Personal Development – Angela Aja

October 18, 2020

Are You Living on Mute? Unmute Yourself!

If you’ve been on a Zoom call, lately, you have probably experienced the same thing more than once…someone is talking away but they are still on mute. Everyone in the group is yelling the same thing to them, “You’re on mute! Unmute yourself!” It’s actually quite comical.

Take it from me…I know what it feels like to live on mute!

Earlier this week, I just watched an episode of Red Table Talk with Jada Smith, Demi Moore and their girls and how they have all battled with low self-esteem, beating themselves up and even self-loathing.

Low self-esteem, beating yourself up and self-loathing doesn’t care if you’re a famous Malibu millionaire or an a middle-class mom-preneur, business owner, single, married, church-going or not…

Low self-esteem, beating yourself up with negative self-talk and even self-loathing in the form of self-doubt, self-betrayal and self-abandonment puts you on MUTE!

You shrink back, don’t speak up for what you want and silence your voice.

When something is on mute, it is muffled and diminished…

Low self-esteem, beating yourself up and even self-loathing keep you hidden in the shadows of shame and it’s time to step into the light and raise the volume…

Low self-esteem is a mindset that you have the power to change. Beating yourself up is a habit that you have the power to change. Beating yourself up does not make you more humble. Self-loathing is not what you were created to do.

Loving yourself is not selfish…it’s one of the most selfless things you can do. Even the 2nd greatest commandment in the Bible COMMANDS us to love our neighbors as oursleves. You can only love other people to the degree that you love yourself. When you start to speak up, speak kindly to yourself and be your own best advocate, your relationships heal. Life opens up to you in a whole new way.

One of my favorite quotes says, “If you want to find your voice, you have to use it.” (Mic Drop!)

Why do we stay silent? Fear of judgement, feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, just to name a few. The fall-out of these missed opportunites to speak up ends up in self-criticism and even self-admonishment.

You have a voice and your voice matters. When you speak up, it doesn’t drown other people out. Whe you turn up the volume on your voice, it puts others at ease because you communicate clearly and they don’t have to try to figure out what you want.

If you’ve been living on mute, hiding in the shadows of low self-esteem, beating yourself up, or even self-loathing…no matter how successful you are…step into the light and turn up the volume TODAY.

Questions to consider when faced with speaking up or keeping silent:

What do you risk if you speak up?
What do you risk if you stay silent?
What will the world miss out on if I stay silent?
Who will continue to suffer if I don’t speak up?
Whose life will be changed, positivley if I speak up?

Women who lead themselves well speak up.

It it time to rise up!!!!! You have been summoned to soar!

Unmute yourself!

All My Love,

Angela

October 15, 2020

How to Stand in Your Personal Power (Without Power-tripping)

Did you know that you need to feel in control? It is actually good for your emotional well-being. However, when you feel powerless in one area of your life, you will look for another outlet and overcompensate trying to control what you cannot control. This can send you into a spiral of “power-tripping”.

As crazy as it sounds, trying to control everything can actually leave you feeling quite powerless!

I felt powerless over my own life for so many years. I was in the habit of handing my power over to anything, anyone and everyone else so that I didn’t have to take responsibility. Blaming anyone or anything other than yourself feels easier, but only for a short time. Soon, the weight of powerlessness begins to feel like weigh on you like a weight sitting on your chest, squeezing your last breathe out of you.

Feeling powerless left me trying to control things that I had no control over and letting other people control what I should have been controlling. It felt quite maddening.

I got caught in the trap of living as a false version of who I was created to be…a people-pleasing, procrastinating, perfectionist control-freak. YIKES!

I now have a saying that reminds me how to come back to my personal power…

“Whatever you blame, you hand your power over to.”

If you are blaming someone or something then you have no control over the outcome. So…if you want to take back the control of the outcome, take ownership. Take responsibility.

After my divorce, I was stuck blaming my ex-husband for ruining my life. My life coach had the audacity to ask me, “What was your contribution?”

WHAT??? What do you mean, “What was my contribution?” I was the victim here! I was abandoned and betrayed. How dare her attempt to take my vicitmhood away from me…

Well, I decided to sit with that question and I am so glad I did…

I had an “AHA Moment” that day…I could only change what I was willing to acknowledge and own. I was brave enough to examine my contribution instead of blame. Even though I had been treated unfairly, I contributed to the way things were. I realized that I could change my part and change the future.

That AHA MOMENT led to what I do as a life coach. I help women come back home to themselves…their personal power.

(SIDE NOTE: Owning your contribution does not let someone else off of the hook for their actions – you unhook yourself from the power of their actions.)

