Do you want to start creating the life you want?

Do you want have to a real, deeper relationship with both yourself and those you touch?

Personal Transformation coaching can help you bring all these areas into your conscious influence and put your future in your hands.

Most of us find our days either filled with chaos or bombarded with the demands of our peers and the media. So we run along doing the best we can with what we know, yet little changes.

But how much time do we spend on ourselves?

How much thought have we given to figuring out what is really important in our lives?

After all, there is not much point in chasing a million dollars if what we want is to be able to spend more time with our family and have deeper relationships.

Tell me you agree.

This is what personal transformation coaching is about.

Giving you an opportunity to sit down with someone who fully accepts where you are in your life and focuses on assisting you in discovering all there can be in your life.

If you want to experience the change this can bring to your life I am offering to coach you for free, no obligations, no catches.

Email me at

jarrod [at] warriordevelopment [dot] com

with:

1. What you want to create in who you are and what you experience in your life
2. Why you are committed to making this change

Why I am Offering Free Coaching

There are a few reasons why I am currently offering free coaching:

1. I want to bring the outward expression of my life more into line with personal development
2. I want to have a greater positive impact on peoples lives
3. I want to push along my transition from IT consulting to full time personal transformation coaching

To make all this happen I need to spend more time with all of you, assisting your journeys and gaining my own experience to further increase my abilities to create lasting positive change in peoples lives.

How Does It Work

Personal Transformation sessions are conducted weekly or fortnightly for about 1 hour.

The conversations are held over skype.

All you need is an hour of your time, skype and a commitment to being totally honest to yourself.

To setup a time email me at:

jarrod [at] warriordevelopment [dot] com

I look forward to joining you on your journey to a joyous future.

photo credit: lilit

Have you locked your keys in your car?

Not once but twice?

There are some mistakes that we make in life over and over again, causing us to feel unnecessary grief.

And the cause…?

Lack of attention and a plan to change our habits.

The second time I locked my keys in my car I knew I had to make a change.

The first time is no big deal, we all make slip ups now and again.

But the second time something happens you have hit on a pattern and the only patterns we want in our lives are those that make us happy!

After I watched the service man neatly hack into my car to allow my key to be retrieved I set two plans into action.

One was to always carry spare keys, the other was to take the key out of the ignition whenever I turn off the engine.

Generalising the process to other bad habits we want to put two things into action.

1. Mitigation
2. Elimination

My mitigation plan was to carry spare keys in case I screwed up again.

Mitigation plans on their own are all well and good but they do not deal with the cause.

This is why we must look at an elimination process, wipe out the cause.

In an elimination process you identify a new behaviour or process that you can put in place the will replace the old one that causes problems in your life.

I established the new process of taking my keys out of the ignition as I turn off the engine and consequently with attention I have wiped out the cause that resulted in leaving my keys in my car.

This may look like a rather trivial example but the same thing can be applied everywhere in life and on every scale.

Never forget to pay your bills by setting up a particular day of the month to handle them and having your calender email you on that day.

Create an abundant life savings by replacing the need for excessive expenses and setting up a automated savings plan.

When you start to pay attention to your life it is amazing how you can shape it.

Felt like you were working in your job and the return on your time and effort was hardly worth it?

Have you almost got to the point of why do I make the effort other than to scrape in enough cash to sustain my existence?

Last week I was sending myself into this spiraling pit of mental slaughter. However I took hold of it, asked what I could do about it and now I’m a happy chap at work.

Start Enjoying your Job Now

First remember that how you feel at work is determined by what you are focusing on.

I noticed that when I was dead bored, felt like I was just wasting my time, looking at the clock to see when I could leave I was focusing on one particular thought. This is not helping me learn about life coaching and improving peoples lives (What I’m really excited about right now).

With this being my overriding thought it was no wonder that being at work felt like a waste of time, it was to that thought.

So to change how I feel at work I change how I think.

Forget the negative, focus on the positive things that you can take from being at your job.

What if there was something you could enjoy about every situation at work?

Choose some rules based entirely on your internal focus that would allow you to enjoy every situation of work.

I choose two rules. One was that whenever I was communicating with another individual I would take the opportunity to learn as much as I could about human behaviour and practice my coaching skills. This is incredibly aligned with my goal of exploring life coaching so it actually excites me to go to work.

Also this rule is very broad so it allows me to enjoy most of my work situations easily.

The second rule is about handling the times when I’m not interacting with humans, that being when I’m creating software. Here I choose to focus on being incredibly efficient and produce software excellence because I know I enjoy the challenge of holding myself to a high standard.

Now in two rules I knew how I could enjoy each moment at work.

The next day at work was amazing. My experience had totally changed and I would have to say I truly enjoyed it.

This is the power of considering what you focus on.

What you focus on changes your life.

The Structured Approach

1. Make a list of all the situations/activities you experience at work, group similar ones together if you like under category headings.

2. Pick one activity and decide what you can enjoy about it, what you can choose to focus on to enjoy it. Write down what your focus will be when in that activity.

