Build the life you want to live   

Create the kind of self you will be happy to live with all your life. Foster C. McClellan 

Every day we write the story in which we want to be the main character in. Every day we do something that builds, invents, and confirms our identity. Everyday we have the opportunity to start fresh and every second we have a brand new chance to create who we are. That is certainly not very clear to us all the time. We hurry from one meeting to the other, we check our blackberries, we answer phone calls, take the children to school, organise our homes. We rush, rush and rush! Without a chance to make sense of what is happening. One fine morning we wake up and ask ourselves: “Who is this person looking at me in that mirror?”  This can happen any day, but it tends to be more prominent during our socially constructed milestones: New Year, Easter, birthdays, anniversaries… 

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. Abraham Maslow 

Let’s make today a special day! Let’s make today a brand new beginning! Let’s start fresh today! Why wait? Let’s start today! 

Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, and the things you never want to lose.  Kevin Arnold  

1. WRITE A LITTLE STORY

Grab a notebook or if you don't like to write, a digital recorder and document the highlights of your year: perhaps a glorious day or painful afternoon at the dentist. Write about something that left a memory, something that touched you. It can be very delicate and small like the blossoms in spring or terribly meaningful like the birth of your child. Not only will you end up with a wonderful story you can share with your family in years to come, you'll be able to catalogue your successes and see just how much you've accomplished in the past 12 months. Be the author of your own play.  

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes. Andrew Carnegie 

The plan is nothing, planning is everything. Dwight D. Eisenhower 

2. MAKE A PLAN

Nothing is quite as comforting as having a plan for the coming year. It is like having a map of the future, of your own future. It is like inventing the future. It gives you something to shoot for and gives you direction. Spend some time thinking about what you'd like to accomplish in the next 12 months, and then develop an outline of how you'll make that plan a reality. Be bold! 

Big shots are little shots that kept shooting. Christopher Morley 

Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps, if you are not willing to move your feet. Anonymous 

3. DO A "TO DO"

Small steps bring you to where you want to go. Take ONE small step towards your goals, towards your future. Take a look at your current "to do" list and pick one project (just ONE) and GET IT DONE! Big or small, it doesn't matter! I promise you when you’ll be in bed tonight, you’ll have a very good feeling about yourself. You will be proud of that ONE accomplishment.  

Where there is great love, there are always miracles. Willa Cather 

4. PHONE HOME

...Or phone a friend. Connect with a long lost family member, school mate, business associate, or partner you haven't spoken to for a long time. Reconnecting and sharing memories of the "good old days" can often be the inspiration for new ideas and plans. 

If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person? Chuck Palahniuk 

5. DO SOMETHING NEW

Do something that you've never done before. Go see a play, or a hockey game, or walk through your local museum. Draw the trees of your local park, walk around a neighbourhood you’ve never been or cook/bake something you never thought you'd be able to. If it's fresh and new to you... give it a go! 

Our identity is built by our choices: by the books we don’t read, by the things we don’t do, by the people we are no longer with. B. Vergara 

6. WRITE YOUR “NOT TO DO" LIST

If you are starting a new self, you better travel light. Make a spring cleaning of your life. Take a white piece of paper and list the “things” you no longer want in your life: the people you don’t want to be with, the projects you do not want to finish, the customers that are more annoying than productive, the clothes you don’t want to wear anymore, the food you don’t want to eat anymore…Once you list them, you will start acting accordingly, they will vanish and you will see how life opens for new people, new projects, new clothes, new dreams… 

I've grown certain that the root of all fear is that we've been forced to deny who we are. Frances Moore Lappe 

Resignation is perpetual suicide. Anonymous  

7. DO SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU

If everyday, during the coming year, you confront one of your fears: cycling in Amsterdam; writing; painting; quiting that unfulfilling job / relationship; then you will become a stronger person capable of anything - capable of becoming who you are.

Statistically the Number One fear is public speaking, even above the fear of dying. If you work on this fear, just this specific fear, I assure you, your life will change in no time. Build opportunities to speak: Join a public speaking cub! www.toastmasters.org

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change. Carl Rogers 

8. LEARN SOMETHING NEW

Learning is not just for children. Learning is also for you, no matter what your age is. Your brain is flexible and still evolving. The more you exercise it, the more capabilities it will have. Learn something new everyday: a new recipe, a new word, a new street name, a new song, a new telephone number...

The humble son of mentally ill mother and an alcoholic father became a knight in 1975. He was indeed a very talented man, Charles Chaplin. One of his main qualities that explain his success was his commitment to learn one word per day. Extremely simple, extremely powerful. Imitate Chaplin, you can learn foreign languages, cooking, painting, typing...

I have not failed 1,000 times.  I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb. Edison 

9. BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF

Did you make a mistake? Forgive yourself and have a laugh! Biting yourself down for an error will not solve it and will not allow you to see further. Making mistakes is the best way of discovering how something does not work. It is a process of learning and growing. Long live mistakes! Bounce back and try again! 

The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose. Richard R. Grant  

You can of course repeat this every single day for the rest of your life. Today is the first day of a great play, a great song, a great painting: your own life!  

May you find what you are not looking for,

Kind regards,

Blanca L. Vergara

My mission is to change the world one person at a time. I am there to facilitate my customer to re-tune with there personal vision and make it happen. To deliver on this mission I provide a set of services. Depending on the assignment sometimes in collaboration with other professionals, but always working with a reduce number of customers to ensure quality and truly personalized services.

Our Services are,

• Coaching
• Leadership Development
• Seminars

Coaching

Seminars

Your Looking Glass offers a wide variety of in-company training sessions and workshops. We customize and personalize them according to customers needs. Some recurrent themes are:

• The Cycle of Renewal ®
• Innovation and Creativity
• Managing others for higher performance
• Action leadership
• Strategic (life) planning 

For more information on the programs described here or for designing a more bespoke program, contact us. 

During the last fifteen years, Blanca has committed her passion for innovation and knowledge of change management to the support of managers and high achieving professionals, frequently changing her binoculars to enjoy an overall view.  Companies that have benefited from Blanca’s professional support include; start-ups, family businesses, large multinationals and European institutions. Blanca’s clients belong to the IT industry, aerospace and banking and are individuals encompassing all social backgrounds, nationalities and religions.  Her knowledge of Business is supported with an MBA from Rotterdam’s School of Business Management.

Blanca is a frequent speaker on personal and professional development, on women, on leadership, on growing, on living purposeful careers and lives… 

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