First 30 Days Blog

A struggling economy is the perfect time to reinvent yourself

During this current economy millions of people are coping with major unexpected change.

The Change Nation interview with Daryn Kagan is the perfect example of someone taking a seemingly dire situation and making lemons out of lemonaide. When faced with the demise of her job, she took that golden opportunity to embrace change and recreate a new career based on her passions, an inspirational news web site. I don’t know about you, but I love the idea of hearing about good news instead of news about war, poverty and disharmony.

If you find yourself unemployed and wondering what to do next, consider taking the time right now to discover what your true skills, talents and passions are and how you might best offer them to the world. I did this shortly after 911 and the demise of my tourism related business. Without 911, I would not be living my purpose and offering my highest talents to the world because I never had the time to stop and take a serious look at what I really wanted to do. I am sure you know the story: you get on the ‘money train’ and cant stop it long enough to jump off safely. Maybe you didn’t jump but were dumped, so what? This is still your perfect opportunity to begin anew.

Take this golden opportunity to recreate your life so that you can now live the life of your dreams. Some of the most successful businesses in the world began when the economy was in recession, just look at Microsoft and Apple. Embrace change and get started now creating the life of your dreams now!

If you felt moved, inspired, touched, helped, annoyed, or anything after reading this, please let us know. Our wonderful bloggers really do appreciate your comments and feedback. It’s super easy and takes a minute. Click on comments below.

Posted by Kathi Burns on February 8th, 2010 in General, Global/Social Change, New Directions, Personal Stories, Uncategorized | No comments Read related posts in Career, change, economy, inspiration, new careers, passion, purpose, tough economy, transition

The Call of the Great Mother

“How might your life have been different, if, deep within,

you carried an image of the Great Mother?

And, when things seemed very, very bad,

you could imagine that you were sitting in the lap of the Goddess,

held tightly…

embraced, at last

And, that you could hear her saying to you,

“I love you…I love you and I need you to bring forth your self.”

~Judith Duerk, Circle of Stones

::

The Great Mother is here. Her way is not the way of visibility. Her way is dark and deep, down in the darkness where life gestates, where life springs forth from the primal belly.

I first became conscious of Her presence a number of years ago. It felt as if someone was pulling me down, way down into my body, into the depths of the darkness that the descent illuminates. I could feel Her pull, and I knew, instinctively, I was being called to feel, in their most raw elements, all the dark emotions I had been avoiding all my life.

I can’t say I was excited by her invitation. Quite the opposite. All of my spiritual learnings had taught me about transcendence, guiding me to find the Light of Spirit, the masculine aspect of God. This invitation was not about Light, at least that’s what I first thought. It was about darkness, and Her pull was relentless, yet also loving.

It’s easy to want to avoid this dance with the dark. The mind thinks of so many logical reasons why I should’t follow her down. I can’t see Her. And, where is down? Where is this darkness? There is nothing on the outside that would indicate She is calling. It is inside that I hear Her call. It is in the interior of my own experience, that I know it is Her. It is in my body that I know what I know. It is in my heart that I feel Her love for all of life.

I’ve come to know this rich inner life quite well. I’m the only one that knows this interiority; and, you are the only one that can know your own interiority. But, there’s something we have in common. If we are to bring forth ourselves, we women must leave the known outer life, the conditioning that has taught us well how not to trust our own knowing, the conditioning that has caused us to know ourselves only in relationship to others.

If we are to find our own voice, our own inner authority, we must turn inward and begin to listen to our own self. Of course, we are always at choice. That is, until we aren’t, because at some point, it may become more painful to ignore Her call than to heed it.

One of the most important things we can offer each other, as women, is a reverence and respect for this inward journey of women. Perhaps, as we become aware of our own inner life, and all the tugs and pulls and longings we feel to know who we truly are, we can begin to realize that other women we know are also feeling a similar calling. Perhaps, when we each treat the other with reverence, knowing the Great Mother is calling her, too, then a bond of strength and power will begin to nourish our connection to each other, supporting us all in bringing the sacred feminine forth into consciousness.

I can’t say I know for sure why She is asking this of us (although I have my own ideas); yet, she is asking. Don’t take my word for it – or Judith Duerk’s word. Get quiet and take a moment to ask yourself if you hear, in your own world within, Her calling to you.

I do know one thing. As I become more at home in these beautiful depths, I fall more deeply in love with women and all they offer to this world. We are the gestators of life. Whether or not a woman gives birth to babies, she is always a mother, designed in the image of the Great Mother. As Rumi says, “Woman is the radiance of God; she is not your beloved. She is the Creator —you could say that she is not created.” It is time we come to know our own radiant feminine selves, and see it reflected in all of life.

