A part of knowing who you are is knowing your triggers. Triggers can cause us to recall a traumatic experience or event. In order to remain calm, its important to know and have a plan for managing triggers before they arise.

A part of knowing who you are is knowing your triggers. Triggers can be brought on by past experiences (e.g., a reminder of past anxieties or traumas), challenged beliefs or they may be brought on by something that is inconsistent with your values. Slowing down to reflect, instead of acting on emotional requires time and effort. And it gives you peace of mind.

To identify your triggers

• Think of a situation where you were “set off” inappropriately.
• Visualize the situation. What happened right before you got upset? How did you feel?
• Finally, create potential solutions that would help you manage your triggers.

Here are some keys to help you reflect on your triggers, before you are triggered.

1. Determine what happened. Reflect. Determine what caused your trigger. 
2. What did you sense? What did you feel, observe, or communicate?   What were your emotions? Where did you feel the emotion in your body? Notice what you said to yourself and others. Were there key phrases?
3. What is your story? Why did this cause an emotional/physical reaction?
4. What can be done differently? Create a strategy to help eliminate or limit the trigger. Determine what you can do differently? Is there a new direction to take?

Click here to learn more about our books and journals to help you activate your best self.

What beliefs do you have about yourself? How are these beliefs impacting your success or the way you think and live your life?

Experiencing life and taking on all types of information, can lead to developing healthy as well as unhealthy assumptions and beliefs. 

Let’s review a summary of a model I created that shows how thinking leads to experiences.

The experiences you have in life lead to developing knowledge, skill, and values.  Once you have experiences, you form thoughts about it and form positive or negative feelings (like an attitude). As a result of intense feelings, you then form beliefs about the feelings.

Your beliefs can impact your interactions with others, how you care for your physical body, your level of focus and how you potentially engage in your passions. Once you form a belief, whether conscious or unconscious, you then create a visual image—an intention— of this belief —which leads to how you act or respond to certain situations.

Thus, your intentions create your experiences. So, get to the root of the problem by identifying your core beliefs. By clarifying your core beliefs, and change what’s not working, you can alter your intention – which can quickly change your experiences.

Click here to learn more about our books and journals to help you activate your best self?

In our next article, we will review steps to take to remove unwanted beliefs.

People are living in a state of transition.  Things are changing and they are changing rapidly.  Within the past few years, people have been challenged by changes in how we work and communicate with each other, personal and political values, family and cultural dynamics and more. How can we react wisely to change?

Research has shown that people who can interpret their actions, feelings and thoughts are better communicators and they make better decisions.

When coping with change and interacting with others, it is important to know and act on our highest power and our highest potential. This can simply be done through introspection and self-discovery: Discovering and re-discovering your best state by raising our personal power in a rapidly changing world. Self Discovery is having a clear understanding of yourself and your individual journey. Here are some questions to ask yourself in your quest to gain a clear understanding of your SELF.

• Do you see yourself and feel love for yourself and others or is your heart filled with scorn and resentment?
• Do you see yourself as a beautiful human being? Or are you restricted by past wounds and ailments?
• Are your thoughts reflective of who you are and aim to be or directed by fear and resentment?
• Do you feel that you communicate a sense of truth and responsibility to yourself and others or do you feel as if you are living your life as a lie, not communicating your true self to others?
• Can you look at your physical body in adoration or do you feel disappointed by how you have let your weight go?
• Are you living a life focused on your purpose and passion or are you focused on your fears?

By going through a process of self-discovery and awareness, you will feel empowered to live life to your highest potential by positioning yourself on a path to see, be, and surround yourself with the loving energies that exist in the universe.  It helps you become committed to enduring life with patience, while enjoying the good and the chronicles of life.

Going through the process of self-discovery is for people of all ages – as we continue to grow, learn and change. I challenge you to take time to identify and clarify your strengths, areas of growth and true passions, on a regular basis. Learn and relearn things about yourself as you continue to grow and develop.

Once you clarify who you are and your aims, take specific action to improve in an area, get better at something, or simply activate your true purpose.

Click here to learn more about our books and journals to help you activate your best self.

Before you begin writing in your journal, it is important to reflect on what’s important to you.

Purpose and Values. What are your key values?  What is your personal mission statement–what excites you the most about life?  By clarifying this, you will gain clarity about your life’s purpose, and you will know what is tremendously important to you.

Morning, Mid-day, and Evening Activities. Determine specific activities/rituals you will complete daily. These activities will help you relax, center yourself and keep you on the right track. Make sure you estimate the time you will start and stop your activities (some examples of morning and evening activities are meditation, juicing, exercise, reading, and deep breathing exercises).

For mid-day activities, you can set your alarm at a certain time, in the middle of the day, and take a minute or two to get relaxed and acknowledge the present moment. This is also a great time to monitor your thoughts; are you focused on your true desires or something else? Take time to center yourself and enjoy the moment.

