Choose Archives - Signy Wilson: Get Inspired, Get Real

Rest Stop #2: France

Ok, let’s be honest. France wasn’t really a rest stop. But it was the catalyst for my month of exploration and rejuvenation, because I was asked to give a keynote for Capgemini. And of course I said yes!

The location and the event space itself was beautiful. And it’s only one of the things that blew me away about Capgemini … that they’ve created this amazing learning space for people. Talk about a commitment to doing things differently and calling people forth to the next level of leadership! I felt very privileged and honoured to be invited to do this speech and to get to speak to their high-potential leaders.

Rest Stop 2 France

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Rest Stop #1: Iceland

Some of you may know that I recently took a break to travel to Europe. Since my Dad passed away last year I’ve had a really difficult time working my way through my grief. One of the goals I set after he died was to travel more. And I realized that it’s been about 10 years or more since I really took a proper rest. Needless to say I was SO excited when my work presented an opportunity for me to travel to France and deliver a keynote session for Capgemini.

Of course I had to say yes! And I had to make the most of the opportunity. So I blocked off my calendar for an entire month (yes, really!), left my laptop at home (GASP!) and set off.

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3 Steps to Growing Your Heart’s Desire

In many ways this is the new year. Spring, a new start. Astrologically we are back at the beginning with Aries. One of the two days when the day and the night are equal. It is a special time, filled with magic, if we want to tap into it. What we plant now (literally and figuratively) will grow for the next 6 months. it will start as what seems like a small inconsequential thing, but will blossom, bloom, mature, ripen, and become what it was always supposed to be, it’s magnificent self. So I ask you again … what do you want to create, to intend, to draw into your life? Which of your heart’s desires do you want to grow?

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How to Clarify Your Dreams for 2016

If you read last week’s blog, what I’m about to say is going to make more sense (and if you haven’t, go back and read it, cuz I’d love for this to make sense for you).

So you’ve read last week’s blog, you’ve gone within yourself to reflect, done all that work, and come up with this big list. These things you want to tackle and accomplish in 2016. These are things that you are excited about (and if something doesn’t leave you feeling that way, take it off the list right now! No “shoulds” allowed here. This is for you and your real heart). These items on your list need to be meaningful for you, give you a sense of passion and purpose, and fit into that sweet spot. And so if they do that, and the list is big (which is what I hope for you), you are going to be left with the question: Now what?Read More >>>

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CHOOSE Your Legacy

When we’re looking at choose, as it relates to legacy, I think there’s a lot of people that think legacy is just something that happens to you. When you look back at your life, you think “huh, what impact did I have? ” but like everything else, it’s something that you can get conscious about and make choices around. In other words, don’t let your legacy happen to you. CHOOSE your legacy!

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Get Out of Neutral – Choose Gratitude!

You always have the option to choose in or out, including with gratitude. So, are you choosing gratitude? Like really choosing it, not default, sometimes, maybe if you remember to.

You see, not being in active gratitude is the same as non-gratitude. But non-gratitude, that ostensibly neutral place is actually going to create, at best, a mediocre life!

Let me explain.Read More >>>

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Choose the Life You Want. Choose Action!

If you want to have the amazing fulfilling life of your dreams, you need to participate. You need to choose to get into action. It’s a simple fact, yet so many of us struggle with just how to manage this!

It’s so easy to just sit, hope, wonder and wait for the life of your dreams. But if you want your life to be different, you have to make it different! Just like everything else, it’s a choice.Read More >>>

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Choosing Joy (and blueberries)

In the process of writing the joy posts for this month I was looking through my old Team Signý blog from my early days as a cancer survivor. I came across this post on joy dated February 1^st, 2006 and well, it’s relevant as ever today! So here’s a little blast from the blogging past for ya…

The day I went to see the surgeon, I also had an appointment with my Physiotherapist. She is really more of an energy healer than at PT, but that is why I like her so much! So naturally, she has a few things to weight in on about health issues.

Not a surprise to either of us, she reported that I don’t have anything that feels anything like cancer. Ok, good. So, what else? She said she saw it like a “Do over”. You know, what ever the things that I had managed to forget, that apparently were really important for me to remember, I get to go back and start again, wipe the slate clean and really get it, at an even deeper level this time. Cool! We never did “Do overs” when I was a kid.

