.

What if instead we encouraged ourselves; softly, gently. Allowing ourselves to enjoy the journey—trusting the process. Allowing it to unfold. Would that in the end be more rewarding? After all, we get one life to live. One chance. I know for me; I want to enjoy my days and not have them filled with stress and anxiety.

Goals, Desires, Wants are a Process

Stress—for which I have been famous for in the past (well, at least within my family) and can still slip into once in a while, happens when I forget that goals, desires, wants are a process. When I forget to trust it leaves me depleted.

I know when I slip unconsciously into flow—things are easy, effortless, resistance free. It’s bliss. But today I realized flow could be a conscious state that I choose to bring into every single day, situation, goal. Whether that’s cleaning out the garage, the fridge, painting a room, taking on a major diy project, completing a book, or crafting a book series—it all happens a lot more smoothly and with relaxation, enjoyment and fun—when I trust. Screw the adrenaline, let that be for another day…for say; cliff diving, or jumping out of a plane, or writing crazy, wild, adrenaline filled scenes in my books. Or when someone breaks into your house and you need to ‘take care of them’. 😉

Let us delight in our days, rather than worry and stress through them.

For me, I’m done. I’m washing my hands; give me boring, give me predictable, give me one foot in front of the other as I relax and smile—as I see my goal inch closer and closer towards me. There is delight in that. Let us delight in our days, rather than worry and stress through them. Hello peace, relaxation, freedom.

I hope this has added a little light to your day. Or sparked an idea. Please feel free to reach out to me through one of the methods below.

Make this day great!

Blogs from the Barn is a new idea. As a busy mother of six rather wild and energetic kids, my days are busy and full. One of my many jobs is to come out to the barn and take care of our four barn cats, and my mustang; he loves when I just hang out with him here. So I decided that along with spending some time chilling with my mighty steed, and reading books in the peace and quiet of the barn, maybe I could sneak in a blog or two.

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S.K. Lamont is author of up-and-coming book The Girl of Souls and Shadows – you can add a copy to your Goodreads shelf here. Subscribe to my monthly Newsletter to get the latest news and updates! You can also reach out and connect with me through email and find me on instagram.

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• Goals and Planning – When Things Go Wrong

A is for Art and Awareness

June 16, 2021/in creativity, Uncategorized, writing /by S.K. Lamont

I love Art with a capital A. I am a multifaceted person and ever since I was a small child I’ve loved art! Whether that’s finger paints, play doh, arranging dried pasta ‘artfully’—I’ve always been drawn to getting messy and creative. I love it—it’s like oxygen to my creative soul and when I don’t do it, I feel dried up; crusty, cranky, crappy…you get the picture—lots of words beginning with c.

Why do I love art so much?

Well, I think it allows me to relax deeply. When I am fully engaged in creating—all my senses are engaged. I am fully immersed, and it is wonderful. The thinking logical part of me switches off and the creative juicy parts of my pure beingness switches on. This is true of all my creative forms.

Having many creative pursuits—I believe I experience a similar flow state in all of them. Ah, flow state! Is this truly the ultimate in human existence? The elixir of life, enlightenment—a higher state.

Here are some of my creative explorations I enjoy immensely—maybe my loves will stir up some of your creative juices, longings or deeper desires to connect to a more authentic truer realization of self? Okay, is that a stretch? Maybe? Maybe no? I know when I create I feel truly alive…so maybe…

Fantasy Writing

First and foremost I must mention fantasy writing—now here’s the interesting thing—I’m a late bloomer when it comes to my writing and besides the odd childhood poem, songwriting, or weird short story and don’t let me forget the teenage angst journal writing—I never really thought of myself as ‘a writer’. But as far back as I can remember, I have always been tapped into my imagination.

My imagination has served me well, walked with me, entertained and comforted, and kept me safe.

So when it comes to art—writing goes straight to the top of my list! It’s a very visceral experience and takes me straight into my body and five senses—it connects me in the way that art does to my senses but interestingly there is the play of being keenly present in the now—and also accessing deep memory of sight, sound, smell, touch, texture and taste outside of the now. It takes me deep into that enlightened state and it is one of my deepest sources of joy.

But, it is still me sitting in a chair, not actually engaging my body, I’m not in the now participating with the visceral and the matter of this world, my body is not moving…much. I am not smelling the scent of flowers in the air, or the brisk ocean breeze as I stride across a cliff top—I tap these memories. Much like tapping a maple I imagine—drawing the syrup—the condensed sunlight, wind, and rains from long ago and bringing them to this moment to be experienced. Okay, now I want pancakes. 😉

Getting my Groove On!

Then there is dance—when I move in dance I go deep into another realm—completely—whilst my body dances in this one. Maybe it’s my imagination or maybe it’s an actual portal into another realm. 🙂 But again, another incredible engagement of artistic expression.

And as a writer I feel completely supported, inspired, and set free. As my body moves, creates, visions and plays.

Clay Play

Then there is the more traditional ideas of art: I love working in earthen clay whether on my pottery wheel, hand building, or sculpting. I also enjoy working in miniature in the less natural material of polymer clay where I enjoy incorporating all sorts of mixed media; found things like watch parts, shell, glass beads. I also enjoy working in acrylics, colored pencil and in the last year I have taken up calligraphy and I’m teaching myself map making—which I hope to incorporate into my books, eventually.

Here is a list of my arts/creativity that I enjoy:

Writing
Dance
Earthen clay – throwing, hand building, sculpting
Polymer clay and mixed media
Acrylics
Colored pencil – blending and shading
Calligraphy and Mapmaking

Do I enjoy them all equally?

Hmmm, well dance has a long tangled history, that I might talk about in another blog post, but when I enter in fully to pure experience, then it is unparalleled to anything else in this world. It feels enlightened, like I am dancing in the throne room of heaven itself—like I can mold and move anything. (Okay, this bit’s a bit weird—bear with me). It feels as if I am all powerful and that I can mold the very fabric of time and space itself. Wow! No wonder it scares me and sometimes overwhelms me. It makes me feel as if I am capable of so much, but at the same time makes me feel ‘less than’, because I am not ‘in reality’ – in this physical plane doing these things, BUT when I marry it with my fiction! Wow, incredible world colliding experiences and visions happen where it infuses my fiction with some kind of fantasy hyper juice! Or at least that is how it feels to me. 🙂

Then there is earthen clay which definitely brings me back down to earth. Here I feel completely alive. I feel present fully to movement – touch – sensation – it makes me feel grounded, connected, centered; very much like the clay that is slipping through my hands.

