Organized, Fit and Healthy

Many people have trouble finding the time in their day to stay organized, fit and healthy.  Here are some great methods that you can use to accomplish staying organized, fit and healthy.

1. Designate specific days/times for your workout. During the school year, weekday mornings–before I begin my day– are generally the best time for me to exercise. I drop my son off at school, go to the gym, work out, come home and shower, and then get on with my day. In the summer when my son is not at school, I work out in the evening before dinner. My specific schedule won’t necessarily work out for everyone, but scheduling definite time will help ensure other things don’t take over the time you could be spending working out. Perhaps evenings work better for you, or maybe you can fit in some walking during your lunch hour or after dinner. The important thing is to schedule exercise time on your calendar.

2. Multi-task. Get yourself a treadmill or stationery bike and work out at home while you’re reading or listening to a motivational tape. Do some power walking in the mall, before you do your shopping. Take your family to the park and play Frisbee together or go bike riding–you’ll be exercising and getting in quality time with your loved ones. Do sit ups during commercial breaks while you’re watching your favorite TV programs.

3. Know what you’re going to make–before you go shopping –  One thing I always do is prepare a meal plan dinner menu, and grocery shopping list, a week or two in advance. This way, I know exactly what to buy when I go grocery shopping. I don’t waste a minute wondering what to make, or wasting time and money buying unnecessary groceries (or expensive, unhealthy convenience groceries) at the store. Having food in the house also ensures we aren’t forced to eat out at restaurants, again wasting time and money, because there’s nothing to eat at home.

4. Get yourself a SmartPhone. I can’t begin to tell you how much time I’ve saved since I bought an Droid. Now when I’m waiting in the car to pick up my daughter from school, awaiting a doctor or hair stylist appointment, or any other instance when I’m waiting, I can check my email, Facebook, Twitter, check my schedule or To Do list, and so much more. There’s no waiting time that is unproductive, and this gives me extra minutes to meditate, cook a healthy meal or call a friend to release some stress.

5. Have healthy foods available in a snap – As soon as my groceries are in the house, I immediately wash and cut produce so we have healthy veggies to grab in a pinch. A few examples of quick healthy snacks that can be prepped in just a minute or two…

• cucumbers topped with hummus. The hummus can be store- bought or homemade if prepped ahead of time.
• celery with cream cheese
• peanut butter on apple slices
• trail mix (simple mix of cereal, dried fruit and nuts)

6. Make staying fit and healthy a priority. What generally happens is that schedules get so busy, and staying fit and healthy often plays second fiddle to other activities. Make definite appointments with yourself for your healthy cooking, exercising, stress-relievers and other healthy activities and keep those appointments just as you would keep doctor’s appointments, and other important appointments. Your healthy–your life–depends on it!

If you need an accountability partner and help in reaching certain goals, simply sign up for one of our affordable coaching packages.   You can also grab your free 20 minute coaching consultation to find out more about how a life coach can assist you.

How To Say No Without Feeling Guilty

NO! It’s amazing how such a small word can carry such a mighty punch, isn’t it? Learning how to say no without feeling guilty can be difficult, but it’s worth it for many reasons. By saying no at times, you become more productive, reduce your stress levels and are more focused on the things you choose to say yes to.

The reason many people get in a situation where they are overwhelmed with work is because they feel guilty if the thought of telling someone no even crosses their mind. Learning how to say no withought feeling guilty is important because by taking on too many duties, just to appease your guilty feelings, you are hurting not only yourself, but those requesting your time as well.

If you truly can’t fit something into your schedule without burdening yourself beyond reason, it’s ok to say no. Keep your tasks and projects at a level that is manageable for you. If you become overloaded, make certain that you let people know that. Many times, they will understand and will gladly wait until you have the time to complete their request

The tips below will help you to learn how to say no without feeling guilty.

The bake sale coordinator needs assistance with the bake sale this weekend, and wants you to bake 12 dozen cookies. You get asked when picking up your child from school and respond with something like, ‘Oh, I wish I could, but…’

The bake sale coordinator doesn’t actually hear you say, ‘No.’ You have just, unfortunately, invited a solution brainstorming event. Now the coordinator starts offering solutions to whatever followed ‘but’ in your original explanation of why you couldn’t bake 12 dozen cookies, with you attempting to stand your ground as a bake sale bystander.

