Stephenie Zamora: Are Your Dreams On Hold? How To Lift Your Life Out Of Limbo

Stephenie Zamora: Are Your Dreams On Hold? How To Lift Your Life Out Of Limbo

Limbo. It's that awkward place between where you are now and where you'll be "soon."

Maybe you're planning to move across the country in the near future. Or your lease is ending in a few months and you're not sure if you'll be able to stay. Perhaps you have to travel for work off and on for the next six months.

So you think to yourself... What's the point in trying to meet someone new and amazing, I'll just be moving soon. Why bother getting that little arts and crafts corner set up in my current place, I may have to box it all up. Why bother taking that class, joining that group or making new friends, I'll just be on the go and away from it all.

The point is that life is precious and way too short to waste in limbo.

Limbo is also the birthplace of unfulfillment, depression, frustration, isolation and general "meh"-ness. When you allow yourself to enter the mental space of limbo, you effectively put living, loving, dreaming, scheming playing, connecting and whatever other wonderful ing-thing you want and desire on hold.

You put life on hold.

And when life is on hold, it slips by fast -- opportunities go unclaimed, amazing love remains undiscovered, friends, laughter, adventures and happiness fade away before you even experience them. All because you're waiting for something that's going to happen "soon."

Your "soon" may be two weeks, two years or two months. Doesn't matter. What matters is that you deserve an amazing, joy-filled life with phenomenal people in it.

So how do you stop living in limbo?

Start living in the moment.

One of the most transformational lessons I've learned in my life thus far is how to live in this exact moment, rather than getting lost in the mess of thoughts, negative chatter, worry, fear or drama in my head.

Think about it for a moment. (Yes, I'm giving you temporary permission to go in your head.) Instead of putting yourself out there, falling in love, making amazing friends, having fun and exciting life experiences, you're probably sitting at home or work thinking about how you'd love to be doing those things, but can't, since you have this change happening "soon."

Here's the truth, you can have those things. So what if you're only here for two more months? Get yourself out there and do all the things you want to do! Date (maybe even fall in love), meet new people (find the bestie you've always dreamed of), take that art class (so you'll miss the final show... at least you'll have made some art)!

Start showing up to every moment of every single day fully present and engaged in what you're doing or who you're with. Stop thinking about how things "have to be" because of something happening later. Be here now for this moment and have the most amazing experience you can.

Stop being afraid of what you can't control or foresee.

Unless you're some kind of amazing psychic, you don't know what's going to happen with anything, so stop assuming that you do.

"They won't want to hang out with someone who's moving soon."

"No one would ever want to date me seriously the way I have to travel."

"I'm not going to be able to stay here, anyway."

You don't know that. It's not possible for you to know that, especially when other people are involved. So stop assuming! Your "soon" is in the future, not right now. For all you know, you could meet a kindred spirit that you connect so deeply with you remain best friends via text, email and Skype for the rest of your lives. You could meet the man of your dreams who, by the time "soon" arrives, is willing to make things work. Or, your landlord will let you stay in your place and you just wasted a couple months not doing crafts because you assumed you'd have to move.

Stop being afraid or "realistic" about things... just live your life.

Remember that you can't control everything.

I strongly believe that if something's meant to happen, it will happen, whether you're ready for it or not. So if you're supposed to connect with someone specific, come across a certain opportunity or be guided in a certain direction, it's going to happen. Trust that everything happens for a reason and start moving with the flow of life.

Don't try so hard to maintain "control" of your life and your plan. When you do, you miss out on amazing things. Unexpected job offers, the person you're supposed to spend your life with, that best friend you've always wanted,

Just because you planned to move, change jobs, get married or whatever else, doesn't mean that's what's supposed to happen for you. If life presents you with an opportunity and your intuition says "hell yes!" you'd better listen up and act accordingly. Trying to control every little thing just causes unnecessary stress, frustration and anxiety. Loosen up your grip, begin listening to and trusting your intuition, and start to enjoy the amazing journey that is life.

Most importantly, stop wasting time in limbo!

Take action now!

If you feel like you're living in limbo, grab a notebook or journal and answer the following questions:

• Why am I so afraid/hesitant to do the things I want to do?
• How would it feel to do them anyway and really start living and enjoying my life in the present moment?
• Where can I relax my need for control and start moving with the flow of life?

Then... close your eyes, take a deep breath and re-engage in your life, in this moment (and every single moment after that) fully and completely.

