Last week, I heard from "Gina," an old client I'd lost touch with years ago. Gina wanted to meet for coffee, and so we met at a vegan café on the Upper West Side.

"I wanted to thank you in person," she said as we sat down.

"For what?" I asked. I'd only coached her for one session before she moved, so I didn't know if I'd had a real effect on her.

"It was you who first encouraged me to start exercising," she said, "and that has changed my life – my work, my mind, my emotions. Everything."

Then she told me her story.

When we'd first met, Gina was struggling. She loved her work as a research professor, but she felt she was missing out on pretty much everything else: friends, family, romance, her mental and physical health. Lately, she'd been feeling tired and foggy, and was having a hard time focusing.

I know what it's like to not be able to focus! When she told me that, back in our first coaching session, my first question was this: "Are you exercising?"

"Ha!" she had said. "Does ...

This is our third blog in a series on Identity. Check out the first two on Money and Food!

Years ago, before Stephen and I were married, I almost ruined our relationship because of my beliefs.

I had spent years living and reliving the same pattern: I'd meet a guy. We'd fall in love (or at least it felt like it). I'd put him up on a pedestal, thinking everything he did was so important and special, while everything I did was small and inconsequential.

A year or so into Stephen's and my relationship, I noticed my old habits coming back. When we spent time together, I'd pepper him with questions about his work, his day, his thoughts and feelings. But when he asked about me, I would shrink. "Oh, it's fine," I'd say, and hurry back to what seemed like the most important topic: him.

When I noticed this happening, I was horrified. Why did I keep doing this? How could the same thing happen again and again?

I was so upset that I called my mother, crying. "Mom," I sobbed into the phone, "I ...

Recently, I came across this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr: "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase."

That hit home for me, because right now, I'm looking up at a brand new staircase in my business: opening a Moticise space here in New York City.

This idea has been in the works for a few months now. It will be a place where people can come to find their core, then manifest it – through coaching, Moticise classes, meditation, special events, retreats, and eventually nutrition. This space is truly the summation of all my passions: mindset, fitness, and bringing people together to reach their goals.

But no sooner had I decided to go for it when the fears set it.

Instead of being excited, I was paralyzed. I worried that being afraid meant something was wrong. For weeks, that fear plagued me. I was so afraid to make the wrong move that I all but stopped moving at all.

One night, I had trouble sleeping. I tossed and turned, dwelling on all the us...

You're probably hearing a lot about New Year's Resolutions right now – but before I hear any more about that, I want to talk about the most crucial aspect of making change: stepping into your own power.

Many people I meet today are independent, motivated, hardworking, all that good stuff. But just as many of them consistently wait for permission before trying something new. It's like they think they need someone else to tell them it's okay. Often, this is unconscious. They don't realize they're doing it. Which can be even worse, because then they never do any of the work to overcome that tendency.

Earlier this year, I worked with a client I'll call Liz, who wanted to branch out on her own in business. "I've worked in IT for twenty years," she told me, "and now I have an idea for my own consulting business."

"Great," I said, and we began talking about her vision, her strengths, a potential action plan.

That's when things got hairy. When I asked her if she'd commit to a certain actio...

Most of us are taught as children that jealousy is bad. It's a green monster, it's a sign of insecurity, it's best to just try not feel it. Don't be jealous. Oh, okay. That advice can be about as useful as Don't be cold when it's freezing out.

The fact is, most of us can't just turn off our feelings. And sometimes, we feel the sting of envy. Someone else gets an award that you wanted. A former colleague has started her own business, while you're still pushing papers in your own cubicle. A friend calls and says he's buying a condo in Florida. "Good for you!" you say, but inwardly, you're cringing. Why not me?

I know the feeling, and I'm here to tell you, jealousy doesn't just exist to torture you. Often, it's trying to tell you something.

(Some people split hairs about the difference between jealousy and envy. Here, I'm using the terms interchangeably, since both can be useful in making a change in your life.)

Years ago, during my acting days, I had a friend I'll call Julie. Julie ...

