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Welcome back to the Remodel Your Reality Challenge! The truth you hold about people governs your interaction with them. Do you believe people are kind, or do you think they’ll hurt you? Do you have specific beliefs about men, women, or people of a certain race or culture?

The authenticity within you knows that people do the best they can with what they know. She believes in the goodness and equality of people and knows we’re all connected and looking for the same things in life—love, acceptance, fulfillment, meaning, comfort, and a sense of purpose.

However, there is another part of you, based in fear, that distrusts people’s motives and encourages you to protect yourself from getting too close to others. She causes you to question those who look or think differently from you and invites you to separate yourself from others, focusing on your differences rather than your commonality.

One Thing To Think About
When you believe in the goodness of people, you open yourself to true intimacy. When you allow fear to reside over your beliefs, you’ll likely invest your emotional energy in protecting yourself. It’s very difficult to develop and nurture a genuine bond when part of you is posturing for safety. Ultimately, this undermines your ability to meet your need for connection and leads to feelings of isolation and loneliness.

One Question To Answer
Which of these two influences – trust or distrust of other people – will you allow to dictate your reality?

One Challenge To Take

1. Identify one empowering belief you have about people.
2. How has that belief served you in your life and work?
3. Now, identify one disempowering belief you have about people.
4. For each belief, ask yourself the following:

• Identify it – Write the belief down.
• Define it – What is supporting this belief? What experiences are you using to prove the belief?
• Disprove it – Are your proof points really valid? What else could they mean?
• Shift it – How could you improve upon this need, so that it serves you? What proof points could you use to support it?

Until next time, take care!
Kim

Welcome back to the Remodel Your Reality Challenge! Do you believe you’re a good person, or are you unsure of yourself? Are you willing to be authentic in your interactions with others, expecting to be accepted, or do you believe you’re flawed in some way? Do you see yourself as intelligent and capable, and confident that you can accomplish the goals you set out to achieve? Or do you doubt your ability to impact your life, making changes once you commit to something?

Your self-beliefs dictate what you will attempt and how fully you’ll allow yourself to participate in life. They govern how much love you will allow yourself to receive and the quality of connection you’re able to establish with others. A conviction in your own goodness and capacity for accomplishment acts as a grounding foundation for your existence, allowing you to pursue your dreams and create rich relationships. Conversely, buying into beliefs that you’re not smart enough, not capable enough, or flawed in some way undermines your ability to stand strong in your being.

One Thing To Think About
When you believe there is something wrong with you, your energy will be invested in hiding this truth. You’ll live in fear, not joy. You’ll avoid getting close to others, because you’ll fear their reaction once they get to know the real you, and you’ll avoid pursuing your dreams out of a secret fear that you’ll fail and be found out for the fraud you fear you are.

You must establish a solid belief in your goodness, deservingness, and competence in order to stand strong in life. As you make the investment in developing and nurturing empowering self-beliefs, you will experience a new vitality, which you can then channel into creating success, happiness, and fulfillment.

One Question To Answer
What do you believe about yourself? Are you competent? Are you a good person who deserves great things? What do you fear about yourself? Where are you holding yourself back? Where might you need to shift your beliefs?

One Challenge To Take

1. Identify one empowering belief you have about yourself.
2. How has that belief served you in your life and work?
3. Now, identify one disempowering belief you have about yourself.
4. For each belief, ask yourself the following:

• Identify it – Write the belief down.
• Define it – What is supporting this belief? What experiences are you using to prove the belief?
• Disprove it – Are your proof points really valid? What else could they mean?
• Shift it – How could you improve upon this need, so that it serves you? What proof points could you use to support it?

Until next time, take care!
Kim

Welcome back to the Remodel Your Reality Challenge! What do you believe about life? Is it a game, meant to be played and enjoyed? Is it a school, ripe with opportunity for learning? Is it a struggle, filled with hardships and strife? Whatever you believe will dictate the way you approach and experience every day of your existence.

For example, someone who believes that life is a precious gift that should be lived to its fullest will see and experience a vastly different reality than someone who believes life is filled with suffering and is to be endured rather than enjoyed – even if they have the same background, opportunities and options.

One Thing To Think About
While you may not have the ability to control all the circumstances of your life, you are solely responsible for managing what things mean to you. You can choose to empower yourself with positive messages, looking for the good in each day, or you can invest yourself in a defeatist attitude. Whatever you choose to believe, you will be right—because your beliefs become your reality.

One Question To Answer
How long has it been since you’ve stopped to consider what being alive means to you? Which of your life beliefs limits you? Which opens your world up to possibility? Where might you need to make a shift?