By engaging in these activities, daily, you will form habits that will help you create positive results.

Have you thought about what you want to accomplish in 2023? Changes you want to make in how you feel or what you do? Are you stuck and haven’t started creating your goals for 2023?

Planning out your specific goals and following through is key to your success and reaching your desired goals. When people don’t plan or take action, goals do not get accomplished, and they often go by the waist side.

Successful people have and follow through on specific goals. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. Setting goals enables you to organize your time and your resources so you can achieve what you truly desire in life.

This video reveals the different sections in our Best Self Journal. Click here to learn more about our workbooks and journals.

2020 and 2021 have been challenging years for many people. Many people experienced grief, anxiety or stress as a result of a global pandemic.

During times like this, we do grieve and have feelings of uncertainty at times. However, on the other hand, these times cause us to rethink who we are? What are our contributions to the world? How can we be more grateful? it is an opportunity to come together with those near and far to value our uniqueness and communities.

This time of year is a great opportunity for us to identify things that have occurred over the past year that we are grateful for. We can examine our gratitude habits. How do we practice gratitude? Do we spend more time focusing on lack and limitations? Essentially, we can identify ways to be more gratitude focused at work and at home.

For those of you in America, I wish you a great holiday season full of love, fun and gratitude.

Click here to learn more about our gratitude journals that will lead you on the path of success.

The foundation of effective people management is setting expectations. This practice begins at the time of hiring and is a dynamic and continuous process. Ensuring staff knows what is expected of them is more than defining performance expectations through a job description—although this is the baseline. It is connecting staff’s efforts to the goals of the departments larger goals and strategies.

In order to ensure expectations are clear and connected to the overall goals of the organization, managers need to set the stage for dialogue and establish a consistent and iterative process through which both employees and managers can improve outcomes.

View our video below to review steps to take to set clear expectations

Experiences that have occurred within a persons life lead to perceptions of how they view themselves and the world and how they communicate with others. This can impact a leaders effectiveness.

If a leader has created unhealthy beliefs, it can limit their effectiveness. Here are some examples of the impact of maintaining unhealthy beliefs.

• bad attitudes
• inability to delegate
• poor decision making skills
• engage in unhealthy habits such as such as substance abuse, physical and emotional abuse (being a victim or being abusive to others)
• unrealistic expectations

Often times, its important to get to the root of the problem to change unhealthy behaviors, attitudes and assumptions. We can do this by first examining our Beliefs. Beliefs are a subset of feelings (or one strong feeling) that can lead someone to form how they view themselves and the world.

This information is categorized, and people form beliefs about it.  Your beliefs impact the way you view things, create assumptions, and put yourself in situations.  It impacts your relationships, how you communicate with others, and your effectiveness in leading yourself and others.

Beliefs lead to forming intentions.  Intention is a feeling of what you want to experience and leads to behavior.  For example, If one of your core beliefs is a feeling of powerlessness, you can attract people and situations that perpetuate this belief through your sub-conscious mind.

Take time to think about your healthy and unhealthy beliefs. What beliefs are leading you to success? What are your beliefs that limit your success or activate your triggers?

Learn more about our workbook, Discover Yourself, to help you limit unhealthy beliefs and manage your triggers.

Are you frustrated with ongoing change and uncertainty? Do you want to manage your triggers more effectively? Do you want to activate your best self?

This live event will provide 5 easy steps to help you increase your resilience and activate your best self. Essentially, this webinar will help leaders in their careers, business, health, and relationships.

Check out our webinar with keys to help you activate your best self.

Diversity training is not enough. Staff members need additional help and support to feel a sense of community and belonging in the company culture. Here are some suggestions to help your staff increase their sense of belonging within your organization.

The first key is to show appreciation. Let staff members know on a regular basis that you appreciate their stellar performance at work. You can show appreciation through the following activities:

• send an email, thank you card or note
• recognize them in team meetings
• offer lunch/food
• give away gift cards
• verbally express thanks and explain why you appreciate them – be specific

The next key is to effectively promote respect and fairness. Implement fair processes and practices that give all employees an opportunity to succeed. Evaluate your bias and determine what bias can hinder your thoughts and views regarding their performance? Determine the judgements you may have about certain group and how this may be affecting your decision making skills? Conduct a self-assessment and re-evaluate your beliefs.

Practice to respect others for who they are; even if they are different from you. Identify 1 or 2 things you can learn from each person on your team.

In addition, provide clear goals, expectations and measures of success so staff will be clear about their goals and what is expected from you.

Finally, provide an environment where staff members feel comfortable giving and receiving positive and corrective feedback. This gives them space to not only receive feedback from their managers but they can clearly express themselves as well. This helps staff feel like they are a part of the team.

For more articles to help emerging leaders Lead From The Inside Out, go to activateyourbest.com