What is the meaning of life? What is my life purpose? What am I doing with my life?

Learn how to figure out what your purpose in life is and how to stay on track by identifying your Intention Compass. Overcome the frustration of missing opportunities and not following through on your goals by always knowing what direction to go next. 

I discovered how important having an Intention Compass™ was as I experienced rejection and failure while launching my business. I would come home frustrated and sad and then I would consult my compass and ask “what can I do to get back on track? What do I have control over?” I don’t have control over the past, but I can change the direction for my next steps. 

One of my values is perseverance. To me this means continuing a project even if parts of it have failed. You can’t fail unless you give up. So I would get back on the computer and see what little step I could complete towards my goal. 

My values have...

We've all experienced failure whether it's failing a test, a presentation, following through on a promise, or teasing a friend too hard and breaking their trust. 

I made a mistake this week while teaching a self defense and violence prevention course. I was working with middle school girls and the last exercise we do is to practice seeing targets on another person in different positions. I forgot to do the first piece of the exercise and then the girls were very confused by the end. I felt badly that I'd not delivered them the experience and practice I'd intended. 

When assessing what I need to recover from failure I have a couple of options to consider: apologize to others, apologize to myself, identify lessons learned, make amends, or physically process the experience. 

Apologies to others are sometimes simple and other times more involved. Here is an article by Marjorie Ingall that identifies the important aspects of an apology and also shares some humorous apology...

If your safety is ever in danger, you have a right to protect yourself. You deserve protecting. If you are in danger and you injure someone trying to protect yourself, it is self defense. If someone intends you harm, they are not interested in your wellbeing, which means your safety must be more important to you than theirs. 

Violence is always a choice. If someone has intention to harm you, you must protect yourself and get to safety. If you must use violence, aim for one of the primary targets: the eyes, the throat, or the knees. If any of these three body parts are damaged it will be hard to chase you, follow you or stop you. 

You know how awful it is to have a bit of dust in your eye. It is not hard to cause the eyes to tear, then your attacker cannot see you and you have time to get away. If you hit their throat, they cannot breath for a moment and you have time to get away. If you damage their knees they cannot follow you. 

Other parts of the body can be...

I’ve had some upset in my home recently. As it finally shook out, I got very excited about a free desk I found on Craigslist. I wanted to take some control back in my life and home and getting a new desk felt right. The person who posted the ad said they would take down the ad when it was gone. So, I was thrilled to find it still on the side of the road when I arrived. 

It was a heavy sucker and wouldn’t fit in my trunk, but I saw that it would just fit in my back seat if I pushed the front seats forward. With some effort I got all but the last inch into my back seat. It needed to be lifted on both sides at the same time to make it that last inch. I needed help. People passed by and simply glanced at my struggle, but no one seemed interested in helping a gal shove a desk in her backseat. Eventually, a man, who’s car I had double parked in, helped me with the last inch only after realizing he wasn’t going anywhere until I got the desk in. 

The only...

In a world of instant gratification, is it reasonable to expect the same dopamine hit you get from matching with someone on a dating app as when you meet them in person? 

The world has changed in the last 15 years. As phones have taken the spot light in our lives, are we loosing perspective? Our phones can meet almost all of our needs in seconds. We can find an answer to a question, the best tacos within five blocks, and 100 potential partners. Are we expecting our dates to move just as fast? 

Research suggests that we’re spending 2-6 hours a day looking at our devices. The majority of this time is spent on YouTube and Facebook. Both of these activities offer regular gratification hits. Are we expecting that same hit when we first meet the person we’ve matched with online? If they don’t give us that feeling of satisfaction right away, do we write them off?

Say you match with someone you think is really hot. You feel pretty good about yourself for a...

I’ve had a couple of challenging weeks. One day this week, I was out for a walk and I realized that I felt like a victim of life. I felt like a bunch of bad things were happening to me that I didn’t seem to have any control over.

Later, I was talking with one of my support people and she pointed out that it seemed like I needed to do some things that would make me feel like a grown, bad-ass woman – actions that would make me feel in control, empowered and independent.

So, I started making a list in my head of things I could do that would make me feel empowered. Some of them were easy, some hard. Some of the hard actions became easier when I saw them as a way to feel stronger.

Here are some actions from my list: Going for a 20 minute run without stopping, making a killer dinner, dressing up and going to the theater or a concert, cleaning the whole house in one day, asking a potential new friend out, finishing a long forgotten project, paying my bills, folding my...

I’m trying out a new person in my life. So far he seems amazing in all the important ways. However, the other day he made a comment that reminded me of my toxic ex. It triggered me more than I wanted it to. My instincts told me to run away as fast as I could, “do not repeat the past!” This is the first and only red flag. This feeling settled itself in my gut and began to poison my body until I was ready to take action. There are a number of ways I could act. I could run, as my fight, flight or freeze dictated. I could decide to continue to suffer or, in an act of bravery, I could talk to the person about it. 

In order to talk to the person, I would need to know exactly what was going on with me. In telling him, I would have to be clear, honest and not accuse him of anything. His behavior was not my favorite, but it wasn’t the problem. The problem was my reaction. I did not want to feel this way, especially about this person, who had done nothing to...

Here are 5 things you can do to build confidence:

1. Send out a confident air. This comes from inside and only works if you fake it until you make it. I challenge you to step away from the “don’t mess with me” stance, and move toward “I am me and you will not be changing that.” Do you remember the Care Bears? They are colorful cartoon bears that had circles with symbols on their bellies. On occasion a beam of light would stream from their bellies and defeat the bad guys, who were usually pretty scary. When we take the time as humans we can feel the energy of another person. Send out your confident energy!
2. Physical posture. Don’t be afraid to take up space. You live in this world too and deserve a place in it. Think about broadening your shoulders, rather than pushing them back. Think about lifting your head higher and getting taller rather than sticking your chin in the air. Expand.
3. State your needs. Nothing says confidence like clear...