You can feel your time slowly being stolen, not only because you will probably be baking cookies in the near future, but also because the brainstorming event is now making your dinner later and later.

In a list of ways to simplify your life, every other item on the list would be some variation on ‘say no.’ In American culture though, it can be difficult to say no without feeling guilty.

1) Say what you mean at the beginning.

If you mean, ‘I can’t do it.’ Say so, right away. Avoid offering phrases like, ‘I wish I could’ or ‘That sounds like so much fun’–which might encourage the listener to help you participate in any way possible.

Use this phrase instead, ‘I know you are looking for help with the bake sale, but I can’t do it this time. Thanks for thinking of me.’

2) Reasons are ok, but avoid excuses.

A telltale sign that you are about to use an excuse? Telling a confidante that you need to ‘get out’ of something. If you feel like you need to ‘get out’ of something, talk with the person about how you are feeling about the task at hand.

Use this response: ‘I’m sorry, I’m really not interested in helping with bake sales. Can I donate some cash directly to the cause instead?’

3) Nurture the relationship.

Creating strong, respectful relationships with those around you makes your ability to simplify your life easier. By consistently communicating with other members of your organizations about the responsibilities on your plates, you create an environment that encourages everyone to be honest about commitments and help one another stay accountable.

Use this response: ‘I know the bake sale is your biggest event of the year and I wish you a lot of luck with it. I know that, based on my commitments this week, it isn’t realistic for me to bake that many cookies. I can make two dozen for you, though.’

4) Set your priorities.

Like many families, you may only see your partner and children from the end of the workday until bedtime, which can sometimes be less than three hours a day (not counting half-awake breakfasts with jam in the 3-year-old’s hair, as ‘time spent with family.’) Family time is precious, so why not set a personal rule that you will spend no more than two nights away from your family, for example, on any given week.

Maybe your priorities don’t include a family, but you want to be sure that you have time to volunteer with, for instance, Big Brothers Big Sisters or you call a long- distance friend every Thursday from 7-8. Regardless of what the order of your priorities is, don’t let life rearrange it for you. Set rules for yourself and stick to them.

Use this response: ‘I won’t be able to help with the bake sale this year. I have set some personal rules for my budget in order to continue to donate to the charities I already support. I’ve already maxed out my grocery budget this month. If you’re still raising funds next month, though, I’ll happily shift things around to give $10 towards your cause.’

5) Stand firm.

Depending on who is requesting, sometimes saying, ‘No,’ one time doesn’t cut it. If you’ve followed the tips above you will find that it is easier to stand firm in your decision to simplify your life. By avoiding excuses and relying solely on honesty and respect for yourself and the person requesting your time, repeating yourself doesn’t sound trite, it sounds responsible. Your priorities and relationship do not change quickly enough to shift the response to most inquiries.

6) What about when it’s the boss?

It can be hard to simplify your work life when you feel like your job is on the line, but priorities, in particular are key on the job. If you can’t squeeze another task in on the project timeline and the boss comes in and adds one more thing to the pile, consider asking the boss to set the priority: ‘I’m happy to do this task, but I need to know how you would like me to prioritize it. If I do it now, I will need to bump back several other tasks on this project and delay its completion by another day.’ Or ‘I can start this task after I complete this project. Do you have a preference?’

Though some things are beyond our control and may cause life to get a bit crazy at times, by using any of the tips above you can start to learn how to say no without feeling guilty. The challenge is to look at our priorities and recognize how we are still meeting them in a manner that allows us to maintain a simple, less chaotic, life.

If you are ready to hire a life coach, simply sign up for one of our affordable coaching packages.   You can also grab your free 20 minute coaching consultation to find out more about how a life coach can assist you.

Get Organized Now – An amazing collection of 2,175 ideas, tips and techniques for organizing your home, getting rid of clutter, organizing your time, your schedule, your money, your paper, your family and much more!

Committing to Goals

Have you ever set a goal and not achieved it?  Most people have.  In fact, it’s quite common for people to get stuck in an endless cycle of setting goals and then quitting them shortly afterwards – and accomplishing nothing at all.

