Autonomy and resilience are important parts of good leadership and self-awareness.

Every day, we encounter things that impact us, events that are controllable, and others that are uncontrollable. By becoming aware of our strengths and weaknesses, we can evaluate these positive and negative forces and choose how we respond. We can realize that we have autonomy and resilience in dealing with daily situations.

One way we can do that is with the sailboat exercise.

My coach helped me examine my thoughts and beliefs, relationships and goals, sweet spots, and challenges.

Sharing some recent feedback I received from a client may provide some insight about the kinds of breakthroughs you might achieve when you have a coach in your corner who creates a safe space for you to voice your worries, challenges, dreams, and goals.

I am honored that this client trusts me and shares personal things that influence the way she contributes to her work.

It’s easy to lose sight of our life’s purpose. We end up chasing bigger positions and bigger salaries without much thought as to why we’re doing that. Instead, I challenge you to reflect on how you can live a life of meaning and purpose.

Boards are crucial for every nonprofit organization. We need good boards to help provide leadership, strategy, and vision for our nonprofits. As a board member, you like to feel that your time and talents are being used to promote a meaningful cause.

Some of the boards I’ve served on function well. Others, not so much. Great boards don’t happen by chance. It takes a lot of work and excellent leadership from the board chair.

My consulting work offers a new challenge every week. In addition to leading my clients through capital, endowment, and planned giving campaigns, I conduct board education sessions about fundraising. I also coach CEOs and high-performing leaders so they can achieve even greater success for themselves and their team.

Here are a few things I’ve never said to a client.

In a recent conversation with one of my coaching clients, we talked about those little negative voices that pop in our heads from time to time.

We’re all human, and we may occasionally be affected by them.

Do you listen?

Do you believe those thoughts?

Focusing on negative thoughts leads us to see more and more evidence that we aren’t good enough. We don’t see or temporarily forget the remarkable things we’ve done, the projects that we led to a successful conclusion, the events that raised a ton of money for our community, the genuine and meaningful relationships we’ve built with our donors.

Whether it’s a professional or a personal goal, you can increase your chance of success through using mental imagery. Mental imagery or visualization of future events is a powerful tool. But you need to imagine the specific steps needed to achieve your goal. It’s not enough to just imagine you achieving it.