We all get stuck in ruts from time to time. We get off track and lose sight of the life we meant to live. I know I'm probably not the only one who has wished that I could find a reset button for life.
While we can't exactly travel back in time, there's certain ways we can "reboot" our lives.
First step is to set aspirations that come from your heart and what you value most. Then just take it one day at a time. Think small, act big.
Here are some suggestions for ways you can reboot your life:
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Health:
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* 30 Days to Health. Choose a month to start new eating habits. Maybe you want to become vegetarian, vegan or completely raw. Or maybe you just want to eliminate processed foods like; frozen food, chips, soft drinks, sweets, biscuits, white flour and essential junk foods.
* Go on the Master Cleanse: a 2 to 5 day mono-diet (under supervision) that will help you reboot your health and eating habits. It helps you rejuvenate your body and your mind. When you're not spending your energy on digestion, your body can use its energy to heal itself. It's amazing when you're system is working at an optimum how much time you realize you spend thinking about eating and making food.
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Simplicity:
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* Reassess your mess. Go through all your junk and make 3 piles: toss/recycle, donate, and keep. Throw out or donate or sell anything you haven't used in over a year. The same rule applies
with your cupboards, garage and wardrobe.
* Unwind your mind. We spend a lot of time trying to organize and create more functional living spaces. But we often neglect the most important space we live in: our mind. NOW it's the best time to reboot your mind. Drop disempowering beliefs and drop negativity.
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Relationships:
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* Reconnect. Most of our ambitions are centered around ourselves, but they don't all have to be. Maybe you want to make your resolution to spend more time with your partner or your kids. Maybe you want to create a better relationship with your parents. Or perhaps you just want to dissolve a grudge you've been holding against someone. Now is a good time to forgive and forget.
* Be more romantic. With all our goals surrounding our careers, productivity, and health, it's easy to put romance on the back burner. A few ways to jump start your ideas for rekindling romance might be: giving your lover love coupons, spending more quality time together and dating your partner more often. Even if it just means going out for coffee or watching a movie on the couch together.
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Finance: (Reboot your bank account)
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Here's a great exercise to start:
Take out a paper and draw a line down the middle. Mark the first side as column a, mark the other side column b.
Look over your bank account for the past 30 days and write down all your non-essential purchases in column a. This includes things like unneeded spending on clothes, lattes, junk food, renting movies,
entertainment, gadgets, CDs, etc. Don't include things such as rent/mortgage, utility and phone bills.
Now in column b write down all the things you'd like to have money for to pursue things you're passionate about. This might be thing like dance lessons, tai chi or yoga classes, a mountain bike you get the idea. Try to see what you can remove from column a to make more room for the things in column b.
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Fitness:
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* Maintain the chain. There are so many fitness goals and programs you can get into. If you live anywhere like I do, the guys from 24 Hour Fitness are on the corner downtown recruiting people
like gangbusters. With all these fitness routines and exercises you can find, it's hard to see through the noise. A simplified resolution is to create an exercise chain and all you need is a calendar. Choose one month of the year and make a pact to exercise every day. Each day you exercise, you put an X through that day on calendar. Your job is to not break the chain. I've personally found
this to be an awesome motivator because you can see all the progress you've made and it would hurt too much to break the chain.
* Tap the troupe. It's easy to fall off the wagon when you're going it alone. If you join a local fitness group, you'll have others that will hold you accountable, Weight loss programme with professional support, costs are low but big enjoyment/
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Bonus tips:
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* Automate your answer. A lot of the time we hold ourselves back because we don't have enough information, or we don't know where to start. Instead of letting "I don't know" hold you back,
put yourself on the auto-response "I'll figure it out." Imagine what you could do if you did this. You might be able to have the guts to start that business you've been dreaming about. You could write that novel you've been planning. Or could you take that trip around the world you've been dying for. Make your resolution to not let not knowing where to start keep your from taking action.
* Vaporize virtual living. In the age of email, twitter, social media, instant messaging, text messaging and screen to face, it's hard not to get caught up in living virtually. While there's nothing necessarily harmful or wrong with these things, it's easy to forget the value of real live interaction. You know, actually talking to someone in person. Whatever method you choose to connect, simply connect more. Not just in quantity, but in quality.
Monday 31 January 2011
Thursday 27 January 2011
Is This THE Year
Happy New Year wishes still ringing in your ears, the results of the Christmas treats on the waist and hips along with the New Year´s Resolutions to be fitter, healthier and lose weight. on your mind.
