Free Yourself from Self-Imposed Limits
June 8, 2010 by Karen Fagan · Leave A Comment
Self-imposed limits are a result of our own thinking based on past conditioning. They are boundaries we’ve set in our minds about what we can’t be, do, have or achieve. These limits are not real; they only exist in our minds.
If you’re frustrated with boundaries and feel ready to expand your life, I encourage you to identify your self-imposed limits. Once you know what they are, you can free yourself from restrictions.
Self-imposed limits feel constricting and depressing. They often sound like the following
- I should stay in this career since this is what I earned my degree for.
- I am too old to even try now.
- I shouldn’t risk it; it could take too long and be too much work.
- I’ll never earn much money. No one in my family has ever made over $75,000 per year.
- I don’t have the time to “just do it.” I am too busy.
- I can’t publish a book; I am not a professional writer.
Self-imposed limits are false restrictions we place upon ourselves that stop us from taking further action and turning our dreams into reality. Imagine fully believing in your true potential rather than holding back because of self-imposed limitations.
This week, prepare yourself to jump out of the box and start creating your life from a much bigger space.
1. Make a List of the Limits You Place on Yourself.
Once you bring your awareness to the boundaries you’ve built, you can decide to make different decisions that align with what you really want. You no longer need to tell yourself “I can’t.”
Become inspired and open to all possibilities for recreating your life.
2. Change Your Beliefs.
Ask yourself whether you are truly limited in the way you previously thought. Why would you believe you are limited? What could you do without these limits?
Replace your negative, false beliefs with true and empowering ones.
3. Improve Your Self-Image.
Start seeing yourself as the highest and best version of you. Ask your highest self for daily guidance and listen to your intuition. By listening to your highest self, you start to develop a higher level of confidence.
What would your best and most confident self say to those limitations?
4. Have a Positive Expectation.
Expect the best with complete certainty. When you free yourself of limitations, you create space to fully see and believe in all that you’re capable of. Positively expect amazing outcomes. When you let go of self-imposed limits, you naturally release worry and need for perfection. You become present in the moment.
You were born to succeed and that is the beautiful truth. Now, fully expect it with certainty.
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Empowerment Expert , and Master Certified Coach Karen Fagan publishes her “Live in Your Brilliance” weekly ezine. If you want special tips to live bold, brilliant and rich in your life and business, you can sign up for a FREE subscription to Live in Your Brilliance at www.karenfagan.com. Want to see more secret tips? see Karen’s blog at Karen http://www.karenfagan.com/blog/
Create Power to Innovate Your Life
May 13, 2010 by Karen Fagan · Leave A Comment
Personal innovation is the expansion into a bigger version of oneself. And isn’t that what you say you really want? In order to innovate your life you must connect to your creative flow. You may not recognize it but the power to innovate is already within you. Everyone is born creative, it’s simply a matter of connecting to those talents.
Do you want to change your life, grow your business and make space for the new to enter into it? It’s not as complicated as it may seem. Really, it’s not. Once you choose to see that the power to change your life and grow your business already lies within you – you can then start to access it and make a transformation.
I highly encourage my clients to take ACTION – big or small – because taking action is absolutely necessary in order to attain creativity and innovation. This past week I had a fantastic session with a highly motivated client. She is working on innovating her business and creating her first information product (which is great, by the way). During our session we reviewed her progress and she said, “As I began to write, it just came to me.”
Now, let me back up a bit. Only a few short weeks ago this exact client came to me for help because, although she knew she wanted to create a product, she had no idea what it was going to be. Sound familiar?
Innovation is about coming up with something new. In order to create new you must move toward it . . . not resist it. Here are five important tips for bringing innovation into your life instead of pushing it away:
1. Get Out of Your Head
When you can’t figure it out and you get frustrated – whether “it” is what to write or draw, or which products and programs to design – get out of your head. Creativity is a flow of energy that is inside you. You can’t force it; you have to connect to it. When you’re stuck trying to decide what you should be creating, rather than staying in your head trying to force ideas to come, get up and go for a walk on the beach, move your body and shift your focus. Turn to sources that inspire you and allow yourself the freedom to get your creative juices flowing. Rather than staying stagnant in your head, move your energy and allow your creativity to work its magic.
2. Create Space
If you want to innovate, stop telling yourself you don’t have time. Create space for it. Creativity does not come from feeling restricted and telling yourself you’re too busy or that you “just can’t right now”. Make the time. You decide your day; use that power to create the space to do the work you want to do.
3. Have an Attitude of Willingness
One of the biggest creativity blockers is resisting innovation because you’re looking for a guarantee. Be willing to ease up on the need for reassurance and allow yourself to create without resistance. Truly, the only guarantee we have is change, and the best way to respond to that is through creative innovation. Once you surrender yourself to the process, you’ll find that innovative spark.
