How to Keep that New-Year Feeling All Year Long

January 15, 2011 by

This post is by Dr. Peter J. Meyers of 30GO30.

If you’re a plan junkie like me, New Year’s Day is your High Holy Holiday. There’s nothing quite as liberating as thinking ahead to an entire year of possibilities. Unfortunately, most of us hit January 1st running strong, only to be tripped up by the first obstacle in our path. I’d like to offer a few tips for keeping that New-Year feeling year-round.

Copyright 2009 by Kutay Tanir.

Plan on the obstacles

I know it’s not sexy to plan for setbacks, but it’s essential. It’s easy to hit the gym during your time off, but if that exercise plan falls apart the day you have to go back to work, then what’s the point? You know you’re going back to work. You know that the holiday won’t last forever. Make sure your plans fit your real life.

Work out the details

If your goal is to “get in shape,” don’t just write it on a piece of paper and then watch all the Rocky movies back-to-back. Equip yourself with what you’ll need when January 1st comes. Do you need a gym membership? Do you need some equipment for home or a workout DVD? Are your running shorts in a condition that might get you arrested for indecency?

Figure it out in advance. If your planning is nothing but heady dreams of world domination, and you save the hard stuff for the new year, your plan will fall apart before it even begins. Don’t just make a resolution – resolve yourself to a specific, actionable plan.

Think day by day

It’s easy to make big plans and bask in the glory of what might be, but how do your big plans translate into day-by-day activities? What will you do, specifically, on February 17th or June 3rd? If your New Year’s resolution is to write a novel, you’re probably not going to just think really hard for 364 days and then spew out 400 pages on December 31st. How does that novel translate into pages and words on a daily basis? Are you going to write every day, or just five or six days each week?

If you ask these questions ahead of time and really know how your aspirations translate into action, you’ve got a great shot at succeeding. If you don’t, you may be writing a fairy tale.

Make planning a habit

Sometimes, we get carried away with New Year’s resolutions. The problem is, we’ve essentially picked only one day per year to plan the most important aspects of our lives. We plan every day for the minutiae of our lives, but somehow the really big, important goals get relegated to a December 31st motivational binge.

Set aside time every week to plan. Make it the same time, and really build a planning habit. Your big goals deserve that much. Of course, this means asking the tough questions every week, too. Is this the right direction? Do you have what you need to make it happen? If you set aside the time to evaluate and plan, you may change direction, but you’re much more likely to reach at least one of your destinations.

Dr. Peter J. Meyers (“Dr. Pete”) is a cognitive psychologist, accidental entrepreneur, and aspiring non-procrastinator. He recently founded 30GO30, a site dedicated to finding out exactly how much you can accomplish in 30 days.

Feel Good Online? Feel Great Offline!

January 13, 2011 by

This guest post is by Jane Sheeba of Find All Answers.

I had to go offline for a week. I packed up my stuff. I scheduled blog posts for those days I’d be away. I packed a couple of books I’d purchased, knowing that it would be really hard for me to stay offline. I couldn’t check mails, there’d be no tweets or buzzing… Life is tough that way, I thought.

When I came back, I realized a great difference in myself: I felt a lot better and recharged. I’m not claiming that being offline is the ideal state for well being. But I certainly recommend offline periods for everyone at some frequency. Let me tell you the goodness I experienced.

My eyes

My eyes thanked me for the break. My everyday routine includes a lot of sitting in front of the laptop. I sit in front of a Linux computer at work (I work full time as a Research Scientist in the field of Medical Physics), and at home is my Windows 7 laptop. I almost always look into a computer monitor, since I work on my blog at home.

When I was offline I no longer had eye balls that hurt. I went to bed before my vision got blurry. My eyes did not scream out to me, asking me to blink. I felt that I have done good justice to my eyes, and I could do more in less time in front of the computer when I was offline, since I had a better vision.

The time I spent with my family and people

Being offline was like being without any perturbations from outside. While at home, I have all email notifiers turned on. I’ll be away from my laptop to clean my house or to put clothes in the washer, when I hear a ‘bing’ (the alert sound when a chat message or a email comes in). I briefly come to the laptop to see if it’s something important. I have wireless enabled and my android phone is on the Web. Even if I go to bedroom, I can’t avoid the ‘bing’. Or I go to the kitchen and boom—an idea pops into my head. I either rush to my laptop or pick up my phone to type it out online (I want my drafts to be in sync wherever I go).

I spend about 15% of my time with my family when I have Internet access at home. But when I was away I spent about 80% of my time with my family, relatives, and friends. I spent a lot of that talking to people face to face and I felt it a lot more realistic and refreshing compared to online socializing.

My back

Sitting in front of a computer for hours at a time is a curse. It takes a lot of practice to learn and implement the correct ergonomic postures. Even if most of us know the correct postures, we don’t take care to stick to them after some time, once we are working with full concentration. We cannot stop our body from changing postures. As we become more and more involved in our work, we take rather bad postures, doing harm to our back and neck.

Well, I am all saying ‘we’; even though I don’t know about all of you, I know this happens with most people.

I felt a lot firm and straight during the week when I was offline. I did not sit in my chair and lean forward. Actually I did not sit in a chair for the most part. I did a lot of walking and moving around, and my back felt so fresh. I never felt the ache that usually occurs at about bed time.

My productivity

I actually thought that since I was going offline I would kill a lot of my productive time. I worried if I could ever catch up at all with all the pending work that would have piled up on my return. To my surprise, the offline time was actually a productive break. I got super-productive and wrote an ebook in 4 days.

Surprisingly, I wrote this ebook in less than 20% of the time (I spent about 80% of the time on socializing, as I said earlier!). 20% of the time is far very little compared to the time I’d usually take, while online, to get this work done. I achieved something that would take about 15 to 20 days if I chose to do it on those days when I’m always online. The problem is the routine online stuff that distracts me from writing the ebook.

The other online things are not literally distractions—they’re other things that are either equally or more important than writing the ebook, but still they divert me from my writing (or what I am into, generally).

