Tiny Bites of Wagaliciousness

I remember being a child who loved bedtime stories. Mom or Dad read stories to us, and I longed for the day I could look at the funny black squiggles on the page and make them come to life, too. Now I read all the time, never giving a second thought to the major growth in my abilities that learning to read represents. You, too? What talents do you have now that you once dreamed of having? What abi...

Can you think of a time in your life where there was a major upheaval? Maybe you lost a loved one, a marriage or even something as seemingly positive as graduating with a degree you’ve worked hard for years to earn. Life was suddenly different and you were suddenly left feeling slightly confused and quite unmotivated. When that happens, it’s very human to beat ourselves up to try to kick-start som...

Today, things went wrong for me, right out of the gate. The alarm didn’t go off. The computer wouldn’t boot up. Both dogs were misbehaving, one very loudly, and there was no time for my normal morning routine because…the alarm didn’t go off! Maybe you’ve had days that start like that? It’s easy to let the beginning of the day set the tone for how your day goes, and it’s important to remember that...

Do you think of yourself as a caring person? Be honest about this – do you care about the people in your family? On your team? Do you care about your pets? Pollution? Recycling? Politics? The world? You have to have said “yes” to at least a few of those questions, so you are, in fact, a caring person. My bet is that, at least on a topic or two, you sometimes have to choose between doing what feels...

Are you unhappy in your work life most of the time? Maybe, when you first started doing what you’re doing, you were elated, looking forward to making a difference through the work you’ve chosen. Fast-forward to today, where maybe most days you walk through the front door feeling dread about some of the people or some of the tasks ahead of you. What changed, and more importantly, what can you do ab...

Want to lead a fabulous life, secure in the knowledge that you can handle whatever this world throws at you? Embrace your imperfections. You heard that right – accept that you are human, you will screw up, and that when you do, you didn’t intend to hurt anyone or cause a problem. You were just being fabulously human, imperfect you. I am a recovering perfectionist – but only where I am concerned. I...

Have you heard the saying, “your day will go the way the corners of your mouth turn?” The meaning behind that is pretty clear – foster a happy disposition and you’ll have a happier day, and foster a grumpy disposition and you’ll have a grumpier day. How can you foster a happier disposition? The easiest way to do that is to have a morning routine that supports your mental wellbeing. Think about wha...

Is someone on your team a bit…difficult? Defensive? Withdrawn? Uncommunicative? Is this new behavior or something that’s been there all along, and now it’s bothering you? If it’s new behavior, chances are that something is going on in their life that they’re not processing well. Help them – offer to listen, and then listen. Resist the urge to talk – let them unfold their problem to you without int...

Are you feeling a little bit stuck? Most of us do, from time to time. When a big decision is looming, stuckness can feel overwhelming. I remember at the end of my 30-year marriage, when I had to figure out where I could live with two dogs, a bunch of furniture and very little cash flow – there were days when I didn’t even want to get out of bed! Here’s the good news, though – I wasn’t stuck then a...

Did something happen to you that really upset you? Do you find yourself telling that story over and over again, either to others or inside your own head? When you do that, you are literally reliving the event. Your brain can’t tell the difference between the actual event and your retelling of it, so it floods you with the same stress hormones it did when the event happened. It speeds your respirat...

Something isn’t better than nothing. Let me say that again…something is NOT better than nothing. Ok, if we’re talking about material objects or money, something can be better than nothing. If we’re talking about relationships, it’s always better to have the relationship you want and need, instead of a relationship that doesn’t suit you in every way. It doesn’t mean you’re with a bad person or you...

What are you living for? What lights you up and makes you want to do it more and more? What do you love so much you’d do it for free if you had no bills to pay? That’s what you need to do more of. For me, it’s doing things with my dogs, and with people who love dog sports. I love dog sports so much that my Wednesdays are loaded up with dog training classes that I’m either taking or teaching....