As a creative person, especially as a writer—at least for me—it is important to experience color, texture, movement, flow—nature too, but we can talk about nature another time.

For now, I hope I have inspired you, encouraged you, or at least left you with something to think about!

Follow me on twitter sk_lamont

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• All Work and No Play – What Do You Do to Relax?

Focus – The Power of Concentrated Effort

February 28, 2016/12 Comments/in coaching, writing /by S.K. Lamont

Sometimes I just want to get stuff done. Like those edits that have been lingering for far too long or that book, I just want to get finished. So I get my head down and don’t lift it till the task is complete.

I know I can achieve anything I put my mind to, but it does require that I give it my all,* in effort and focus for a certain period of time.

*meaning it occupies the bulk of my thinking and gets the lion’s share of my time.

When you focus on what you want, everything else falls away.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big believer in having great habits in place and chipping away every day to make that goal happen.

Sometimes I need push

But, sometimes things get under my skin and drive me crazy, and, I feel like I don’t have the energetic effort required or the moxie to keep chipping away at it. In fact, the chipping away is robbing me of joy every day because the task at hand seems insurmountable. Like I’m going to be working on it, FOREVER! That I’m NEVER going to finish.

I know from experience that if I let this feeling of hopelessness continue for too long, then I might end up losing the project that I had so much passion for in the beginning.

When I get to this place, when I feel like I’m banging my head against a wall, and getting nowhere fast, I do the one thing that always seems to work for me …

I attack!

When I reach threshold, I tell myself: I’m not dinging around with this anymore. It’s time to get it done.

Then I dive in.

Doesn’t matter what it is. As long as it’s something I absolutely want to achieve. And, it’s a must. And, it’s important.

But, if I’m not making progress, and I don’t see an end in sight…

Then I take the project and make it the number one priority in my life till it’s done.

I shoot it straight to the top of my list.

I make room for it in my life; I set a timeline, and I make a plan…

You can get a lot done when you decide you’re finished playing around.

The important thing is to take your goal, break it up into manageable chunks, and schedule them in every day. Then work like a dog till you complete your project. You may enjoy the process or you may not, it’s irrelevant. As long as you’re still connected to your initial vision you had for the project and your still committed, then you walk through fire till you get it done.

Now that imagery may seem a bit strong, but honestly sometimes you just have to commit all the way and do the work. Especially on long projects like writing a book, it’s a lot of work that has you invested for months to years.

What if a project has stalled out?

If a project has stalled out, then maybe it’s time to get reconnected to that initial vision you once had:

What made you excited about it in the first place?
When you complete it what doors does it open up for you?
How will you feel when you know you didn’t take the easy path?
Just imagine how good you’ll feel with the end in sight, and when you finally cross that finish line!

So set a hard deadline for yourself and get it done.

So why am I writing this blog post?

Because, I set this task for myself this past Monday to complete all edits on my current manuscript, and to get it out the door to my editor by the end of the month. I have been working my butt off this week. My body hurts. I have assigned household tasks to other members of the family. Pizza has featured largely in this week’s dinner menu. But it doesn’t matter, I’m committed and determined that I will reach that finish line even if it kills me.

Yes, maybe a little extreme, but it means I get the thing I want to get done–done!

“You can move mountains when you set your heart and mind to it!”

I take the week, stop all the tasks that are not a priority, like cleaning the house, watching movies, going out to dinner. I pull the plug on all of it, get my head down, and work my butt off till the task’s complete. It’s surprising how much you can get done when you decide to!

What are your thoughts?

I’d love to know what you think! Have you ever used concentrated effort to get a task done and been surprised by the results? Or, do you fail miserably in this department and seem to never complete your project, loosing hope with the lack of forward momentum? What measures have you gone to, to complete a task?

Please share your comments in the comment box below, along with any other ideas you would like to share, I’d love to hear from you!

Have you ever just went for it?

Follow me on twitter @sk_lamont

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• When Distractions are Driving You Crazy!

Fear – A Writer’s Friend or Foe?

February 14, 2016/18 Comments/in coaching, writing /by S.K. Lamont

Fear seems to be one of those emotions that we writers have to deal with a lot, or anyone else for that matter. It seems to chase us down anytime we try to step outside of our nice comfortable comfort zone. But I’ve always thought a comfort zone can one of the most uncomfortable places we can be. When it comes down to it, when we are alone, or the TV is switched off, or there is zero distraction in our life and we sit quietly listening to that inner voice—it whispers something profound to us…

…You are more than this, you can do more than this, you have something special to offer…

…and it’s a terrifying thought. Because then, we have to look that monster, Fear, in the eye. That somehow we would have to conquer it—we would have to face our fear! And that thought is often too much to bear, it’s easier to hit the button on the remote and slip back into our coma.

Is fear the enemy?

I know this is a strange question and I think most people would say, yes, fear is definitely the enemy. It is the menace that stalks the writer and squeezes out all hope of ever being published. It is the killer of inspiration that crushes the life out of our creative endeavors and instead leaves us playing small.

Or is it?

Maybe it is right now, but can that negative force be put to good use in the writer’s life?

I have always been a very fearful person. For as long as I can remember, fear has stalked my every hope and dream. It has been around the corner, lying in wait, every time I thought I could try something new. Or it has tried to kill the life out of every new connection and communication.

Who knows where my fear came from; fear of not being loved, fear of not being good enough, fear of falling flat on my face. I could go on.

One thing I do know is it has been my constant companion for as long as I can remember. It has traveled with me everywhere I have gone, and in everything I have done.

I spent the majority of my younger life trying to shake it loose; trying to run away from it, overcome it, conquer it, or destroy it. I pinned a badge on My Pinterest Page years ago that says Punch Fear in Face.

But I then realized I was going about it all the wrong way. I was always looking at fear as a problem, a curse, and as something that I had to get away from. Then one day I realized I couldn’t. That fear was my constant traveling companion. It had always been there and always would be, and there was nowhere to hide.

Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway

I read a book back in the 90s called Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers; it stayed with me long after I read it, particularly the 5 tenets about fear. I wrote them on cards and stuck them to my wall, to try and get the principles through my thick skull:

The fear will never go away as long as you continue to grow!
The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and…do it!
The only way to feel better about yourself is to go out and…do it!
Not only are you afraid when facing the unknown, so is everyone else!
Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the bigger underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness!