I am not saying that I am totally disorganized when I am online. Not at all! I do all my research and blogging work while being online. I have had no problems with my personal organization and productivity. But being online at least sets two expectations within me:

1. Sync with all servers (emails, drafts, and so on) or get updated.

2. Be alert not to get into online distractions. The very awareness to not get distracted while being online creates restlessness. I’m sure you’ve experienced this yourself.

My humble suggestion: take yourself offline once in a while and you’ll feel a great difference. Your body and mind will receive a great treat if you do so, and so will your productivity.

Jane writes on Blogging Tips, Relationships and Self Improvement at Find All Answers. She has a free ebook for you to grab.

Why I Love … Running

January 12, 2011 by

This post is by Kate Freeman of Kate Freeman Nutrition.

Exercise, to me, is like a drug … well, from what I know about drugs, because I’ve never actually used them. But from what I’ve heard, engaging in vigorous physical activity gives me a similar rush.

Now, I hate putting on my runners and walking out the door but I love the feeling I get at the end of the training session—this amazingly worn out feeling, though I’m energized and alive all at the same time. Exercise makes me view my body more positively, gives me a better perspective on challenging areas of my life, and is the best stress relief technique I’ve ever come across.

It hasn’t always been this way. I use to be a fad exerciser. I’d do something for a couple of weeks until the novelty wore off, and then I’d go back to being lazy again. I took for granted that I was a healthy weight, had healthy bones, muscles and joints, and had a body that seemed to function perfectly.

Then I got pregnant.

By the end of my second pregnancy it had been over two years since I’d engaged in regular physical activity. I had been a bit sporadic—maybe a walk here and a Wii Fit session there—but nothing consistent. Nine months of morning sickness for both pregnancies had left me tired, depleted, and terribly unfit, not to mention hemorrhaging with my first labor, which left me borderline anemic.

The first time I actually did anything more than a walk left me breathless and feeling like passing out after about ten seconds.

Where was my fitness, my stamina, my motivation? It was all gone. My body was way below par and my fitness destination seemed too far from where I was to even begin the path of restoration. My once healthy weight felt like it could balloon at any second. I had to do something.

One thing, only a little thing, was enough to kick start me into action. Here’s the story.

I was eight months pregnant with my second child, and I remember groaning as I pulled myself off the lounge. Every part of me ached. My feet felt like they were burning, I half choked on the acid reflux that came up my throat as my uterus crushed my poor little stomach that felt like it was already in my armpit. My hips were shooting with pain when I made any kind of quick movement, and my poor neck said, “If you vomit one more time, I’m going to pack it in.” Well it didn’t really say that, but I’m sure if it could talk, it would have.

I used to watch this Coca-Cola ad on TV with these perfect, skinny girls running and jumping around, all happy and energetic. I’d go green with envy as my whale of a body, could barely get itself out of bed in the morning.

How I wished I could be like those girls: energetic and carefree. How I wished to have my pre-pregnant body back. If I did, I wouldn’t take it for granted this time. I would look after it, be a regular exerciser, put good food into its tummy and keep it healthy.

That day I made a vow to myself—a promise that I would forever keep. When this baby was out, the exercise was on! It seemed I hadn’t realized what I had until I’d lost it. An unwell pregnancy had made me very grateful for the healthy, functioning body I had before my babies—especially when I realized there were people out there in far more difficulty than I was in.

Three weeks later I held my little baby boy in my arms and revelled in immediate relief from my horrifying pregnancy hormones. No more vomiting, no more reflux, no more hip, neck, back, foot, or body pain. I was back.

After waiting the customary six weeks, and catching up on much-needed sleep, I got the all-clear from the doctor and I was back in business. My vow was still very much in the forefront of my mind. So thankful was I to not be pregnant that I didn’t want to waste a minute. On went the joggers, a new fitness outfit (purple and black, to match my shoes), and my favorite music tracks.

Two minutes into jogging, I felt like I was going to die.

I could have given up then. It all seemed too much, and I was never going to get my fitness back. But my vow came back to me. All I could hear was my own words in the back of my mind, “You promised yourself, Kate. You remember what it was like to not be able to exercise. Now you can, so don’t miss your chance”.

The next day I gave it another shot, and I got a little bit further. Every time I wanted to give up I remembered my vow, and I remember the feeling of having the opportunity to move my body taken away. The next day I tried again.

My son is now ten months old. I have been exercising consistently for about eight months now. I can interval walk/run 10kms with my jogger pram and have lost 7kg. And I feel great. I’m so happy with my body, I feel confident in the bedroom with my husband, and I have so much energy. I sleep like a log and a month ago I bought a $200 pair of jeans. They go right on—no fuss, no muffin top, just nice.

Don’t get me wrong: there were a couple of highly stressful events during that time when the exercise stopped for a week or two, but the promise, still echoing in my head, made me get right back into it again. I’m not a fad exerciser any more. I’m a consistent exerciser—and that’s the key.

I became a runner because it doesn’t cost me anything, I can take my kids (I have an amazing twin jogger stroller), I can work as hard or as easy as I like, I can go when I like, and it gave me my fitness back. I could start out slow—just a couple of minutes at first—and then build up more and more endurance. I didn’t have to spend heaps of money on equipment or gear, either.

I’m a runner because it taught me patience, endurance and perseverance.

If you have lost your fitness, or maybe you never had it and think it’s all too hard—don’t give up. If I can do it, so can you.

Editor’s Note: Want to tell us what you love—and why—in a post for FeelGooder? Submit your ideas to us!

Kate Freeman is extremely passionate about providing honest, simple nutrition advice and doing it in such a way that inspires and motivates people to make positive lifestyle changes to achieve their health and nutritional goals. She is married with 2 children and lives in New South Wales, Australia.

9 Ways in Which Yoga Changed My Life … And Could Change Yours

January 11, 2011 by

This post is by Claudia Azula Altucher of Claudiayoga.com.

I started practicing yoga because I wanted to look good and feel good. I also wanted to meet men. Through my early practice days I saw that advanced students seemed peaceful, elegant, centered, and almost otherworldly. Little did I know at the time that those were merely projections. Yogis are people, and just like with other people, you can find all kinds.

The promise of what I thought I saw in these practitioners was enough to get me started anyway, and I am glad I did. Yoga brought into my life not just all of the things I initially believed I wanted, but much more. It made me more flexible in body, yes, but it also pointed out other areas of life in which I could bend or stretch more.