I was raised in church and “POWER” was kind of a dirty word and here’s why…I think that the reason people get weirded out out about POWER is because of the abuse of power. HOWEVER…the abuse of power is an overcomensation for a LACK of persoanl power and therefore, is actually POWERLESSNESS.

Standing in your personal power IS NOT:
– Being a control freak
– Muscling your way through something
– Bullying people to get your way
– Making others feel powerless

Your personal power IS NOT in your past and it is not in your future. The only place you actually have power is in this present moment.

Standing in your personal power is:
– governing your own thoughts, patterns and emotions
– influencing your own past, present and future
– in the present moment

Feeling powerless makes you feel stuck, keeps you second guessing yourself and keeps you feeling out of control.

Answer these questions to bring you back to a feeling of personal power:

Where, in your life, have you felt powerless?
What do you have control over in your life?
What do you not have control over in your life?
What action can you take in this moment over the things you do have control over?

2 Timothy 1:7 says, “God has not given you a spirit of fear but of love, POWER and a sound mind.”

You have all of the power you need…just stop handing it over…

September 28, 2020

Do You Have Trust Issues?

Do you have trust issues? If you’ve ever said this, you are not alone. So many women that I work with tell me that they have “trust issues.”

What is trust? The word “trust” means a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.

Did you know that the Bible never commands us to trust one another? We were commanded to love one another, but no where are we called to trust one another.

Trusting someone and then being disappointed by their inability to be trusted is one of the things that keeps women stuck. It leads to cynicism and skepticism, which in turn…keeps women from forming deeper connections. A lack of deeper connections is the root cause of feeling alone and unsupported.

Instead of trusting others, I want to propose the idea of trusting yourself. Trust your gut when you notice the “red flags”. Trust your intuition when something feels “off”. Trust yourself when you notice how someone’s actions and words don’t line up.

Why don’t women trust themselves?

Most women that I work with don’t trust themselves because they have made bad choices in their past that led to pain. BUT…when you know better, you do better! The choices you made in your past were a result of what you knew. Your choices do not define you. Your choices are your choices. You can trust yourself.

Listen to your heart. Watch the actions of other people. You can judge their actions without judging their heart.

Many times, women are afraid to judge because they are afraid of coming across as judgemental. Being judgemental is when you judge someone’s heart but watching their actions and paying attention to the evidence of their lives gives you the ability to make better decisions in your relationships.

Did you know that everyone is listening to the same radio station? (Even you…)

Everyone is listening to WII FM (What’s In It For ME?) It’s human nature to look for “what’s in it for me”. If you know THIS going into a situation then it isn’t a shock when you notice someone looking out for their own best interest. It’s when you assume that someone will be looking out for your best interest and then they don’t, you are surprised and feel let down. You no longer trust them.

I once heard a quote, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.”

I like to say that I trust people to be people, I don’t take it personally.

The 2nd greatest commandment says to love your neighbor as yourself. So, you can only love your neighbor as yourself. That means that if someone cannot keep their word to themselves, then it will be impossible for them to keep their word to you.

It’s not personal, it’s principle.

One last thing…if trust is what you see as missing, then be trustworthy. Show up with what you see as missing. Be the change you want to see. Trusting yourself brings the responsibility back home to you. Taking back the responsibilty and trusting yourself brings you back to your personal power.

Whatever you blame, you hand your power over to BUT YOU ARE A POWERFUL CHOOSER!

Trust yourself. Trust your gut. Trust your intuition and trust your judgement.

You are trustworthy!

All My Love,

Angela

September 21, 2020

How to Create Beautiful Boundaries & Borders Without Pushing People Away

Have you ever said to yourself, “I don’t have strong boundaries and that’s why I let people walk all over me!”?

If that’s you, keep reading…

Think about the slogan for Ford, “Built Ford Tough”. We don’t know if they really are tough but they tell us who they are. If someone calls them wimpy, they don’t become wimpy. They’ve already told us who they are so other people cannot define them. By them telling us who they are, it becomes a boundary that protects who they are.

You are the same way! If you don’t know who you are, when someone tries to tell you who you are, you believe them and let them define you.

You MUST go through the process of undefining who you have become as a result of what others have spoken over you, your conditioning and your past.

When you define who you are at your core, it becomes a boundary. (I’ll tak more about this in a minute.)

The women I work with often say they have no boundaries. In an attempt to protect themselves, they put up walls.

I want to give you 7 quick tips to estabilshing healthy boundaries WITHOUT pushing people away:

– Neutralize negative self-talk – You subconciously teach people how to treat you by the way you treat yourself so when you treat yourself better, your self-talk becomes a boundary.

