There is nothing as difficult as watching somebody you love literally throw their life away over somebody who is no good for them.

Their partner might treat them badly, is possibly controlling, and may be manipulating your loved one in such a way that they’re pulling away from you so that you hardly see them or speak to them anymore.

You can see how damaging this person is to their life, you can see them for what they are, but your loved one doesn’t see it the same way.  In many cases they will defend their toxic partner, and even distance themself from you even further.

This whole situation can be made even worse if you’re a grandparent with a son or daughter who has stopped letting you see your grandchildren.

Situations like this can be heartbreaking.  Your frustration is justified as you can see what your loved one is doing, but they just don’t see it.

Your first reaction is to confront them and try to convince them that what they’re doing is wrong – that their partner is bad news, and that they should get away from their partner quick.

Unfortunatly, this seldom works. In fact, what happens is that the first thing your loved one will do is defend theirs and their partner’s actions.  And they’ll probably end up distancing themself from you even more.

So how do you deal with situations such as this?

Unless your loved one’s toxic partner is physically hurting your loved one  (if they are, then you can report it to the police or other governing bodies around physical abuse), unfortunately there is very little you can do.  You can’t convince somebody who doesn’t want to be convinced, and you can’t “force” them to do what you know to be right.

But there are some things you can do:

• Let your loved one know that you love them and that you will be there for them if and when they ever need you.
• Stop judging them – or their partner (no matter how bad he/she is, your loved one loves them).
• There is nothing wrong with maintaining regular contact – even if it’s just to send them a birthday or Christmas card with a little note to tell them you love them.
• If you must say anything at all about the subject, let your loved one know that you are concerned about their relationship with their toxic partner, but also suggest that you understand it is their decision and you will support and be there for them, no matter what.
• Whenever you’re communicating with them, mention old times or occasions where you were all happy and things were great – this will remind them of better times, without you focusing on the negatives of now.

As you can see, the ideas listed above really suggest to your loved one that you love them and will be there for them.  The reason why this is important, is because when they eventually wake up and decide to walk away from their relationship, it will be so much easier for them if they know they have your support.

To try to talk them into leaving their partner and constantly criticise them or their partner will only make things more difficult for your loved one.  They may even choose to stay with their partner out of spite or out of sheer pride – they won’t want to admit they made a mistake.

Having found myself with a toxic partner and staying with him for 9 very long years, I know how I would have reacted if somebody had told me I should leave him.  I would have stayed – just to prove them wrong!

I hate to admit I’ve made a mistake – especially one that’s so big – so to have people around me telling me to get out would have been something I ignored.  I would have gone so far as to distance myself from them too – just so I didn’t have to listen to their nagging!

When I did eventually end my relationship, it was because I knew I had family around me who would love and support me no matter what.  It’s those people I needed most when I finally walked away from my now ex husband, and they really were there for me.  Phew!

Why was it so hard for me to get out of bed to exercise?  Why was I constantly making excuses to sleep in for an extra half an hour when I knew what I wanted to achieve?

And then I worked it out!  “Looking good” just wasn’t high enough on my list of values!  Instead I had things like “achievement”, “success”, and other such values.

So how did this help?

Well, I realised that I needed to do something that would not only be congruent with my list of values, but one that would give me a sense of achievement or success.

So I signed up to compete in a triathlon!  Eeeek!

In 72 days I will compete in my first ever triathlon!  I’m not in it to win it (although that would be nice), but to just complete it will bring me a great sense of achievement!

Finally I have found something that gives me reason to get out of bed and exercise!  I don’t feel like it’s a chore because I’m working towards something that I want to achieve.

So what can you do to help you acheive your goals?  What can you work towards so that it no longer seems like a chore?

As you reach each milestone, you feel a little sense of achievement, and your confidence improves as you take each and every step forward.

My good friend Nik Halik has set up a community especially for people who want to dream big and get out there and realise those dreams, and because it’s free to join, I figured I’d talk about it here on occasion.

The reason for my post today is because I’ve just been sent a video called Pathways to Freedom by Nik and co and it’s really inspirational.

If you want to check out the video, visit http://www.TheThrillionaires.com?id=130, then go into the blog, and search for it there. You will be glad you did!