Stephenie Zamora is the founder of www.stepheniezamora.com, a full-service, life-purpose development, design and branding boutique. Here she merges the worlds of personal development and branding to help young women build passion-based businesses. Click here to download her free guide, "The Unexpected Trick to Transforming Your Life With ONE Single Question."

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Dr. Jim Taylor: Athletes' Most Powerful Mental Tool

Dr. Jim Taylor: Athletes' Most Powerful Mental Tool

If you do anything to work on the mental side of your sport, it had better be mental imagery. Why, you ask. Because there is no more powerful mental tool than mental imagery and it can have a huge impact on your sports performance.

I say this with such conviction because it had that effect on me when I was a young athlete at Burke Mtn. Academy, a private boarding school in Vermont devoted to developing world-class ski racers (it was also the first full-time sports academy in the U.S.) One summer I took a course at a local college that introduced me to the power of mental imagery. I applied it to my sport as part of my final project for the class and then continued to use it throughout the following fall and into the competitive race season. The results were nothing less than spectacular. From doubt came confidence. From distraction came focus. From anxiety came intensity. From timidness came aggressiveness. From inconsistency came consistency. And, most importantly, from decent results came outstanding results.

When I studied mental imagery in graduate school, I learned why it is so powerful. According to Tony Morris, Michael Spittle, and Anthony Watt, authors of Imagery in Sport, this tool is used by virtually all great athletes; and research has shown that imagery, when combined with actual practice, improves performance more than practice alone.[1] Imagery also isn't just a mental experience that occurs in your head, but rather impacts you in every way: psychologically, emotionally, physically, technically, and tactically. Think of mental imagery as weight lifting for the mind.

In my more than 25 years of work with professional, Olympic, collegiate, and junior-elite athletes, mental imagery is the tool that I emphasize the most with them, and the one that I have seen have the greatest impact on their performances. Here's the bottom line. If you aren't engaged in a consistent mental imagery program, you're not doing everything you can to achieve your athletic goals.

Keys to Quality Mental Imagery

There are four factors that impact the quality of mental imagery: perspective, control, multiple sense, and speed. You can develop each of these areas so you can get the most out of your imagery.

Imagery perspective. Imagery perspective refers to where the "imagery camera" is when you do imagery. The internal perspective involves seeing yourself from inside your body looking out, as if you were actually performing your sport. The external perspective involves seeing yourself from outside your body like on video. Research indicates that one perspective is not better than the other. Most people have a dominant perspective with which they're most comfortable. Use the perspective that's most natural for you and then experiment with the other perspective to see if it helps you in a different way.

Control. Have you ever been doing imagery and you keep making mistakes -- for example, a basketball point guard sees the ball stick to the court while dribbling or a golfer sees her ball pop out of the cup? This problem relates to imagery control, which is how well you're able to imagine what you want to imagine. It's not uncommon for athletes to perform poorly in their imagery, and it often reflects a fundamental lack of confidence in their ability to perform successfully (when I started using imagery as a youth, I couldn't go three gates in a ski race course in my head without falling!).

If mistakes occur in your imagery, you shouldn't just let them go by. If you do, you'll further ingrain the negative image and feeling, which will hurt your performances. Instead, when you perform poorly in your imagery, immediately rewind the "imagery video" and edit the imagery video until you do it correctly.

Multiple senses. Good imagery is more than just visual, that's why I don't like to call it visualization. The best imagery involves the multi-sensory reproduction of the actual sport experience. You should duplicate the sights, sounds, physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions that you would experience in an actual competition. Visual imagery involves how clearly you see yourself performing. If sounds -- such as the quarterback calling the play at the line of scrimmage -- are important, you would want to generate them in your imagery. If you get nervous before an actual competition, you should get nervous in your imagery (and then take steps to relax).

The most powerful part of mental imagery is feeling it in your body. That's how you really ingrain new technical and mental skills and habits. A useful way to increase the feeling in your mental imagery is to combine imagined and real sensations. Imagine yourself performing and move your body along with the imagery. You see world-class athletes doing this before competitions.

Speed. The ability to adjust the speed of your imagery will enable you to use imagery to improve different aspects of your sports performance. In my experience, I've found slow motion to be effective for focusing on technique. When you first start to work on technique in your imagery, slow the imagery video down, frame by frame if necessary, to see yourself executing the skill correctly. Then, as you see and feel yourself performing well in slow motion, increase the speed of your imagery until you can perform well at "real-time" speed.

