Facing The Truth In Challenging Situations

All too often, our culture subscribes to the “positive thinking” remedy in order to rationalize situations to make them sound better than they really are. This helps numb the pain of challenging situations, so we can feel slightly better about ourselves as we experience them. However, the danger of disguising painful wounds with positive masks is that it disconnects us from our true feelings, which when actually acknowledged, have the greatest power to guide us to the most conscious choices and values-based decisions.

Unless we really believe in our positive thoughts, fixating on finding the positive in each and every situation, whether our true feelings subscribe to them or not, actually creates more stuck energy for ourselves than progress. In fact, it is the truth, whether positive or negative, that provides us with the greatest compass to create change and progress.

Nina CashmanDecember 22, 2015 Comments

3 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Hiring A Career Coach

As a career and success coach who has worked with all sorts of clients at various stages throughout their professions, I’ve seen major differences between clients who have made breakthrough transformations from our partnership and those who simply had a nice experience from our time together. While the latter shows up and goes through the motions of each meeting, tool, and exercise, the former takes things a few steps further by enthusiastically engaging in our sessions and making them purposeful for practical implementation into her everyday life.

Unlike other “helper modalities,” where the helping professional is the authority — like therapy, mentoring, and consulting — in coaching, both the client and coach work together as a team. In other words, the client takes the reins of her own life and collaborates with the coach, who helps guide the process of getting her from somewhere functional to somewhere exceptional.

At the end of the day, those who benefit the most from coaching understand that the power of the partnership is all in the alliance they build with their coaches. So, if you are about to work with a coach, who is sought-out by you individually or by your company, I recommend you ask yourself the following key questions before you invest any time or money.

4 Steps For Putting Tough Emotions To Good Use At Work

As professionals, typically we don’t pay much tribute to emotions. In fact, this word is more likely to have a negative connotation than anything else — phrases like “you are getting too emotional,” or “it’s business, not emotion,” come to mind when we think about accessing our feelings at work. After all, nobody wants to work with the volatile person in the office who is labeled “overly emotional,” right?

On the other hand, emotions have an innate power to signal to us at deeper levels. If we have the courage to confront feelings with honesty before we take action, we can actually empower ourselves to make more informed decisions. These decisions, in turn, will bring us better results that align with who we are, as well as what we really want.

Nina CashmanOctober 16, 2015#EmotionsAtWork, #businesscoach, #careertips, #EmotionalIntelligence Comments

5 Questions To Ask Before Promoting Your Product

So, why does the mere term of “marketing” generate stress and overwhelm for so many people? Why do so many of us have angst when it comes to actually converting brand onlookers into real customers? With so many promotional avenues right at our fingertips, it’s no surprise that many of us feel a little stifled with where to begin, and in the process, we often overcomplicate marketing by forgetting its root principles.

Nina CashmanSeptember 25, 2015 Comments

The Magic Pill: Get Over Yourself

So, how do we heighten our awareness to ultimately connect to what many people call a universal power? What’s the magic pill, so to speak? For some, the answer might be a tough pill to swallow. Establishing a sincere connection with yourself, and consequently, your spiritual and external existence, has less to do with the seminars you are attending, the coaches and healers you are visiting, or the personal growth books you are reading. Getting “connected,” both in practical and spiritual terms, involves shifting mere philosophies into real life practices (which is easier said then done), and making a personal effort to actively participate in building the life you desire. All of this requires that you get over yourself.

Nina CashmanJuly 30, 2015#careertips, #connectivity, #paveyourway, #getoveryourselfComment

Increasing Your Intuitive Connection

Have you ever noticed how easy it is for us to discern what we might do if we were in another person’s shoes, yet at the very same time, struggle with a decision of our own? Why is it so easy to see things with complete clarity when it comes to a situation outside of ourselves, and in the same moment, feel foggy about a situation presented within our own lives? Whether dealing with a big decision related to your career or contemplating what to do in a particular relationship, knowing what’s best for yourself can be tough when personal feelings cloud your perspective.

So, how do we establish a strong connection with our own intuition? Here are some helpful tips for accessing your internal voice of wisdom...

Things We Do To Suffocate The Future

While tuning into our goals creates space for possibilities to unfold with clarity and focus, we can sometimes get so hung-up on the unknown details of future outcomes that we actually narrow the scope of possibilities to achieve what we really want. We either fixate on how the future needs to look so much, that we completely ignore existing opportunities to get there, or we predetermine the path to get there, before we’ve even allowed ourselves to experience anything at all. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! These are the all too common ways, in which, we don’t allow the future to breath.

Six Blinders of Right & Wrong

So, how can we make the most optimal use of the varying perspectives that are presented to us at work and within our daily lives? The simple answer is this – let go of your need to be right, which also includes the obsessive habit to constantly seek-out everything that you believe is “wrong.” In my view, the following are the six biggest reasons that right vs. wrong thinking can blind you from opportunity and success. Get ready, I’m about to get all philosophical on you : )…

Nina CashmanApril 8, 2015#businesscoach, #careertips, #careercoaching, #success, #leadership Comments

The Burn In All Things Bright

There is a known philosophy that we each exist on a pendulum that swings between pain and joy, yin and yang, or happiness and sorrow. In other words, we can only experience joy to the extent that we allow ourselves to open-up and experience pain. While pain is an inevitable part of life, the amount of suffering we allow ourselves to experience is our own optional choice.

Our ability to experience joy is directly connected to our willingness to experience pain. Pain is where our true growth and transformation happens – it’s where we step outside of our comfort zones and try new things. It’s where we build muscles and endurance for all facets of life. It’s how we learn to experience future challenges, discomforts or “pains” with less suffering, so that we can live in an improved state of flow and appreciation.

Nina CashmanMarch 19, 2015#Careertips, #lifecoaching, #nopainnogain, #burnbrightly, #burnbrightdailey, #paveyourwayComment

5 Actionable Steps To Getting Yourself Unstuck

As we approach the New Year, many people are also looking to form new habits and fresh perspectives, as well as develop new possibilities for themselves. During this process, they may also notice areas of their lives that seem stagnant or stuck.

January is a great time to ride the wave of fresh perspective to get your wheels in motion. If you are feeling stuck in your career or contemplating whether or not to make a big change, here are 5 helpful steps for getting your wheels out of the proverbial career snow bank.

Nina CashmanDecember 30, 2014#Unstuck, #CareerChange, #NewBeginnings, #Careertips, #CareerandvaluesalignmentComment

My Favorite Poem

THE SPIRIT OF YOUTH

The poem’s words offer an ingenious key that unlocks life’s greatest secrets – ideas that are so basic and simple that it’s a wonder how we could ever stray far from them, or better yet, allow such thoughts of purity to escape our hearts like some sort of unsolved mystery.

Nina CashmanDecember 4, 2014#youth, #poem, #youareasyoungasyouthink, #enthusiasmComment

Quick Tips For Fun Goal Planning

THE OPENINGS BETWEEN THE CLOUDS

Goals. They are as effective as we allow them to be.

When we briefly think about our goals, only to set them aside in some unknown compartment within our brains, we limit our potential of attaining them. On the flip side, when we take steps to formally declare a goal to the world, on a piece of paper and to ourselves, then we establish a formal contract with the universe, which as Paulo Coelho describes in his book The Alchemist, “conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

Career Coaching, Life CoachingNina CashmanNovember 19, 2014Goals, 2015 Planning, Visioning, Goals Before StrategiesComment