I had a great conversation with my mentor yesterday (even coaches need mentors/coaches!) and I was discussing with him my struggle to find the time to get everything done each day, as well as take time out for myself.

He offered me a great tool for managing my productivity around my business and I thought I’d pass it on to you, my dedicated readers! This tool can be used for business and can be modified to help you achieve personal goals too.

I find that sometimes my productivity wanes – I’m not doing things that are helping my business to grow to a point where I can find ways to leverage of other people, and this is partly my problem.

The tool is a 20 point plan or checklist, and here are the steps to implement this:

1. Write down everything you do that contributes to generating income for your business, or something that contributes to a specific goal.
2. Allocate points to each task. For example, if I go to see a client or do some networking, that is worth 2 points. If I email a potential client or update my blog then that is worth .1 per email/post. If I pick up a new client then I get 5 points.
3. Work towards achieving 20 points per day.
4. Once you have reached 20 points you can take some time out!

You will need to be honest with yourself here. Only give decent points to items that contribute the most to your goals, and of course only allocate points to productive tasks.

What’s great about this tool is that you are likely to focus on productive tasks to get points, rather than tasks that will not take you closer to your goal.

As you near 20 points, you will begin to feel a sense of accomplishment – you’re almost there! Reach 20 and you get to celebrate! Woohoo!

Once you

The reason I think this is because achieving any goal, no matter how small it is, will give you some sense of achievement. As you gradually create bigger and better goals, you will begin to see some dramatic changes in your mindset too.

You will consider some challenges as “nothing” when once upon a time, the same challenges used to scare the life out of you! The standards you set for yourself improve too.

Setting goals and striving to achieve them is also a lot of fun! What is your biggest goal? What can you do each day to get you closer to your goal? How excited do you feel as you get closer?!

So if you have goals, when was the last time you reviewed them? (You have written them down, right?).

Sometimes as we go through life we kind of grow out of some of our goals, and that’s perfectly ok – as long as you replace them with new goals!

Set up a time over the next week to really focus on your goals and give them the attention they deserve – you will be glad you did!

If you’ve got some huge goals that you have absolutely NO idea how you’re going to achieve them, visit The Thrillionaires. This site is officially launching on August 24 (the date has changed, for anybody who has already taken a look) and it’s free to join.

The idea is to fill out your own goal list and then start living all of your wildest dreams.

Depending on what you want to do, the Thrillionaires community even helps you find the funding to pursue those dreams. People are joining all over the world–with incredible stories and achievements, so be sure to at least check it out and sign up for free.

Of all of the people I have ever known, he has taken goal achievement to an entirely new level.

As a child, he mapped out what he wanted to achieve in his life. He had health and other issues that normally would have prevented anyone else from doing what they wanted to achieve, but he didn’t let this stop him.

On August 15, the Thrillionaires community will be launched and is free to join.

If you want to achieve more in life, then this site might provide you with the inspiration you need.

If you want to join the Thrillionaires community, click HERE.

I had goosebumps while listening to it!

On May 19 I came across a somebody called Barry Walls on the Warrior Forum (a forum for internet marketers). Somebody had started a thread that talked about her celebrating her success after being awarded $20 commission on a ClickBank sale. She had been working at it for 7 long months.

Most people responded with encouragement and congratulations, except Barry.

Barry wasn’t all that “congratulatory”! In fact, he said he could have worked in a third world country during that time and walked away with more money! This generated many harsh comments towards him, but I realised that he was 100% right in what he said. Ok, he didn’t have to be so harsh, but what he said was 100% true.

So many people work their butts off for very little reward, and he was simply pointing this out.

He went on to say was that he could teach her to make more than that (he even suggested up to $1000 per DAY!) within a few months. He even offered her FREE coaching!

She did not take him up on his offer. I, on the other hand, wanted to know more – a LOT more, so I contacted him.

I wanted to know what he had to offer. He told me what he had been coaching people face to face and they had all experienced amazing results. I wanted in, so asked him how much I could pay him to coach me.

He told me that he almost had ready an online version of his coaching program, and he’d offer me a discount if I was prepared to be a “guinea pig” so to speak, and to help him by offering feedback on each module as they came through.