And, you?

What have you experienced in your inner life? What do you know of the sacred feminine in your own experience? How have you shared this interiority with others? How might you begin to trust this knowing even more deeply? I’d love to know what you’ve experienced.

If you felt moved, inspired, touched, helped, annoyed, or anything after reading this, please let us know. Our wonderful bloggers really do appreciate your comments and feedback. It’s super easy and takes a minute. Click on comments below.

Posted by Julie Daley on February 8th, 2010 in New Directions, Spirituality | No comments Read related posts in Circle of Stones, Great Mother, inner authority, inner life, journey of women, Judith Duerk, Rumi

Clutter and Muck Can Sabotage Your Efforts to Make Change

Adding space and clearing the muck in your life can bring forth powerful changes. You might think the pile of papers on your kitchen counter is nothing more than a pile of papers.

Once you create order and clear them away, you might begin to realize that your bills are being paid more promptly or perhaps, your arguments with your spouse have suddenly subsided. With less late fees or more martial harmony, you will feel more confidant to pursue a new hobby or career.

Clutter and muck are sneaky saboteurs. Making one seemingly small and insignificant change in your life can bring about a profound shift that will benefit your life in ways you can never imagine. You will inevitably change your relationship with change.

Whatever you happen to be stuck in, there are tried, tested and true methods that you can use to get unstuck. Take action and clear some clutter from any area in your life.

With every small change I know that you will become more inspired and your creativity will blossom. You will flourish and find the time to do the things in your life that you really want to do. When you clear your muck and develop systems, you will have more time to see your priorities clearly and create the change towards a life that truly fulfills and inspires you.

Posted by Kathi Burns on February 5th, 2010 in Career, General, New Directions | No comments Read related posts in action, change, clutter, getting organized, Organizing, personal change, personal growth, unstuck

The End of Average

Life is not a dress rehearsal – we get one great ride around the sun. And if this is my one shot, I intend to approach it with the most love, enthusiasm and energy I can muster. I don’t want a life of coulda’s, woulda’s and shoulda’s. As George Bernard Shaw’s says, “I want to be all used up when I die.” Nothing left undone. Excited and fired up each day. No regrets. And definitely not average.

But I find most people don’t share this mindset. Most people are stuck in bland, boring and average; they want better but don’t know how. As the humorist Erma Bombeck said, “Normal is just a setting on a clothes dryer.” There should be nothing normal or average about life. Since our time on Earth is limited, our focus must be to learn enough about ourselves and our world, to determine how we “fit” – our way to be great in the world and live a life that is extraordinary.

Our world has actually set us up to have a great life; we are in the age of customization. Today, we can have our food, cars, music, houses, and virtually everything else our way. We personalize and customize. There should be no need for average.

But what amazes me most is we are so quick to customize our food, but so reluctant to customize our lives. Most of us do what others do, or let others tell us how to work and live. The problem is we spend too little time getting to know our inner self – our unique personality, talents, strengths and passions; we are not very self-aware. And when you don’t know yourself, you don’t know how to maximize your impact or the quality of your life. You accept average.

Each of us is born with a unique set of neural pathways (brain responses) that ultimately form our natural response, abilities talents and passions. Some are artistic and social. Others are empirical, detail-focused and analytical. Some can sing and others can solve puzzles. Some are moved by constant communication, others are most passionate when connecting in quiet with nature.

These natural abilities represent our core thinking – we are good at these and happiest when doing them. Management psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, “People who learn to control (understand) their inner experience will determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.”

The key to ending average is to connect, communicate and understand the internal hardwired “true you” and to answer the questions, “How self-aware am I?” and “What do I really know about me?”

Here is how I explain it to my audiences: we have two ears and one mouth. Though the expression says we should listen twice as often as we speak, I add another perspective. To me, one ear should be directed out – to listen to your world – to know and understand your world. The other ear should be directed in – to listen to you – to understand your particular and unique talents, values, interests, and passions – the true you.

When you know you and your world, you can focus on “fit” – your place in this world. You can focus on working and living in areas that play to your strengths. You have choices. You can customize your life.