3. See if that focus can be applied to as many of your other activities as possible. You want to have a simple set of focuses so you can easily remember them. I found I could set just two focuses and that would satisfy all my work situations.

4. Repeat until you know a way to enjoy every activity.

Remember your happiness comes entirely from within.

If you have more than 3 focuses you should try to make more general rules to make it easier on yourself. Otherwise try implementing each new focus one day at a time. Whenever you feel bad at work, remember what you could focus on to enjoy it right now.

To make this even more real pick a situation, close your eyes and imagine how you would act in that situation given your enjoyable focus. You should feel a sense of enjoyment and maybe even a smile will crack on your face.

Life can be wonderful, you just have to choose it to be so.

Especially so when trying to do the right thing thing for other people.

In trying to define what the right thing to do is you can end up heading down the dark rabbit hole until you start thinking about the purpose of being alive.

While trying to find answers to these questions that are beyond most of our realms of experience we become paralysed.

After all, if there is only one right thing to do, everything else we do is probably the wrong thing.

Living a life ruled by these thoughts leads to a fear of doing anything.

How could we be so arrogant in assuming we know what is the right thing to do for a person.

So comes the realisation that, how can I know what the right thing to do is even for me?

Freedom comes when you you adopt a different viewpoint, a new set of thoughts.

Rather than assuming you know everything, assume you know very little and are learning about the world.

Instead of freaking out over doing the right thing, you try something and learn about life through it.

No longer are you ruled by the fear of mistakes and life becomes full of opportunities to learn.

Some people may choose to feel hurt by the actions you try, that is their choice.

Trying with the best of intentions is a valid path if it is done with awareness and a focus of experience/learning. In this way you increase your knowledge of life and do not become powerless.

Your ability to live in the world increases. Maybe we will never know what the right thing to do is, but at the least we can begin to learn what the outcomes of our actions are.

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

Stand and receive.

Once again my martial art teacher reiterates my inability to perform even the most basic techniques of our art.

An hour has passed and I am still being verbally beaten into the ground, have I been training for 3 years or is this my first day again?

Yet I do not feel hurt, insulted or like I am being ill-treated. Rather I feel happy and grateful that someone is taking the time to enforce discipline and be brutally honest with me.

With no reaction inside me I take everything being said and look to improve my actions.

This is what it is like in a world where the highest emphasis is placed on learning.

Through the love and care of those around us we can work on improving ourselves. But only if we have already dropped any feeling that we are more than the insignificant dirt on the ground.

I look forward to learning from the brutal challenges of tomorrow.

“It’s my reputation!”

This exclamation felt really weird when I heard it. A friend had been slandered and was preparing corrective action. Their cry didn’t sound like the real them, more like the words of someone else. Indeed it was probably another of society’s hand me downs.

But this particular statement stuck with me and felt really strange. What was this thing that had been wounded and required retribution?

I started asking myself questions.

I wonder what my reputation is?

Do I have a reputation?

Everybody has a reputation whether good or bad. What defines a reputation?

Well a reputation is a concept we have of ourselves. No wait! Our reputation is what other people think of us.

If this is true then we never own a reputation, we can never go on a holy crusade to reclaim it.

Our reputation is always subject to the whims and fancies of everyone else. In fact, because everyone has a different reputation of us (did you read that as representation…?) there is no coherent definition of our reputation that we can ever know.

If you choose to care about your reputation then you will forever be chasing the people who run off and try to burn the scarecrow you hide behind.

I understand the social/economical/etc. consequences of a bad reputation and as such you can take what action you see fit to make it fit reality.

But as long as any shred of your happiness relies upon a concept held in the minds of other people you will suffer and happiness will escape you.

So if I have your reputation allow me to put it on a piece of paper and give it to you. This way you will know that reputation was never yours to begin with and you are holding onto something outside of yourself.

To change and improve your life you must be aware of the causes that create your life. These are the thoughts and emotional reactions that spring forth in each moment of your life.

In seeing and ultimately breaking free of your thoughts and emotions you develop the ability to craft your own life in the way you think is best.

The seeing of thoughts and emotions I call awareness.

Developing Your Awareness

To improve your life you must first improve your awareness. Indeed it is a life long effort to consistently sharpen this tool.

The use of this tool is directional focus. While some of your attention is turned to the outside world you must always retain some focus on the regions of the mind and emotions (head and body).

Through continued efforts to keep a focus on these areas, the use of awareness allows you to become conscious of the forces that direct your actions and consequently your life. You will see the thought that makes you defend your pride and feel the emotion that makes you run and hide.

To build your ability to both observe deeply and consistently requires effort to both constantly make use of awareness and to believe that there is always more to see, hence increasing its penetration and intensity.

There are two useful analogies for describing the use and improvement of awareness.

The first is that of a torch. Turning on the torch enables you to see things, focusing it on your thoughts allows you to see yourself. To see more of yourself you have to constantly feed the torch energy to increase its power and keep it pointing inwards. This is through the effort of directing your focus.