But it still took me another ten years, at least, to get it! I was still fighting, still battling, and still trying to punch fear in the face.

My Friend Fear

Then one day I had an epiphany, fear wasn’t the beast I was trying to make it out to be, it was actually my friend.

I know, shocker. All it was trying to do was keep me safe from the big bad world. Like an over-concerned mother trying to stop her child from swinging too high on the big swing at the playground—never mind that the child gets to experience the exhilaration of flying! It’s better to just be on the ground, to be safe, to be secure, and let’s not let any of that bad stuff happen to you.

The problem is, bad stuff still happens. Not only in the playground, but crossing the street, or driving in the car. At any moment something bad can happen and it puts the brakes on this whole thing we call living, either temporary or permanently.

So I got to ask myself the question: Do I want to die in the back seat of my car riding to play park strapped into my nice safe seat? Or, did I want to get up on the freaking swing and fly as high as I could? —with death being a mild consequence of living and taking that wild ride.

Fear’s just fear, it’s never going away, I told myself. So I decided to treat it as an awesome friend whom I would listen to very closely and consult on all my endeavors. Anytime I’m about to step out into new territory, I listen carefully to that inner voice of fear. My close consultant.

The voice of fear that sounds something like this:

You shouldn’t do that thing: no one will like you. 

You shouldn’t do that thing: you’re going to look like an idiot.

 You shouldn’t do that thing: who the hell do you think you are.

I listen very carefully, and then I do the exact opposite of what fear tells me to do. See if fear is just trying to protect me, then I no longer see it as a menace. I now see it as a compass and I use it to guide me to where all the growth is at, where all the fun is at, and where all the best swings in the playground are.

I’m still scared. I might fall flat on my face, but it doesn’t matter. I have to just pick myself up and look for the next big swing. Sometimes, I may take a little time to lick my wounds, but I don’t stay there, I have to get up and look for that next swing—the one that scares me the most—after all, what else is there?

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

I can either choose to live full out or shrink back and hide in the corner.

I get to choose.

What are your thoughts?

I’d love to know what you think! Do you see fear as a friend or foe? How has it stopped you in the past? What will you do now to change things? What tips and strategies do you have to motivate you to step out and take risks? What do you tell yourself when fear tries to cripple you?

Please share your comments in the comment box below, along with any other ideas you would like to share, I’d love to hear from you!

Is fear your enemy?

Follow me on twitter @sk_lamont

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• How Fear Can Stop You from Getting What You Want

How Fear Can Stop You from Getting What You Want

February 7, 2016/17 Comments/in coaching, family /by S.K. Lamont

This week I’ve noticed that a lot of blogs are chatting about love with Valentine’s Day being just around the corner. I wanted to write about fear this week. I know, not exactly conducive to love, or is it? I was going to write about fear and writing, but fear is fear, so I thought why not write about fear and love? They can go can hand-in-hand, and I’ve definitely had some experience in this department, so why not!

“Love is giving someone the power to destroy you, but trusting them not to.” ~ unknown

The day I nearly never got married

It all started a long time ago when I was still living back home in Scotland. Well actually, it probably started way further back, when I was little, when I was forming my beliefs about love, but we’ll get to that in a bit. Anyway, I was minding my own business, living my life; productive, happy, single and free. Working on my coaching business, and traveling the world to attend seminars on how to take your life to the next level.

Then I met a man.

It all started innocently enough, you know how it goes; we connected, started chatting, sharing small details about our lives and the things we enjoyed. Then we got closer and began sharing deeper parts of ourselves and the things close to our hearts. Next thing you know, we’re spending hours together as time started losing its hold on us—hours slipped past like minutes.

We’d meet each other at various conferences around the world and then spend endless hours chatting on the phone when we were apart. Everything was going great, then my future husband dropped the bomb—he mentioned the M word aka marriage—and that was me running scared and literally running for my life.

He’d call—I wouldn’t pick up—there was no way I was going to marry this man. Yes, I enjoyed his company, yes I may even be in love with him, but that didn’t mean I should settle for something as totally and completely final as marriage.

A Fear of Commitment

They say men are afraid of commitment, but I was definitely a card-carrying fully-fledged member of the group, and I didn’t want some man clipping my wings.

So I did the best thing I knew how—I hid—for ten days. I know very grown up and mature of me, but it was the best thing that my inner quivering ten-year-old fear-filled kid could come up with at the time.

You see, from an early age I was brainwashed into believing that marriage equaled death. Being a product of the seventies and eighties, and watching most of my friends’ moms and dads splitting up and finally getting divorces—including my own parents. And, growing up in Scotland probably didn’t help either, as those around me considered marriage a relic of the 50s, and as something that would probably be better off being left there.

Without going into it too much, I had an old record that went around and around in my head, that played louder and louder when any man got near that seemed even a little interested. The old record played; you don’t need a man, you can’t trust men, you never want to get married. And round and round it went.

Ten Days Later

I was still hiding; avoiding the phone calls, not replying to emails, and generally falling off the face of the planet. On day ten, I got an email from my future hubby; it had ten songs attached, with the instructions that I should listen to them. Having my interested piqued, I listened to the songs, and they started to melt the ice around my heart. I’m a very emotional being and music can do things for me that words never could. I thought, a man that can love these songs, is a man worth getting to know better—we started to talk again.

We chatted everyday on the phone for hours, this went on for several months, though we never really talked about the M word again.

My Date with Destiny

I was scheduled to go to a conference in the Bahamas, the long awaited—Date with Destiny—even the name gave me goosebumps! Upon booking my air tickets, my future hubby told me he had managed to secure himself a ticket for the event. It had been sold out for months, but he had pulled some strings, so he would be joining me.

I arrived in the Nassau, and he met me off the plane. We spent the week together. Our early mornings were spent playing in the huge waves on the sun-soaked beach. And our intense days and nights were spent at the conference, helping ourselves and others have massive breakthroughs.

Everything was going great, or so I thought, until the last day. We got up nice and early, which had become our custom for the week, so we could enjoy a few fleeting moments on the beach before it was time for us to head indoors for the rest of the day. As the next day, we would be getting up and jumping on separate planes to return to our own respective countries. And we would not be seeing each other again for months.