Here are some examples of where the practice had a life-changing effect for me.

1. Lifting me from depression

Yoga entered my life and lifted depression away, literally. I’d been on medication from 2003 until 2006, and through the daily practice and everything that happened as a consequence (having a teacher care for me, going to workshops, meeting people, going to brunches with other yogis, learning about yogic principles, and so on), I was able to stop taking drugs.

It didn’t happen overnight—not at all. It took a few years and a lot of trust, but it happened. These days the daily practice of yoga and meditation is so ingrained in my daily activities that I can clearly see how not having it could produce a void that, especially in winter months, could send me singing the blues.

For example, when I took my very first yoga retreat at the end of 2003 in northern British Columbia, I was for the first time aware that one can live life dedicating every action to a higher power, however way we understand that. During that retreat they had us wash lettuce as a dedication, make the bed with total awareness, and stop and pray on the hour, every hour.

Integrating an attitude of devotion, remembering how blessed I was to have food to eat, the possibility of a retreat, and a healthy body, helped me to slowly put things in perspective, and to come into health.

2. Changing the body

The very first way in which yoga showed herself in my life was through my body. I started practicing Ashtanga yoga, which is a set routine practiced every day in the morning, six times a week. What I liked about this particular style is that the student practices on his or her own and poses are added one at the time.

In the beginning the practice was short as I concentrated on learning the poses in the sequence, and the sweating was profuse. I practiced half in a studio and half at home (with a DVD), and within a short period of time of no more than six months I started to notice new muscles in my body, feel more energy, have better posture, and release weight.

Not all styles of yoga are intense like the one I practice, but most classes these days include a comprehensive workout for the whole body. They include backbends, which help with spine flexibility; twists, which help with toxic release and weight loss; inversions, which help us see things differently; and standing routines that build stamina.

Throughout the daily practice of yoga poses, my body began to learn new and change old habits. For example, eating after 7 PM was not an option when I knew I would be attempting a deep twist the following morning.

3. Learning to stop reacting

Practicing yoga asana (poses) every day is perhaps one of the strongest mirrors we can put in front of ourselves. For example, facing a deep twist like Marichasana C is a colossal event.

Marichasana C (author's image)

As we learn it, every single cell in the body seems to scream “no” in resistance. Having a teacher direct us to go deeper into the pose and keep breathing is a major exercise, one with profound consequences in real life. What happens when we are able to stay in a pose like this while still breathing and remaining equanimous is akin to a triumph of epic proportions.

We can see the positive effect of that equanimity later on, as we step off the mat. For me it became very clear at work, where I would attend a meeting and go through the usual tensions that spark in such settings. Yet I’d have a moment before reacting—a small silence, a breathing pause—where I would stay with the feeling before saying anything. Most of the time, if not all the time, situations had a way of resolving themselves before I even uttered a word, and all of this was just a consequence of a small silence, of a moment of staying present, quiet, and aware.

4. Finding true relationships

It never takes very long when one starts on the path to yoga to realize that the asana or poses are just the tip of the iceberg. In my own case this started to manifest in very practical ways, and before I even knew that there were ancient codes of behavior, breathing exercises or other limbs, or branches to yoga (there are eight).

Through learning about the new branches I realized that I had some ingrained habits that were no longer serving me. For instance, I was attracting men into my life that were not good for me, and were usually unavailable. Te truth is that this is not something that stopped at men, it was a trend within my life—there were other people around me who I thought of as my friends, but who clearly were not. Through reflection I became more aware of what I was doing not just to my body but also to my emotional being.

Changing a lifetime of habits is not something that happens overnight, and breaking that pattern was not something I did at the snap of my fingers—it was a process that started mostly with point three above. Having enough time before reacting or saying “yes” or “no” to something gave me a better opportunity to search for clarity, and to connect with my own inner wisdom. I continued to make wrong choices (I have to admit) but at least I knew that I was choosing the wrong thing. Whoever says that change is easy is probably not being entirely honest.

After I repeated the pattern of choosing the wrong path while completely aware that I was doing that a few times, it suddenly became clear that I could try something new. For example, I could give myself the chance of believing that I was worth loving. I learned to love and respect myself in this way, slowly but surely, and to re-think my circle of friends and intimate relationships. It paid off.

5. Becoming more efficient

Through a practice we learn to pay attention to the breath. This sounds like an unimportant part of our daily life, but as soon as yoga starts kicking in it becomes clearly the most important thing.

How much energy is used to lift up of a chair, to make a cup of tea, how many words we use in every sentence, how focused we are on the task at hand, it is all deeply connected to how we are breathing. Shallow and fast breathing leads to over talking, and to wasting “prana” or vital energy.

Becoming more and more aware of my breath was the doorway into efficiency within my own body. I started noticing all energies coming in and out, and also how often I was going to the bathroom, what I was eating, what I was talking about, and what I was reading.

By making better choices in all of this areas life became less burdened, I started giving away old clothes to charity and eventually, when I lost my job in 2009, I gave away pretty much everything I had. I became lighter, and determined to carry around only those things I really treasure and need. I became efficient.

6. Changing the spirit

The spiritual side for me manifested in trusting my own insight and intuition, and in listening—truly listening—to what I wanted to do, to the song my heart was singing. Through it I became more and more interested in writing, in reading about yoga, in teaching. Many other doors opened up by way of what I call Divine grace: I learned the powerful effect of mantras, I started paying attention to coincidences and chance encounters, and to follow the clues offered in the most trivial situations.

A challenge of stepping into this path is remaining grounded. When someone starts talking about mantras it is easy to dismiss and think that a person might have gone coo-coo. I would not blame anyone for thinking so; it’s always good to keep things in perspective. Good yoga encourages this, to find the connection with the wondrous spiritual world, yet keep the feet solidly grounded in reality, in feeding the children, and in doing the laundry.

7. Changing the mind

Patanjali is a sage who created a masterpiece called the “Yoga Sutras”—a little book of 196 sentences in which he explains the whole science of yoga, and which needs to be de-coded through a lifetime of study. In the book, only two of the 196 sutras are dedicated to asana or poses. All the rest deal with different issues, mostly related to controlling the mind.