The second is that of a knife. When you are not aware there is no separation or intervention possible between your thoughts and your actions. By holding a knife in your consciousness you can steadily develop the separation that allows you to learn and consciously direct your life. Whenever the knife is dropped it becomes dulled as your focus loses its edge. However when you exert effort and direct your focus it is like drawing the kitchen knife from its self-sharpening holster, sharpening it with every use.

With awareness you can see the causes of your life. With this you can consciously change it to create a new life full of greater understanding.

photo credit: James Jordan

Failing to meet your goals is your viewpoint.

It is one way of looking at those goals. It is quite valid to choose a different viewpoint, there is no one right viewpoint.

Today I looked at the goals I set for the week, I failed to meet all 3 of them. They were challenging but I have met goals of that difficulty many times before.

So I did some retrospecting on why I failed to meet my goals and looking at my behavior this is what I discovered.

I deliberately choose not to meet those goals.

I have distinct memories of sitting in front of my computer and having a thought flash through my mind saying ‘you need to learn some kanji now in order to meet your goal’. Then I remember choosing to study some videos on life coaching instead.

Does this mean I failed to meet my goals? From a narrow and rigid viewpoint, yes it does.

But if I look deeper I have to ask, why did I choose to study life coaching instead?

The answer is in terms of my life right now, researching that area provides me much more value and happiness than learning japanese.

That is how my beliefs are currently set up.

Based on that I’m glad that I did not meet my goals, what a waste of time that would have been.

Now looking ahead to next week I have to carefully consider what goals I really want and which ones I want most.

Failing to meet your goals is never a bad thing, you are at least one step ahead as you actually set  goals.

But if you learned something important about yourself then failing to meet your goals is a good thing!

Meeting goals is always secondary to learning about yourself and the nature of happiness.

photo credit: NeoGaboX

Today I took off my jacket to show my brother the new backpack I bought and then when I went to get my jacket again I couldn’t see it.

I did a full 360 and couldn’t spot it. Then my brain clicked and I realised that I was looking for my black jacket when what I wanted was my white jacket.

I had put my jacket on my bed, when I was looking for it my eyes passed right over it and I didn’t ’see’ it. When I replay it in my mind I can see the white blur as my eyes passed over it, yet it didn’t register as what I wanted.

What had happened was my brain said ‘pick up jacket’, as I have only one white jacket which I rarely wear my brain said, ‘your jacket is black, look for something black that is a jacket’. Consequently I totally missed it.

Ask If It Is What You Really Want

My example is trivial but it is an identical situation that can occur on any scale in your life.

You want to marry a rich and successful person because they will be a positive partner in your life. But are you really looking for a rich and successful person? Or do you really desire a sense of security and confidence in your life?

Think that life coaching is the career you want? Or is it really that you think it is an easy career where you can just talk to people about goals and make an easy living?

Whenever you come across something you want, whether it be a goal or a physical item it will be worth your time to ask yourself some questions.

What benefit will this bring to my life?

What feeling will this give me or relieve me of when I get it?

What most excites me about my future with this thing?

Now you can dig a little deeper into your internal desires.

How else can I get these feelings?

What would I have to do or acquire in order to get the same feelings 10x stronger?

What belief do I hold true that says that getting what I want will make me feel this way? Is this a valid belief? Can I have a better belief?

Asking all these questions will help you not only discern what you really, really want and avoid spending time chasing imaginary solutions. But it will also help you to learn about yourself and learn how you can rapidly satisfy the deeper demands that we have as human beings.

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

It’s a sunny afternoon and I’m outside sawing wood to help my parents and other then enjoying the moment all I can think of is analogies to living life and achieving goals.

So here is how sawing wood can help you get the most out of life.

Know what you want and plan to achieve it

When approaching a new tree branch you need to know roughly how long you want to cut it, then you have to pick an exact spot to cut at.

Knowing where to cut is not good enough though, you have to be able to maneuver the branch into a stable position in order for you to saw effectively.

So pick something you want it life, something that excites you. Then narrow it down to what you really want, pick where you will cut into life.

But before you can effectively chase after your goals you have to set up a solid foundation. Learn how to handle your thoughts and emotions, look at your beliefs and know what effects your decisions.

Sometimes you get stuck, just adjust your angle

I’m only an amateur when it comes to sawing so I can’t cut perfectly straight. As such I sometimes get stuck half way through the branch. An effective method seems to be to cut in again from a slightly different angle to the same spot to give you more room to get to the end.

We don’t know the perfect path to take to reach a goal, so we just have to launch into it. Inevitably we will hit obstacles and get stuck. Rather than head-butting the wall continuously sometimes we just need to take a step back and re-think our approach.

Is this the only way to reach my goal? What constraints am I unconsciously imposing on myself? Whose assistance can I call upon who has been through this before?

Take massive persistent action

There is only one way to get through a piece of wood and that is by cutting it. In the beginning it is a big task, but all it requires is for you to stick with it and persist.

Our big goals in life require you to work on them each day. Sometimes its seems like you are so far away from the goal that you are not sure if you have even made a dint yet, but at times like these you just have to persist.

Over time the branch will splinter and break and nothing will be able to hold you back.