On our last morning together, we walked down to the beach just after sunrise, and ate breakfast—we shared a tropical fruit platter on a wooden deck in front of the water. It was beautiful. Then we went for a stroll along the beach, enjoying this glorious morning before returning home to rain and buses, at least for me. The turquoise waves crashed relentlessly against the sun-bleached shore. The breeze tugged on my hair, as the sun began to warm my skin. I realized in this moment; I had never felt so alive, so wonderful, so free…

I took my toe and started to write in the sand the one word that had always made me feel so vibrant and alive, it represented everything that I loved and aspired to. The word was FREEDOM, and being the queen of exclamation marks, I drew one, putting my toe in the sand to complete my statement. Suddenly, my future hubby dropped to one knee and took my hand…

“Will you Marry me?”

Huh wha?… I don’t even know what I was thinking; I don’t even know if I was thinking … It was more of a physical reaction … I ran … Yes totally and completely; I took my hand back in a split second and was tearing off down the beach. Sand under my feet, wind in my hair, running away as fast as I could from the man who had just asked me to marry him.

My husband said he knelt there for a second not knowing what to do next, then he did the only thing he could think of, he chased me.

Finally, he caught up to me and grabbed me by my arms. He looked deep into my eyes. “Well, will you marry me?”

I kid you not … I looked over at the freedom I had written on the beach, and a huge wave obliterated it!

I looked back at him and said in a quiet voice. “But my freedom, it’s washed away.”

He looked at me and touched the center of my chest with his fingertips.

“Honey, your freedom’s not out there, it’s in here.”  Then he repeated his question. “So, will you marry me?”

Not one for making life easy, I replied, “I’ll tell you later, by the end of today.”

I had a lot of thinking to do. So we left the beach and got ready to step into the last day of the conference—relationship day, of course!

At these conferences you don’t sit to together. If you came with someone, you’re split up into different groups, so you can take part without feeling like you have to act a certain way around a spouse, a sister, or whomever you chose to come with.

My future hubby was sitting near the front, and I was sitting near the back. One of the exercises was to write down everything you wanted in your mate and write a letter to them. All these exercises I had done before having been around the block a few times in the world of coaching.

I knew the man I had found was the perfect embodiment of everything I had wished for—and yet—I was still terrified. I went looking for help; I needed some one-on-one coaching to help me process all the crud that kept floating to the surface.

Getting to the Truth

I found a good coaching friend of mine and hoped that she could help me clarify my want over my fear. The two questions I remembered the most were these:

Q. “Why don’t you stop spending time with him for the next six months, let things cool off?”
A. “Arrrgh no, that’s not an option, I have to see him.”

“Okay,” then she asked:

Q. “What was the first answer that you felt in your body before all your BS (Belief Systems) started showing up?”
A. “Yes, I said to her. “Every cell in my body screamed yes, but then my thinking mind screamed back no.”

She said, “That’s your true answer. Go to him.”

I walked back down the isle looking for his seat. The conference was beginning to wrap up when I saw him.

He says that he kept turning back to look for me, but my seat was empty. And he thought. Where is she? Is she even here still? Did she go to the airport?

I made my way across the tangle of legs, finally arriving at the convenient empty seat beside him. I sat down and he leaned in close to me.

“Well?” He whispered in my ear.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and whispered back. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

And they Lived Happily Ever After

I know this whole thing sounds cheesy and I couldn’t make it up if I tried. But it’s all true. At that moment slow music started to play, and couples got up from their separate seats around the hall and were reunited. We stood up, walked into the isle, and slow danced.

Now I’m not going to say the next few months were very smooth before we finally tied the knot, I did try and run a few more times, but maybe that can be a story for another day.

Suffice to say, that fear nearly got in the way, and robbed me of my wonderful husband, and all my completely amazing children.

So the next time fear tries to stop you, don’t be fooled. Stop. And asked yourself, what is it I really want? Then sit back and listen quietly.

What are your thoughts?

I’d love to know what you think! Has fear ever made you do something crazy? Is it standing in the way of your wants and desires? Or are you living your dream already and going after the things that you want? What tips and tricks do you have for conquering fear and overcoming obstacles?

Please share your comments in the comment box below, along with any other ideas you would like to share, I’d love to hear from you!

Oh and don’t forget to enter my giveaway for Neil Gaiman’s 3-Book Box Set: Coraline; The Graveyard Book; Fortunately, the Milk

Is fear holding you back?

Follow me on twitter @sk_lamont

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• Fearless Writing – How I Write with Wild Abandon

Do You Use All Five Senses – Do Your Characters?

January 24, 2016/18 Comments/in coaching, writing /by S.K. Lamont

This week I’m looking into the idea of fully inhabiting our bodies as a way to deepen the experience readers have with our characters. And maybe in the process this will allow you to inhabit your body, even more fully. So you too can appreciate the subtleties of life that you may possibly be missing out on.

There is a lot that can delight our senses if we deepen our awareness.

So first ask yourself a few questions:

Do you live fully in your body?
Do you use the full range of your senses?
Do you experience all of your senses on a regular basis, at a conscious level?
Do your characters?

For some, this is easier than it is for others.

Some people are a lot more cerebrally driven than sensory driven. Which means they tend to be pretty focused and get things done, which is great! But at the same time, this may mean that they miss out on a lot of the little pleasures in life that surround us on a daily basis.

Usually what is required to access all this extra information that our brain has managed to delete as unimportant, is an awakening with ourselves—allowing us to be completely grounded and centered in our body. A lot of people walk around not really connected to their body, or some are, but only a little.

Others have a heightened body awareness, they are aware of where their limbs are in time and space the majority of the time, they feel the clothes against their skin and sense changes in the environment easily.

So you might say—what has this got to do with me? For one, the more grounded in your body you are, the more you will experience the fullness of life. And two, if you are a writer, it’s going to help you get inside your character’s skin—to breathe life into them fully and see the world through their eyes.

Make Your Characters Come Alive

If you inhabit your skin well, then it will be much easier to jump into your character’s bodies and experience life through their eyes and all of their senses. You will breathe life into your scenes when you can step into them fully clothed in your character’s skin, and experience the world you have created through their eyes.