My credit card was out within a millisecond and I got started! I was THAT desperate to lose my full time job and work from home, I was prepared to try anything that worked!

So I began the course, which taught me how to get work writing articles for other business owners. Prior to this I had been writing and submitting my own articles to article directories, and of course on my websites, so this wasn’t anything new, although I’d never written for somebody else before.

What I love about what I do now is the fact that I get to choose who I write for and therefore the type of writing I do, so many of my clients are fellow Life Coaches!

6 weeks after I began the course, I was making enough to quit my job. I was pretty well-paid before in my job, so to see these results in only 6 weeks – well, I’ve never experienced that before and I’ve done a lot of courses!

This post wasn’t supposed to be all about the course I’m doing though. It’s supposed to be about the goal I had written down only a few months ago.

I was extremely passionate about my goal because this goal was about life change for me. I no longer wanted to get up at 5am, work all day and go to bed at night without having the time or the freedom to spend with my children. They mean everything to me, and I was being deprived of my right to enjoy being with them!

We all have choices in life, and my choice was to take my life into my own hands and make some drastic changes. It took a long time, but it was so totally worth it.

My goal was to be working from home and making more money than I was in my job. At this point it didn’t matter how much more – I just wanted it to be more! The date I had written on my goal card was June 30.

I left my job on June 26! How good is THAT!!??

Now I truly believe that if I hadn’t written down my goal and wasn’t as specific as I was, then I really don’t know if Barry Walls and I would have crossed paths. If we did, I’m not sure I would have tracked him down and insisted that he coach me!

So whatever your goal, be specific and write it down, and be sure to give your goal a due date to generate a sense of urgency – you will be glad you did!

If you like to write and would like to know more about Barry’s course, visit http://use-sell.com/2/s81718/1512454ig/101847

I was reading as I regularly do and came across this passage that is a Sioux Creation Myth that explains this quite well:

The Creator gathered all of Creation and said, “I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it.  It is the realisation that they create their own reality.”  The eagle said, “Give it to me, I will take it to the moon.”  The Creator said, “No.  One day they will go there and find it.”  The salmon said, “I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean.”  “No.  They will go there too.”  The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.”  The Creator said, “They will cut into the skin of the Earth and find it even there.”

Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who has no physical eyes but sees wtih spiritual eyes, said, “Put it inside of them.”  And the Creator said, “It is done.”

All too often I hear of people blaming their reality on forces outside of themselves and I was once one of those people.  Once I realised that my reality comes from within, I was able to control my own destiny and my life dramatically changed for the better.

I have found over time that my articles on domestic violence receive a lot of views and this concerns me in a way because it probably means there are people in this situation who are looking for answers.  It could also be that the friends and family of those caught in an abusive relationship are searching for ways to help their friends.

I came across a forum post from a woman was telling us that as she typed, her husband was lying unconscious and drunk in the bathroom and it was only 7.30pm.  What really made her angry was that they had a young son together and he had witnessed his father coming home drunk, then vomiting everywhere.  Not very nice at all.

The number of responses from women who had all been in similar situations was astounding, although one response in partcular I found to be very valuable.

All of the women suggested that this woman put her foot down with her husband and tell him that enough was enough (he was doing this regularly and after apologising and telling her he wouldn’t do it again, was continuing on the cycle – this is also typical of abusers) and give him an ultimatum.   But the last response was probably the most important of all.  While this was in response to a question around an alcohol problem, this could be applied to abuse situations, or drug addition.

She offered the following advice:

• Her son’s safety had to come first, regardless of whether she left him or stayed.  If he wasn’t abusive before, he could become abusive if he felt his way of life was being threatened.
• Get as much support from family and friends as you can – you’re going to need it!
• Be sure that you have copies (and originals) of all important documents, such as bank account details, birth certificates, marriage certificates, etc and have a friend or relative keep these safe for you.
• The same goes for photos and other sentimental items – things could get ugly, so it is best to be prepared.
• Contact your local support group (there are plenty around that support the families of abusers, alcoholics or addicts)

Getting out of any relationship is always difficult, but if you have the right support around you, then the load will feel significantly lighter.

You know deep down inside whether you should stay or go, but always remember to consider your safety and that of your children (if you have any) first.  I cannot stress this enough.