So here are my five steps to customize your life and develop your end of average plan:

1. Listen inward to identify your natural abilities and talents – list what are you good at. Don’t be humble; be honest. What are you great at? What comes naturally? Many times you will need to check with others who know you well because your talents are so closely tied to your thinking that you don’t perceive your abilities as talents. List everything that comes to mind; get acquainted with your true self.
2. Listen inward to identify what you love to do – list what you are passionate about. What gets you out of bed; what could you do all day and never be bored or tired of? List everything that comes to mind; get acquainted with your true self.
3. Find your fit. Now review what you are good at and passionate about. Then, knowing what you know of your world, start to identify what jobs, communities, activities or projects allow you to use what you are good at and passionate about doing. Here’s an example. You love working with precision and details and are passionate about helping animals. You may identify the ideal job is working as a veterinarian, animal rescue staff, dog walker, scientist or breeder. Your hobbies may include volunteering for an animal shelter, become an dog trainer or connect the elderly with pets to improve their lives. Know yourself and then determine where you fit in work and in life – where you play to your talents and passions. You work strong and live stronger. You end average.
4. Sculpt on daily basis. Get good at adding small meaningful things to your day. It may be volunteering for a museum, a homeless shelter or a hotline. It may be cooking for your office, organizing events in the workplace or teaching your fellow employees how to use IPhone aps. When you add small things you love to your work and life, you respond in a more engaged and passionate way. You customize. Life is better. Work is better.
5. Commit time to stay connected to the “true you.” Life pulls you in many directions – even when you personalize and customize a great life. Build connection time in your days to stay tuned into the true you. You will constantly determine new things about you – more talents, more passions – because this is a lifetime dialog. Don’t be in a rush. Gather information. Stop and think. Include more of the true you in your work and life.

No one can do this work for you. You are unique and no one shares your exact talents, strengths and passions – your personal hardwiring. Only you can connect to the true you. Commit the time and effort to know yourself. Commit the time and effort to know your world. Find your fit. Sculpt daily to keep the energy high. This is how to make the most of this life and to put an end to average.

Jay Forte is a motivational speaker and performance consultant. He is the author of Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition, The Hunt for Opportunities Success Manual and the on-line resource, Stand Out and Get Hired. He works to connect people to their talents and passions to work strong and live stronger. More information at www.LiveFiredUp.com.

If you felt moved, inspired, touched, helped, annoyed, or anything after reading this, please let us know. Our wonderful bloggers really do appreciate your comments and feedback. It’s super easy and takes a minute. Click on comments below.

Posted by Jay Forte on February 3rd, 2010 in Career, General, New Directions, Personal Stories, Things We Love | No comments Read related posts in customize, emotional intelligence, find your fit, love your life, passions, self-aware, talents, true life

We Don’t Solve Our Problems, We Outgrow Them

I was recently reminded of a great quote from psychologist Carl Jung, he said, “We don’t solve our problems, we outgrow them.” As I’ve been thinking about this the past few days, I realize how often my attention is actually on solving my problems, instead of outgrowing them. No wonder the ones I obsess about the most seem to linger.

However, we’ve all experienced this outgrowing process many times. Think back to some of the biggest “problems” in your life when you were a child or an adolescent (or even just a few years or months ago) that are no longer issues for you anymore. In most cases, you simply outgrew these things.

We also experience this phenomenon whenever something intense happens in our life – whether it’s something that is intensely “good” or “bad.” Major life experiences will often put things in perspective – giving us an opportunity to stop and re-evaluate many aspects of our lives. Often, upon further reflection, we realize that most of our “problems” are not that big of a deal.

How can we make this process more conscious and deliberate, and not simply happen by accident. It’s important that we shift our focus, as Jung reminds us, from “solving” to “growing.” As we try to “solve” the biggest problems in our lives – related to relationships, career, health, effectiveness, money, awareness, and more – maybe we can stop trying so hard to “fix” these things and look more deeply at the feedback we’re getting and where we can enhance our growth.

Take money, for example. Many people I know, myself included, are especially focused on money these days. And while the economic environment of the past year or so has both created and exposed a number of money “problems” for many of us – personally, organizationally, nationally, and globally – maybe instead of simply trying to solve our money problems, we could look at how to expand our growth as it relates to money, and in a larger sense abundance, worth, peace, and more. The famous quote from Albert Einstein fits perfectly here, “We can’t solve our problems from the level of thinking which created them.”

Here are a few things to think about as you look to deepen your growth and shift away from the obsessive problem solving mode many of us find ourselves in:

1) Confront your biggest “problems.” Tell the truth about the biggest issues in your life and look at what you’ve been doing to either avoid or solve them – neither of which will ultimately give you what you want.