Your mind affects your body. And how your body feels impacts your mindset.

Have you experienced this? Maybe you've found that when you're physically tired, it's harder to concentrate, or when you're stressed, your shoulders tense up. Maybe you've felt your stomach flutter when you're nervous, or that physical lightness that comes with peace of mind.

The cool part is, we can harness that connection. We can tap into our bodies to help us open up our minds. We can choose what to think and believe in order to push our bodies further. We have way more control over our lives – our bodies, our minds, and our choices – than we realize.

A lot of people go their whole lives believing they can't do anything about their failures or their physical limitations. Those people give up their power – which is sad, because they are so much more powerful than they know.

So are you.

That's what Moticise ("motivational exercise") is all about – helping people understand and use that mind-body connection...

When I first moved to Hollywood to try my hand at acting, I went to a LOT of auditions. The rejection rate for actors is somewhere near, I don’t know, infinity? But there was one audition where I tried something different. It was for the role of Lucy Cooper on Guiding Light, and the different part was, I used my nose.

I’d already had a couple screen tests, so at the final audition, I knew what to expect. I knew my lines, I knew the setting, and I knew I’d be auditioning with another actor. It was a romantic scene, so it called for a lot of intimate emotion. That’s where my nose comes in.

Seconds before the scene started, I stood outside the door, prepping myself. The last thing I did before I stepped inside was this: I took a long, deep breath, and I imagined the cologne of the guy I had a crush on at the time.

Instantly I was transported. It was like he was there with me. Imagining his scent opened the floodgates to a whole world of memories: how he talked, his smile, his eyes, how...

A few years ago, I met Dianna for the first time. She’d just moved to New York for a modeling job, and she was having trouble settling in. She missed her family and had a hard time making friends. She was lonely.

During our second session, I noticed that Dianna had a pattern: she criticized herself about everything. Her personality, her body, her teeth, her intelligence—nothing was safe from her negativity. She even said once she thought her elbows were ugly.

“It’s just how I am,” she said, shrugging, when I pointed this out to her. “I’m really critical of myself. I have high standards.”

I could tell Dianna thought that all her self-criticism wasn’t destructive. But from what I saw, it was making her hate herself, and her life.

“What do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror?” I asked her.

“You want the truth?” she said. I nodded. “Look at those bags! Those wrinkles! Is that more gray hair? Why are my eyes so puffy? God, I’m old. Why am I so ugly?…and a few things I don’t...

Whenever I feel like I’ve hit a dead end, I think of my friend Lisa, and how she found an incredible new possibility in a situation that didn’t seem to have an answer.

Lisa and I worked together on the set of Guiding Light – me as Lucy, her in the production office. Years passed, and we stayed friends, and a few years ago, she met a guy in a Yankees fan chat room. As you might guess, both are huge Yankees fans. And it wasn’t long before they got married.

He was living in Maryland, where he was from, and she was living in a tiny apartment in NYC. So the question was, where should they live?

Neither of them wanted to live in the other person’s city. But in order to create a new life together, they felt, they needed to start fresh, to build a life somewhere they both felt home.

They were in a stalemate. Until one of them said, “What if we bought an RV, and traveled the country until we find somewhere we want to stay?”

So that’s what they did.

They got a gorgeous RV, so luxurious it’...

Recently, I stumbled upon the question: Where are you accommodating in life?

In what ways are you settling or compromising? Letting someone else get what they want, but not you?

And why?

We do that for a variety of reasons. We want to be liked or needed. We want to fit in. We want to keep the peace. Maybe we’re afraid to go the extra mile. Or maybe we don’t believe in ourselves, so we just do what works for everyone else. We people-please, we discount our own needs.

Interestingly, this came up again when a client of mine, “David,” told me about a business class he took. He went in hoping to learn about negotiating, and came out with a lesson on accommodating.

The instructor began class by asking them to pair up and negotiate a deal. Each person would be marked on various aspects, including whether or not they actually made a deal.

David went about it the way he knew how, in a way that’s worked for him in the past. He started off by asking his partner, “What can you live with? Her...