The very first sutra “yoga chitta vritti nirodhah” means that yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind, meaning that yoga is becoming still, one-pointed, so centered that whatever we put our attention on we burn with the fire of intention and we can pretty much manifest anything we want. Funnily enough, apparently once one gains that power, one does not want anything. The paradoxes of spiritual advancement!

Learning to work with the mind transformed me by introducing daily meditation into my life—ten minutes, 20 minutes, or sometimes even 30. It took a while (in the beginning I never found the time or motivation), but these days I need it. Life seems meaningless and depraved of magic if I do not sit on the cushion and meditate.

When I was working in the corporate world in busy New York City, I used to take a walk every day at lunch time to a nearby meditation center and sit for the first half an hour of my time off. This conspired in my life to make me a lot more aware of my priorities, of where energy was being wasted, and gave me insight into how to proceed when in difficult situations.

Meditation is the branch of yoga that has brought the most amount of miracles in my life, perhaps the biggest one being that I now live and do work I love, for which I am very grateful.

8. Traveling

Maybe it’s our curiosity to discover traditions that have practiced yoga for a long time, or perhaps it is the fantastic nature of the stories we hear from people coming back from India that eventually makes us curious to travel to see Yoga in its place of origin.

There are many top yoga institutes in major Indian cities like New Dehli, Rishikesh, Chennai, and Mysore. I visited the latter in early 2008 and will be returning soon. For someone living in north America like me, the possibility of visiting Thailand with all its retreat centers and fasting and cleansing facilities became more than a treat. It was a dream, and eventually it happened. Through the grace of yoga I became a curious traveler.

Traveling has a strong effect in the life of the voyager: it opens our eyes, forces us to see things differently (people eat fried insects in some parts of the world), makes us adapt (no brushing your teeth with tap water in India), surprises us, and alchemizes us.

9. Going down the rabbit hole

Somehow this happens when we step on the yoga path: we say goodbye to our old preconceptions and begin to give ourselves the opportunity to look at everything that happens in a new way. We start thinking with new types of images, we dream new possibilities, we become kinder, we notice things, and we see things.

The yogic path is a rewarding way of living, a grounded way to connect with spirit, and a doorway into the magic that lives within us—even as we toss the spinach salad!

Claudia Azula Altucher has studied yoga for over a decade and all over the world including the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, India, and at Centered Yoga in Thailand. She writes daily at Claudiayoga.com.

The Positive Power of Negative Thinking

January 10, 2011 by

This guest post is by Vergil Den, author of The Stoic’s Burden.

  • A triathlete comments that training and preparation for a competition is harder than the competition itself.
  • A general creates a contingency plan against the event of an unexpected attack by the enemy.
  • An engineer tests the rudder of a plane at twice the expected normal load.

What do all of these individuals have in common? They’re harnessing the positive power of negative thinking.

In this age of positive thinking, negative thinking has gotten a bad rap. And why not? Most people would rather not think about the bad things that can happen in life. But just as positive thinking has a place in goal-setting, practical negative thinking has a place in goal achievement.

Fortune at the door

Are we prepared for what fortune has to offer us in life? Life is not like a box of chocolates—unless some of the chocolates are spoiled. We must face the harsh fact that bad things happen.

The ancients knew something about fortune. The myths of antiquity often have fortune as a central theme. The Stoics, in particular, were aware of fortune and its random, uncertain nature. They would visualize all the negative things that could befall them so they were prepared for the event, both physically and emotionally, if it were to occur.

Fortune may appear to be totally random, but a lot of seemingly random events are in our control. Why does it seem then, like they are not in our control?

Studies have shown that people often overestimate what they know and underestimate what they don’t know. Consider the following example. In 2000, Time Warner merged with AOL. At the time, the deal was the largest in history and was expected to create a company that would revolutionize the digital industry. This likelihood was heralded by both experts and non-experts a like.

In fact, this turned out to be one of the worst deals in history. If you invested in these companies at the time the deal was announced, your investment would have been nearly wiped out. What happened here? All the experts were wrong. It was a case where they overestimated what they knew and underestimated what they didn’t know. For an investor, with proper planning, this seemingly random bad event could have been avoided.

Goal achievement

So how can we apply the Stoic principle of negative thinking, and the negative thinking that we know less than we do know, and even less about what we don’t know, to help us achieve our goals? Follow these five steps:

  1. Establish your goal, and identify what you think it will take to reach that goal. This is the positive form of thinking that we all do.
  2. Then think about the worst things that could happen on your way to reaching that goal.
  3. Put a plan in place to either mitigate the risk of those events occurring or mitigate the risk associated with the impacts of those events.
  4. Modify the actions needed to reach you goals from step 1 with the newfound risk insights from step 3.
  5. Periodically repeat steps 2 to 4. This is an important step because things in life are always changing and risks evolve. What may have been adequate now may not be in six months’ time.

Negative thinking and the stock market

When we think about investing, we often visualize making lots of money. This often leads to excessive risk taking. Try this instead: visualize losing all of your money in your investments and imagine how that would make you feel. How would that impact your life and your family? If there’s a significant impact, then put into your investment strategy the proper controls to avoid this failure. For example, if you purchase an individual stock, you might consider also putting in a stop loss.

Negative thinking in business

With all the self-help business management books out there, you would be certain that to be successful all you have to do is work hard in addition to six other successful habits. This is nonsense. These books are written by those who succeeded—and produces something that’s called survivorship bias. These books are not typically written by those who actually failed.

The attributes of the successful are often the same as those who failed. For every Jack Welch, there are thousands of others with the same attributes that failed. To be successful in business, one must avoid failure. Once your business goals are set, visualize the events that could cause your business to fail. How does that feel? Now think about what you can do to avoid those failures. For example, consider the concept of tinkering and how that can help your business avoid total failure.

Negative thinking in life

None of us like to think about death. But death is an important part of life. Think about it for a moment. How does it feel? How would those you love be impacted by your death? Many people don’t anticipate death, so when it occurs (I can guarantee that it will), their loved ones are left to struggle with the loss both emotional and financially. If your death will impact your loved ones, you might consider at least a low-cost life insurance policy.