2) Look for the growth opportunity. With authenticity and compassion, see if you can look beneath your avoidance or even your intended solutions, and look for the beautiful feedback life is giving you right now about where you can grow.

3) Reach out for support. Getting support, feedback, and guidance is an essential aspect of our life and growth, especially when we want to change, transform, and grow into new and deeper places. When we’re looking at outgrowing some of the most challenging aspects of our life and transcending certain problems (some of which we may have been dealing with for quite some time), it is fundamentally important we reach out for help from people in our lives – friends, family members, co-workers, counselors, coaches, teachers, and others.

As we do these three things, with a sense of kindness and appreciation towards ourselves, we can expand our growth, which will ultimately lead us to where we want to be in our lives. Remember, there is no specific “destination” we’re after in this process – growth is really about deepening our experience of life and enhancing our capacity for joy, fulfillment, and love.

Mike Robbins is a sought-after motivational keynote speaker, coach, and the bestselling author of Focus on the Good Stuff (Wiley) and Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken (Wiley). More info – www.Mike-Robbins.com

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Posted by Mike Robbins on February 2nd, 2010 in Uncategorized | 2 comments Read related posts in appreciation, authenticity, evolving, gratitude, honesty, Jung, Mike Robbins, motivational speaker, self help

Success Comes Quickly When You Keep Your Promises

by Jason W. Womack, MEd, MA

Now is the time to take ownership of making positive changes in your life, and begin a journey to another level. As more of the people around you discuss the issues and opportunities they are facing these days, it is even more important we consciously choose what to work on (and what not to work on!). To make the journey from where you are to where you are going, spend a little time clarifying 1) a set of clear objectives and 2) a clear path to achieve measurable results.

If you have looked back over the past few weeks and wondered “where the time has gone,” it’s a great time to revisit your goals for the year. Create a roadmap and review it often. Your roadmap—consider using The Promise Guide, available for free at www.ThePromiseGuide.com—is a document you create to define your measurable and specific goals. Consider defining specific projects you intend to address over the next few months.

Create Your Roadmap – Four (4) Key Areas

When building your roadmap, consider the following questions regarding these areas of your life and your work:

1) Financial Goals – What would you like to earn this year? Is there something you could be doing “on the side?” Are you looking to take on new/bigger projects at work to gain a promotion?

2) Family/Friends – What kinds of events or trips are you planning to grow as a family? And, who in your circle of influence do you want to spend quality time with?

3) Personal Development – Are there any books to read, classes to take or development programs to enroll in?

4) People – Who will you need to get to know? Who can your mentors or partners be? Who can help to “coach” you to your next level of you?

Measuring and Tracking

With your roadmap in place, what’s needed next is a way to measure and track your progress. Knowing what to focus on and committing time and resources to reviewing those goals, is the single biggest challenge that we have in business (and in life).

Goals are promises, and promises are commitments. They begin the moment you say yes to yourself or to others. But how do you keep track of these yeses? And more importantly, how do you ensure that these are the things you really should be spending time on?

First, write them all down! Capture all of your commitments, the ones you may have scribbled down on various lists, on your calendar, and the ones swirling around in your head. If you capture them centrally, you can begin to look at them strategically.

Many of us have a multitude of projects, to-dos and tasks on the go. Some of these commitments may even be prioritized. However, unless there is a strategic vision that overrides all of your commitments, the bigger, long-term promises and commitments may get sabotaged by smaller, less important tasks which always seems to soak up your valuable time, resources and mind space.

Here’s a simple, but powerful guidance system for measuring and keeping track of all of this:

1) Identify key promises/commitments – Look at your centralized consolidated list of projects, to-dos and tasks. Identify the ones are key, that are central to your roadmap. These are your top priority commitments – promises – you have already made to yourself and/or others. As you complete these, you will build upon your vision for success.

2) Develop milestones for achievement. For each of your key promises, develop due dates and milestones to track your progress.  Specify target dates and, for those items where you are working with others, specify who will be responsible and what will be done.

3) Have a “check in” and “status update” process. On a regular basis (for example, once every week) take time to check in on how you are progressing on each of these key promises.

At work and in life, YOU are your brand. Your personal and professional success is directly proportional to your ability to make promises and follow through on them.

Jason W. Womack, MEd, MA is the co-author of The Promise Doctrine, a guidebook and system for consistently delivering on your promises at www.thepromisedoctrine.com. A master educator and executive coach, Jason works with organizations worldwide to uplevel productivity, performance and time management skills. Contact Jason at 805.640.6401 or at www.womackcompany.com.