Connect to Your Characters Environment

Breath in the air and describe it. Marvel at the nuances—the yellow kettle in the corner puffing steam gently into the room. The brilliant greens in a blade of grass at a significant moment. Also pay attention to pain and when the stakes are high, usually our senses sharpen and come into tight focus. We start to notice things that were insignificant moments before—time slows down and we actually start to see and feel what surrounds us in minute detail.

Switch on Your Senses

But this can apply anytime too, we don’t need a trigger like pain to switch us on—to make us come alive. Anytime we want we can step into this moment and feel, taste, smell, hear and see.

The benefits of characters who feel

When your characters fully notice and engage with their surroundings, your readers will too! Thus deepening your reader’s experience. Taste the air, take a deep breath, smell the sweetness or foulness that lingers there. What do you notice?

A Super Power

The way to learn this super power, and yes, I consider it a super power—I know I’m weird—is to start noticing your environment on a much deeper level. Sound is a miraculous and underutilized sense. An interesting exercise is to open a window and listen to what you hear outside, do you hear birds singing, cars driving past, kids playing, what else do you hear, listen deeply. The same with music, listen to a complex piece of music that you know well—then listen deeper, depending on the music, you might hear a whole other level or layers of instruments that you never noticed before—then press closer.

Pay attention to your skin, what do you feel? Notice the surface you’re resting against. Is it rough or soft? Smooth or hard? Where are your clothes touching you? Where do they squeeze or pinch? Where do they feel comfortable? Pick up a drink, feel the weight of the cup in your hand. Is it warm or cold? Touch the cup to your lips, what do you taste? Breathe in. When you’re brushing your teeth, really brush them, consciously notice the bristles against your teeth how does it feel, taste the toothpaste, engage and then go deeper.

Now take your new super power and slip into your character’s skin. What does it feel like to be in their body? How do their senses interpret the world you have created around them? What does he/she feel, see, taste, smell or hear? What’s it like to experience your character in this way?

Do you have a favorite sense?

Does one of your senses dominate over another? Do you tend to experience life visually, audibly, through touch? What about in your writing? Do you tend to focus more fully on one sense? Would developing your character’s other senses give your reader a fuller experience?

What are your thoughts?

I’d love to know what you think! Do you inhabit your body? Do your characters? Do you consider yourself pretty well versed in this department, or could you grow? What tips and tricks do you have for living in a body, or for slipping into your character’s bodies?

Please share your comments in the comment box below, along with any other ideas you would like to share, I’d love to hear from you!

Who are you?

Follow me on twitter @sk_lamont

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• Do Your Characters Wear Masks — Do You?

Do Your Characters Wear Masks – Do You?

January 17, 2016/12 Comments/in coaching /by S.K. Lamont

This week’s post is about the masks that people wear. Recently, I’ve been diving beneath the hood of my main character in my current work in progress, and asking her some serious questions about who she really is? What lies beneath the surface? In the process of asking her these questions, I found that I’ve been holding a mirror up to myself.

Who am I?

I think as writers it is really important to know who we are. Interesting people and characters have layers, but sometimes all of that hides beneath the surface. So this week I’m going to look at what goes on behind the mask.

Do you ever feel like you’re wearing a mask?

Like you can’t be your true self, because of fear. Fear of ridicule, fear of attack, or fear of rejection? This is an idea I have been toying with for a few weeks–actually for years. I have written about it before, but recently the idea resurfaced. Playing with my characters in my stories has been an eye-opening experience, and one that I find very interesting. Sometimes when characters appear in my books they present a certain persona to the world, a mask if you will, but there is usually a whole lot more going on beneath the surface.

I see these two aspects going on, hand in hand, as I write my books. I think about it when I walk down the street, pass strangers at the mall, or on the sidewalk. Often times, I try to read the stories on their face. What kind of lives do they live? What mask do they wear for their children, their boss, their mother?

I wonder if any of us walk around without a mask; in every situation, circumstance or the company we keep? Or does everyone distort who they are, even a little, for the recipient?

In asking myself this question I think it’s easy to say, ‘yes, I wear a mask’. Or sometimes I do, with certain people, or in certain situations. I think it’s easy to recognize the mask or even feel the weight of it on my face.

Questions I’ve been Pondering:

Who am I?
Who am I really?
Do I know?
Am I hiding?
If so, what am I hiding?

Knowing Yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. ~ Aristotle

Like I said, I have been playing a lot with this idea lately. It’s something my brain loves to do. Ask a question or make a statement, then attack it from all angles. So that I can then dig down into the heart and meat of the idea.

Why Hide?

What could be a reason why I would not reveal myself completely?

Maybe because I’ve been hurt in the past, a long time ago, and I don’t want to reveal myself. So that I can protect myself.

But, I’ve also discovered something else in my search. People often create inner masks, or shells. It’s like a double-layered mask, created out of self-protection. I know it sounds strange, but this second mask that I would reveal to others wasn’t the real me either. It would reveal itself if someone got too close to me. Except, this mask wasn’t very pretty at all. In fact, it was rather scary. You see, I created a mask made out of anger, which served as gatekeeper to my true self; my vulnerable self, my soft center.

The hard exterior shell would steal my joy, but keep me safe. But it would also prevent me from ever being my true self. At least with anyone else.

To really reveal ourselves, we must know ourselves–do you know who you are?

Do You Wear an Angry Mask?

As a coach, I have heard people say, ‘people need to accept me, and see me for who I really am’. Which really translates into, ‘you have to love me at my worst, then maybe, just maybe I’ll let you in’.

But I would question, if who you really think you are–is really you? Or is it maybe all the hurt, anger, depression and rage that you hide behind a mask, that you let people either glimpse a little or a lot.

Is really what hides behind the mask just another hard shell that actually hides your soft center? The part of you that is so soft, so gentle, so vulnerable and has been damaged so badly, a long time ago, that it will never see the light of day again–ever!

Is the dark shell the part of you that you are asking others to accept?–“Here’s me warts and all, accept me, hate me, or leave me.”

Sometimes I think it’s easier to reveal a crappy part of ourselves that evolved from dysfunction and rejection, rather than the gentle and soft loving part.

Maybe you wear a different kind of mask?

Do You Wear a Happy Mask?

Or maybe you have swung the other way. Do you wear a mask of feigned niceness, when really you’re depressed inside or sad? Are you a people pleaser?

Do you try to maintain the status quo, try not to rock the boat, so that no one ever gets to see a genuine emotion or voice come from you?