We can also apply this thinking to job-loss preparation. Most people don’t prepare for job loss, but by visualizing losing your job and the impact it would have, you can prepare. For example, it is recommended that people have at least six months in operating costs available as cash in a savings account.

The positive power of negative thinking is a check to the natural, irrational exuberance we feel when we try to attain success. Also, by thinking about the negative events, if and when they occur, the bitter taste of their impact will be lessened thanks to your planning. And if and when you finally succeed, the taste of success will be that much sweeter.

Vergil Den is a free thinker and a recovering wannabe Empty Suit (i.e., a heartless corporate executive). He now doesn’t take himself quite as seriously and periodically muses about life at www.vergilden.com.

5 Steps to Transform Your Life

January 5, 2011 by

This post is by Brandi-Ann Uyemura of The Inspiring Bee.

Ask me where I was a year ago or even ten years ago and I’d say I was anywhere and everywhere hopping from job to job. Ask me who I was then and I’ll tell you I was lost.

Image by h.koppdelaney

Yet, here I am. It’s been a year since I decided to quit full-timing and finally listening to my inner voice that said, “You need to stop going with the grain and follow the beat of your own drum.” Yes, my inner voice likes to talk in clichés.

Never would I have expected that in a year, I would be self-employed as a full-time writer, get published in a magazine I admire, be a guest in a radio show, have five seconds of fame on Penn & Teller’s Bullshit, have one of my blogs picked up by US News or be an Associate Editor for Psych Central. Weird how life works like that, isn’t it?

But is it fate or faith? How about both?

Being your own advocate

I think transforming your life involves a lot of you in the equation. You know how Mahatma Gandhi said those famous words, “Be the change you wish to see in the world?” I think you need to be the transformation as well.

I used to have a friend or a relative say, “I wish I did _______.” (Hula, yoga, etc.) Whenever they said it, I got so excited and enthused. “I’ll do it with you!” I said. But what always happened is that I ended up taking the class by myself.

I could never understand why people had big dreams or even little ones, but then let the opportunity pass them by. But I learned that like a deer in the headlights, they became too afraid to be exactly what they want to be.

But to see change happen, you need to transform yourself.

If you are ready, the gifts of the journey are priceless, everlasting and valuable. And surprisingly, more beneficial than anything you could win from a lottery. When you become your own advocate and take initiative to change your life, the process of change transforms you as well. That’s the best part of the journey and the hardest part.

The good news is that if you’re on the brink of change and desire it but don’t know how to get there, these five steps will help push you straight into your own transformative journey.

1. Be a turtle rather than a hare.

There’s a seductive quality about getting where you want to go fast. It’s the purpose of freeways and the Internet. We’re impatient and we want it now. But change takes time. It might not take you ten years, like it did for me. But it will take longer than a day or even a few weeks.

Part of the reason why it takes so long to be the person you want to be or get the job you really want to get, is that there are often fears involved. You’ve taken this long to realize you want to change, but you haven’t. That usually means there are fears holding you back and preventing you from getting there.

So how does one get past the fears?

Start slow. Build confidence. Practice being the person you aspire to be. Act as if you were already that person. Take small steps to get to the dream and you will get there stronger, more courageous and better able to be that person after you’ve gone through the difficult journey.

2. Be quiet to hear the inner voice.

Meditate. Take long walks in nature. Practice yoga. Do whatever it takes to get away from the loud sounds of electricity piping through your computer. Spend enough time away from the chaos of daily life and your vision will become clearer. If you have the courage, listen to that voice. If you do so, I guarantee you will get there.

3. Minimize negativity and maximize positivity.

At the beginning of my career as a writer, I was insecure and doubtful of my talents. There was a world of better writers and I felt pale and insignificant in comparison. So guess what happened? I attracted negative people in my life. People who agreed that I wasn’t very good and that I would never make it in the world. I attracted clients who had as much confidence in me as I had in myself. And that wasn’t a lot. A flurry of publications and clients called and I got jobs. But I got jobs from those who either refused to pay me or made it difficult for me to get paid. I surrounded my outer world, by the voices that directed my inner one.

If there was one thing I regretted most is that I didn’t learn how to shut off my negative thoughts, before I opened myself up to the world as a writer.

Be careful about whom you spend your time with and what words you let into your mind. They have the power to transform your life, positive and negative, if you let them.

4. Find your heroes.

At first, I needed support. I needed encouragement. I needed someone to tell me what I was doing was the right thing to do. I did not find this in family. I did not find it in co-workers. I needed to work on finding my own heroes.

When you’re new and vulnerable, look for heroes in friends, in biographies and even life coaches, if necessary. My blog also gave me the incentive to contact people who inspired me. It was passion that gave me the courage to email author Bonnie St. John, for example, or two bloggers who I admired from afar. Their responses gave me confidence that I was going in the right direction and motivated me to keep going.

5. Be open to possibility.

The shoes you are wearing right now may not be the shoes of your dreams. Those shoes could be standing in a pile of poop actually. But that will change, if you open your mind to the possibility of a better life.

When I was working at a corporate job, my mind was as confining as my uninspiring cubicle. I thought that there was no way I could be or do anything different.

But my life coach said, “Imagine, just for a minute, that everything you ever wanted, was possible. Just sit with it. You don’t have to change or make any steps toward that goal. But just see what happens when you let yourself be open to the possibility.”

Transforming your life means narrowing your goals, planning out the steps, creating a business plan for your career. But it also means dealing with the uncertainties, the fears and things that constrain you and put limits on your dreams.

When we allow the, “what if” in our lives as in, “what if I could be the person I believe I deserve to be or is meant to be,” a space opens up. Just thinking of the possibility could drastically change your life. It could mean you see an opportunity available you hadn’t seen before. It could mean giving you the courage to contact people who are already living the life of their dreams. When you begin to think you can versus you can’t, you start seeing life as possibility rather than limitation.

There are things in life that you can’t control. But changing yourself and your life are things that you can. Follow these steps and you will be on your way to life changing transformation.

Brandi-Ann Uyemura is a freelance writer and an Associate Editor who inspires others to live an inspiring life on her own blog The Inspiring Bee. Follow her on Twitter @2inspired.