4. Find Your Own Style
Be on your own path, not everyone else’s. Do you embrace your personal style or are you afraid to express it? Stepping into you and choosing to stop hiding allows those things that are uniquely yours to flow, which lets your authentic self shine through.
5. Practice Bold Brainstorming
A lot of the time we wait for our ideas to appear and they just don’t come through. Rather than beating yourself up for being stuck, practice Bold Brainstorming sessions. You can do it alone or with a like-minded person such as your coach. The process of Bold Brainstorming can not only help you come up with a ridiculous amount of new ideas, it can help you decide which is best and how to implement.
The time has come for you to Ignite Your Passion. Passion is unstoppable: are you ready to spark it? Think about what excites you when you open your eyes in the morning. What would you love, love, love to do all day, every day . . . even for FREE? Now, think about what’s standing in your way. What are the fears that keep you from living out your passion? Is it worrying about what others will think? Do you doubt your ability to truly achieve your goals? Find your answers to these questions. Identify what things are keeping you from creating the life of your dreams.
Acknowledge your fears and then release them. Only then can you truly embrace your innovation and connect with the creativity that is within you.
My Feel Good Formula
April 8, 2010 by Karen Fagan · 3 Comments

My life is so full and rich. I live every moment with love and gratitude in my heart. Now, I haven’t always been like this. My authentic story is that I spent a majority of my life feeling less than great. Sure, from time to time I’d feel awesome. But it would only last a short while, and would eventually lead me back to being in a funk. Needless to say, it was a less-than-desirable way to live.
I struggled through this emotional rollercoaster, never understanding what the problem was or why I couldn’t find a way to simply be happy. Then, one day it hit me. I had been living in this place of "not feeling good" simply because it was familiar to me. I knew how to "not feel good" so well that in a sense, it had become comfortable. My realization that I no longer wanted to be comfortable with feeling bad led to an empowering epiphany: Live bad, feel bad. Live good, feel good! Finally, I understood that I could choose to feel good. It was in my power to take action to make myself feel better; and, that’s just what I did.
I recognized that I had been living badly. I didn’t take care of myself the way I should and I didn’t offer myself love and kindness. When I realized all of this, I made a decision. I made, "Live good, feel good!" my mantra for life. In order to start living good and feeling good, I created a Feel Good Formula for my life. I taught myself how to live good so I could feel good, and make that my new familiar place. Your Feel Good Formula is unique to you. It is composed of the "live good" elements that empower you and support you in feeling good all the time. For example, my Feel Good Formula is Self-love + Exercise + Clean Nutrition = Feel Good.
The secret is, when you feel good, you’re happy! It’s a great place to be. The happier you are, the more you have to give to your family, friends, and business. When you feel good, your entire life changes for the BEST. Find your Feel Good Formula and live by it. The elements in the formula will reflect the things that YOU need to feel good and the results will astonish you. Let’s find out what your Feel Good Formula is!
Here are tips for creating your own Feel Good Formula:
- Make a list of all the things that make you feel good. List things that fuel your mind, your soul and creative energy. Think of "live good" things that make your energy level come alive, that make you feel GOOD. Write down as many as you can think of.
Here are some examples:
• Journaling
• Eating nutritious food
• Exercise
• Mediation
• A quiet cup of tea
• Kissing and making love
• Alone time
• Connecting with others - Take your list and prioritize the elements. What are the things that energize you the most, inspire you to achieve, and really get your Feel Good mojo going? Take your top two or three and fill them into the format: (Blank) + (Blank) = Feel Good.
- Live your formula every day.
That’s it. Three easy steps! Once you have your Feel Good Formula, write it on your vision board, put a Post-It on your fridge, leave yourself a voice mail . . . do whatever it takes to learn and LIVE your Feel Good Formula. No matter what your formula is – "Yoga + Journaling = Feel Good" or "Travel + Hugging + Long Walks = Feel Good" – live it every day. As I said, the components of your formula are completely up to you. Just make sure that you choose elements that are based in self-love and well being. For me eating nutritious foods and taking the time to journal are the things that make my soul soar. What are the things that inspire you? What actions can you take to find your self-love?
Find your Feel Good Formula. Access it and apply it to your life every day! You’ll experience wonderful growth and you’ll find that feeling good is a lot easier than feeling bad!
Are You a Money Slave?
March 11, 2010 by Karen Fagan · Leave A Comment
Imagine being empowered, clear, intentional, and living worry-free, in abundance around your money– always. Being conscious of your money increases your personal power. I have found a lot of people being slaves to their money – which essentially means that their money tells them what they can’t have – this is so disempowering.
People who are servants to their money say things like, “I would like to go out to eat with my friend for lunch (take a vacation, hire a coach, buy a new car) but I can’t afford it.” Their decision-making process comes from a place of lack, which means they create more lack in their life.