What would happen if you revealed that soft part, that real part, that loving part? What would happen if you revealed your true self–your inner softness, that part of you that is intimate and vulnerable?

Dropping the Mask- who are you really?

Is it okay to let people see the real you?

Oh, don’t get me wrong, anger has its place, anger has power. Anger kept you safe at a time when you weren’t. But are you still offering others something that no longer serves you? That no longer really protects you? Are you pushing the people you love away, the ones that deserve the real you, your soft innards?

Or, what would happen if you dropped the, ‘I’m okay’ mask, maybe you’re not, maybe it’s okay to ask for help. To reach out to someone else, and show them the real you.

What’s the worse that could happen anyway, you’re a grownup now–remember! You have the power to make decisions and choices. Maybe anger doesn’t need to be involved at all. Or nonchalance, or superiority, or whatever coping mechanism you’ve come up with in the past to protect yourself. Maybe, you can just be you, and when you need to, you can just walk away!

Will the real me please stand up!

Write it down–

What’s the worse that could happen, if I showed my true self to another?

Now write down–

What’s the best that could happen, if I opened up to someone else?

Wait, I’m not asking you too, I’m just asking what if?

What if you trusted?
What if you tried?

Who are you?
Who are you really?
 Do you know?

Have you accepted yourself? Loved yourself? Could there be a part of you that you deem unworthy? Because it’s too nice? Too soft? Too weak? Too bad?

Just asking?

I’m experimenting this month with renewal. Or maybe even rediscovery. Playing and having some fun with it –nothing too scary– as I prod and poke at my soft center, and give my characters a friendly poke too!

Are you free already?

What are your thoughts? Who are you? Do you think there is any truth to this, what has been your experience? Are you free already, and if so how did you get there? I’d love to hear from you! Please leave your comments in the comment box below.

Please share your comments in the comment box below, along with any other ideas you would like to share, I’d love to hear from you!

Who are you?

Follow me on twitter @sk_lamont

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• Fearless Writing – How I Write with Wild Abandon

Goals and Planning – When Things Go Wrong

January 3, 2016/15 Comments/in coaching, family, writing /by S.K. Lamont

Okay, so I thought I would just throw this blog post up because of my ridiculously silly, January 1st, start to the new year!

Spending the last month planning my New Year’s Goals, having everything worked out in minute detail- I know I was already asking for it at this point–somebody get a big soft pillow and hit me over the head with it, please. And being completely excited about getting going, my morning got off to a great start. My plan was set in motion with only a few small bumps, but generally I was feeling pretty happy with my progress.

When Silliness Strikes:

Sitting down to begin my two hours of slotted work-in-progress edits, I opened up my file to the sound of my daughter shouting from downstairs.

“Mom.”

“What’s up?” I called.

“I think there’s something up with the stove.”

Hmm, putting my computer to sleep I headed downstairs, little did I know at this point that my computer wouldn’t be waking up again till much later that evening.

Walking into the kitchen, my daughter’s two semi-runny unfried eggs stared up at me from the pan with their big sad eyes.

“How long they been in there?”

“20 minutes.”

“How about we slide them out of there and we can finish cooking them in the microwave.”

Sliding the gooey mess from the pan and onto a plate, I popped them into the microwave to show off my prowess in the kitchen. I hit the button and watched in horror as the microwave light dimmed like some late 1800s invention, as the plate slowly turned in the flickering light.

Pulling out the eggs one minute later, it appeared that the eggs may have congealed a little more, but they were definitely not cooking.

Being a determined kind of soul, I put the eggs back in and hit five minutes. Staring desperately through the window, I watched them turn as the lights overhead flickered in unison. Being from Scotland I never grew up with an Easy-Bake Oven, but watching that plate turn slowly, I imaged this must be what it’s like hoping that a 40 watt light bulb will produce beautifully baked delights.

“Go get Dad.”

“Daaaad!”

By this point I pulled out a kitchen chair and watched my intelligent husband play with our new Easy-Bake, as the enormity of the situation hit me, how I was going to have my next cup of tea, I boil a kettle on that stove, I thought. It’s my life blood.

About thirty minutes later, after trying various appliances around the house, and watching the kitchen lights grow dimmer every time we hit a button, (though the toaster, worked a little too well for some bizarre reason, burning my last piece of rye bread too perfection!), my husband called the power company to discover that the most likely source was a voltage problem.

As we waited for some poor soul to be dragged into work, on his day off as it turned out, to assess the problem. I decided to go back to my computer determined to not let a little thing like loss of power stop me, as I sat down at my desk and hit the keyboard, hopeful since the toaster was apparently still in business, I discovered that my computer was selected as one of the lucky appliances in our house, to get New Year’s day off too, with the rest of the country. Fantastic.

I looked at my perfect writing plan printed out on my desk beside my keyboard and sighed.

So most of January 1st turned into sitting around waiting on a power company crew to turn up on a holiday and dig up our yard, whilst I proceeded to help my little boy build his Legos. Later I lay under the covers in bed reading a book, as it started to get colder and colder in the house, thinking, why didn’t this happen a couple of days ago when it was 70 degrees outside!

Anyway, not one to miss an opportunity to learn something, here is what I learned as far as planning and goal setting goes:

What I learned:

I’m not half as smart as I like to think I am.
I can easily fall into my old patterns, thinking that they are a great idea!
That I don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water and start all over.
I have the ability to be flexible, if I bring lightness to the problem.
That having fun and building Legos is sometimes just what I need.
That leaving room to be spontaneous has its benefits!
That sometimes I just need to be reminded that being with my family is more important than any silly plans I make.
To go with the flow and not let bumps in the road ruin everything, and look for opportunities to embrace the day, anyway.

I still plan to forge ahead come Monday, but after having my plans messed up today, I took it as a sign to do some quick edits on my 2016 plan.

So I grabbed that meticulously printed out plan laying beside my dead keyboard and with a few quick strokes and listening carefully to that small still voice inside, I slashed everything before 10am off my list and everything after 8pm and felt the sweet ease of freedom slide in.

I’m an all-or-nothing kind of gal, but I also realized today that it’s important to have room to breathe. So, these are my ‘no rules, do whatever I want to do’ times. I can work if I want, but I’ve giving myself the permission to be flexible.

I can be a bit slow sometimes! This ain’t the first time I’ve banged my head against this particular wall, hopefully this time it’ll stick!