Feeling Lucky? The Positive Effect of Talismans

January 3, 2011 by

This guest post is by Christy Smith, of ThinkBlot Communications.

It found me last summer. I was doing a bit of window shopping, and there it was on the arm of a mannequin in the window: a simple, black, metal cuff that said “Be Extraordinary”. As I put it on my wrist, I felt something shift inside me. I didn’t even look at the price tag; I bought it on the spot because I knew it was meant for me.

For years I’ve been drawn to objects that carry a simple “Be” message: be inspired, be you, be generous. At the moment when I saw that bracelet, I wanted nothing more than to be extraordinary.

Looking back, when the bracelet came into my life, I was standing at a crossroads. Open before me was the traditional path that I’d been following for years. There was nothing new or special about it—it was comfortable and well-worn. But I had caught a glimpse of another path, one that was uncertain, risky, and scary, but appealed to my deepest desire to do more with the gifts I’ve been given. I felt like those simple words, Be Extraordinary, summed up what I knew I needed to do if I was going to pursue that new dream.

I wear the bracelet every day, and now feel as naked without it as I do without my wedding ring. The bracelet is my personal call to action. It is my talisman for good luck in navigating my new path, and is a constant reminder that I should strive to do not just great things, but extraordinary things. This small object is the physical manifestation of my goals and dreams.

Why do talismans touch us?

The use of talismans goes back to ancient times, when people believed that certain objects carried mystical powers and harnessed positive energy. To be in possession of one granted you access to those powers. Talismans were used as protection from bad luck, and a way to focus energy on a positive outcome that the owner hoped would come to pass.

In times of uncertainty, adversity, and personal reflection, talismans become particularly attractive. They can make us feel like we’re giving control of our destiny to something outside of us. Even though we are still 100% in control, it’s within this illusion that we can drive the behaviors needed to achieve our goals.

Talismans can be any physical objects, like a photo, piece of clothing, or an item of jewelry. We may keep and treasure things that belonged to loved ones who are no longer with us because we feel the connection to them through those objects. Those connections bring us strength and comfort. We may assign significance to talismans that are given to us under special circumstances if we think that they will bring us the same type of luck or fortune that was enjoyed by previous owners.

A confidence boost

We’ve all heard the stories about athletes who wear a certain item of clothing each time they compete, performers who insist on having certain items around them before they go onstage, or artists who need a special object in order to create. The behaviors all stem from the same kind of belief. It’s a bit superstitious, but nonetheless many feel that consistently creating the same environment will drive the desired level of performance.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal detailed the story of a wig that was being passed between cancer treatment patients. Each of the previous owners of the wig had fought their battle against cancer and won. The wig brings hope as it is passed along the chain from survivor to current patient. The wig carries with it each woman’s story, and is considered a powerful good luck charm for each new recipient.

Trying to debunk the mystery

Of course, there’s nothing mystical or magical about the power of a talisman beyond the energy that we give it. It becomes the outward manifestation of our inner motivations, wants, and needs. Using a talisman is harmless to the extent that we draw positive energy from it in our times of need. Our talismans are there for us on even the darkest day, to give us a sense of comfort, security, and hope.

Science now is starting to dig into these superstitions, with surprising results. Barbara Stoberock, Thomas Mussweiler, and Lysann Damisch from the University of Cologne published earlier this year the results of their study, which concluded that people who used good luck charms during the research study performed better on tests. The researchers theorize that those participants had higher confidence in their abilities. There was nothing about the charms that actually led to better performance—other than the participants’ belief in them. This research implies that talismans are a classic example of the placebo effect. But why knock it if it works?

I know that my bracelet doesn’t actually confer special powers onto me. The results of my actions, good or bad, are completely my own. I don’t blame the bracelet if I make a bad decision, and on the flip side, if something wonderful happens, I take full personal credit. But I wear it all the same. I like having the symbolic reminder, and it makes me happy when I look at it. And still every day, I work to Be Extraordinary.

Christy is the founder of ThinkBlot Communications and is a self-diagnosed Pollyanna. She is currently exploring the ways we can create positive self-dialogue to achieve our goals. She can be found at Twitter @thinkblotcom.

How Not to Be a Ridiculously Rude Person

December 30, 2010 by

This post is by Parker Lee, of HowtoMingle.com.

“You will eat noodles tonight. And you love cupcakes. I don’t care what you say! You’ll eat it and love it.”

What if someone always thought and spoke for you? How would that make you feel?

What if I told you that most people do this, and you likely fall into this category? There’s an epidemic ladies and gentlemen, and it’s called being a ridiculously rude person.

There are two types of rude people in this world: the kind that loves to be one, and the kind that has absolutely no idea that they are one.

You and I have been guilty of speaking and thinking for others and, without our knowledge, people have been calling us names that would cause grandma to gasp!

Let’s be real. Deep down inside we want people to like us. Heck, we want them to love us!

So let’s be besties and make that happen, and together, we’ll have people lining up to be a part of our crew. We’ll call our gang, “Parker and friends,” no? Okay fine, we’ll work on our crew name later.

But first, I need to give you the 411 on the two most common mistakes on how most people are coined Ridiculously Rude Person. Then, I’ll give you some tips on how to be friends with anyone, any time, anywhere.

Conversational mistake #1: talking from The God Perspective

The God Perspective involves talking about facts. For example: “New York is great. It’s a big city. There are a lot of taxi cabs there.”

When you speak in the God perspective, it’s easy to start an argument, because you’re trying to define reality, which is not something we can do for anyone but ourselves.

Conversational mistake #2: talking from The You Perspective

Here’s an example: “You know, when you’re in New York, it’s really big. And when you have to get across the city you can take a cab because there are a lot there.”

If the person you’re talking to has never been to New York or any large city, they will not be able to relate to what you’re talking about. Even though they will mindlessly nod along to your story, no genuine connection will be made (the only exception to this rule of thumb is when you know the person has a history on the subject you’re discussing).

People who speak in The You Perspective assume reality for others. This is not an attractive thing to do, but many people talk this way by default.

