You are here: Home / Archives for Lifestyle

Could You Use an Attitude Makeover?

January 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In this day of personal makeovers, we’ve seen people lose 100 pounds, get a nose job, and finally go after their dream career. But for many, an alteration of attitudes alone can bring transformative life experiences.

Changing how you approach daily living might help you achieve your ultimate goals. Even if you don’t think you’re in need of a total attitude makeover, check out some of the ideas below to discover positive approaches you can take to get the most out of your life.

Are you “Stuck” in a Dominant Attitude?

If you find yourself feeling the same way about a variety of situations in life, maybe you’re hanging on to the same attitude. If you have a particular, less-than-positive approach that dominates your life, it may be time for a makeover.

Reflect on Your Feelings

Take time to think about how you feel most of the time. How would you describe your dominant attitude? Is it contentment, sluggishness, happiness, annoyance, satisfaction, resentment, peace, envy, joy, worry, inquisitiveness, or even anger?

Examine Your Attitude Type

As you can see, some attitudes are positive, optimistic and motivating. If you’re blessed with a naturally positive dominant attitude, you’re in solid command of your life. You’re most likely already living the good life you deserve.

But if you notice that a less positive attitude is pervasive, make the decision now to alter how you think and feel.

Consider the following regarding these more challenging attitudes, and the ways in which they can detract from the quality of your life:

  • Sluggishness. If you have a sluggish attitude toward life, you’ll find yourself simply plodding along, doing barely what is required to get by. You might take little interest in anything and prop your feet in front of the television at every spare moment. Chances are, you set few, if any, goals.
  • Annoyance. If you find yourself consistently annoyed, you probably rarely feel satisfied with life. Something is usually amiss. When you’re annoyed, you may often sit in judgment of others, whom you see as unable to “do things right.”
  • Resentment. Being resentful involves feeling rankled, troubled and worked up most of the time. When resentment is your dominant attitude, you may feel challenged to manifest positive events in your life or enjoy the ones that do occur.
  • Envy. Feeling envious of others can include wanting what someone else has or feeling spiteful toward or competitive with others.
  • Worry. A prevailing attitude of worry means you often experience nagging feelings that things are not quite okay. In advance of an event, you construct many possible scenarios, with few of them leading to a satisfying finish.
  • Anger. An angry attitude is exhausting if you have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis, whether it’s your own attitude or someone else’s. When this attitude is dominant, usually there is a general sense of unhappiness.

Make Over Your Attitude

Once you determine you might benefit from an attitude makeover, you can get started right away. As an adult, you most likely already have all the skills you need to change your challenging state of mind.

Try these strategies to experience the joys of a more positive dominant attitude:

  1. Make a decision. Decide to rid yourself of the attitude that brings you down.
  2. Use reminders. Post reminders on your mirror and refrigerator and in your car to “catch” and let go of your old attitude.
  3. Replace the old. Select a more uplifting attitude as your dominant one. For example, happiness, joy, peace, satisfaction, or contentment as your chief attitude will strengthen your passion for life. When you notice your old attitude creeping in, replace it immediately with a more optimistic, motivating one. Refuse to surrender your power to that old state of mind.
  4. Affirm your new attitude. Apply your new frame of mind. Every day, say to yourself, “No matter what, I am [your new attitude].” Remind yourself that you’re stronger than your old, ineffective attitude.

If you identified any of the above challenging attitudes as your primary emotional state, you might get a lot of pleasure from an attitude makeover. By following these suggestions, you can begin to enjoy the good life you’ve always wanted.

Filed Under: Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to Get Up When the Alarm Goes Off

January 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

When the alarm clock first wakes you each morning, do you have difficulty getting out of bed immediately? Do you usually find yourself pressing the snooze button, rolling over, and going back to sleep? Well, you’re not alone. Most people do this.

But imagine if you could get up every morning right when the alarm went off. You’d have an extra ten or twenty minutes in every day, or maybe more. How would you like to hear your alarm, turn it off, take a nice deep breath, and then get right out of bed? Believe it or not, this really can be you!

Unfortunately, most of us have tried to do this before using our conscious will power. You already know what happens. At 10:30 P.M. you decide that you should get up at 5:30 A.M. Then 5:30 A.M. comes along, and you make an executive decision that it would be wiser to get up at 7:30 A.M. instead. This happens to the best of us, and most of us give up afterward.

A Wiser Decision

You may be thinking, “I just need more discipline.” Perhaps, but you don’t need it at 5:30 A.M. You don’t need an elaborate system of alarm clocks. And you don’t need better or more self-talk in the wee hours of the morning. No one can be trusted to make a good decision when the alarm first wakes us up.

What you really need is more discipline before you go to bed. You need to have the discipline at night to recognize that your decision-making process can’t be trusted at that critical moment in the morning. Your 5:30 A.M. brain is no good for decision-making. Take it out of the equation as much as possible.

Physical Repetition: Practice

The following method may sound crazy, but it works!