Is this going to be The Year, is this The One, well the only person that can make that decision is you. You can find support, there is loads of information out there, loads of offers, but the key is yourself. What you really want to achieve and even more important your personal WHY, you need to have a reason to change (whatever change you are making). It does not have to matter to anyone else, but it does to you.
We all have birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Easter, holidays, visitors, these are not reasons not to achieve your goal they are excuses that we use as escape routes. If your WHY is strong enough then you will not devalue yourself for others.
Make time for you, there is no magic wand to losing weight, changing shape or feeling healthier, but it is not as complicated as many think. You do not have to pay out thousands on fad diets and you do not have to make other meals for your family, unless you want to be healthy and they don´t.
Exercise does not have to be running a marathon, even if you have arthritis and major illnesses, laying in bed or sitting in a chair you can exercise. Pop some music on and dance, don´t worry about the neighbours. When the adverts come on the telly do some stretches, small changes done on a regular basis will have profound long term effects. Diving head long into any change with no real reason, you will last as long as your will power and then you will go through the guilt and blame game again.
I was there for many years, each time I made a promise to myself this year will be different, this will be my year, I would struggle through January (especially as it is my birthday in the middle of the month), by February my Bad or Black days are overtaking my good days, by the time March came I was usually heavier than my starting weight in January, feel bad about myself and yet another failure to notch up.
So, why we do that to ourselves? Maybe we are trying to please others, instead of pleasing ourselves, how different would we be if we only did the things we liked, loved, enjoyed and chose to, if you think this is impossible……think again; we have free will, we have choice. What we don´t like doing is accepting responsibilities for the outcomes of our choices, we still like to blame things, people, jobs, Government anything that gets us out of a rut.
Unfortunately the truth is until we accept that responsibility, then we will give in, find excuses and let our goals drift away. No matter what our age, or what we want to achieve, it is never too late or too early to start to take the reigns of our lives.
Sometimes this is where we need the help and guidance, whether it is weight, self confidence, alcohol, drugs, gambling, public speaking , guilt or anger, these are all symptoms of emotional unhappiness.
Go on be honest with yourself, why do you stop yourself doing the things that make you happy. Then just do them, give yourself permission and don´t expect perfection, after all you are human! Then see how much easier it is to achieve your goals.
Is this going to be The Year, is this The One, well the only person that can make that decision is you. You can find support, there is loads of information out there, loads of offers, but the key is yourself. What you really want to achieve and even more important your personal WHY, you need to have a reason to change (whatever change you are making). It does not have to matter to anyone else, but it does to you.
We all have birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Easter, holidays, visitors, these are not reasons not to achieve your goal they are excuses that we use as escape routes. If your WHY is strong enough then you will not devalue yourself for others.
Make time for you, there is no magic wand to losing weight, changing shape or feeling healthier, but it is not as complicated as many think. You do not have to pay out thousands on fad diets and you do not have to make other meals for your family, unless you want to be healthy and they don´t.
Exercise does not have to be running a marathon, even if you have arthritis and major illnesses, laying in bed or sitting in a chair you can exercise. Pop some music on and dance, don´t worry about the neighbours. When the adverts come on the telly do some stretches, small changes done on a regular basis will have profound long term effects. Diving head long into any change with no real reason, you will last as long as your will power and then you will go through the guilt and blame game again.
I was there for many years, each time I made a promise to myself this year will be different, this will be my year, I would struggle through January (especially as it is my birthday in the middle of the month), by February my Bad or Black days are overtaking my good days, by the time March came I was usually heavier than my starting weight in January, feel bad about myself and yet another failure to notch up.
So, why we do that to ourselves? Maybe we are trying to please others, instead of pleasing ourselves, how different would we be if we only did the things we liked, loved, enjoyed and chose to, if you think this is impossible……think again; we have free will, we have choice. What we don´t like doing is accepting responsibilities for the outcomes of our choices, we still like to blame things, people, jobs, Government anything that gets us out of a rut.
Unfortunately the truth is until we accept that responsibility, then we will give in, find excuses and let our goals drift away. No matter what our age, or what we want to achieve, it is never too late or too early to start to take the reigns of our lives.
Sometimes this is where we need the help and guidance, whether it is weight, self confidence, alcohol, drugs, gambling, public speaking , guilt or anger, these are all symptoms of emotional unhappiness.
Go on be honest with yourself, why do you stop yourself doing the things that make you happy. Then just do them, give yourself permission and don´t expect perfection, after all you are human! Then see how much easier it is to achieve your goals.
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