So what was this really important thing that I forgot, I wondered. Causing poor Bev (PT) to stand there with her mouth hanging open. “You need to stop, you need to stop, you need to stop doing the things you are doing!!! You know the things that are sucking the life out of you! WAKE UP! Where have you been?” (yes, she really does talk to me like that, God I love people that aren’t intimidated by me).

“Oh yeah, that. OH YEAH, THAT! Oh my god, how do I stop, how do I learn to stop, how do I know when to stop”, I said, hitting my panic botton at the same time. “I know what you mean, there is a line, a line I cross, but I don’t know what the line is, I don’t know how to recognize it. HOW WILL I RECOGNIZE IT!!!!” (now you can see why is it so important for me to feel my feelings regularly, otherwise they get channeled into unhealthy expressions).

She didn’t need to slap me across the face, all she did was, in a quiet little voice, a bit like a 5 year old’s, say “joy”. What do you mean? (now more loudly and forcefully) “Joy.” “Joy, that’s the line you can’t cross.”. Now it was my turn, mouth open, eyes incredulous. Joy, yes, yes it is joy. I totally got it. It all made sense. When I choose people pleasing over joy, when I choose good ideas, or strategic plans, or doing it right or expectations of others or ought to’s over joy, over fun, over my heart, over what makes me happy and sing and dance (which, by the way, brings me joy – that is some help I need, take me dancing!!!). When I do that, it doesn’t work! What doesn’t work? My life doesn’t work, my whole life, I shrivel up, I forget who Signý is, I stop seeing myself as precious and important. No, no, no. From now on… NO MORE.

I CHOOSE JOY!!!

Now, how do I actually live that? Well, we shall see, and I shall keep you updated. But so far so good.

Fast forward to now. Joy may well be part of the gift I’m bringing to the world, but that doesn’t mean it comes easily in every situation. I choose joy and it’s a choice I make every day.

Okay over to you:

When have you been reminded to choose joy? What was that process like for you? I’d love to hear from you! Leave a comment below.

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Choose Ease

As always, the thing about ease is that we have to choose it. And choosing can be tough because there’s no prescribed list of “This will be easy for me so I’ll do it.” You’ve got to do the work (in an easy way of course) to find out what is right, and easiest for you so that your best self can shine through.

Nobody else can know what is easy for you, but you.

No one else can know what creates a weight on your heart. It is such an inside job to choose ease. Only you can get yourself to your natural sweet spot.

And it isn’t always emotionally easy to choose the path of ease either. Sometimes to choose the path of ease means disappointing or upsetting the people around us who have different agendas for us.

Right now, for me, ease is about saying “no” to things. Not just “no” to more tasks, but anything that doesn’t have the feeling of ease when I think or talk about it. If anything feels heavy and hard or like I’d have to push it over the hill, I’m just saying no. I’m just stopping.

In a work context, often when we do certain tasks and accept certain jobs that aren’t in alignment with who we really are, we’re not working in our strengths. That is just taking ourselves further away from ease and creates a situation where we are stuck choosing struggle because we signed up for it before we realized what we are doing. (Why?!? Why oh why do we do this to ourselves?). Over time we can come to realize what will eventually lead to struggle and say NO to it when it first rears it’s ugly head. Read More >>>

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3 Areas to Look for Connection

It’s interesting because when I think about our lives in terms of connection, there seems to be a common (mis)understanding that connection happens to us. Like it’s something that is somehow externally created or driven. We make the assumption that because someone grows up in a close-knit community, connection (at least with that community) is easy. Connection is easy, like they learned how to do it, and they already have their connections, all sewn up. Or if they have a close-knit family, same thing… connection is easy. If they attended the same school for a long time, connection is easy. And if you don’t have any of those structures, connection is hard, if not impossible for you…

But we don’t realize how much connection is a choice and that we actually have to make ourselves open to it! (Yes, this is the ‘Choose Connection’ post, how did you guess?!?)

When I look at choosing connection it is about opening our hearts, and that can be hard and scary for people, especially if they’ve been hurt (in love relationships, in friendships, or by people who were supposed to be trustworthy). Connection is still a choice, even for them. Sure, there is a likely a first step of mending their heart, but it’s such a worthy step!

Connection is a choice! Read More >>>