One Challenge To Take

1. Identify one empowering belief you have about life.
2. How has that belief served you in your life and work?
3. Now, identify one disempowering belief you have about life.
4. For each belief, ask yourself the following:

• Identify it – Write the belief down.
• Define it – What is supporting this belief? What experiences are you using to prove the belief?
• Disprove it – Are your proof points really valid? What else could they mean?
• Shift it – How could you improve upon this need, so that it serves you? What proof points could you use to support it?

Until next time, take care!
Kim

Welcome back to the Remodel Your Reality Challenge! Today, we’re going to move past what you need and talk about what you believe and how that can affect your life. A belief is a firmly held opinion. While your needs drive your behavior, your beliefs color your world. They dictate how you assign meaning and govern your expectations, either limiting or expanding your life possibilities. Ultimately, they define what you hold as truth, which significantly impacts your behavior and your emotional wellness.

There are five belief categories that factor into life satisfaction that we will discuss over the next few weeks: life, self, people, love, and abundance. I invite you to consider each of these areas and identify places where your beliefs could become more powerful.

One Thing To Think About
Like the strategies you use to satisfy your needs, your beliefs form throughout your life. You learn from every interaction with family, authority figures, classmates, co-workers, and society. Once the seed of a belief is planted, your brain collects life experiences to back it up, forming an intellectual repository of proof. This cycle is critical to evaluate. What you hold as true becomes your reality. Empowering beliefs support your ability to create and appreciate a high quality of life. They help you see possibility and cause you to expect good things to happen. Their negative counterparts, on the other hand, will almost assuredly limit your life experience, causing you to expect the worst and invest your energy in fear.

One Question To Answer
Your beliefs are firmly held opinions that dictate how you assign meaning to your life experiences. Beliefs about life, self, people, love, and abundance color your day-to-day reality, either limiting or expanding your world.

Where have you found beliefs limiting you in the past? Where have beliefs empowered you? What strategies have you used previously to strengthen positive beliefs and diminish negative ones?

One Challenge To Take

Over the next week, take a few moments from time to time to step back from whatever you’re doing and think about the beliefs that are involved in this situation.

1. Think about the situation at hand – what are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who else is involved?

2. Ask, “What beliefs do I have about the situation in general? What do I believe about myself and others in this situation?”

3. See if you can determine where those beliefs came from, and whether they are positive (empowering), negative (disempowering) or neutral.

What you hold as truth becomes your reality. Don’t place limits on your success or hold yourself back from your dreams. Instead, use the power of your beliefs to support you in the pursuit of fulfilling work and a happy life.

Until next time, take care!
Kim

Welcome back to the Remodel Your Reality Challenge!  There are five primary needs that everyone has in common: The need for security, the need for connection, the need to be autonomous, the need to feel competent, and the need to feel worthy. Each of these needs is a core part of human nature. Today we will address the final need, the need to feel worthy.

I believe the need to feel worthy is the most predominantly debilitating requirement in today’s society. It is also the desire that is least often addressed or satisfied.

One Thing To Think About
It’s probable you encountered conditional acceptance as a child. As you matured, you learned that you would be accepted if you followed the rules of those you sought acceptance from. When you were accepted by the people in each of these environments, you learned that you were okay. Each time you experienced rejection or were punished, you learned that a part of you was not acceptable. This process taught you that you were only conditionally worthy. If you received enough of these messages throughout your life, which is quite common, your belief in your deservingness likely needs to be improved upon.

In reality, you are perfect, just as you are. Every situation you’ve lived through has made you the person you are today, and there is purpose to your experience. While it’s true there is room for improvement in all of our lives, the most damaging thoughts you can buy into are those that tell you that you’re broken and must fix yourself. That’s just not true. You are not broken and, while we can all benefit from self-improvement and self-care, there is nothing about you that needs to be fixed.

One Question To Answer
I repeat, You are perfect, just as you are. Are you able to accept that statement, or do you resist it? How do you rate your effectiveness at the following worth-building activities?

• Invest in Self-Care. The best thing you can do for your family, friends, colleagues, and community is take great care of you. When you are at your best, you can give your best. When you invest in taking great care of yourself, you show your mind, body, heart, and soul how valuable you are. This directly meets your need to feel worthy.
• Live Up to Your Potential. Your potential is limitless. You can make contributions to this world that no one else can make. If you don’t make them, the world will never see them. The more fully you allow yourself to come into your own, the more fully your need to feel worthy will be met.
• Speak Up for Yourself. The manner in which you allow others to interact with you directly impacts your feelings of worth and deservingness. Require that others speak to you with respect. In instances when you encounter someone who is not treating you appropriately, let him or her know that you’re not okay with his or her behavior. Every time you stand up for yourself, you’re meeting your need for worthiness.
• Keep the Commitments You Make to Yourself. Your feelings of worth are directly affected by your level of self-trust. You must have the ability to rely on your own word, or you will constantly question your own value and deservingness. Every time you meet a commitment to yourself, you increase your feelings of worth and deservingness. Every time you fail to meet a commitment, you undermine these very needs.