Why do people do this?  One of the biggest reasons is that many people have problems with committing to goals and that leads to a lack of commitment to their goal.  Without commitment a goal will gradually shrink in importance, and the temptation to quit will seem much more attractive, especially when obstacles cause setbacks and delays.

On the other hand, if you make a serious commitment and then continually remind yourself of it, you’ll be much more likely to persevere and achieve the goal.

Here’s how to commit to goals:

1) First and foremost, you have to make sure that every goal you set is of VITAL importance to you.  This can be tricky because we so often fool ourselves into thinking we want one thing when we want something entirely different.  Take some time with this part of the process, and be sure that you get to the heart of what you really want.  Why do you want it?  What will it do for you?  What positive things will it bring to your life?  How will it help you?  How will it make you feel when it’s accomplished?

Write all of this down and keep it handy so you can refer to it as often as necessary if you feel your commitment beginning to slip. 

Also ask yourself if your goal is worth the effort and sacrifice that will be needed to achieve it.  If you can honestly answer yes, you are on the way!

2) Think about what will happen if you don’t follow through.  Would nothing much happen if you don’t achieve your goal?  If not, then you need to raise the stakes!  You have to make your goal the most important thing in the world, and if you don’t do it, you’ll deal with negative consequences.  Even if you have to indulge in a bit of “make believe” in order to do this, do it.  For example, play up the fact that you’ll lose respect for yourself if you don’t follow through; or you might agree to give up something you love if you don’t make it happen.

3) Then, each and every day, renew your commitment.  It’s easy to say that you are committing to goals when they are new and your motivation is high, but you need to be able to STAY committed – no matter what!  Each day when you awaken, read through the goal you wrote down on the first day, and stress again how vitally important it is to you.  Promise yourself that you’re going to do as much as you can to work on your goal that day, and every day until you achieve it.

When it comes right down to it, no one can achieve your goals for you.  If you want to achieve them, you’ll have to find the determination necessary to keep going.  Inactivity and procrastination are usually nothing more than bad habits.  Turning those habits into something more positive and productive is as simple as taking it a day at a time and working your hardest to change your life.  The more committed and determined you are to making your goal happen, the more likely you’ll do just that.

If you have troubles committing to goals, use the tips above to help you.

Sign up now for a free, personal consultation so you can be on the road to reaching your goals, dreams and desires today!

Motivation and Momentum

One of the most difficult parts of goal achievement is simply getting started.  It’s easy enough to dream and plan, but many people get stuck in this phase indefinitely and avoid taking action.  Planning and dreaming might make you feel like you’re doing something about your goals, but if you never actually take a step forward you’ll never achieve them.  In order to see measurable progress, you have to step out of your comfort zones and take action.

When you finally do gather your courage and begin moving forward, what usually happens?  You realize it’s WAY harder than you thought it would be, right?  It feels like you’re trying to run uphill.  You keep tripping over obstacles, facing setbacks and delays, dealing with fear and anxiety, and fighting a daily battle to stay motivated.

It’s during this difficult phase that most people give up.  They decide that “it isn’t meant to be” right now, so they set their dream aside and vow to try again later.  Or worse, they resign themselves to a mediocre life because they don’t believe they have what it takes to succeed.  They’ve “failed,” so they’re not going to try any more.

Have you done this?  Most people have!

However, this doesn’t have to be the end of the story.  You can pick up your dreams, dust them off and try again.  But this time you should know about a little something called Momentum.

You see, the difficult phase I just described is what happens at the beginning when you’re trying to gain momentum.  Most people quit during this phase because they think it’s ALWAYS going to be this hard.  What they don’t realize is that every effort they put toward the achievement of their goals will build on the previous efforts.  With every step forward the process gets easier and easier.  Finally, they’ve put so much energy and effort into the process that momentum begins to take over.  Suddenly they realize that they don’t have to push so hard to keep moving forward.  It becomes fun . . . even easy to achieve their goal.

This same experience can be yours!  All you have to do is keep moving forward.  Keep working toward your dreams and never quit.  Momentum WILL take over eventually!

If you want to get momentum working even more quickly for you there are a few ways to do it, but they can be summed up in one sentence:

Be willing to work harder, faster and take bigger risks than you have in the past.