  1. Get in bed during the day or early evening. Try to simulate your regular sleeping conditions as much as possible. Make the room dark, get into your normal sleeping attire, climb in bed and assume your favorite sleeping position.
  2. Set your alarm for 5-10 minutes.

  3. Try to just relax and zone out. Fall asleep if you can.

  4. When the alarm sounds, immediately turn it off. Now go through whatever routine you’d like to be able to follow in the morning. Stretch your arms and legs out, take a deep breath, smile, and put your feet on the floor. Now stand up.
  5. Repeat. If you practice this strategy a couple of times each day, within a week you should be getting up in the morning without any problem.

Mental Repetition: More Practice

Getting up when the alarm sounds is one habit in which visualization can really be helpful as you work to develop it. Several times during the day, imagine your alarm going off and yourself immediately launching into your get-out-of-bed ritual. This mental practice is great, because it’s fast and it’s easy, and you can do it anywhere.

However, actually going through the motions is the most powerful tool you have. Even if you mostly practice mentally, do the physical practice at least a few times, because it allows your mental practice to feel a lot more realistic.

Getting up immediately in the morning is a habit that’s actually easy to put into place. The warm covers and thoughts of just 10 more minutes are powerful motivators to stay in bed a little longer. But getting up on time consistently is something anyone can do. Imagine all the extra time you’ll have each day!

Filed Under: Lifestyle Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Change Your Life in 30 Days

January 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Significantly changing your life in 30 days really is possible, although not always easy. But even though this adventure is often a big challenge, the payoffs can be enormous.

We’ve all taken on challenges of one sort of another for 30 days. Maybe you tried a diet or an exercise program. Perhaps you decided to give up TV for 30 days. Even if you didn’t stick with the program long-term, the results were great, weren’t they? Now imagine if you expanded that idea to incorporate many areas of your life.

This program includes implementing several 30-day challenges simultaneously. You can use these suggestions or develop your own. Try creating a 30-day challenge from each category, and see where your new adventures lead you.

    1. Adjust your finances. Making more money or spending less is always a good financial theme. Alternatively, you might try balancing your accounts each day.
    2. Kick start your physical health. Diet, exercise, or combinations of both are great places to start. You could begin with something as simple as the doing the 20-minute yoga program that’s on TV every morning or taking the stairs at work instead of the elevator.
    3. Eliminate a time waster. Think about the amount of time you spend watching TV, surfing the Internet, window-shopping, playing video games, or lurking on Facebook. We all know the activities we tend to engage in when we’re bored or trying to avoid dealing with life’s challenges. Try getting rid of just one, and see how much more time you have!
    4. Add in another positive activity. Come up with something more enriching or satisfying than the time waster you’re eliminating. Maybe reading or taking a class would be in order. Perhaps you’ll spend all your newly found time playing a musical instrument.
    5. Commit to something else that appeals to you. Perhaps checking your email only 3 times a week or going to bed by 11:00 every night would be a beneficial habit you’d enjoy.

Tips for Success in Your Program

Now that you have some idea of changes you might want to make, how can you stick to them?

Try these ideas:

    1. Get enough sleep. If you set a challenge of cutting two hours of sleep each night (or even just one hour!), it’s going to make everything else more difficult. Regardless of whatever time-related goals you may set, allow yourself the 7-8 hours a night that you deserve.
    2. Set goals that you can do daily, seven days a week. Creating a new habit with an activity you only do 3 times a week is often much harder. Try to keep all new activities limited to ones you can do every day.
    3. Prepare ahead of time. Have everything you need in advance. Eliminate anything that might get in the way. For example, if you’re trying to follow a specific diet, buy the food you’ll need beforehand and get rid of food you want to avoid. You can’t break down and eat that bag of chips if there aren’t any chips in the house!
    4. Plan on social support. Tell your goals to your friends or family members that will support you in your efforts. Be careful in whom you confide. Changing is a challenge in itself. Success is harder if others are making unsupportive comments.

Trying to change several aspects of your life simultaneously may require other changes as well, depending on your chosen goals. All of our behaviors tend to interact with other behaviors, which can make changing any of them a demanding task.

For example, if you give up TV and junk food, and those are your main coping mechanisms for life’s challenges, you’re going to have to deal with your negative feelings a new way. Or better yet, you can face your concerns head-on. The distractions you’re used to falling back on may have just been ways to avoid the issues at hand.

To work this program, choose the 30-day challenges you can implement and get started. Remember to adequately prepare. If you can create several new positive habits and get rid of a few bad ones, your life will change dramatically for the better.

Filed Under: Lifestyle Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Overcoming Post-Holiday Blues

January 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The holidays are often a whirlwind of activity and emotion involving a busy schedule of shopping, school programs and get-togethers with friends and family. If you experience an emotional disappointment when the holidays pass, there are many things you can do to lift your mood and make it through the emotional let-down after the holidays.

