Lamisha Serf-Walls

My Coaching Philosophy-The Inspired Path

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I find it interesting how many of us live in our heads.  Our thoughts take over as we analyze our life options and choices to a point that we almost become obsessive.  We weigh the pros and cons of our choices in order to make the right decision, all the while forgetting and simply ignoring how we feel.  We have become so disconnected from our hearts that we often don’t even allow our feelings to register.  We dismiss them as nothing more than an inconvenience to getting things done, but what if instead of making choices with our analytical monkey brains, we took a moment to feel each option?

In the past I have made my decisions based on logic and analysis.  I graduated high school knowing that the next logical step was college.  When I selected a major I decided on something that was feasible and somewhat interesting, though I had no idea what I truly wanted to do and when I found something that really hit an inspirational nerve with me, I ignored it.  I continued down that path of “logical” thinking and decision-making for many years, though there were moments when I followed my heart and ignored my head.  In those moments, there was no weighing my options, I simply knew what I needed to do yet more often than not, I worried, analyzed, and weighed my logical options.  Options that seemed somewhat safe.

When I decided to set out on my own and throw myself a curve ball in my career plans, I developed a coaching model that is primarily based out of inspiration and how we feel.  I found that in my own choices to not follow the logical path, I felt alive, inspired, and made incredible progress toward my dreams.  I encourage my clients to do the same.

Follow your heart, your passion, and your bliss and if the logical path feels right, do that too.

We are moving beyond a world of people who are punching the clock to simply survive and into a world of creative souls fulfilling their deepest desires.  My goal is to help those creative souls trust their instinct and their inspiration to do something that makes their heart sing.  Life isn’t meant to be a struggle full of headaches and speed bumps.  It’s meant to be enjoyed, experienced, embraced, and by golly it’s supposed to be FUN.

If you find yourself questioning your life purpose are wondering where your passion lies, just follow your heart and do things that make you happy.

The logical path isn’t the only path to your dreams though many times it is the most difficult.  Instead of believing there is only one path available, be open to the idea that there are many paths that will lead you to the life of your dreams and if you lead with your heart and follow the inspirational nuggets along the way, any path you take will be wonderful and will likely fill your soul with more happiness than you ever imagined possible.

Still not sure how to get started?  Feel free to contact me at lamisha@lifeoncedreamt.com for more information on how I can help you jump-start your dreams.

P.S.  I will be holding a week of free introductory coaching calls in the coming weeks for those of you interested in working with me, so stay tuned for more information on that soon.  I am so excited to begin working with dreamers like you who want to begin living the life you once dreamt sooner rather than later.

Dreamer Highlight: A Heart A Day For 1000 Days

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One gorgeous example of Hazel's work. Visit http://inspiringhearts365.wordpress.com/ for more beautiful pieces.
One gorgeous example of Hazel’s work. Visit http://inspiringhearts365.wordpress.com/ for more beautiful pieces.

I found this week’s Dreamer Highlight feature a few weeks ago when I was checking out new blogs that were recommended to me and I am so glad I found this one.

A Heart A Day For 1000 Days is a project that Hazel McNab began as a personal challenge when she first decided to create a beautiful heart each day for a full year.  Each heart that she makes is uniquely beautiful and is accompanied by inspiring words that make for wonderful art for the home or office and being a lover of all things related to love, I immediately became enthralled with her work.  After completing her year-long challenge, she decided to expand her 366 days of hearts to A Heart A Day For 1000 Days.  This challenge may seem overwhelming to those of us who are artistically challenged, but for Hazel each heart is full of love, meaning, and beautiful inspiration.

After having such a wonderful response to her beautiful work, she began creating postcards and greeting cards as well as taking on commissioned work that turned her hobby and challenge into a business of sorts.  She is still posting one heart a day and is currently on heart #512 of her current 1000 hearts goal.

I chose to use this project for our Dreamer Highlight this week because of Hazel’s ingenuity.  Even though she was already a fashion and textile artist, she found an additional passion through a challenge she set for herself.  That challenge led to another and now she is inspiring people one beautiful heart at a time.  It just goes to show you that often our dreams can emerge organically by simply doing the things we enjoy.  It also proves the point that you can do the things you enjoy and with enough passion and drive, make a career out of it.

Please check out Hazel’s amazing work at her website hazelshearts.com and her blog here.  You can also check out her Facebook page and her Etsy store for more inspiring pieces.  I promise you won’t be disappointed in her work and you might even find yourself pining for a piece of your own.