Have you ever found yourself making great plans only to find them dashed against the rocks moments later? Or have you found a way to plan and follow through on your goals that offers the flexibility to still get things done when your day goes awry. What is your experience with goal setting or planning?

Why don’t you share some of your ideas in the comments box below, along with any other suggestions, or anything else you would like to share, I’d love to hear from you!

How do you plan?

Follow me on twitter @sk_lamont

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Is Your Emotional State Wrecking Your Goals?

December 28, 2015/15 Comments/in coaching, writing /by Franklin Thomas

This week I have the privilege of hosting guest blogger Franklin Thomas, having worked for Anthony Robbins for five and a half years as a Peak Performance coach, coaching over 1200 people from 36 different countries, he is an expert in helping individuals achieve success.

I have been focusing on goal setting for the past couple of weeks, so I thought it would be great to have Franklin share what it takes to achieve our goals, especially writing goals, that we set for ourselves in 2016. I hope you enjoy this post, please feel free to ask him any questions in the comments box below.

It’s not about setting goals…

Have you ever started something and didn’t make it to the finish line? We all have. When it comes to personal achievement there are several components to reaching success and it’s not always about settings goals. Setting a goal is important, however, if that’s all you do, it won’t be enough. For instance, we all know someone who has tried to lose weight and failed- they get a gym membership, change their eating habits, but fall short of their goal. On the other hand, we know people who followed the exact same strategy and achieved their outcome with great success. Why is that… why does someone fail and another reach success?

It’s all about emotional drive

In order to get where you want to go, you really need to have the drive to get you there. Drive is the intense emotional fuel that will catapult you to the next level. It will take you to new heights and in those moments where you start to experience resistance, drive will be there to help push you through and continue on. When you have the emotional drive, suddenly what would normally be work for you becomes effortless and easy. We can spot drive a mile away. For instance, when we watch an Olympic athlete, we can see it in their eyes, in their body and the way they move and breathe. We usually can spot the winner before they even cross the finish line – the signs are there! An athlete just didn’t get to the Olympics by accident – all of what you see is by his or her intention, fueled by an intense emotional connection to what they want. Emotional drive is the most important thing for you to cultivate – It will change everything!

So how do I get intense emotional drive?

Ask yourself the question… Is what I want to achieve just a desire, or is it a MUST?

Anyone can have a desire, but desire alone rarely gets us there. For example, I could desire to buy a new car, but if I don’t have enough emotional attachment to getting a new car, then I won’t go to a car dealership, look at cars, take a test drive, fill out the paperwork, and then drive one off the lot. However, if I change one word, from desire to MUST, then what happens? Consider the two statements below:

– I desire to write a book.

– I must write a book.

Which one of these has more energy? MUST of course. When you say must, there is already an expectation of the book getting finished.

So how is drive accomplished and how do I make what I want, a must?

It’s accomplished by three things:

Physiology: How you posture your body, how you breathe, and how you move.

Belief: What you hold to be true – what you focus on.

Language: What you verbally say out loud and your internal dialogue.

Think about when a martial artist goes to split a stack of boards with his bare hands, how is he standing? His body is erect and grounded. He stands with confidence. His movements are fast and assured with precision. His energy is high. His breathing isn’t shallow or fearful, but it’s deep and strong. His focus is sharp – it’s only him and the stack. His focus is on the other side of the boards, not on the surface. He has fierce courage and if he doesn’t break through the first time, he instantly strikes again so that his mind does not even have the chance to process doubt. He does not let failure enter his mind. He says ‘Kiai’ (Hi-yah!) because to the martial artist, these words are how he expresses victory.

So how is he able to break through the board? He not only has developed the skills to do so, he also has created inside of himself the resourcefulness to achieve his outcome. If he approached breaking the boards with fear, uncertainty, depression, slow body movement, low energy and an internal dialogue that keeps instilling doubt, then we all know what his result would be – failure.

If you want to accomplish great things, then there must be a congruency between you and the thing you want to achieve.

As humans, we are stimulus response beings.

Everything you feel and all the emotions you have are tied to your body responding to the things you think about, what you believe and how you posture, move and breathe. To give you an example, we all know what it’s like to stand in confidence and we can all recognize a confident person when we see one.

There is a part of your brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is the brain’s chemical plant. The only way you feel anything is because your brain creates the chemical for you to feel that emotion. For instance, when you stand in a posture of confidence, your brain at the unconscious level picks up on it, and then the hypothalamus starts producing the chemicals so that you start to feel confident. The same thing happens when it comes to belief. Whatever we believe to be true, at the deepest level becomes our reality and our hypothalamus churns the chemicals to support those beliefs. The same thing happens with language. Our unconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie. It only takes in what we repeat to it over and over and then eventually accepts it as truth. We all know what happens if someone tells a lie long enough? They end up believing it. The reason for this is, when they repeat it over and over again verbally, the unconscious mind picks it up and it becomes internal truth. Like the Proverb says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue”.

So what now?

If you want success in the things you want to achieve, then you need to cultivate the emotional resourcefulness to get you there. The great thing about this is, we already know instinctively how to do this. Let’s try the following example. If you wanted to instill confidence in yourself, would you:

Stand – erect or slack?
Posture your face – would it be down or up?
Posture your shoulders – slumped or up?
What about your breathing – shallow or deep?
How about your movements – slow, or certain & fast?
Would you say to yourself – ‘I’m going to fail’ or ‘as long as I don’t give up, I can make anything happen’?
Would you create excuses why you can’t or would you need to believe there is always a way?
Would you tell yourself – ‘it will never work’, or ‘I can accomplish anything as long as I set my mind to it’?

The answers are pretty clear and the great thing about all of this is that YOU are in charge of it. You can posture your own body, you can replace any belief with a new one, and you can speak out of your mouth what you need to help you achieve success. You are already doing all of these things right now so why not do it so that it supports your outcome. Most of what we believe wasn’t derived from things we consciously considered, it came about as a result of experiences, some of which, we don’t even know their origin. The crazy thing is, we let some of these un-resourceful beliefs rule our lives, but the great news is we can change it in an instant. We just have the make the conscious decision to do so.

So let’s get practical, to start with, write down any dis-empowering beliefs that you have and then write the inverse. The more intense the empowering belief is, the better. You want it to crush the old belief. Also when you do this, you should be standing up and put yourself in a posture of the emotion that you want to create in your body. If you want courage, stand courageously. If you want certainty, stand in a posture of confidence. Then write it down and repeat, then own it!