– Don’t be afraid to judge – Women often tell me they don’t want to be judgmental so they don’t trust themselves when they are discerning something. When you are sensing something, get curious. Become a fruit inspector. Judge the fruit of a person’s life, not the person. When someone tells you who they are (by their action) believe them! (This becomes a personal boundary for you.)

– Trust your yourself – Once you have judged the fruit, not the person…trust your gut! Your trust in yourself becomes a boundary.

– Decide what you want – Too many times, women are doing what everyone else wants them to do, be or have. Decide what you really, really, really want without apologizing. Deciding what you want becomes a personal boundary.

– Go after what you want – The only true personal power that you have is in this present moment. Decide what you want and then go after what you want so that you don’t manipulate with your emotions to get what you want. Being responsible for the dreams and desires in your heart and going after what you want becomes a personal boundary.

– Get to know who you at your core – Just like Ford, once you fianlly get to know who you are at your core, then no one can tell you who you are. You will begin to show up in the world as the most authentic version of who you were created to be. Your authenticity becomes a personal border.

– Validate yourself – Don’t wait for someone else to give you permission. Taking a stand for YOU, believing in yourself without needing the approval of someone else becomes a personal boundary.

Here’s the way I think about boundaries…

The problem with putting up boundaries is that most women build brick walls instead of boundaries. While those walls may protect them from rejection or other painful emotions, they also block deep connection and true love.

Instead of boundaries, I think BORDERS. One of my core values is freedom. Too much restriction hinders my creative flow. With that being said, I like to think of myself as a river. A river has embankments which gives the river the ability to harness it’s flow. I like to think of my personal boundaries as borders that enhance my flow instead of restrict my flow.

Another way that I think about my own personal boundaries is in terms of a castle with a moat and a draw bridge. I envision myself as the queen of my kingdom and I am responsible for governing my kingdom well. I choose who to let into my castle and who stays in the outer kingdom. I also choose how long they stay. Just becuase they entered my castle does not mean they have permanent access. (Hello…I am preaching to somebidy right now!)

How does thinking about yourself as a river with embankments change the way you think about personal boundaries?

How does thinking about yourself as the queen of your castle, using your moat and draw bridge to govern your kingdom change the way you think about your own personal boundaries?

Having healthy boundaries will enhance your relationships and explode your confidence!

If you want to talk about how you can get to know who you realy are at your core and establish healthier boundaries, I GOTCH YOU, GIRL! You can set up a time to get some massive clarity HERE!

August 2, 2020

How to Govern Your Life Well With Life Coaching

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What is a Life Coach, Anyway?

Have you ever asked yourself, “What in the world is a Life Coach, anyway?” I get asked this question all of the time.

Over the course of the month, I thought I would back up to the beginning to give you the history of coaching and how it actually became a profession.

The word “coach” first appeared around 1830 and began being used in conjunction with sports. The word “coaching” was borrowed from the “coach” or “stagecoach” which was a vehicle of transportation to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

In the 1970’s, Timothy Galloway wrote a book called The Inner Game of Tennis. The concept of the book was that the game of tennis could be mastered by focusing on your thoughts versus the physical game, itself. The book became a foundation for the development of coaching as we know it today, offering a new idea that success is more of an inner game than an outer game.

Coaching became an actual vocation in the 1990’s.

The latest trend in business is that if you have had a breakthrough in some area, you become a “coach”. I am thrilled that so many have the desire to help people shift but it’s been my experience that “coaching” has become the new buzz word with a misunderstanding about what real coaching is. Many people who call themselves “coaches” today are actually “mentors.”

True coaching comes from the perspective that:

the answers are inside of you because you are the expert on you
the answers are in the questions

Many years ago, I went to Le Cordon Bleu in Austin, Texas to be trained as a French chef. This was one of the exhilarating times of my life. My chef always told me, “Sharp is safe. Dull is dangerous.” Wow! What is we looked at our minds in the same way?

Where you are today is a direct result of what you have been thinking. If you want to go somewhere new, first you must think something new. Your mind is a powerful tool. Paying attention to your thoughts gives you the ability to decide what you will think instead of thinking what you think by default.

Focusing on your inner game impacts your outer game.