**Disclaimer: I was in no way compensated for this dreamer highlight and am only sharing my honest opinion.**

Vacation Reflections

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I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July holiday and could enjoy family, friends, and a lot of fun.  I haven’t posted in several days because we went on a little vacation to visit family last week and while I had every intention to prepare a few posts for last week, it didn’t happen.  I am however, back in action this week!

Before I post the Dreamer Highlight for this week (tomorrow), I thought I would share a few things I realized during the course of my vacation.  I tend to be so immersed in how many days I have left in my time off that I miss some precious moments, insights, and experiences, however this time was different.  With over 21 hours in the car and many more relaxing, I had some interesting thoughts and inspirations to share with you.

Vacation Reflections:

  • No matter how much you love your work, everyone needs and deserves a break so don’t skimp on your vacation time.  This past week off was wonderful for so many reasons, but one was the fact that even though we had planned something to do with family each day, it amounted to much-needed down time.
  • Time away from anything provides time and space for growth. My phone is full of notes, ideas, phrases, and other inspirational material that simply came to me while I was in the moment.  Instead of “trying” so hard to come up with a blog post idea or what I might offer in my coaching business, I found they floated into my consciousness effortlessly when I allowed myself some down time.  It was wonderful.
  • Seeing the bigger picture in many cases is far more beneficial than agonizing over the minor details.  With traffic delays, detours, and a multitude of other things that could send you (read me) into a tailspin during a road trip, they are all quite minor when you look at the whole trip.  Looking back I can see how the slight delays and hiccups we experienced during our trip were fleeting when compared to the big picture of our overall experience.  Overall, we had a lovely time despite the seemingly annoying details.
  • Time off allows for you to see things with fresh eyes.  Similar to my second point, there is something about taking time away from everyday life that provides a new way of seeing things.  While the Monday after a vacation isn’t my most favorite day, I realized that I had a renewed sense of purpose and drive for the things that needed to get done.  And since I am so much a “doer” I didn’t feel nearly as overwhelmed or frustrated with my “to-do’s” as I might have before our vacation.
  • Sometimes doing nothing is just as important as doing something.  Looking back at the last week, I realize that much of the time I was doing nothing in particular.  My plan was to read a lot (to get caught up on some reviews), brainstorm, research, and enjoy family.  As it turned out, we only did what we wanted to do i.e. spent time with family at the zoo, the movies, Chuck E. Cheese, and we went skating.  All-in-all, it was a wonderful trip full of quality time with family and time spent doing nothing in particular.

I hope you returned to this week with fresh eyes and a renewed energy for the month ahead.  If you took time off last week I would love to hear about your own vacation reflections.

Making Peace With Your Starting Point

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Have you ever had the experience of being in a situation, job, relationship, or circumstance that you simply wanted to get out of?  Maybe you wanted it to move in another direction or you wanted to have a different outcome.  Simply put, you were in one place, but you desperately wanted to be in another without knowing how to get there.

I think we all have had that experience.  I know I have had that many times especially when it came to my job.  At one point (not too long ago) I was working for a company that was ok, but I couldn’t get over how demeaning, mean, and completely unfair my boss was.  My daily focus was how much I wanted to leave that place and yet no matter how many resumes I sent out I couldn’t seem to land another job.  At one point my focus for what I wanted next was so diminished I would have taken anything just to leave the toxic environment I was working in.  Unfortunately I couldn’t just quit with nothing else lined up so I stayed.

I was on the job hunt for over a year all the while I woke up each morning with anxiety and dread as I made my way into work.  I couldn’t get over how uncomfortable the place was.  Then one day something happened.  I stopped looking for another job.  I don’t know if it was out of pure frustration or because I had accepted my fate, but I stopped.  I decided to find something to do in addition to my work there that would make me happy.

That thing was writing.

I began writing greeting cards and dabbled with some freelance work that I have continued 3 years later and I am so happy I did.  Not only was I more inspired to write, but I had somehow made peace with where I was.  Not too long after that point my horrific boss (though she was nice as a person) left the company.

Poof! One day she was gone.  I thought that was the absolute best thing that could happen, but it gets better.

A few months later I received a call from a former co-worker with a potential job offer.  A job I hadn’t even been looking for!  A job that turned out to be more money than I was making and would allow me to work from home.  I had always toyed with the idea of working from home, but I had no idea how that would be possible.  Not only that, but it turned out to be the perfect scenario since my partner and I knew we would be moving in the next few months out-of-state.  I knew if I didn’t have a job lined up I would have to stay behind to keep my job and now I didn’t have to do that at all.  My job moved with me!

