Posts Tagged ‘women in leadership’

Words of Wisdom for Women’s Health

I generally lead a pretty busy and active life as a working mother, engaged in my life & leadership coaching work, family and personal life  skills activities.  The last couple of days, I have felt slightly ‘under the weather’ and it has been trickier to live a life in balance!

This morning, I feel so blessed and appreciative of the very simple, yet caring gesture of being served a cup of delicious, hot steaming coffee in bed.  As a woman and mom who is responsible for lots of others, it is such a wonderful treat to be ‘taken care of’!  I am usually the one caring for our family health and wellness and it is such a treat to be on the receiving end!

I am reminded of how it is the simple things in life that often have the biggest impact on our heart and soul and I feel such gratitude for the goodness of people and my family!

Enjoy your day!

Namaste,

In peace and mindfulness,

Zoey

Zoey Ryan, BSc., PCC

Life & Leadership Coach for  Working Women

coaching to bring more heart & soul to a healthy life & work

3 Work Life Balance Tips for Working Women

Take the frazzle out of your day and replace it with balance & serenity!

Do you feel like this at work?

But wished you felt like this?

Here are 3 Work Life Coaching Tips to Help You:

1.  First thing when you get to work, sit at your desk and take 3 deep in and out breaths.  Envision your day flowing forward peacefully.

2.  Have 1 main focus for the day ie meetings, admin work, working with staff, networking.  Set 1 – 3 major ‘to dos’ for the day, all of which are incredibly easily achieved, write these down & scratch off when completed.

3.  Be gentle with your self!  Don’t forget to breathe!

Namaste

In peace & mindfulness,

Zoey

wisdom coaching for your heart & soul

Zoey Ryan BSc., PCC

Professional Certified Coach with the ICF & Legacy Leadership Trainer

Topaz Lotus Life & Leadership Coaching

Life ~ Leadership ~ Executive Coaching for Women

inspiration | innovation | clarity | wisdom

Women Power! Topaz Lotus Life & Leadership Coaching Gem for Women

“A leader will find it difficult to articulate a coherent vision unless it expresses her/his core values, her/his basic identity…one must first embark on the formidable journey of self-discovery in order to create a vision with authentic soul.”

~ from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Good Business)

Gain clarity on your personal life and work vision!

Use the following ideas to help gain clarity:

1. Think forward; in five years or ten years or fifty years, how do you want to be living your life?

2. Use a vision board, clip pictures out of magazines that represent your future life and work.

3. Write a ‘press release’ for yourself and your effective leadership legacy.

4. Write your own obituary. What do you want to be remembered for?

5. Determine your core values. You may wish to use questions from my previous post.

6. Dream, engage your mind and spirit!

Namaste

In peace & mindfulness,

Zoey

wisdom coaching for your heart & soul

Zoey Ryan BSc., PCC

Professional Certified Coach with the ICF & Legacy Leadership Trainer

Topaz Lotus Life & Leadership Coaching

Life ~ Leadership ~ Executive Coaching for Women

inspiration | innovation | clarity | wisdom

Professional Women: Are Your Work Values Balanced With Your Personal Values?

“Values” are the essence of who we are.

Values are principles that you hold to be of worth in your life.  Values are those things considered right, worthwhile, and desirable- the basis of guiding principles and standards.

“Crystal values” are those values that are so important that if not present in your life will cause your life to shatter.  Think of what would happen if you dropped a crystal ball.

“Rubber values” are those values that you can drop for awhile with no problem and will come bouncing back when necessary.  Think of what happens when you drop a rubber ball.

As women leaders, gaining clarity on the values that are most important to you personally and in your work will give you a solid framework for making decisions, taking forward movement and assessing dissonance in your life.

Let me tell you about a coaching client of mine.  Carol had identified that she held “social responsibility” and “respect for nature” as very strong values.  She found out that the company she was working for was pumping toxic waste into the local watershed.  She decided that she could no longer work for that company and in fact, felt she needed to report the company for the poor environmental business practices.  In spite of the fact that being unemployed was not attractive, Carol stayed true to her values and resigned.  While she had to deal with some short- term financial issues, this decision was worth it to her as she gained so much in the areas of self-honoring and self respect.

Is your work life balanced and in sync with your personal life values?  If it is, you likely feel great about the work that you do and love your job.  If you started your work without consideration of your personal values, and your personal and the values in your work life are out of sync, you may feel unfulfilled, dissatisfied and unhappy in your work. Clarity, transparency and collaboration with your colleagues and staff about personal and organizational values leads to a happy and fulfilling life and a powerfully positive work environment!

Do you know what your organizational values are?  What about your personal values?   What about your crystal values and your rubber values?  Are you in sync with your values?  Spend some time in personal reflection to gain clarity and if you would like to chat further, feel free to contact me personally!

Namaste

In peace & mindfulness,

Zoey

wisdom coaching for your heart & soul

Zoey Ryan BSc., PCC

Professional Certified Coach with the ICF

Topaz Lotus Life & Leadership Coaching

Life ~ Leadership ~ Executive Coaching for Women Leaders and Mentor Coaching for Women Coaches

inspiration | innovation | clarity | wisdom

“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” ~ Anais Nin

Enjoy your day!

Namaste

In peace and mindfulness

Zoey

Lifestyle Design: The Top 3 Daily Success Habits of Empowered Women of Wisdom

“Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the action stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.” ~ Anais Nin

Use these tips for personal development, effective leadership and inner wisdom.

1. Get up early: and spend time every morning with yoga, mediation, dreaming, inspirational reading and journaling.

2. Focus forward with action: have a healthy holistic mindset and body, be ‘flexible’ and gentle moving forward in life with a positive attitude, learning and growing.