Solution: talking from The I Perspective

I encourage you to speak from The I Perspective. Doing so makes you relatable. It’s more important to speak in a relatable way than to try and relate to everything other people say. Speaking from The I Perspective is an important part of leading an interaction with someone else. It’s sexy. And I know you wanna be sexy!

An example? “I like New York because I think the people are friendly and I enjoy the taxi cab lifestyle.”

This will be a challenge if you have been trained to speak from the other perspectives I mentioned. But in the social world, The I Perspective is king.

Why Should I?

Speaking from The I Perspective is how friends talk to each other. It’s like constantly giving your opinion. Let’s talk about speaking of our own opinions.

Speaking of your opinions using The I Perspective is very powerful, because your opinions derive from your personal experiences, which shape our values and beliefs.

If you speak from your opinion, it will allow someone else to speak from their opinion. Do not take this for granted.

In revealing to you their opinion, your conversation partner expresses their values and beliefs—their own life experiences and, on a deeper level, their triumphs and heartaches. This is real talk—an emotional connection that’s powerful, yet subtle. Use this for good, and use it well.

And last but not least: be honest. I believe in honesty. I will never lie to you, or anyone for that matter. I believe in being real, and the real secret to attracting people into your life is to be honest with yourself. People relate to honesty. People relate to others who are real, uncensored and raw.

Let down your guard, embrace who you are, and be proud of it. This is something that took me some time, after years of trying to be someone I wasn’t. Now, I can truly say that I love myself, my life, and who I have become. And from dealing with hundreds of clients, I know that it’s a rare and magical thing to say. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Parker Lee is a writer and coach who teaches people How to Become a 24/7 Attractive Person. He uses what he had learned through various self-development seminars, and his own life’s experiences to successfully coach hundreds of clients all around the world (New York, L.A, Amsterdam, Singapore, Manila to name a few) in the areas of: Conversation, Self Development, and Dating. Parker Blogs at HowtoMingle.com. You can sign up for his free, ebook, “Howtomingle101: Your guide to meeting and connecting with anyone, anytime, anywhere.”

Solve Business Problems In Your Sleep?!

December 28, 2010 by

This guest post is written by Anita Karlson of AnitaKarlson.com.

For as long as humans have existed, dreams have been a source for inspiration—and part of the mythical and mystical sphere. In ancient times, it was the spiritual and religious teachers who would tell followers what their dreams meant. Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was the first psychologist who started looking at our dreams in a scientific way.

Over recent decades, the realms of our dreams have been the subjects of a number of studies. We can now measure the chemicals active in our brain during sleep, and we can monitor where brain activity occurs. We have learned that our dreams are doorways into our subconscious mind, where we can access information which is otherwise unavailable to us.

When we’re awake, the dominant chemicals in our brains are serotonin and noradrenalin. These chemicals are associated with realistic thinking and the ability to reflect and draw logical conclusions. In REM (rapid eye movements) sleep, where we dream, the levels of these chemicals are reduced to zero. Other chemicals then dominate our brain. These chemicals are responsible for creating strong emotions and the ability to make connections between isolated thoughts, allowing us to find new and creative solutions to tricky problems!

How to remember your dreams

First things first: you need to remember your dreams if they are to help you. If you already remember your dreams, great! Skip this part. If not, read on.

Remembering your dreams is not as difficult as you might think. Within a week of practicing, most people will be able to remember at least part of their dreams. There are lots of books and articles on how to remember dreams. I can recommend The Dream Workbook by Joe Friedman.

The most important thing is the intention you set while drifting of into sleep. Tell yourself repeatedly that you want to remember your dream. Then when you wake up, lie completely still and search in your memories for fragments of dreams. Often, when you can remember one image, others will follow easily.

Have a notebook and pen ready next to your bed, and once you have remembered the dream or sections of it, write it down. If you don’t write it down, chances are you will have forgotten it within a few hours of getting out of bed.

How to understand your dream

You are the only one who can interpret your dreams correctly. As each individual is unique, each of us will have unique dreams. There is no encyclopaedia you can look up to find out what the different elements in your dream mean.

If you dream about a bench, it’s not just any old bench. It will be a specific bench that you have specific memories attached to. It can be the blue-painted bench your dog ran into when you were a child. Or it can be the broken, rusty bench on which you kissed your first girlfriend. Whatever bench you dream of, it will have a different meaning for you than the bench I dream of will have for me.

The best way to start understanding your own dream language is to write a dream journal, and analyze your dreams. There are several approaches to analyzing your dreams: one is the technique of associations. Pick one of the main elements of your dream and write down all associations that come to your mind. Or you can focus on the emotion you have in your dream and find situations in life where you feel the same emotion. With time and practice you will be able to interpret your own dreams.

How to have a solution-oriented dream

Once you’re able to both remember your dreams and make some sense of them, you can aim to have a solution-oriented dream.

Pick a business problem that you can’t seem to solve. Then take some time trying to find solutions to the problem while you’re awake. Think it trough, analyze it, and write down your thoughts. Then formulate the problem in just one short sentence.

Before you go to sleep, take a few minutes to sum up the problem in your mind, and as you drift into sleep, tell yourself that you want to have a solution-oriented dream that solves the problem. Use the short sentence you made earlier for this.

When you wake up, write your dreams down and start to look for the connection to your problem. Often, it’ll come as a complete surprise, and sometimes you will not be able to see the solution immediately.

If you can’t see the solution, try running it by a friend! Often someone else can have valuable input, however remember that you have the solution yourself. If what the other person suggests don’t resonate with you, then discard it as the solution.

Try repeating the process, and aim for another dream on the same topic. See if the next dream sheds some light on the issue from another angle.

My solution-oriented dream for attracting more clients

When I started to work part time as a Reiki healer, I had problems finding clients. I made a web site, I hung up posters, and tried as best I could to advertise. But somehow the clients just were not coming my way.

One evening I decided to try for a solution-oriented dream. One hour of thinking and two pages of notes later, I drifted of into sleep repeating to myself: “I want to remember a solution-oriented dream that shows me how I can attract more clients.”

In my dream, I was walking trough the rooms of a house which I was thinking of buying. Suddenly one of my best friends appeared. I was happy to see her, and remembered I had a magazine with an interesting article to show her. She started to read, and suddenly she smiled and was talking very excitedly, which made me very happy.