Be Realistic in Your Imagery

Imagine realistic conditions. Imagine yourself performing under realistic conditions -- in other words, always do imagery under those conditions in which you normally compete. That is, if you're usually competing in difficult conditions (e.g., cold or hot weather, snow or rain), imagine yourself performing under those conditions. Only imagine yourself performing under ideal conditions if you typically compete in ideal conditions.

Imagine realistic performance. If you're a young athlete, don't imagine yourself performing like a pro or Olympian. Instead, imagine yourself performing the way you normally do, but incorporate positive changes that you are working on.

Developing an Off-Sport Imagery Program

The key to getting the most out of mental imagery is consistency. You wouldn't expect to get stronger by lifting weights once every few weeks. You wouldn't expect to get better technically by practicing your sport once in a while. The same holds true for mental imagery. I've found that the only way to gain the benefits of mental imagery is to use it consistently in a structured way.

Set imagery goals. Set specific goals for what areas you want to work on in your imagery. Goals can be technical, tactical, mental, or overall performance. For example, you might focus on some technical change, being more relaxed and focused, or just going for it in your sport.

Climb imagery ladder. Create a ladder of practice and competitive scenarios in which you will be performing. The ladder should start with practice in a simple setting and progress to more demanding practice situations, less important competitions, and increase through more important events up to the most important competition you'll be in this year.

Begin your imagery on the lowest level of the imagery ladder. Stay at that rung until you reach your imagery goal. When that is achieved, stay at that step for several imagery sessions to really reinforce and ingrain the positive images, thoughts, and feelings. Then work your way up the ladder until you're performing the way you want in your imagery at the very top of the imagery ladder.

Training- and competition-specific imagery. Select practice and competitive situations that are appropriate for your level of athletic development. In other words, if you're a high-school soccer player, don't imagine yourself playing in a World Cup game against the world's best soccer players. Also, choose a specific competition in a precise location under particular conditions for each imagery session, thus reaching your imagery goals in a variety of competitions, settings, and conditions.

Imagery content. Each imagery session should be comprised of your pre-performance routine and your performance in practice or competitions. If you compete in a sport that is short in duration, such as sprinting or wrestling, you can imagine an entire performance. If you compete in a sport that is lengthy, for example, golf, tennis, or soccer, you can imagine yourself performing in four or five key parts of the competition.

Imagery sessions. Imagery sessions should be done three to four times per week. (Imagery shouldn't be done too often because, as with any type of training, you can get burned out on it.) Set aside a specific time of the day when you'll do your imagery (just like you do for your physical training). I recommend that you set your smartphone calendar to send you a reminder. Find a quiet, comfortable place where they won't be disturbed. Each session should last about 10 minutes.

Imagery journal. One difficulty with imagery is that, unlike physical training, the results aren't tangible. An effective way to deal with this problem is to keep an imagery journal. These logs should record key aspects of every imagery session including the quality of the imagined performance, any thoughts and feelings that occur (positive or negative), problems that emerged, and what you need to work on for the next session. An imagery journal enables you to see progress in your imagery, thereby making it more rewarding.

The Power of Mental Imagery

So, here's the deal. I can't guarantee that an mental imagery program is going to result in a quantum leap in your sport like it did for me in my ski racing so many years ago. But I will say that if you commit to a mental imagery program, there's a darned good chance that you will be much better prepared mentally than you were last year. And if you combine the imagery program with an intensive physical conditioning regimen and quality practice time, then I can say with confidence that, after a few months of committed imagery, when you head out to the field, court, course, or hill, you'll be able to say, "I'm as prepared as I can be to perform my best and achieve my goals."

For more by Dr. Jim Taylor, click here.

For more on success and motivation, click here.

References:

[1] Morris, Tony, Michael Spittle and Anthony Watt. Imagery in Sport. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 2005. [Link.]

Follow Dr. Jim Taylor on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DrJimTaylor

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Ann Brenoff: Forget Sitcom Perfection! 10 Ways To Reduce Stress And Enjoy The Holidays

Ann Brenoff: Forget Sitcom Perfection! 10 Ways To Reduce Stress And Enjoy The Holidays

There is no time of greater expectations -- or disappointment when those expectations aren't met -- than the holidays. It's a period when every blemish of your life comes under a magnifying glass: Your imperfect marriage, your imperfect children, your imperfect job/house/friends, and even your imperfect checking account are all there rearing their ugly imperfect heads.

