Getting Serious About New Year’s Resolutions
New Year's| Comments Off on Getting Serious About New Year’s ResolutionsGetting Serious About New Year’s Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions are a way of telling yourself that there’s something you want to achieve. Determine why you’re making the resolutions in the first place, and create personal resolve to change the root cause.
1. Why are you making this resolution?
2. What are you willing to do differently that will make this resolution a reality?
Make the statements in the form of SPECIFIC personal actions and SPECIFIC personal achievements. The more specific you can make them, the more likely you are to make them happen.
Tell yourself EXACTLY what you intend to do.
Tell yourself EXACTLY what you will do, or are willing to do.
What are you willing to do?
What are you willing to change?
What are you willing to better?
What are you willing to sacrifice?
Are you willing to work harder?
Are you willing to get up earlier in order to give yourself more achievement time?
And what is it worth to you once it’s done?
-Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Little Red Book of Selling and eight other business books on sales, customer loyalty, and personal development. www.gitomer.com
New Year’s: Self, Resolve
New Year's| Comments Off on New Year’s: Self, ResolveNew Year’s: Self, Resolve
Enjoy New Year’s Eve but celebrate New Year’s Day as a time of renewed potential. Mindfully strategize for personal body ~ mind ~ spirit & business success in 2009.
As days lengthen, optimism naturally soars with the increasing daylight and the promise of spring. This is the PERFECT time to list resolutions galore! Start with, “In a perfect world I would…” and fill in the blanks as far as your mind can wish!
Don’t ask ‘how,’ just state ‘what.’
Now categorize this random list under Body, Mind, Spirit or Business. Expand these lists again. Wow! All that change!? Of course! With one caveat:
Happily, you are always a work in progress! No rush! Rather than embrace the whole list, pick only ONE change under each heading and faithfully incorporate them into your routine for one month. Voila! New habits. Revisit your list and pick a new set of “Resolutions” each month for the full year. This quiet focus assures that you will easily create powerful new behaviors to serve you beautifully throughout your lifetime.
With resolve, 2009 can be the best year of your life! Make it so.
Post-it cue: I Resolve!
Re-focus ~ Re-frame ~ Re-gain Self
Put one Post-it on your computer screen, one on your bathroom mirror,
one on your frig and one anywhere else you may spend repeated time during the day.
The act of writing imprints the truth on your mind.
Every time you see your handwriting again, it further imprints your mind.
To increase the value of this process, smile when you see your Post-its.
Smiling signals your mind to increase endorphins and imprint whatever makes you smile.
CLAUDIA JEAN
www.claudiajean.com
My Cat’s New Year’s Resolutions
Chinese New Year, New Year's, Share Your Story| 1 Comment »My Cat’s New Year’s Resolutions
* My human will never let me eat her pet hamster, and I am at peace with that.
* I will not puff my entire body to twice its size for no reason after my human has finished watching a horror movie
* I will not slurp fish food from the surface of the aquarium.
* I must not help myself to Q-tips, and I must certainly not proceed to stuff them down the sink’s drain.
* I will not eat large numbers of assorted bugs, then come home and puke them up so the humans can see that I’m getting plenty of roughage.
* I will not lean way over to drink out of the tub, fall in, and then pelt right for the box of clumping cat litter. (It took FOREVER to get the stuff out of my fur.)
* I will not stand on the bathroom counter, stare down the hall, and growl at NOTHING after my human has finished watching The X-Files.
* I will not fish out my human’s partial plate from the glass so that the dog can "wear" it and pretend to be my human. (It is somewhat unnerving to wake up, roll over in bed, and see the dog grinning at you with your own teeth.)
* I will not use the bathtub to store live mice for late-night snacks.
* I will not drag dirty socks up from the basement in the middle of the night, deposit them on the bed and yell at the top of my lungs (Burmese LOUD yowling) so that my human can admire my "kill."
* I will not perch on my human’s chest in the middle of the night and stare into her eyes until she wakes up.
* We will not play Herd of Thundering Wildebeests Stampeding Across the Plains of the Serengeti over any humans’ bed while they’re trying to sleep.
* Screaming at the can of food will not make it open itself.
* I cannot leap through closed windows to catch birds outside. If I forget this and bonk my head on the window and fall behind the couch in my attempt, I will not get up and do the same thing again.
* I will not assume the patio door is open when I race outside to chase leaves.
* I will not back up off the front porch and fall into the bushes just as my human is explaining to his girlfriend how graceful I am.