She took the magazine and walked into the next room, where a couple was sitting at a table. She showed them the magazine and they were all talking very excitedly. As I stood by the window and watched the couple leave the house they stopped to talk to someone in the garden. They were leaning over the magazine and again talking excitedly.

When I woke up I quickly realized what the dream was telling me: my friends and family could help me attract clients by word of mouth! And here I’d been totally focused on trying to find clients by hanging up posters, optimizing my homepage, and running a few ads in local newspapers.

Dream a solution

You might have to invest a little time and effort into making sense of your dreams. But once you start to understand your dream images, an entire new universe will open up to you! Have you ever dreamed a solution to a problem? Share your experience in the comments.

Anita is blogging about how to live a more natural, healthy and balanced life. Sign up for her newsletter and get weekly tips directly to your inbox.

Harness Transformational Courage to Change Your Life

December 22, 2010 by

This post is by Marly McMillen of NamelyMarly.

We are, all of us, descendants of immigrants. In fact, American scientist Carl Sagan once said, “For 99.9 percent of the time since our species came to be, we were hunters and foragers, wanderers on the savannahs and the steppes.” As humans, we have a voyager spirit. It drives us to journey to new lands.

But many of us today find ourselves stationed in our plot of terra firma. Maybe we make a move or two, but very few of us have made the life-or-death sort of transformational journeys of our ancestors. These were people who journeyed far, fleeing harsh conditions to endure a grueling passage that many did not survive to an unknown and possibly unforgiving new land.

Laurie Fabiano, the O Magazine-recommended novelist, wrote a fictional story based on people from her family who emigrated from Italy to the United States. In her novel, Elizabeth Street, Fabiano described the horrors from which people were fleeing. In my interview with Laurie, she told me, “It’s not like the people in my family were looking for adventure. They didn’t want to leave Italy, but they were starving to death. The poverty there was horrific in those days. It wasn’t like they said, ‘Wow! Let’s have an adventure and journey to America!’ And the journey itself was also horrific.”

If today we find ourselves too rooted in either land or life, how can we channel the spirits of our immigrant ancestors to journey to the life of our dreams?

It’s worth noting that we don’t have to physically uproot our families to revive transformation courage in our lives.

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote the book, Eat, Pray, Love as a sort of memoir of her multi-month journey to Europe as she was recovering from a divorce and rediscovering her own identity. During times of self-reflection and renewal, people choose to reinvent themselves in different ways. Some, like Elizabeth Gilbert, go on journeys. But that’s not always a practical option for everyone. Elizabeth says herself that it’s possible to transform yourself right at home. The trick is committing the time and energy toward that endeavor.

You may be considering a major life change like a new career or you may be looking for space and permission to finally write that novel. Or maybe you’d like to stretch yourself by running for the school board. Living a successful life is all about that: stretching yourself, learning, growing, and then learning some more.

How can you use transformational courage to help you along the way? Here are some tips for creating your own transformational journey.

Acquire satellites

After you punch an address into your GPS, “Acquiring satellites” is usually the first message you’ll see. That’s because the only way to get to where you’re going is to understand where you are.

Carl Rogers once said, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” Create for yourself a Transformational Journal (any spiral notebook will do) and begin the first page with an assessment of where you are in your life. Write down areas where you’re happy, where you’re ambivalent, and other areas where you’d like to see some changes.

Become a wonderer

Have you ever pondered a “what if” question? What if you would have taken that advanced track in college? What if you would have jumped at that impromptu trip to Europe? Now it’s time to take that wondering spirit and apply it to your future.

Get our your Transformational Journal and on the next page, write this down:

“I wonder what would happen if I ___________.”

Then begin filling in the blanks. Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist’s Way at Work, suggests creating this Wonderer as an inner voice in your life. She says that you can “get to know and trust your Wonderer as an important guide to creative breakthrough.”

Set some coordinates

In the show, A Very Brady Sequel, Mike Brady says to his family, “Remember kids, a very wise man once said, ‘Wherever you go, there you are.’” Yes, it’s true, this is a quote from the Brady Bunch, but the point is still valid. Where do you want to go? Where do you want to be in your life?

Maybe you’ve thought about starting your own business. Or taking an art class. Now is the time to get some of these goals on a page. On page two of your Transformational Journal, write down some dreams you have for yourself, whether it’s improving an existing skill or learning something entirely new.

Define the standards

Are you looking for the freeway route or do you want to take the scenic side roads? There are certainly pros and cons to both; you just have to know what the priority is for your life. And remember, there are no right or wrong answers here: you can combine both speedy and sedate segments of your journey.

Maybe you want to sign up for a brief, two-day photography workshop, but take your time developing a blog to showcase your work. This is an entry for page three of your Transformational Journal. Write down the “how” of making your life course happen. Brainstorm ideas such as networking with people in the industry of your choice, to taking courses, to exploring websites that can help you learn more.

Pick a milestone

Setting some achievable landmarks along the journey can help you feel a sense of accomplishment along the way. Milestones can occur at any point in a journey, but their purpose is the same: to inspire the weary wanderer to stay the course. Think about the immigrants who braved brutal conditions crossing the Atlantic to come to the United States. The Statue of Liberty was a significant milestone for many of them.

Take another look at your Transformational Journal and on the next page write down some milestones that can help you know you’re on the right path. If you’re aiming to become healthier, then list ways that you’ll know you’re getting there, such as getting back into those jeans from last year.

Get on the road!

The longest journey begins with just one step. You’ve heard this many times before, but it remains true today. Don’t judge yourself in a negative light for taking even the tiniest of steps. It’s those tiny steps combined together that will get you to your destination.

We are all immigrants on the journey of life. Carl Sagan was right. We have been wanderers from the beginning. It’s in our DNA. The trick is cultivating those immigrant skills to lead us to the life of our dreams. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us.”

Marly McMillen has a passion for life, family, vegan food, and names. She writes about all of these and more on her site at NamelyMarly. Marly’s podcast, NamelyMarly, can be found on iTunes, where she interviews people about their names. The people she interviews include famous authors, models, and even the people she meets at the park. Marly is also passionate about healthy food and shares vegan recipes as well.
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