SigmaU Blog

Fuel is damn expensive these days and keeping our tanks full is costly, but it's necessary to get around.

Consider for a moment, another type of fuel tank and that's your mind.

Our minds are beautiful, malleable, intricate, and powerful tools we can use to reach enormous heights.

The challenge is, we often shrink back from trying to chase our goals and dreams because we don't control our thinking.

Here's where the power lies! Consider your mind to have two separate fuel tanks side by side to form one large tank that keeps us motoring.

One side, will feed us negative thoughts. We will see the bad in all things. The weather is too cold, the relationship is meh, the business opportunities mediocre. And when we add fuel to this tank it works very efficiently to keep pumping us with evidence to support all the negativity we see.  A full negativity tank will tell us every reason why we are selfish for wanting more, don't have the time or we're unworthy of investing in our personal...

Things aren’t always as they appear. We know that our minds can play tricks on us. Just think about some of the shapes you’ve seen in the dark! Things that appear to be wild creatures turn out to be shrubs or bushes.  Things that seemed scary turn out to be nothing at all, but if we’re not careful, they can derail our success!

Recently, I vacationed in Costa Rica.  While I was there, I was determined to stick to my fitness routine.  The very first day, things started great. I did my run and then went over to the bench and started picking up my weights.  I was shocked to discover I couldn’t pick up a 20lb weight, something I had done merely 24 hours prior.

I was frustrated, bummed, and lost my motivation. Could it be because I’m closer to the equator? The magnetic pull?  The 32-degree weather? What the heck was going on?  I went down in weights and used a much lower dumbbell; 8lbs in fact. I couldn’t believe it. ...

If you’ve never worked with a coach, I promise you, the return is tenfold! Coaching brings a new sense of self awareness.  A coach is an objective partner that will teach you the necessary skills to achieve self-mastery, and provide a gentle nudge of encouragement on your journey to success.  Here are some of the ways coaching has helped me recently…

1.  Stay on track with positive habits

Sometimes, we don’t realize that we’ve slipped up or fallen back in to old patterns until someone holds up a mirror for us. This happened recently while I was working with my coach. The topic we were covering that day was presence.  The deeper we got in to the conversation, the more I realized that I had completely slipped back in to an old pattern that wasn’t serving me! I was checking email first thing in the morning in bed, during lunch and after hours. I was back to having an umbilical cord relationship with my phone and I had stopped separating...

My coach, Paul, served as a US Mustang Marine in Afghanistan in 2013 and he often weaves valuable insights from his training and service into our coaching sessions.

One thing we discussed recently was reacting when we’re “triggered” and how to slow things downs so that you take aligned courageous action.

In the past, I would say I’m your poster child of a trigger happy individual. I typically ask forgiveness and rarely request permission so slowing things down to pause when I’m upset is still definitely an area of growth for me.

As I was reflecting on my most recent session with Paul, I came up with the following checklist to ensure that I PAUSE before pouncing!

P – Perspective

Am I looking at different perspectives or am I only exposing myself to one narrative? This can be incredibly challenging, especially when we’re passionate about a topic, but it’s critical. We need to look at issues and challenges from others’ points of...