* I will not complain that my bottom is wet and that I am thirsty after sitting in my water bowl.
* I will not intrude on my human’s candlelit bubble bath and singe my bottom.
* I will not stick my paw into any container to see if there is something in it. If I do, I will not hiss and scratch when my human has to shave me to get the rubber cement out of my fur.
* If I bite the cactus, it will bite back.
* It is not a good idea to try to lap up the powdered creamer before it dissolves in boiling coffee.
* When I am chasing my tail and catch my back leg instead, I will not bite down on my foot. This hurts, and my scream scares my human.
* When it rains, it will be raining on all sides of the house. It is not necessary to check every door.
* Birds do not come from the bird feeder. I will not knock it down and try to open it up to get the birds out.
* I will not stuff my rather large self into the rather small bird feeder (with my tail hanging out one side) and expect the birds to just fly in.
* I will not teach the parrot to meow in a loud and raucous manner.
* The dog can see me coming when I stalk her. She can see me and will move out of the way when I pounce, letting me smash into floors and walls. That does not mean I should take it as a personal insult when my humans sit there and laugh.
* Yes, there are still two very large dogs in the backyard. There have been for several years. I don’t have to act as if I’ve just discovered the Demon Horror of the Universe each time one of them appears in my window.
* I will not play "dead cat on the stairs" while people are trying to bring in groceries or laundry, or else one of these days, it will really come true.
* When the humans play darts, I will not leap into the air and attempt to catch them.
* I will not swat my human’s head repeatedly when she’s on the family room floor trying to do sit ups.
* When my human is typing at the computer, her forearms are *not* a hammock.
* Computer and TV screens do not exist to backlight my lovely tail.
* I am a walking static generator. My human doesn’t need my help installing a new board in her computer.
* I will not bring the city police to the front door by stepping on the speaker phone button and then the automatic 911 dial button.
* I will not speed dial the overseas numbers.
* I will not walk on the keyboard when my human is writing important emiognaioerp ga3qi4 taija3t v aa35 a.
* Any critter that lives in the house (hamsters), stay in the house and any wild critters (frogs and earthworms) stay outside. I am not allowed to set the hamster free in exchange for finding a frog to put in the fish tank.
* I will not stalk the deer in the apple orchard next door. They have sharp hooves and could hurt me if they weren’t laughing so hard.
* I will not watch the guinea pig constantly as the guinea pig likes to sleep once in a while.
* The goldfish likes living in water and should be allowed to remain in its bowl.
* I will not put a live mole in my food bowl and expect it to stay there until I get hungry.
* I will not eat spider plants and hallucinate behind the toilet.
* I will not drag the magnets (and the papers they are holding up) off of the refrigerator and then bat them underneath it so that they adhere to the underside.
* I will learn to relax at the vet’s office so they will start writing things in my records like "Good Kitty" and "Sweet Kitty" instead of the stuff that’s there now like "MEAN!!" "BITER!!!" and "GET HELP!!!!!"
* I will not be miffed at my human all day and then kiss her on the nose at 2:00 a.m. to tell her that she is forgiven and can now pet me.
* I will not scratch the children of lawyers, no matter how much they chase me or how hard they pull my tail.
* If I MUST claw my human, I will not do it in such a fashion that the scars resemble a botched suicide attempt.
* If I must give a present to my human’s overnight guests, my toy mouse is much more socially acceptable than a big live cockroach, even if it isn’t as tasty.
* I will not soak my catnip toy in the water bowl to make tea. I will not get high and sit there drinking my tea and kneading the floor afterwards. I will not then get delusions of grandeur and make tea in the toilet bowl or the tub. And I will not try to make tea with used socks, dirty panties or hair scrunches when my humans take the catnip toy away from me.
* A warm pepperoni pizza is not a good place for a nap.
* I will not drag a golf ball up the stairs and bat it around the tile floor of the office at 3:30 in the morning. Despite the fact it’s reportedly impossible for a cat to pick up a golf ball, not to mention carrying it upstairs, my human isn’t impressed with my resourcefulness at oh-dark-thirty.
* I will not swat glassware off the kitchen countertops just to watch it shatter on the tile floor.
* I will not sit right behind my human when she’s fixing dinner and then loudly complain about it when she steps on me.
* My human did not buy that rare betta fish as an early morning appetizer before my breakfast.
* Things that sting do NOT make good toys. This includes bees, wasps, and scorpions.
* No matter how frightening it may be, the vacuum cleaner isn’t actually trying to eat me.