3. Be a spirited woman, be uniquely you: don’t be afraid to have a unique personality, live life with passion, grace and purpose. You are the only ‘you’ on the planet!

I would love to hear about your experience with these success tips and habits. Please feel free to contact me personally if this resonates with you.

Namaste

In peace & mindfulness,

Zoey

wisdom coaching for your heart & soul

Zoey Ryan BSc., PCC

Professional Certified Coach with the ICF

Topaz Lotus Lifestyle & Leadership Coaching

Life ~ Leadership ~ Executive Coaching for Women Leaders and Mentor Coaching for Women Coaches

inspiration | innovation | clarity | wisdom

“Live with intention.
Walk to the edge.
Listen Hard.
Practice wellness.
Play with abandon.
Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.”

~ Mary Anne Radmacher

“What we have not known is how to begin from our own centre, how to begin from our own experience, how to make ourselves as women the subjects of the act of knowing”

-       Dorothy Smith (A Canadian Sociologist, known for her work with feminist theory and women’s studies)

This quote is a wonderful reminder that each of us women, has a center point, a still point, an internal place of equilibrium, of power and energy that can fuel us, feed us and inspire us.  Inspire us to get to know ourselves intimately and to get to know each other intimately.

I have long admired Anita Roddick.  I had the great pleasure of hearing Anita Roddick speak in Vancouver in the late 90’s.  She walked on stage, wearing a funky understated outfit and totally captivated the audience of over 2000 women.  She modeled her essence to me by standing fully in her powerful presence.  It was clear to me then as it has been in the ensuing years that she “wore her skin well”, that she knew who she was and what she stood for and that this “knowing” informed all of her actions.  She exuded  a powerful leadership style!

Personal Development Life Coaching Question:

How can you, as a woman leader become your own “subject of the act of knowing” and how can this personal reflection inform your leadership skills and effectiveness?

In peace & mindfulness,

Zoey

coaching for your heart & soul

Zoey Ryan BSc., PCC

Professional Certified Coach with the ICF

Life ~ Leadership ~ Executive Coaching for Women Leaders and Mentor Coaching for Women Coaches

inspiration | innovation | wisdom

The International Coach Federation (ICF) continues to ‘raise the bar’ for the ‘standards and best practice’ of professional coaching.  At the recent ICF Conference in Las Vegas, two breakout sessions looked at the areas of ‘ethics’ in coaching and ‘coaching supervision’.

It is my opinion, after being in the coaching world since 2000, that there is confusion between ‘mentor coaching’, ‘coaching supervision’ and ‘coaching business development.’

To me, mentor coaching and coaching supervision are similar and it’s about the professional practice of coaching, maintaining coaching skills, ethics and competencies as set out by the ICF and drawing on the art and science of coaching from the areas of positive psychology, human behavior and change theories.

In ‘coaching practice business development’, its about the basics of business development, drawing from the business world, entrepreneurship and innovative ‘whole brain’ thinkers.

I love the idea of  ’matrixed thinking’  which integrates the above principles with the practice of mindfulness and I apply these concepts to mentor coaching, life coach coaching and business development consulting for women coaches.

Enjoy your day!

in mindfulness,

Zoey

coaching for your heart & soul

Zoey Ryan BSc., PCC

Professional Certified Coach

Life ~ Leadership ~ Executive Coaching for Women Leaders and Mentor Coaching for Women Coaches

inspiration | innovation | wisdom

I recently found myself in the very interesting position of ‘walking my talk’! As a life, leadership and executive coach for women leaders and also doing life coach coaching, my work is to support others with their personal development to develop healthy, fulfilling, balanced, successful and happy lives. I am passionate about my work and I usually feel I do a good job with my own life too but I had lost touch with my own work life balance program and personal life balance.

After a recent wonderful and energizing conference, I felt health-wise, the best I have felt in years. Imagine my surprise when I ‘crashed’ a couple of days after I got home. I was so pumped from the conference, I started to over commit and then, whamo, I got sick! The message I clearly received is that I needed to slow down. In terms of time management and commitments in my life, I was starting to get into a feeling similar to that “pre-Christmas frenzy”. Do you ever feel like this? How many women leaders do you know who over commit? How many women leaders do you know who want help with time management?

In the midst of the positive chaos and high energy, I had lost touch with my life balance and personal center! I had been taking care of the pets, the kids, employees, my work, supporting my clients and had forgotten to take care of myself! Sound familiar? If this resonates with you, check out the following ideas for re-connecting with your ‘center’ and taking care of you!

7 Self-Care Tips for Women Leaders
1. Daily, check in and ask yourself, what message is my body giving me? What activities/food/beverages/exercise does my body need more of? What does my body need less of? Listen to and act on the messages.
2. Develop your own self-care routine. Ask yourself, what do I need to do for myself on a daily, weekly, monthly, bi-annual and annual basis to really take care of myself.
3. Play hooky for a day! Give yourself a surprise day off and luxuriate in the freedom.
4. Plan a retreat day or weekend and craft your ideal self-nourishing time.
5. Make a list of all the areas in your life that are energy drains and start eliminating the energy leaks.
6. Decide which people in your life energize you and which people drain you and spend most of your time with the energizers.
7. Spend time every day in solitude, doing nothing, no reading, no music. Sit and appreciate your life and acknowledge yourself for all the great parts of you!

In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.
- Virginia Woolf

Enjoy your day and weekend! By taking great care of yourself, you can bring your best self to your life and work!

peace & namaste,

Zoey

coaching for your heart & soul

Zoey Ryan BSc., PCC

Professional Certified Coach

Life ~ Leadership ~ Executive Coaching for Women Leaders and Women Coaches

inspiration | innovation | wisdom