The reason why momentum can be delayed sometimes is because many people take very tentative steps toward their goals.  They’re afraid to really give it their all, so they hold back much of the energy and power they could be devoting toward their goal.  Even if they’re not aware of it, they may feel more comfortable working at a slower pace, so they avoid taking big risks and instead take baby steps. 

There’s not a thing wrong with this approach if it suits you!  However, if you want to make faster progress and build momentum quickly, think about taking bigger steps and giving your full energy and focus toward making it happen.  By doing so, you’ll push through the difficult beginning and find yourself coasting before you know it.

If you are ready to hire a life coach, simply sign up for one of our affordable coaching packages.   You can also grab your free 20 minute coaching consultation to find out more about how a life coach can assist you.

How To Manage To Do Lists

This is a great article that will help to show you how to manage to do lists.  It’s so easy to get side-tracked when we fail to sit down and write out a specific to-do list. We end up wasting hours away during our business work hours. And consider this…if you were to get paid for all those lost hours, you might be a millionaire!

There seems to be two main extremities among business managers…

Those that suffer in utter chaos (you know, constantly looking for that lost file on the computer, a forgotten password, or notes scribbled on some little piece of paper somewhere — “It was right there yesterday! Really it was!”

On the other side of the coin, there are those that seem to fly through their day. They accomplish so much (it makes your head swirl), and stunningly enough…they even manage to have spare time to get a manicure and read their favorite book. They thrive abundantly in an organized, stress-free manner. Best of all, they don’t have to rush and burn the midnight hours away trying to get caught up.

The choice between the two options is really up to us. We all have the same 24 hours every day to get things done, and how we manage to use those 24 hours each day makes a real difference in our business and our home life. As you work from home, it’s more important than ever to organize your business tasks or you may find yourself working endless hours (and addicted to coffee).

Here’s 3 Easy Tips To Show You How To Manage To Do Lists:

1. Make a master list. Create a master list of everything you need to accomplish for the entire week. Next, begin to break down your list into a daily “to-do” schedule. When you plan early the tasks that need to be done, you allow yourself more time to accomplish them without being bogged down or overwhelmed.

Example: If you’re creating a new report, you can plan to create an outline on Monday, do necessary research on Tuesday, write ten pages on Wednesday, write ten more pages on Thursday, proofread and add final touches on Friday.

*A couple of tips: Keep in mind those days that are quite hectic and schedule less tasks. Also, determine when your energy is higher and schedule larger tasks that require more focus during those times.

2. Schedule every task (smaller ones as well). Each task needs to be accounted for, such as responding to email, planning product development, managing your marketing plan, researching, managing your website, tending to customer service, attending meetings, traveling time, dealing with other employees, etc.

Scheduling all minor and major tasks allows you to see the whole picture which will help you manage your time better. It’s important to allow yourself adequate time to accomplish those tasks as well as trying to stick to the schedule that you’ve set so that you don’t find yourself lagging behind. You need to feel small steps of success and not constant failure.

3. Determine how much time you have to dedicate for each of your business activities. Keep a realistic view on your available time. As I said earlier, you want to allow yourself adequate time to complete each task. Also ask the question, “Are there some tasks that could be completely eliminated because they’re not actually productive for your business?”

As your business grows, you may need to outsource more tasks. Outsourcing is absolutely a positive action for your business. As you expand your home business, your position as CEO will become more defined as you outsource all the smaller tasks and your main focus now becomes overseeing all the major decisions and planning of your business.

Using any of these tips above will truly help you to learn how to manage to do lists in your business and at home. 

Rhonda White is a Christian Work-at-Home Mom. To learn more about managing your home business and keep you motivated, grab your free membership on her blog at MommyRevenue.com.

If you need an accountability partner and help in reaching certain goals, simply sign up for one of our affordable coaching packages.   You can also grab your free 20 minute coaching consultation to find out more about how a life coach can assist you.

Help With Project Follow Through

Many people need assisntance with project follow through.  We all have lists of projects and to do lists that we know should get done, but they often get neglected. We never get around to them. There’s never enough time. We plan to start tomorrow. There are always too many distractions. The list of excuses could go on and on. Use these tips to get motivated to succeed with project through.  The tips below will help you with your project follow though and will help to keep you motivated. 

