Hi! Thank you for joining me on Best Ever You!
I'm on a mission to raise awareness - to inspire you to embrace the inner love, gifts, and talents that create the essence of who you really are - and to challenge you to share this uniqueness with the world. Best Ever You is a safe place to discover, or re-discover your authentic, best self - to create a vision and practice that vision, to really live - where each moment in your life matters. My goal is assist you to connect with your true self, to others around you, and to the world as a whole, in peace - for peace.Your highest-best-self and best-life mean making a commitment to yourself to become healthy in all ways - mentally, physically, spiritually, financially and emotionally.
"How do I...?" is the question I get asked the most.
With that said, these are five action steps you can take to help yourself be your best or be better. There are also two audio versions of this as coaching sessions here
Short version(15 min) 5 Actions with Elizabeth Hamilton-Guarino on Best Ever You
Long version (47 min) 5 Actions with Elizabeth Hamilton-Guarino on Best Ever You.
Both audio files walk listeners through 5 action-techniques and mindset strategies you can take and immediately apply to your life.
These five actions will change your life.
1. Practice Personal Compliance:
Compliance is one of my favorite words. Much of my life has been spent in the financial services industry in the field of regulatory compliance. I am also married to a Chief Compliance Officer. These experiences helped me develop coaching techniques to help others practice personal compliance. We live in a very busy society where it can be very easy to lose our way. We also might not have parents, family, friends or others who guide us in this manner. At times it becomes necessary to formulate our own rules we wish to live by. If we stop, pause and implement a value, goal, belief and/or behavior systems, we can be learn and practice to accept and take responsibility for ourselves in all areas.
From substance control to exercise to setting goals, to establishing boundaries for ourselves and others, we practice personal compliance.
Personal compliance practices are used by you nearly every day whether you realize it or not, however you know it when you cross the lines you have established for yourself or you wish to create new guidance systems.
Goal setting is one of the biggest areas I focus on personally and professionally myself and with others on Best Ever You. Setting goals requires not only thinking of the goals, but also aligning them, writing them down and then I also recommend sharing them verbally with 1 or more people, and then evaluating and perhaps adjusting the action steps required to meet or exceed the goals.
Stop, pause, think and develop your personal compliance program.
2. Be Consciously Ambitious:
Many of us spend a lot of time in achieve, achieve, achieve mode. We are driven to succeed. We are ambitious. But are we consciously ambitious? It's one thing to go after something, particularly a goal, but it's another to go after it with conscious ambition. That doesn't mean you aren't more driven than the next person. However, it can mean you aren't going to trample over everyone and everything in you path to get what you want. It does mean going about whatever it is that motivates and drives you with mindfulness, motivation, inspiration and gratitude.
Sustained world-class levels have mindful in mind, not trampling. There are some things you just can't quite put your finger on. It's that certain something that demonstrates excellence. It's a way a person carries themselves or a quality that can't be measured. Yet, the best of the best pay attention to those things that may matter most. How you treat people and yourself may be how you are remembered more than any skill, action, award, event or more. The 5 intangibles are listed below:
Stop, pause and think about your own ambition and how it inspires others.
3. Propel One Daily
The concept of Propel One Daily ties closely into steps 1-2. For years now, even on days when I am not feeling my best, I will do one thing that propels me forward. Our son and New Haven lefty pitcher, Cam Guarino, says, " Find something that sparks your heart. Find something that shows your true self, let it become your passion and pass it along to all that are willing to hear or follow you." He added, "With goals and this, do one thing right everyday. Small steps move you ahead. When you do the small things right, things fall into place. The fundamentals are key."
So whether you propel one daily through a journal entry, a contact, phone call, meditation, smile, an action step in one of your goals or more, it's important to take action in the right way to propel you in the direction of your goals and dreams.
It's also very important to not do everything all at once, hence the term one thing daily. For many, it could be rephrased to "at least one thing daily" however, one thing is done the right way each day, sets the stage for success and put the right foundation in place.
Stop, pause and think about one thing you can do daily to implement your goals.
4. Be a Life-Long Learner:
We are always competing. However, you are only in competition with yourself in reality. To a team you bring yourself.... To a place, you bring yourself..... To yourself, you bring yourself. It's your choice.
I often use the terms "Open-minded, approachable and coachable". This is whether you are in a sport, in business, a young person, old person or in between. It applies, in my opinion, to everyone. If you go around thinking you already know it, know how to do it and are closed, you ignore 100% of the people who already have the flight path down. It closes down the ability for those folks to recognize the brilliance they may see in you and help you succeed. Sometimes it's best to listen and learn and allow others to help you. When you have a learner's mindset, it clears a path for infinite possibilities. It also enables you to share and mentor when it is your time.
Stop, pause and think about learning. Think about how you best learn, how you interact with others and how you can also mentor another.
5. Be Community-Minded:
It's easy to jump on a season of giving and the reality is this type of mindfulness is needed moment to moment in all communities in all areas of the world and starts in your own home and family, workplace, school and more. We are all part of something much larger than ourselves. The energy we put out into the universe matters. Often it isn't a check we write, but rather the time, attention and energy we spend. Often the youngest in our communities pave the way.
Quaid Guarino, our youngest son and 2019 Senior at Falmouth High School in Maine has created a community-minded project for his senior graduation project. It's called The Percolate Project. He says, "For my senior project I am launching the #percolateproject. Please help share the word and spread it to your community! Our goal is to have 10,000 "acts of kindness" shared with others! Please read more and join the wave of kindness at PercolateProject.com" Gary Kobat and I are serving as mentors to Quaid on his project and welcome your involvement!
Change starts with you.
Stop, Pause and think about your community and your impact. There is always someone who needs you.
Please share your comments with us on this blog. We'd love to hear from you!
NOTES:
Elizabeth's Notes:
I wanted to write an article for you that you can come back to all year and all life long. I also consulted with our sons to write this:
Cam Guarino, 19, our son who is a student-athlete left-handed pitcher at New Haven in CT. He was particularly helpful adding his thoughts to the 3rd action step as well as providing his overall thoughts and edits to this. Thanks Cam!!
I also consulted with our youngest son, Quaid Guarino, 17, to chat about community and hear his thoughts on the importance of giving back.
About Elizabeth Hamilton-Guarino:
Elizabeth Hamilton Guarino is a mom of four, bestselling author, business consultant, entrepreneur and a recognized leader in personal development and optimal mindset strategies. For more than 20 years, she’s been teaching entrepreneurs, educators, businesses, corporate leaders, and people from all walks of life how to illuminate their light within and help them reach their highest, best potential.
Elizabeth is the CEO and Founder of The Best Ever You Network and author of Percolate - Let Your Best Self Filter Through (Hay House / Random House 2014)
Elizabeth graduated with honors from St. Ambrose in Davenport, Iowa. She also holds several certificates in Business Leadership and Project Management from St. Thomas University in Minneapolis, MN and is also a Certified Professional Life Coach and certified Food Over Medicine instructor.
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