These strategies will boost your spirits and get your New Year off to a great start:

  1. Take advantage of the extra time you now have for yourself. Since the holiday hullabaloo is over, you have some time to reflect. What do you like about your life? What would you like to change?
  2. Think about small goals you’d like to accomplish. Do you want to finally get that hall closet cleaned out? Maybe you can now complete that special project your boss has wanted you to do.
    • It’s a good time to make a list of all those little tasks you want to get done. Having the list will help you concentrate on your goals. Plus, it’s wonderful to draw a line through an achieved goal.
  3. Focus on you for a change. Now is the time to hone in on personal desires and goals. Perhaps you want to exercise more or spend more quality time with your children. Ponder how you might go about making the changes you seek. Think of taking little steps toward your big goals.
  4. Pursue an interest. We’ve all got those interests we hope to “get to” someday. Since you’ve got some down time now, why not go for it? Delve in to that subject you’ve been curious about or start the photography class you’ve longed to take.
    • If you’re not sure what you’re interested in, do some research. Visit your local library, browse some magazines or look in the newspaper. You’ll most likely find a couple of topics or activities you’d like to learn more about.
  5. Have a dinner party. You’ll have plenty of time to plan and prepare for this event with people you really care about. You’ll enjoy yourself and your mood will lift.
  6. Renew and refresh your surroundings. Do you feel like re-arranging the furniture in a room or two? Maybe you want to paint the walls or make new curtains. Re-decorating your surroundings is a wonderful way to go in to a new year and banish the holiday blues at the same time.
    • Re-focusing on your surroundings and thinking about any changes you want to make will help you de-focus from the doldrums.
  7. Re-connect with an old friend. There’s something so wonderful about making that call you’ve wanted to make. Hearing your friend’s voice again will bring great joy to your heart. It might be a friend from the old neighborhood, a former college roommate or a past co-worker you were once great friends with.

If you’re feeling down now that the holidays are behind you, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll begin to rise above those post-holiday blues when you try some of these strategies.

Taking some quality time for yourself during this period can lighten your mood immensely and ignite your excitement about the year ahead.

Filed Under: Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Create a Vision for Your Life Today

January 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You’ve probably heard that you can only get where you want to be if you know where you’re going. This pithy statement is as true now as the first time it was said. So how do you come to know where you’re going, so you can get where you want to be?

To start with, goals are crucial. When we set goals, what we’re really trying to do is to bring each piece of our lives in line with our overall vision for ourselves. Using a powerful vision-setting process can help you set more effective goals, since you can chart a course that will take you toward and support your vision.

Do you have a vision for each segment of your life? Do you know where you’re headed spiritually, socially, relationally, physically, financially, and more?

Use this process to help you create a vision that works for you:

    1. Write down your vision for a particular aspect of your life. Write a couple of paragraphs describing what you’d like to have or be. There’s no right or wrong. In fact, you probably won’t precisely articulate your dreams the very first time you try the exercise. A reasonable guess is a good place to start.
      • In writing your vision, avoid focusing on what you don’t want, because this will only bring about more of that. Turn your back on negativity and focus on what you do want to bring about.
      • For example, if you want more money: Avoid wording your statement like: “I don’t want to be poor anymore.” Instead, envision what it would be like to be rich, which is what you want, and write about what that would be like for you.
      • Although you may feel challenged when first learning to focus on what you want, it gets easier. Plus, the rewards are spectacular when you can do it consistently. You’ll start to notice that your life seems as if you can change it at will, which you can.
    2. Visualize. Read your vision statement 2-3 times a day and imagine that aspect of your life matches your vision perfectly. How does your vision make you feel? Are you really excited and enthusiastic? Is it appealing to you on all levels? This shouldn’t take more than 60 seconds to do each time.
    3. Refine. If you feel really good about your vision, that’s great. If not, now is the time to make some alterations. Continue refining the image of your dream life until doing your visualization feels spectacular. Re-write each new version.
      • At this point, you may be wondering when this process ever ends. Fortunately, it never ends. Your vision will forever be changing slightly throughout your life, which is good, since your desires will also change over time.

Review your vision daily and ensure that it continues to attract you. This will rapidly usher change into your life. In turn, these changes will demonstrate that you’re actually moving towards that vision.
Create separate vision statements for all the areas of your life. Consider your finances, relationships, adventure, health, social life, and spirituality. If you can get all these visions to look just the way you want, imagine what your life will look like!

 

Why Spend Time On This Process?

Consider all the things you do every day. Everything you do is either helping you reach your vision or helping someone else reach theirs. Wouldn’t you rather help yourself reach yours?
Creating a vision is the first step to creating the life you desire. Tweak your visions a couple of times a day and really focus on the experience of living that vision. This gets easier all the time, because imagining something enjoyable is pleasurable in itself.

Don’t hesitate; create your visions today. Then, start reviewing and improving them immediately. Your life will change rapidly for the better. You’ll then be spending your time making your own visions a reality instead of making someone else’s dream come true.

Filed Under: Lifestyle Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Posts