1) Eat One Bite at a Time: Many people stop in the middle of a project because they get frustrated or bored with the size of the project at hand and decide it would be easier to do something else. Break your goals down into smaller mini goals that can be accomplished in a small amount of time. You’ll be certain to finish these smaller tasks and feel a sense of accomplishment that will push you to continue.

2) Make it Visual: Many charities and organizations draw a vertical thermometer with incremental goals to help them visualize their progress toward a financial goal. You can do the same thing with your project or goal. On a sheet of poster board, draw your own thermometer. Indicate your starting point on the bottom, your completion point on the top, and incremental goals along the side. Place it where you’ll see it daily and fill it in as you complete each mini goal.

3) Night Owl or Early Bird? When it comes to project follow through, you must be aware of when you are most focused during the day.  Some people can easily focus in the morning and like being able to get things done and out of the way. Others work better in the afternoon and evening when they feel a little more awake. Decide when your most productive time is and schedule your tasks accordingly.

4) Set Reminders: Keep your attention on one thing at a time and set a timer to go off every 15 minutes. When the timer goes off, if you’ve strayed from your original project, get back to it right away. Keep setting the timer until you’ve reached your goal for the day.

5) Try to ‘Beat the Clock’: Competition is often a great motivator for many of us. You can create your own competition by setting a timer and trying to complete your task(s) before the timer sounds. You can do the same thing with a favorite CD. Listen to the CD while you work (as long as it’s not distracting) and try to get your work done before the CD is done.

Be Firm

6) Eliminate Interruptions: When you’re ready to work, have your answering machine or voicemail field your calls. Turn off the television. Put a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on your door. Resist the urge to constantly check your email. The less you’re interrupted, the more project follow through you will have and the quicker you’ll get your project completed.

7) Write it Down: Write down what needs to be done. When it’s written down, it’s more concrete, and there’s a greater chance you’ll start and complete it. It will also be a great reminder of everything you have accomplished as you cross off tasks as they are completed.

8 ) Be Accountable:  Another great project follow through tip is to tell someone what your goal is. Tell them when you’ll accomplish it by. They can be your cheerleader and make you accountable for sticking to your word. Check in with them during long-term projects to let them know if you’re on track and to receive the necessary encouragement.

9) Set Deadlines: Often we say, ‘I’ll get to it when I have time.’ You won’t have time to get everything done, unless you schedule time. Set specific deadlines for each of your mini-goals and stick to them.

10) It’s Ok to Say ‘No’: When you are approached to be on a committee or just spend the afternoon with a friend, weigh the options. If you’re too busy and saying yes would add too much stress, it’s ok to gracefully say no. You don’t have to say no every time. Just know your limits.

11) Get Help: Delegate tasks to friends, family members, co- workers, etc. If there is a part of your project that can be accomplished just as well by someone else, ask them to take on that part. If it is something that you can work on side- by-side, ask them to work on it with you.

12) Reward Yourself: To stay motivated, give yourself a reward each time you complete a mini-goal by its deadline. These rewards should be somewhat simple. They could include a ‘chore free’ day, taking a nap in the hammock, treating yourself to a piece of cake for desert, or a nice lunch. Your final reward should be the one that is most enticing to you. Plan your rewards before you get started so you know what you’re working towards and stay motivated.

You can use one or more of the great project follow through tips above to help keep you motivated to complete your tasks.

If you need an accountability partner and help in reaching certain goals, simply sign up for one of our affordable coaching packages.   You can also grab your free 20 minute coaching consultation to find out more about how a life coach can assist you.

Tips To Stop Procrastination

Do you hear yourself saying, ‘I will do it later’ more than you care to mention? You lose time and energy and achieve less as a result of putting things off. Do not let that dreaded procrastination bug get you down anymore. There are ways to beat it.

1. Divide and conquer a large project by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable tasks. Start off slow using small baby steps. Going through the tasks one by one will be much less stressful and overwhelming than trying to get a large project finished all at once. And as soon as action has begun on a specific task, you just might find the project taking on a life of its own and actually becoming enjoyable.

2. Try completing a task immediately. Do not give it any thought. Just do it. This is a great way to get things done fast as you will not be spending time thinking about it beforehand. And it is a good way to prevent you from even thinking any thoughts about putting off the task for another day.

