What it means to live meaningfully?

If you have been toying with the concept of what is a meaningful life and questioning can I achieve it? And or have ever thought, if it is an innate and divine gift to live a meaningful life and felt that it was beyond your grasp or achievement? Listen to the women share their most innermost secrets and experience on what is meaningful living, in my Women in Business Radio broadcast, by joining us in archive. In October, 2013 we looked at meaningful living and we shared with our audience what others who have lived and is living a meaningful life, shared their experience. In this preview of the interviews, we will be sharing what my guest Pat Matson had to say on the topic of: What is meaningful living? Is it some thing that we can acquire or is it some thing we were gifted with at birth?
  
Here are a few questions that guided the discussion: 

1. How do you achieve meaningful living? Is it a gift from God or can everyone achieve it?
2. What are some actions or attributes that an individual who is living meaningfully display? 
3. Are self-love, high self-esteem, a high self-concept, high self-confidence and a high self-worth, characteristics of a person who lives a meaningful life?
4. How important is having support in living a meaningful life? 
5. What advice can you give to some one who will like to achieve this life path — what are some things you must do? 

This interview schedule guided the discussion with the guest with a bit of modification in term of wording and not meaning to keep the discussion personable and relaxing. They were the main theme, but varied according to experiences of the person, as a result additional questions were administered. We hope that you listen to the audio and garner a better understanding of what meaningful living is about. Through this discussion, you will learn that to live meaningfully, is to live a life doing what you love. People are more important to them, and they also value and appreciate the environment and the world around them. Doing what you love and not subscribing to society’s norms and value system. It enables you to find that path way to live your life meaningfully.

Here are some questions that was posed by the radio host to Pat and here are her responses:

Question: How do you achieve meaningful living? Is it a gift from God or can everyone achieve it? 
 
Pat: That is a powerful question; first of all, achieving meaningful living has to be important to you, because you have to make it a priority in your life. For me gaining an understanding about life was my all time most important thing to do, I thought that honouring God was the most important thing I thought that I could do which led me to becoming a nun; so you have to make it first place. Secondly you have to educate yourself as to the best way you can accomplished meaningful living and you have to in the second step — you have to unfold a ton of truths, and embrace it and imbue it into yourself, and thirdly, and this is not what some of the young people don't see — you have to persevere doggedly — meaningfully happens during the long hall and not in fleeting moments.

Question: Is self- love, self-confidence and high self-worth has anything to do with achieving this stage of growth or life path? Are they attributes that one must acquire to achieve meaningful living?

Pat: Yes, and that is the way it happened to me. I went from a green bean and knowing very little about myself; until older when I gained this magnificent understanding. . . And I cherish it beyond words; so I guess I will answer will say yes! Self-love, high self-concept and high self-confidence . . . it takes all three to achieve living life meaningfully. I am not sure it is true for everyone and I suspect it happens to everyone . . . It did not happened when I first started but I am now living a life that is meaningful. So life is individualistic and I know that everyone of us comes to our truth through our own individual — this is what happened to me — this is what happened on my path. 

Question: What advice can you give to some one who will like to achieve this life path?

Pat: Simple begin. Make it the priority in your life. Bring your self-back to it when you get lazy. Persevere during the long hall . . . so keep on keeping on with it.

I will like to end with a quote:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~ Mark Twain

Please find the podcast by Pat:

Check Out Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Dr Cheryl Cottle on BlogTalkRadio

Mental and Physical Wellness

 Author: Dr. Cheryl Cottle

Mental and physical wellness is a concern that women should have, particularly women in business because we lead multifaceted lives — lives that are complex and very busy. Our lives as a business woman entails that we know our business. It involves working "in" our businesses and "on" our businesses. It entails working and facilitating the everyday operation of your business as well as working on the continued development of your business. As business women, we are also expected to be successful — there isn't any room for failure. In addition to what vocation we may engage in — we are also wives, mothers and caregivers to our parents, and we also serve as community leaders. 

By leading very busy lives, you often neglect who you are. You very often find yourself at the bottom of your daily to-do-list. Finding a balance is sometimes difficult to achieve — finding balance between your mental and physical health and well being is sometimes difficult for many of us to achieve, resulting in us crashing, or becoming burn-out. In order not to get burn-out and crash, you must pause to look after your mental and physical well-being, or risk the chance of becoming ill — and the chance of having the other aspects of your life that you strive to outperform in, fail.

We are aware that our mental and physical health and well-being is influenced by the way that society sees women. There are a lot of social expectations on what a successful woman is. She is not judged by the same standards that her male counterpart is judged. A man is primarily judged by how well he performs in his job or business. The focus is not on whether he is a great husband, a caring father, or a devoted son to his parent, or even if he contributes to his community's growth. Whereas a woman is judged not only by her job performance, or the success that she achieves in her business, but also how well her performances are as a mother, caregiver and also in her role of community leader.

A woman has to meet the requirements of multiple roles within society. Having so many standards of performance to meet, can result in her becoming burnout and becoming sick. Having to conform to the norms and expectations of society can be very stressful in itself, and not just working very hard and very long hours without a focus on you, must have a negative impact upon your mental and physical health and well-being. While, hard work and attempting to achieve the accepted notion of success and continuing to achieve the highest standard of performance, will result in poor mental and physical health. 

While society's norms and beliefs, together with the debilitating negative limiting beliefs that we have, impact our health and mental well-being negatively; there are also other factors that affect us — and it is a global social phenomenon. For many women entrepreneur, finance is often a problem that we have that affect our cash flow and the resources that we need to grow our businesses. We also have to deal with many other challenges, including divorce and or dealing with the death and loss of our parents. Dealing with life challenges can have a devastating effect on your health and well-being, resulting in you becoming ill. Many of us prefer to deal with sickness by wishing it away, and seems to believe that if we do not think about it or talk about it, it will not come our way. It comes regardless and what happens if it comes or you become disabled?

You should have a continuous cash flow to support your business to help you to also defray your medical bills. If we find that we are over working and it is having an effect on our mental and physical well being, visit your physician. Don't wait until it's too late. Maybe an early visit may prove an early intervention and be a preventative measure against anything serious. You can also talk with a professional — a personal coach, counsellor, psychologist or psychiatrist could be a great help and prevent the onset of sickness. In addition, there are also several self-care practices that you can integrate into your life if you only pause to include you into your to-do-list. Walking, meditating, stretching, exercise, swimming, a visit to your local spa, or hair dresser are some things that you can do to prevent an onset of burnout and to maintain your mental and physical well-being.

You can read this article that was published in our volume I of Simply Inspirational for Women in Business Journal™ entitled: Creating a Balance: Things to do.