One Challenge To Take

1. Define the method you’ve adopted to satisfy your need for competence.

2. Identify at least one empowering and one disempowering behavior related to this need.

3. Consider how you might make the disempowering strategy more positive. How could you shift your approach while still meeting your need?

4. Commit to integrating this improvement into your life.

Until next time, take care!
Kim

Welcome back to the Remodel Your Reality Challenge!  There are five primary needs that everyone has in common: The need for security, the need for connection, the need to be autonomous, the need to feel competent, and the need to feel worthy. Each of these needs is a core part of human nature. Today we’re talking about the need to feel competent.

The requirement of competence combines the need to believe in yourself with the desire to have others believe in you. You must believe that you are capable of producing the results you want in your life and work, and it’s important that you feel those around you share your belief.

One Thing To Think About
Your ability to feel personally competent is impacted by the knowledge you possess and the success you’ve experienced. Knowing how to do something provides you with a sense of certainty about the process you must follow to accomplish the task at hand. This allows you to feel confident.

It is natural to seek external validation from those around you. In fact, your need to receive recognition from others can be a powerfully motivating factor that contributes to your success in life. Typically, the strategies you’ve developed to meet your need for this external validation will be closely (if not directly) related to the behaviors you’ve been repeatedly acknowledged for throughout your life. For example, if you’ve been given attention for your intellect, it is likely you’ll work very hard to learn and demonstrate what you know. If you were reinforced for your attractiveness, you’ll focus on your beauty. If others recognized you for your humor, you will move heaven and earth to be funny.

As you can imagine, the need to be competent has a profound effect on your personality and your quality of life. It’s important to consciously connect with the tactics you use to meet this need, and even more imperative that you ensure they are empowering you.

One Question To Answer
Ask yourself, how am I furthering my need for competence in the following areas?

• Embracing Knowledge. The more you know about the topic at hand, the more confident you will feel. Invest yourself in learning. Commit yourself to continually expanding your knowledge in areas that interest you and be willing to do some research before you go into new situations.
• Actively Accomplishing. You have a lot to contribute to this world. You possess talents and strengths that are unique to you. Nurture and apply these attributes! Shrinking from hard work, hesitating to make a focused effort, and failing to apply yourself breed self-contempt. When you clearly decide what you want to accomplish and you begin to take action toward the achievement of those goals, your self-confidence will go up exponentially.
• Focusing on Progress. Keep your eye on the progress ball. Give yourself credit for the steps you’re taking and the progress you’re making. Don’t beat yourself up when a bump in the road knocks you down. The habit of focusing on progress will continually fill your experience bank with positive references, which will support your need to feel competent.
• Embracing Recognition. It is natural to crave acknowledgement, appreciation, and validation. We all want to be noticed for our accomplishments and contributions. When someone gives you a compliment, don’t just accept it—take it to heart! Allow the full weight of the person’s praise to permeate your head and your heart. Then smile, and say thank you.

One Challenge To Take

1. Define the method you’ve adopted to satisfy your need for competence.

2. Identify at least one empowering and one disempowering behavior related to this need.

3. Consider how you might make the disempowering strategy more positive. How could you shift your approach while still meeting your need?

4. Commit to integrating this improvement into your life.

Until next time, take care!
Kim

Welcome back to the Remodel Your Reality Challenge! There are five primary needs that everyone has in common: The need for security, the need for connection, the need to be autonomous, the need to feel competent, and the need to feel worthy. Each of these needs is a core part of human nature. Today, let’s talk about the need to be autonomous.

One Thing To Think About
Your need for autonomy requires that you feel free to self-govern. When you have the power to act and speak freely, your sense of independence and spontaneity increases. Essentially, you must feel that your life is one of your choosing. You must believe that you have the ability to make decisions for yourself, to make your own plans, and to adjust your life direction should you decide to.

The need for autonomy can be satisfied in a number of highly productive ways. Invariably, small business owners have a strong need for autonomy. They address this desire by moving in an entrepreneurial direction and create a great deal of value in the process. Conversely, a less productive strategy for meeting this need could involve a resistance to commitment, which greatly hinders life and work progression.

Here are three ways in which you meet your need for autonomy.