3. Reward yourself when you complete a task or a series of tasks. This is a step that many people forget to take into account. As an incentive and to boost motivation, give yourself a reward for accomplishing a task and accomplishing it on time. Whatever the reward may be, whether it is simply a positive affirmation or buying yourself a treat, make sure the reward is something that inspires and motivates you to get the job done. Remember to reward yourself throughout a project, not just at the end.

4. Create a to-do list. It is better to write tasks down then to have them sitting in our mind where they can get lost with all of our other thoughts. Write down all of the things you have been putting off and keep that list in view. As you complete each task, cross it off, and continue to go down the list. Keep a note pad handy to record tasks as you think of them. Keeping all of your projects on a central to-do list will prevent tasks from being forgotten. As you check items off your to-do list, you will be able to track projects and see the progress you are making.

5. Create a schedule and set deadlines. A task without a deadline is destined to be put off indefinitely. Scheduling is very helpful in getting tasks accomplished and it keeps projects on track. Make sure your scheduling is reasonable and not too stringent. Spread a large task out over several sessions. This will prevent you from getting bogged down with one large task or project thereby making it easier to want to put it off. Take 5-10 minutes at the end of each day to look over what you have accomplished for the day and get an idea of what you wish to accomplish the following day. Finally, make a weekly appointment with yourself to plan tasks for the upcoming week to follow through on your goals.

6. Eliminate distractions. Distractions are one of the biggest reasons tasks are not started or finished. In fact, you may find yourself looking for distractions to avoid working on tasks. Focus by turning off the television, cell phone, the Internet, etc. Clear off your work area. Try to keep things in your office and home in order. Keep it tidy and clean. Order helps to curb procrastination and a clean environment tends to create a clearer mind.

7. Use a timer. Set a timer for 30 minutes and begin a task. Setting a time limit will help you focus on the task at hand, curb daydreaming and motivate you to complete the work. And once you have started the task, you may find yourself becoming absorbed in what you are doing and continue with it rather than stopping when the 30 minutes is over.

8. Avoid perfectionism. It is important to understand and remember that no one and nothing is perfect. Thinking that you must do the job perfectly on the first try will likely prevent you from ever getting started. This expectation creates stress, anxiety and the fear of failure. Keep in mind that you are a human and that being perfect tends to lead to procrastination and that it is perfectly O.K. to not get the project done perfectly. Instead of striving for perfection, aim for progress.

Get Organized Now is an amazing collection of 2,175 ideas, tips and techniques for organizing your home, your clutter, your time, your schedule, your money, your paper, your family and much more!

Think you can’t do much in 20 minutes? Schedule a free 20 minute coaching consultation with certified Personal Life Coach Aurelia Williams and start forming your plan of action today!

What Does Your ‘Happy’ Look Like

As a life coach, I’ve worked with many people over the past 8 years and more often than not, in one way or another, they are looking for ways to add more “happiness” into their life. This can usually be done by making some small or large changes in their daily routine and remaining consistent with it which eventually affect their entire life.

Many people look to “add” more things that they enjoy to their life (money, friends, hobbies..etc) while others look to “remove” things that they just aren’t happy about (relationships, career, unhealthy habits… etc). What I am always sure to tell people is that “My happy may not look like your happy” and the key is to take a long look at your life and ask yourself “What do I want out of Life” and then… start to jot some things down. Don’t worry if the items seem trivial, funny, too serious or downright outrageous.. just get to writing. After you create your list, take a long hard look at it and see what you’ve come up with.

I find that most people are happiest when they focus on their priorities, meet certain goals they lay out for themselves and quite frankly, earn the “amount” of money that they perceive will make them happy. I’m not saying that these are the only things that will make you happy but many people tie their happiness directly to their goals and finances.

I visited Lynn Terry’s blog and checked out a post she wrote recently: “What It Takes To Be Happy (I’m Struggling)“. Lynn has made no bones about being on her path to making positive changes in her life for some time now and she even posted the results of her online “well being finder” test that she took for all of us to see. (Feel free to peek at her results — By the way – my results would probably be the exact opposite of hers). Anyway, the different responses that Lynn got to this “Quest for happiness” topic was very interesting and as I read through the comments — and even posted my own — I realized that many people have been struggling with being happy for quite some time and often times they are frankly too hard on themselves (in my opinion) but What in the Heck Do I know? .