When people are servants to their money, it becomes really easy to make decisions that keep them in the servant role. They choose not to invest in themselves for fear there will not be enough. They start to avoid issues around their financial situation. They worry about money and let money tell them what they can’t have or can’t do. Their focus is on what they don’t have or can’t afford.
How we handle money is symbolic of our life. You may have heard the saying “How you do one thing is how you do everything.” This means that how you manage your money is how you manage your life. For example, if you don’t have enough money, you may frequently tell yourself that you don’t you have enough time. Another example would be how not knowing how much money is currently in your bank account translates to being unfocused when taking action towards creating your life vision. Avoiding taking responsibility with your money often turns into not taking responsibility for your life and the creation of your happiness.
I truly believe one of the biggest reasons people lack money is because they have tolerated a lack of it. The have tolerated less than a certain amount of dollars in their bank accounts, i.e. allowing unnecessary overdraft charges and late fees. When people are enslaved by their money, they are unconscious about how to attract more of it into their life. They avoid looking at bank account balance and opening bills, and they settle for less than they deserve.
A person who is empowered about money has the freedom to make decisions that are best for them, their families and business. They have financial freedom – their money tells them, “Yes! You can have, be or do whatever your heart desires!” They live in an abundant place and make decisions from there.
It is time to create a powerful shift regarding your money and finally step into the leadership role.
Below are 3 tips on how to Stop Being a Slave to Your Money and Step into Your Personal Power:
- Be Honest with Yourself
Be willing to change your attitude around your money and have honest dialogue with yourself. Your higher self would never say that it’s okay to deplete your accounts to a zero balance and go even lower with overdraft fees – neither should you. Be honest with where you currently are financially and raise the bar of what you will tolerate in your bank account. If you always go into the negative at the end of the month, decide not to tolerate it any more; decide to tolerate no lower than $100 in your checking account ever.
I have found that when people start to look at how they spend their money and decide to make changes they actually find more money. Look at all the places where you have money in your life and find ways to make more. Change your spending habits, leverage your talent to earn more profit or take action on plans to bring more money into your life.
Before you spend money ask yourself whether your purchase will add value to your life. Be honest and ask yourself whether you’re spending money to fill a void. Are you spending because you believe that you’ll never have enough so there’s no point – this is being a slave to your money.
Grab a piece of paper and make your Honest Money List. Write down the spending habits that are not serving you — the ones that are blocking you from obtaining prosperity. Then write down what you’re wiling to change. Be honest with yourself; make a commitment to be empowered with your money.
- Change Your Thoughts
Have you ever fantasized about all the things you could do if only you had enough money? Thoughts of abundance are key to attracting more money in your life. You’ve just got to learn how to master your inner money gremlin.
Your inner money gremlin is fear. It is self critical, it doubts, then it worries and goes right back to doubt. It thrives on lack and not having enough. The inner money gremlin chatter can be so loud that it can stop us dead in our tracks. It quickly leads you to believe that your life will always be in its current state of financial lack and chaos.Beginning to understand the limiting beliefs that you have about money results in your being able to take action toward financial abundance.
Some (completely false) limiting beliefs:
I just don’t know how to manage my money.
If I were really meant to be in this career, I wouldn’t be having so much trouble.
The economy is so bad; it’s just not the right time to pursue my dream.
Money is the root of all evil.
People with money have it so much easier than I do.
I’m in so much debt; this is really bad.It is time to begin to work through your limiting beliefs around money and become a master at managing them. Successful people have the same inner money gremlin. The difference is that they realize what the gremlin tells them is not relevant to who they are and the vision they hold for their life. Instead of focusing on their inner gremlin’s chatter, they focus on momentum towards their goals.
- Have Courage and Be Consciously Aware
Starting today, begin to believe that you deserve to be comfortable with your money. You no longer need to hold your head in shame because your bank account balance is less than you desire.
You do however need to be courageous and decide to raise your awareness. Decide that you will no longer let your bills have power over you. Instead, lead your money. The first step is to take an honest look at your current financial situation.
Start by opening all those bills that are stacked up and actually look at the statements. If you have handed your financial power over to someone else because you have felt you’re not good at handling money, schedule a time to meet with them to find out your financial status. Start to take your power back now.
To create lasting change you have to begin to know your money – one of the best ways to know your money is to take an honest look at it. It may be uncomfortable at first, but by making the commitment to doing so, you’ll find that you become more comfortable and feel more empowered. A higher level of confidence doesn’t come from having more money; it is developed through the process of taking courageous action and being more aware of what you have.
When you decide to change your relationship with money you will instantly feel a sense of freedom and hope. Money can only determine what you can do, be or have if you allow it to. When you begin to observe your money, fully believe you are worthy to receive more and get comfortable with it – it no longer holds power over you. The possibilities become endless.