* Items such as glasses and cell phones were not purchased as toys for me.
* "Breaking in" new furniture doesn’t mean using it for a scratching post.
* I will not try to help my human mop the kitchen floor by batting all the water out of my water bowl in the middle of the night.
* The kitchen table is not meant to be my pedestal where my loyal and devoted followers can worship my greatness. I should not take it personally when I’m unceremoniously removed deposited back onto the floor.
* I will not bulldoze over my human in an attempt to dart out the door as my human is coming in. This is an especially bad idea at night, and even more so when there are skunks in the yard.
* Skunks smell bad, are quick to panic, and don’t make good friends.
-Submitted by Michelle Weisser
10 Loving New Year’s Resolutions
Heart of the Holidays, New Year's, Tips & Trivia| Comments Off on 10 Loving New Year’s Resolutions
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
Let’s face it. We all make ’em, then we break ’em. That’s life! But mostly it’s because we set unrealistic ones. We’re going to lose that 10 or 20lbs that we’ve been hanging onto for the last five years! We’ll exercise more often. We’re going to change jobs, change our relationships, change habits. Aren’t we?
So here are 10 resolutions to think about…
- I will take better care of myself in whatever form that takes. It doesn’t have to be in large leaps. Small steps are enough.
- I will say NO more often and know that I’m being kind to myself.
- I will write a Gratitude Journal every night and give thanks for all the good things in my life.
- I will stop making excuses and start taking actions no matter how big or small.
- I will acknowledge the place in me that feels small and vulnerable and honor it with compassion.
- I will not apologize for my existence any longer. I’m too old for that.
- I will say THANK YOU when someone gives me a compliment without giving a story about why I don’t deserve it.
- I will treat myself once a week to at least two hours of alone time.
- I will acknowledge my fears, but assume I already have the courage to confront them.
- I will find someone to support me in my changes that will hold me accountable so I can truly step into being FEARLESS.
–Jacqueline Wales, Fearless Fifties womens’ retreat facilitator and coach, Author of When the Crow Sings, www.jacquelinewales.com
New Year’s Resolutions: Attracting Your Soulmate
Heart of the Holidays, New Year's, Stories, Tips & Trivia| Comments Off on New Year’s Resolutions: Attracting Your SoulmateNew Year’s Resolutions
REPRINTED FROM THE HEART OF THE HOLIDAYS BOOK
Christmas of 2005 I was feeling depressed. All of my younger siblings were scattered around the country celebrating the holidays with their spouse’s families. I, on the other hand, did not have a spouse. I had nowhere to go. I was single and alone, 3000 miles away from “home.”
Being the oldest of five children I always had lots of family around me. But this year was the exception to the rule. As I watched from a distance as my siblings created their own lineages, a friend took pity and invited me to spend the holidays with his relatives. As kind as that was, I found myself feeling even more lonely. As I adjusted to adopting someone else’s kin on Christmas Eve, a spark all of a sudden flickered inside of me. I realized that, more than any other goal in my life, I wanted a family.
I had been living in Los Angeles for 14 years, a town where youth is a top priority. Seasons don’t change and neither do the faces of its inhabitants. Despite the heat, it is a city where time appears to be frozen. And yet, it is a fallacy. Time still marches on. I couldn’t believe that I was 35. For heaven’s sake, I still felt 25! I didn’t comprehend that the years were passing until I would visit with my growing nieces and nephews. It is in children’s faces that the years fly by.
Sitting by the Christmas tree, surrounded by someone else’s family, only served to feed the flame of discontent growing inside of me. I had enough. As fun and exciting as my single life had been, I was ready for the next step. I had done everything I had come to LA to do, and wanted the next adventure. I was over not having to be responsible for anything or anyone. I was actually bored with myself. I was ready to commit to a new future. Yes, finally, I was ready to find my husband and get married.
I had toyed with the idea in the past, but never before had I felt such conviction that now was the time. New Year’s Eve came and, once again, I was saddened to have another holiday pass by with no one to share it with. I sat myself down in the stillness of my empty apartment and wrote out my resolutions for the year.
With conviction and full intent I declared that 2006 was the year that I would meet and marry my soulmate! I wrote out a detailed list of what it was that I wanted to create for my future. I also devised a plan of how I was going to manifest my desires. This affirmation set that little flame ablaze and I was propelled into action.
I started to clear out everything from my past that might be perceived as an obstacle blocking me from being seen by my soulmate. I was determined to be the best that I could be so that I would attract the best man for my greatest Self. I had been practicing The Law of Attraction for about 8 years and I knew that if I wanted to create an extraordinary man than I would have to BE an extraordinary woman.