When a client comes to me and they are stuck at a crossroads in life or they are being hard on themselves and saying things like “I don’t know why I keep doing the same dumb things”, or “I don’t know WHY I just cant get it together and do x, y or z” , I usually instruct them to “Stop, Sit and Write”.  That’s right, just write. I encourage people to create a list of what they feel is most important in life, things that they enjoy doing, things they used to do but don’t do any longer for whatever reason and really get back to doing more of what they enjoy! This isn’t to say that you let all of the other areas in your life slide as you just only focus on your “happy zone” but you can in fact boost up the areas in your life that you feel are lacking while maintaining the areas that you are already thriving in.

Again where is what I suggest:

• Create a list of things that you enjoy doing.
• Create a list of things that you would like to try to do (pretend money isn’t an issue).
• Create a list of what you feel is most important in your life.

I’ve spoken with many people about happiness and can you believe that the #1 reason people aren’t “happy” is because they simply don’t allow themselves to incorporate more of what makes them HAPPY into their lives. We spend a lot of time doing what we feel that we “HAVE” to do and at times push your own desires out of the way. As I often say “Get out of your own way”. Your happiness is important and if you don’t focus on it, who will?

I think that taking inventory of your life and looking at how you rate yourself in these following categories is essential:

Social
Career
Health/Physical
Financial
Community
Spiritual

Go ahead and rate yourself from 1-10 in the above categories and if you feel yourself falling below a 7 in any of the categories that you hold dear to your heart, then those are the area’s that you should look to enhance.

In case you are wondering, for me happiness is a combination of being able to pick up a latte from Starbucks without worrying about my electric bill being cut off, making it though the day with at least “some” of my sanity intact while making a few people smile along the way and getting my 11yo tucked into bed knowing he put his best foot forward during the day. Oh yeah, if I can get a few slobby kisses from my toddler and infant grandsons..well, that’s a plus too. I don’t care if my hair or kitchen is a mess but it would be nice to at least put on some clean undies so I’d like the laundry done too.  (BTW – I do the laundry because I don’t think the Hubby knows where the detergent is

I’m curious, what do you think? What does your “Happiness” look like?  Do you know where or if you struggle with being happy?

Change your mind — Change yourself

What if I told you that changing yourself was as simple as changing your mindset? Well, it is. Let’s explore this a little closer. Did you know that success has little to do with “inborn” talent ? Even Michael Jordan was deemed too short and untalented to play ball in his sophomore year of high school. Once you realize that practice, not talent creates success, it’s not much of a stretch to realize that the most talented people are not the ones who are the most successful. The most successful people are the ones who get out there are getting things done.

Envision the result (See)

Instead of praying to stop or end some bad habit, pray or mediate on the positive aspects of the new habits you want to develop. See yourself in your mind’s eye, as a person who gets up each day and exercises. See yourself as a person who eats right, and takes the right steps (that you already know) in order to achieve the desired success. Allow yourself to feel successful, accomplished and happy during your praying or meditation time so that this feeling carries with you the rest of the day. See the results you want, then take the steps each day to get there.

Stop learning/talking and do (Be)

As mentioned earlier, people who are successful were not necessarily the ones born with tons of talent. Likewise, the smartest people aren’t the one who were born with the most intelligence. Success comes from doing, not from inborn ability. You can be the most beautiful singer in the world, but if you only sing in the shower, you’ll never be famous. Successful people are the people who got out there and created forward motion toward their goal each day. Whether that goal is to be a successful business woman or to be the best mommy for her children, is up to the individual.

Identify with the changed you. (Do)

Let’s suppose you want to learn how to stop a bad habit. How do you do it? Stop identifying yourself with that bad habit. If you want to stop smoking for instance, instead of identifying with smokers start identifying with nonsmokers. Do things nonsmokers do. Do not carry cigarettes, do not carry matches or a lighter, and do not look for places to smoke. Stop identifying with smokers in terms of their rights to smoke. Stop worrying about the cost of cigarettes. Call yourself a Nonsmoker. This is changing your mindset to that of a nonsmoker instead of a smoker.

These steps can be changed to a simple: See, Do and Be. See yourself as you want to be; Do the things that are required, and be the person you dreamed of being.

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