Are you in any sort of leadership position? It could be in your family, your job, your church, your hobby – whatever. If you make decisions that affect others, you’re in a leadership position. And the very best leaders aren’t bosses, they’re inspirers. They inspire those around them to want to work towards a goal set by the leader. They inspire those around them to do more than is required of them...

Get ready to go deep – who do you look to for permission? When I was a young woman just out of school, still trying to figure out who I was and what I would do in the world, I felt the need for permission. As a child and while we’re in school, adults around us give us permission – permission to play outside before doing homework, permission to wear something daring, permission to leave the classro...

Do you ever have days where you feel powerless? Talk yourself into your power. Seriously. When you’re feeling frustrated with a situation you can’t resolve, sad about something you can’t change, or even depressed about where you are in life, find a place where you can give yourself a good talking-to. A loving talking-to, out loud, is just what you need to remember just who you are. When you’re alo...

Do you find it difficult to make decisions? A friend never wants to be the one to decide which restaurant we’ll go to or what time to be somewhere or even what drink to order. If you also find it tough to make decisions, this Tiny Bite is for you. Someone in your life taught you to feel wrong or incapable of making good decisions, so now you may not feel confident in your ability to decide. Confid...

Do you ever feel a bit unworthy? Most of us do from time to time, and sadly, some people live there. Where does the feeling of unworthiness come from? From being told and shown that we had to do more or be better in order to deserve good things in life. Those subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle messages come from everywhere – parents, religions, advertisements – and are 100% false. You were born wo...

Who is deciding your future? Is it you, or is it the default you? What…you didn’t know there’s a default you? Yep…we all have one. It’s that version of ourselves who sits on the couch watching tv mindlessly. It’s that version of ourselves that hits the drive through instead of the grocery store. It’s that version of ourselves that promises to stop that bad habit…tomorrow. Habits are hard-wired int...

The first day of something new is kinda scary, right? Even if it’s something you’ve dreamed of, worked for and finally achieved, walking in on that first day can be very daunting. The fear might even threaten to make you turn tail and run. I remember the very first time I turned on the microphone in the radio studio to talk – if the guy who was training me hadn’t been standing right behind me, I m...

Wisdom is where you find it, right? A meme rolled across my Facebook news feed the other day, and it simply said “Be selectively ignorant of everything irrelevant.” Wow…at first it made me question whether I wanted to identify as “ignorant.” Most of us don’t, right? Think of the power of that twisted little sentiment, though – when you can be selectively ignorant of things that don’t matter to you...

Do you have days where you feel emotionally and physically exhausted by the end of the day? And do you have days where your workload was the same as normal and instead of being tired at the end of the day, you felt inspired, maybe even elated? What’s the difference between the good days and the draining days? If the work you do is basically the same, and the people you deal with are basically the...

What would happen if you treated your thoughts like an experiment? Not all of them – treat your automatic negative thoughts and feelings like an experiment – question them. Next time something sets you off, instead of going with the flow of the negativity, try to step back and observe the reaction and question it – “where did it come from, why is it coming up now and is it necessary that I feel th...

Think about the people you deal with all the time – how many of them do you love? If you have a spouse or partner, children, parents, siblings and other relatives, you might love them most of the time. There might be co-workers that you’re very fond of and occasionally feel love for. When was the last time you felt love for yourself? Think about it – seriously. When was the last time you felt love...

Is something chewing at you right now? I remember back when I was first married, had a bunch of friends and a husband who loved his circle of friends. Call me slow – it took me a while to realize that he expected me to do couples things with his friends and was never available to do things with mine. One day he said, “my friends are our friends, your friends are yours.” That hurt. I fretted and st...

What is it that makes one person be mean to another? What is it that makes one person constantly bully another? What is it that makes one person try to destroy another?  It’s the same answer for all three questions – pain. Insecure people, people who are afraid of losing out, and people who mount behind-the-back smear campaigns designed to ruin someone else’s reputation or chances for advance...