It turned out to be the perfect situation and in it I learned a very valuable lesson.

When you make peace with your starting point, the Universe can work on your behalf to bring things to you that will move you toward your heart’s desire no matter how big it seems. 

The moral of this story is this…

Stop struggling with where you are now for it is just your starting point.  Make peace with it and find some way to appreciate and enjoy where you are now.  When you do, you will be amazed at the opportunities that unfold before your very eyes.  Opportunities you may never have thought possible.

Visualization: A Tool For Manifestating Your Dreams

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When it comes to living the life of our dreams most of us ideally know exactly what we want.  We have said on more than one occasion, “If only _____ would happen, then I could finally be happy!”, but how many of us really know what we want?  Sure we may have a general idea of the life we want to live…money, partnership, love, and happiness, but thing is those things are different for each of us.  My version of the life of my dreams won’t necessarily match yours and vice versa.

So how can we figure out what that life looks like?

One way is to use visualization.  When was the last time you took a few minutes to visualize the ideal situation?  Maybe you have a big meeting coming up that you want to go really well or an appointment that you want a certain outcome?  Have you ever thought of visualizing it before it happens?

My guess is that many of us tend to use visualization in a much less productive way.  For instance I know some people (myself included) that have the tendency to visualize the worst possible outcome as a way of convincing themselves that if the worst happens, it’s not so bad.  They are often times met with a similar situation and may think to themselves, “See, it happened and I was prepared.” But is that what it really means?  Couldn’t it also mean that you put out the vibe for negative situation to occur?  Maybe.  So what if you did the exact opposite?

Let’s say you have a situation coming up that you would traditionally worry about, maybe you are selling your house, moving to a new location, or starting a new business.  The logical part of you says to plan, plan, plan for the worst case scenario.  So, you begin thinking of all the things that could go wrong and the ways you could combat it.  Maybe you save some extra money, find alternative places to live, or start looking for a part-time gig as you venture down the logical road.  But what if instead of thinking through all the terrible things that could happen, you begin thinking of how you would like it to unfold.

For instance, if you are selling your house you could imagine putting it on the market for the exact amount of money you wish to sell it for and within 2 weeks have a contract.  If you want to take it a step further, you might imagine what type of person or family would enjoy living in your house.  Or if you are planning on moving to a new area, think of the ideal situation.  Do you want to rent or buy?  What type of area would you ideally like to live in?  Can you see it, feel it, and experience it in your mind’s eye?

The key is to stop worrying and fretting about what might go wrong or what the worst case scenario is because chances are the more you focus on the worst case, the more likely it will come true.

About 7 years ago I was moving out-of-state without having a job already lined up.  I had never done something like this before and while I had a little bit of money saved, I didn’t have enough to last me for a long time, so I needed to find a job rather quickly.  When asked what my plan was my answer was always the same…”I’ll look when I get there, but worst case scenario if I can’t find something I’ll just get a job at Starbucks or something.”  A few months went by and my thinking remained the same and I still had no job and was losing faith in myself.  The first job I got while living in the new city was…you guessed it, working at Starbucks!

The process works the same way if you can visualize the ideal situation.  Before my partner and I moved to where we live now, we had planned on using our previous home as a rental property.  We made all of our arrangements prior to leaving and all the while we kept thinking that the ideal situation would be to have someone sign a lease shortly after we left.  We didn’t have a lot of worry or concern about the situation because we had so much going on with the move and coordinating the purchase of our new home and found out within 2 days of leaving that we had a renter for our home.  Our ideal situation was playing out before our eyes and we were so grateful!

The point is this…

If you have a choice to worry about a situation or to visualize the ideal, why waste your energy thinking of what disaster may come?  Why not make the best of it and think of the most amazing and beautiful outcome possible?

The same thing applies to your dreams…

Instead of thinking of all the ways you can fail or thinking of the most logical path to your dreams, think of the ideal situation.  Feel the excitement and inspiration for your ideal situation and watch as your dreams begin to manifest before your eyes, sometimes in ways you never imagined could happen.

Use the power of your imagination for good and the next time you find yourself worrying over the worst case scenario of a situation, turn it around and visualize the ideal.

Still not convinced it works?  Experiment with it and see what happens for you.  I promise you won’t be disappointed as long as you believe it can come true.