For example:

Dis-empowering belief:

I’ll never write my book, I don’t have time.

Empowering belief:

My book is an absolute priority in my life, I will not let anything stand in my way.

It sounds a bit crazy and outrageous, but maybe crazy and outrageous is what you need right now. So try it on and then notice what works. Once you have practiced this several times, and you feel the shift, then it’s time to create strategies, goals and plans. How much better would it be, to be writing all of your goal setting from a emotionally resourceful place. How much more likely are you to continue towards your outcome if you practice this everyday?

What are some ways that you have fallen short in the past, how will you change that now? Or what are some great strategies that you have used in the past that worked great? Share them in the comments box below, I would love to hear from you!

What’s on you goal list?

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These are a few of my favorite things- what are yours?

December 20, 2015/13 Comments/in coaching, family, writing /by S.K. Lamont

These are a few of my favorite things – what are yours?

In last week’s blog post, I talked about gathering my goals and getting ready for the new year, I also talked about reflecting on my life currently- what could I have done better, what’s not great, how am I missing the mark? I started thinking of ways that I can improve.

This week I am doing the opposite, before finishing up the year and creating a brand new set of goals for next year, I like to put together a list of what is great in my life.

It’s all too easy to see what is wrong with our life- at least I think so anyway. We can easily be dissatisfied thinking we’re missing something, or how we can improve or where did we fail and miss the mark. As we draw towards the end of the year, I do like to put my life under a microscope and seek out areas in which I can improve. But it is also just as important to figure out what is great in my life. I like to slow down for a couple of days, take stock, put on some great music even, close my eyes and think about my life and what I love about it!

What is great about my life?

Here is some questions and exercises that I use to focus on what’s great:

What do I love about my life?
Who are the special people in my life?
Special pets?
What is a particular meal I love, or color, or outfit, (I’m a bit partial to fuzzy socks myself! )
How much I love tea!
What music really inspires me or makes me weep?
What movies have I fallen in love with this year, or old favorites.
Or great stories I’ve read?

What do I love?

I grab a journal and start jotting down all the things I love or have a special affinity for.

Oh you might say I’m grateful for nothing, I love nothing, nothing good is in my life. Well if that is the case, think deeper. You’re able to read this aren’t you, be thankful you can read, and write it down. I’m sure it’s been less than 24 hours since your last meal, if so write it. You probably own a pair of shoes I’m guessing, put that down! If you have to start small, start thinking about what you could be grateful for, maybe eventually your learn to love these things too.

These are a few of my favorite things

So I made my children watch The Sound of Music last Christmas, it was one of the movies I loved growing up, it used to get shown every year in my country around Christmas, so my brain has filed it a Christmas movie, along with all the classic James Bond movies

Anyway, I don’t think anyone was that impressed with my choice of movies! But I do love that song.
Here’s the link if you need some inspiration!

A few of the lyrics as a reminder:

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things…

…When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

When I feel bad, out comes the list of memories and they help bring a little sunshine into my day. Then I go and enjoy some of the things on my list.

Here’s a few of mine:

My husband’s bristly beard

The soft touch of my two-year-old boy’s little cheek against mine

My first cup of tea in the morning

Walking in the woods, when the dappled sunlight filters through the leaves

The swirl of the ocean around my ankles, stealing the sand from under my feet

A good storm picking up around me and electrifying the air

Watching the rain rush towards me over the mountains, that moment right before it touches my face

Being cozy in my bed whilst a storm rages around the house

Coal fires crackling and the sound of rain outside the window

Okay so maybe I like storms a lot!

Then I write a list of magic moments

What has been a special moment today, this week, this month, this year.

Close your eyes and think about those special moments now, think about the people in your life, how do they look when they’re happy, when you’re playing around, think about special moments that put a smile on your face. When you just cuddled your pet, or went for a run, or danced this morning with wild abandon, or cozied up on the sofa with a good book.

Here are a few of my magic moments from this week:

This morning my little two-year-old son peeked around the door at me, looking sneaky- like a little pixie, expecting me to chase him, I did and he fell onto the floor giggling as I covered him in kisses.

Last night I enjoyed our wee Jack Russell as she ran around the bed doing turbo time, which basically means she goes crazy, running in circles, flying across the bed and then darts back under, before she attacks once more.

The other night I had fun in the kitchen, playing around and joking with my fifteen-year-old as we made dinner together.

Curling up in bed yesterday morning, with a good cup of coffee in one hand and a good book in the other.

I’m making a list and I’m checking it twice.

(actually I’m making two lists!)

What do I love?
What are some magic moments from this year?

One list is more general, the other more specific.

I want to make sure that I bring more of what is on my list with me into the new year, after all, these are the things that make my heart go pitter-patter and my spirit soar. Doesn’t have to be big things, in fact I find the smallest of things tickle me and bring me delight, and they are pretty easy to experience on a regular basis.

I like to think of it as soul maintenance, I think we can get all crumbly and dry on the inside if we don’t leave much room for the things that delight us in life.

Oh you might say, but they don’t contribute to my big goal this year or what I’ve decided is important. But the tiniest dose of joy is like rocket fuel and will give your purpose more drive, so don’t rob yourself of the things that make you happy.

After you’ve written your list don’t just file it away, keep it somewhere important, put it in a treasured place and pull it out frequently, when your feeling sad or when you just need to remember what is most in important in your life, when you feel truly alive.

It’s so important to stop and cherish what is great in our life, we’re always moving onto what’s next and sometimes forgetting what is now. If we don’t slow down from time to time to smell the roses, or the sweet fragrance that is already in our life, we might miss it all together. Then it is too late. When all we really do have left is memories, having missed the moment completely, where you can no touch and feel and taste and savor the richness that might be in your life right now.

Even if it’s an amazing cup of coffee or a smile from someone at the grocery store. Enjoy!

What are you grateful for? What are a few of your favorite things? What do you savor, enjoy? Who do you love, who loves you?

Why don’t you share some of the items from your list in the comments box below, along with any other ideas or suggestions, or anything else you would like to share, I’d love to hear from you!

What’s on you list?

Follow me on twitter @sk_lamont

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• Gathering my Writing Goals- Getting Ready for the New Year