• Own the Truth of Choice. You are always free to choose. You have to do very little in your life. Granted, there may be repercussions associated with not taking certain actions, such as going to work or paying your bills, and it’s a fact of life that things may happen to you that you have no control over. Still, you choose how you’ll deal with whatever situation you find yourself in.
• Maintain Independence. When you are independent, you are self-governing. You assume responsibility for your life and your choices. This doesn’t mean that you won’t develop interdependent relationships with others. But it does mean that you will assume responsibility to manage your life and work and that you will engage with others out of a genuine desire to connect versus a desperation to be rescued.
• Commit Consciously. Many of your most amazing life experiences will come about as a result of your willingness to make a commitment. Carefully considered and consciously made commitments will support you in living your best life. Conversely, hastily made commitments can significantly diminish your ability to feel free.

One Question To Answer
In which of these ways are you meeting your need for autonomy, and in which of these ways are you not meeting your needs or meeting them through unproductive or negative strategies?

One Challenge To Take

1. Define the method you’ve adopted to satisfy your need for autonomy.

2. Identify at least one empowering and one disempowering behavior related to this need.

3. Consider how you might make the disempowering strategy more positive. How could you shift your approach while still meeting your need?

4. Commit to integrating this improvement into your life.

Until next time, take care!
Kim

Welcome back to the Remodel Your Reality Challenge!  There are five primary needs that everyone has in common: The need for security, the need for connection, the need to be autonomous, the need to feel competent, and the need to feel worthy. Each of these needs is a core part of human nature. Today’s post is going to focus on the need for connection.

Your need for connection manifests itself as a need to experience a sense of relatedness, to belong to a community, or to experience intimacy with another person. At its root, this drive dates back to our tribal ancestors. In tribal terms, your very survival depended upon your inclusion in the group. Tribal members ate, slept, and received protection as a result of being part of a unified structure. Rejection by the clan was equivalent to death.

One Thing To Think About
The need for connection can manifest in a number of different ways, including the need to include and be included, the need to love and be loved, the need to accept and be accepted, and the need to create a sense of community. When your need for belonging and connection is satisfied, you will feel an incredible sense of well-being.

One Question To Answer
What makes you feel connected? How are you currently meeting that need? Is there room for you to improve upon your current methods? Consider how you might enhance your current approach and enjoy an even greater sense of relatedness.

One Challenge To Take

1. Define the method you’ve adopted to satisfy your need for connectedness.

2. Identify at least one empowering and one disempowering behavior related to this need.

3. Consider how you might make the disempowering strategy more positive. How could you shift your approach while still meeting your need?

4. Commit to integrating this improvement into your life.

Until next time, take care!
Kim

What would be possible if you intentionally crafted and nurtured the life you want to live instead of leaving things to chance?

About the Expert:
Kim is the CEO and founder of My Life Compass.com. She is a sought after speaker and author of “Remodel Your Reality: Seven Steps to Rebalance Your Life and Reclaim Your Passion,” along with dozens of eBooks and advice columns.

Welcome back to the Remodel Your Reality Challenge!  There are five primary needs that everyone has in common: The need for security, the need for connection, the need to be autonomous, the need to feel competent, and the need to feel worthy. Each of these needs is a core part of human nature. Today, we will address the need for security.

Your need for security is based on survival and is your most primal requirement. This category includes both the need to meet your physiological requirements and the desire to preserve your safety.

Physiological needs include food, shelter, water, elimination, and sleep. These are the inherent requirements of biological survival. You must nourish and hydrate yourself, you need housing, you must make time for sleep, and your body must remove waste from your system. In essence, you must address the needs of your body before you’re able to address the needs of your emotion or intellect.

Related to your need to take care of your body is your need to protect it. While fundamentally rooted in your desire to protect your physical safety, this requirement also includes the need to preserve your emotional, intellectual, and material safety.

One Thing To Think About
If your need for safety is not satisfied, whether the threat you perceive is real or imagined, you will live in dedication to creating the security you seek. Your energy will be invested in protecting yourself. You will not seek out new opportunity, you will not engage with activities you associate with risk, you will avoid change, and you will live in a defensive state. This is not the way to live into your capacity, yet it’s how many people live.

If you don’t consciously decide how you’re going to meet your need for safety, your unconscious patterns will do the job for you. More often than not, this will result in a life of limitation, fear, and worry. You deserve better than that!

One Question To Answer
Did you know that your brain cannot distinguish between real and imagined threats? When you focus on what you fear might happen, your brain deals with the scenario you’re worried about as if it is actually happening. Your body moves into fight-or-flight mode and you have difficulty focusing on anything other than the perceived threat.

Where is this happening in your life? Are you worried about money? Your own physical safety or health? What about your kids? Anywhere you feel insecure or worried is a target for the following exercise.

One Challenge To Take

1. Define the method you’ve adopted to satisfy your need for security.
2. Identify at least one empowering and one disempowering behavior related to this need.
3. Consider how you might make the disempowering strategy more positive. How could you shift your approach while still meeting your need?
4. Commit to integrating this improvement into your life.

Until next time, take care!

Kim