I knew that The Law of Attraction worked because I had created an exceptional life so far. I had all sorts of remarkable experiences in my work and traveling the world, although they had mostly been sole ventures. Now, I knew that it was time to focus my attention on designing my life partner. For I knew he was out there looking for me, just as much as I was looking for him.
After begrudgingly checking out online dating sites a few months earlier, I decided to revisit the web with a new attitude and responded to three prospects. I told all three that I “didn’t do email’ and if they’d like to talk they could call me. On January 5th, 2006, he called. It was only five days after I had written my New Year’s resolutions. He had just returned home from the holiday celebration of Paramahansa Yogananda’s birthday at his church when he received my email. He too had been feeling lonely over the holidays, wondering when I was to come into his life, and moved himself into action to go out and find me.
He drove up from San Diego for our first date on January 6th. There was an instant connection and recognition. For our second date he flew up to San Francisco, where I was working for the week, to take me out to dinner. We knew right away it was meant to be.
We were engaged by Easter and married in August. It only took me seven months to accomplish my New Year’s goals. We traveled to nine countries together in the year and spent each and every holiday together. The secret to my success was The Law of Attraction. Now, I am getting ready to start to manifest my next goal… a family.
I now know that my holidays will be lonely no more. New Year’s resolutions can be very powerful if you hold a strong intention, and next year it is my intention to hear the pitter-patter of little feet running around the tree on Christmas morning.
— Karen Kripalani, Relationship and Life Coach, Author of “The Secret of How To Attract Your Soulmate and Get Married Within a Year,” www.BeautyEverywhere.com
REPRINTED FROM THE HEART OF THE HOLIDAYS BOOK
Top 11 Self-Reflection Questions for Years End
Heart of the Holidays, New Year's, Tips & Trivia| Comments Off on Top 11 Self-Reflection Questions for Years EndTop 11 Self-Reflection Questions for Years End
by Michelle L. Casto, Ph.D.
1. What worked in my life this past year?
What did not work?
2. What brought me happiness/disappointment?
3. Where was I successful?
4. What were my greatest challenges/lessons?
5. What am I most proud of? What do I most regret?
6. What attitudes and actions will I take with me into the new year?
Which ones do I want to keep in this year?
7. What limiting beliefs did I shift?
What negative emotions did I shift?
8. When did I follow my intuition?
9. How did I grow, improve, and expand myself?
10. How much love did I share?
11. What do I want my intention to be for 2008?
Michelle L. Casto, Ph.D.
© 2007
Dr. Michelle helps you come up with bright ideas for your life, shine your bright light to the world, and graduate from a "default" life to your divine life, the one you were born to live. You can visit her web site at http://www.smartlifechanges.com/academy.htm
TIP: How to Have a Successful New Year
Heart of a Mother, Heart of a Woman, Heart of the Holidays, New Year's, Tips & Trivia| Comments Off on TIP: How to Have a Successful New YearTIP: How to Have a Successful New Year
25 HABITS OF SUCCESSFUL WOMEN
Most successful people have several traits in common that enhance their ability to achieve their greatest potential in life. Dr. Stacia Pierce, pastor, motivator, and founder of MINISTRY-4-WOMEN, is the author of "25 Habits of Successful Women."
NEW YEAR’S HOT TIP from Dr. Pierce:
Visualize your best possible outcome for the new year. When you make a New Year’s resolution, see it! Draw a picture, compile photographs from magazines, newspapers, etc, and put together your own, personal, goal oriented scrapbook that you can reference for inspiration throughout the year.
Surviving the Holidays
Boxing Day, Christmas, Hanukkah, Heart of the Holidays, Kwanzaa, New Year's, Tips & Trivia| Comments Off on Surviving the HolidaysSurviving the Holidays
by Jacqueline Wales
We are all gearing up for the Holiday Season, and since many of us love it and maybe just as many hate it, I’d like to offer you my five top tips for getting through the chaos without losing your mind.
- You are not the GIFTS you give. YOU ARE THE GIFT. Remember to treat it with respect.
- You don’t have to accept every party invitation that comes your way. People will love you anyway.
- Gift giving is not a competitive sport. If you receive something, you don’t have to give one back, especially if it means going into debt to do so.
- When the hurly-burly sets in……Remember to Breathe
- If you so desire….. be a BAH HUMBUG! The party will continue anyway.