What Coaching is NOT

Before you look at what coaching is, take a look at what coaching is not, according to International Coach Federation:

Therapy: Therapy deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or in relationships. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past that hamper an individual’s emotional functioning in the present, improving overall psychological functioning, and dealing with the present in more emotionally healthy ways. Coaching, on the other hand, supports personal and professional growth based on self-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success. Coaching is future focused. While positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one’s work or personal life. The emphases in a coaching relationship are on action, accountability, and follow through.
Consulting: Individuals or organizations retain consultants for their expertise. While consulting approaches vary widely, the assumption is the consultant will diagnose problems and prescribe and, sometimes, implement solutions. With coaching, the assumption is that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own solutions, with the coach supplying supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks.
Mentoring: A mentor is an expert who provides wisdom and guidance based on his or her own experience. Mentoring may include advising, counseling and coaching. The coaching process does not include advising or counseling, and focuses instead on individuals or groups setting and reaching their own objectives.
Training: Training programs are based on objectives set out by the trainer or instructor. Though objectives are clarified in the coaching process, they are set by the individual or team being coached, with guidance provided by the coach. Training also assumes a linear learning path that coincides with an established curriculum. Coaching is less linear without a set curriculum.
Athletic Development: Though sports metaphors are often used, professional coaching is different from sports coaching. The athletic coach is often seen as an expert who guides and directs the behavior of individuals or teams based on his or her greater experience and knowledge. Professional coaches possess these qualities, but their experience and knowledge of the individual or team determines the direction. Additionally, professional coaching, unlike athletic development, does not focus on behaviors that are being executed poorly or incorrectly. Instead, the focus is on identifying opportunity for development based on individual strengths and capabilities.

So, What is True Coaching?

Coaching is not my advice or my opinion, but focuses on setting goals, creating outcomes and managing personal change.
Coaching is a collaborative partnership. Imagine a sacred space where you can feel heard, honored and valued; a safe, judgment-free zone to grow.
Coaching is progressive, dynamic and thought-provoking conversation. It brings clarity to where you currently are, precision to where the dream of your heart longs to take you, what’s standing in your way and builds a bridge between the gaps.
Coaching is about advancing your emotional intelligence, emotional responsibility, emotional resilience and conscious awareness. It is present and future focused.
Coaching brings a person’s potential and performance together to create results so that you can rock your life at a whole other level.
Coaching invites awareness and elicits client-generated solutions and outcomes.
Coaching comes from the perspective that you are a powerful chooser. It assumes that your current situation is the result of your mindset and that you chose your present mindset. The great news about this is that if you chose your current mindset but you do not like the results that you are getting then you can choose a new one.
Coaching delivers a chance to let go of old mental and emotional contracts that you have made with yourself and others and create new agreements. It challenges the old narrative that you have been telling yourself about the way things are so that you can re-script your story.
Coaching presents you with an opportunity to define who you are by just being instead of doing. When you define who you are by what you do then you have to keep on doing it in order to prove who you are. However, if you discover who you are at your core, then what you do becomes a result of who you are. This mind-shift alone will release stress and cause major transformation. It is exhausting trying to prove who you are by what you do. That is what keeps you feeling like you are on the hamster wheel, unable to stop the cycle of a monotonous existence. Coaching is an invitation to be a “human being” vs. a “human doing”. It is an opportunity to let go of who you “should” be and discover who you ARE at your core. Coaching presumes that you were created for more than an ordinary existence. Coaching helps you discover the extraordinary life of impact that you were created for.

Your next level will always become your ceiling. Where you are now was once something you were attaining to achieve. What you have currently been able to achieve will, at some point, become the ceiling that keeps you stuck where you are. By up-leveling your mindsets, you will be able to “raise the roof” on your self-belief ceiling and step up into your next level. It all begins with your mindsets.

Coaching gives you the ability to govern your life well. When you govern your life, you relinquish being the victim of your circumstances. You begin to rule your thoughts instead of being ruled by them. You stand in your queenly anointing and administrate the daily affairs.

Fear is a mindset. Faith is a mindset. Forgiveness is a mindset. Resentment is a mindset. Love is a mindset. Joy is a mindset.

Philippians 2:5 states, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” KJV

The meaning of “the mind” in Greek is “to think.”[2] Your job is to think like Christ thought. Further, it means that your inner perspective corresponds with your outer behavior.

What kind of mindset did Christ have? Christ was committed to the vision of his mission and purpose. He was committed to behaving in a way that corresponded with His inner beliefs about what He came to earth to do.

As a woman on her journey to The Rise, you now have an opportunity to do the same. Commit to the vision of your mission and purpose.

Hiring a Life Coach supports you in governing your life well so that you can show up in the world fearlessly and make a bigger impact. If you are ready to create a shift in your life, message me to book a strategy call! Let’s do this!

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Are You Living on Mute? Unmute Yourself!

How to Stand in Your Personal Power (Without Power-tripping)

Do You Have Trust Issues?

How to Create Beautiful Boundaries & Borders Without Pushing People Away

How to Govern Your Life Well With Life Coaching

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