For years, I blamed my unrealistic holiday expectations on those vanilla pudding sitcoms I grew up with. While Robert Young spewed pearls of fatherly wisdom to his little "Princess" on "Father Knows Best," my own family just never measured up to those never-screaming, always-nurturing Andersons. Never did the Andersons have an uncle who showed up drunk to Thanksgiving nor did Father Jim Anderson ever find himself scrambling for gifts in the open-til-midnight drugstore on Christmas Eve. For years well into my adulthood, I always exited the holiday season feeling that Mother Margaret Anderson would have pulled off another Hallmark-perfect holiday and mine surely wasn't.

But there's a new me in the saddle these days, one who benefits from the lessons learned over six decades. If I may share:

Overspending will only buy you a financial hangover.
All year long, we count our pennies and pride ourselves on sticking to a budget. We clip coupons, delay purchases and resist impulse-buying. Come the holidays, we spend like a drunken sailor on leave.

No, it's not the American way. Maybe it used to be, but welcome to post-recession 2013 folks. Give generously of your love and don't part with your credit card lightly. You will only regret it come January. And there is no greater stress than the one that comes with the feeling that you can't pay your bills.

Do things because you want to do them, not because you are expected to.
The only obligations I feel nowadays are to my family, my close friends and my job. I need all of them. Every other demand on my time falls under the heading of "optional." In discovering this course, I know I've hurt some well-intended neighbors, co-workers and acquaintances. I'm sorry for that, but with just 24 hours in a day, I can't please everyone. I'm down with that.

Some things are just silly. Stop doing the silly.
Long, long ago in a lifetime before Instagram and Facebook, people took their vacation photos and made them into holiday greeting cards that were sent by snail mail. For those who were seriously into piling on stress, they would also send out a holiday letter detailing all of the year's accomplishments. "Here's our new car, our new vacation home, our new boat!" Then it got uncool to brag about things, or maybe we just don't think "Lost our home in March!" has the same ring to it.

If I see you every day in the office or at school, there is no need to send me a holiday card. Just wish me good wishes and I'll do the same. As for the brag letter, that's why we have Facebook isn't it?

Push some social obligations into January.
People always feel the need to throw holiday parties in December, a time when everyone's social calendar is crammed to the rafters. I've learned to say no instead of trying to juggle three events in one day.

And please don't contribute to the madness by trying to hold your own party and then get upset when people can't come because they have other events to attend. Why not throw your dinner party in January, when nothing is going on?

Stockpile gifts so that you don't have to scramble.
I buy a stack of gift cards and keep them handy. I invariably forget to buy something for the coach, the tutor, the school bus driver who wakes up my daughter when she sleeps through our stop. Not everyone drinks coffee or shares your love of Starbucks, but everybody can use money; I make it a MasterCard or Visa gift card that can be used anywhere.

Is a gift card less personal than something I would pick out? You bet it is. It is also likely more appreciated.

Give generously ... to those who need it.
Charity is good for the soul. It feels much better to give to someone with nothing than someone with everything. So do that. Write a check to Mr. I Have Everything's favorite charity.

It's easy. It's quick. And it's the best way to spend money.

Give generously... to yourself.
A healthy dose of selfishness is the real cure for holiday stress. Accept the fact you can't be all things to all people and treat yourself to some me-first time. I know it runs contrary to the expectation that this is a time of giving. Think of it as giving to yourself. Go ahead. You deserve it.

Me time for me means telling the boss that I'll be at my kids' holiday concert instead of my desk. It also means telling my husband that no, I don't want to go anywhere for New Year's Eve. My best friend and I have already agreed to skip the holiday gift exchange and instead go away together for a girls' weekend in January.

Shortcuts you take will be noticed only by you.
One Thanksgiving, a friend showed up with an elaborate tray of wonderful moist cookies, beautifully plated and wrapped in colored cellophane. Her dessert was devoured by all to rave reviews; my made-from-scratch apple and pumpkin pies went largely untouched. It was one of my kids who outted her. "Mom, can you buy more of these cookies? I had them at Rayah's house last week and her mom got them at Ralph's."

Presentation, like many things in life, is everything.

Traditions change.
Sure everyone has gathered at sister Sue's house every holiday since the beginning of time. How many times have you said to yourself: "Self, just once I'd like to spend the holiday in my own house."

So what are you waiting for?

For midlifers whose adult children have families of their own, why not let the grandkids open first-night Chanukah gifts in their own homes? Ditto for Christmas morning. Traditions are lovely but eventually must fade to time. If you are together, does it really matter where?

Dare to dream.
My best holiday season was the one we sat out. We got both sides of the family mad at us and took a beach vacation. It was lovely. By the way, planes aren't as crowded if you travel on the day of the holiday.

Follow Ann Brenoff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AnnBrenoff

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com