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Posted by Jason Womack on January 31st, 2010 in General | No comments Read related posts in Promises

Breaking Through With Dad

By Fred Burks

At age 27, after having spent two adventure-filled years living and teaching English in mainland China, I found myself getting ready to move back to the US. With two years completely immersed in another world away from family and friends, I’d had plenty of opportunities to reflect on my life back home. In those periods of contemplation, I felt a deep sense of satisfaction in realizing that I had really come to enjoy my relationships with all of my friends and family back home with only one major exception – my Dad.

As a child, I had very mixed feelings about my father. He took us on wonderful, exciting vacations car camping around the country for a month out of each year. In his engaging moments with me and my sister and two brothers, he could be adventurous, enthusiastic, and a lot of fun.

Yet like so many fathers out there, most of the time he was distant and unavailable. As a Methodist minister and a fighter for peace and justice, his work was by far his greatest passion with family a distant second. What’s more, at meals – our only regular gathering time each day – he would all too often preach politics to us, his unwilling captive audience. There was no debating him, either. He was always right.

In looking back, however, I could see now what I once would never have admitted – that I was just as stubborn as Dad. There was no way I would acknowledge that he was right in a debate or argument. I would argue with him fiercely, yet still he managed to get me every time. I remember countless times when our interactions ended with me stalking off frustrated and angry, as dad settled back triumphantly into his chair reading the newspaper. Sometimes I just hated him. His righteous attitude seemed so hypocritical and just wrong!

After moving away from home at age 18, I had dedicated myself to improving my relationships with my family and others in my life. Thanks to some wonderful divine guidance, I had been successful with everyone except Dad. He was the one person I still just couldn’t get along with.

As I contemplated leaving the wonderfully rich experience in China, I knew that the time had come to change this. I knew that on getting home, if I wanted to get along better with him, my job was to learn to let Dad be Dad. I realized that I could not change him, but I could change myself by letting go of my need to be right and of my harsh judgments of him and his behavior. I knew that If I wanted to change our frustrating dynamic, I was the one who would have to change.

The idea came to me that the best way to heal this old family wound was to move in with Dad and make a commitment to opening my heart and to becoming friends with him for the first time in my life. I knew it would not be easy. Yet I also knew that if I could hold fast to my intention of not needing to be right and not letting his comments get to me, we could have a significant breakthrough. I wrote Dad a letter asking if he was interested in becoming friends, and if he would be open to my living with him on return from China to work on this.

Dad was thrilled at the idea of us becoming friends and warmly welcomed me into his home. He was very supportive of my desire to move through our difficulties. He even spruced up a little room in his house for me. Yet after a brief, enjoyable “honeymoon” period of about two months, I found those same old patterns staring me right in the face again. Dad again was always right and I ended up leaving frustrated, knowing that I was actually right – just like old times. Why did it always have to end up that way?

Yet I held to my commitment. I remembered that If I wanted to change this disempowering dynamic, I was the one who would have to change. So gradually, I learned to hold my tongue. When discussion turned to debate, I would do my very best not to engage, not to get caught up in trying to prove him wrong. If the conversation turned competitive, I learned to be quiet and to wait for the appropriate moment to excuse myself, so that I could go let off steam on my own.

Even though I still didn’t agree with him, I slowly learned to simply listen and to be OK with letting Dad have the last word. I couldn’t change his behavior or beliefs, but I was gradually changing mine.

Those few months were tough. It’s not easy to break deeply ingrained family patterns, but I was committed. Every time things spun out of control, I reminded myself of my deep intention to become friends with Dad and even to love him. By holding strong to that commitment, I got increasingly better at pulling back whenever our talks didn’t feel supportive.

By the end of six determined months, I had done it! I could sit through a conversation where Dad was telling me how I was wrong and feel no need to engage or respond. When he challenged or blamed me, I could just let him have his say. I learned to just acknowledge that I heard him, remembering not to take anything personally and to just let Dad be Dad.

As I got better at this, I eventually came to understand that Dad was not consciously trying to attack me. He was just playing out old patterns and programming within himself. I could accept and even love him just the way he was – even the part of him that would very rarely admit he was wrong. Dad seemed to notice the difference, too.

I especially remember one particular day when Dad was doing his thing. I simply nodded my head occasionally and said “I hear you, Dad,” without feeling any need to defend myself. At one point he fell silent, and I just sat quietly waiting. Then I heard words I don’t think I’d ever heard him say in these circumstances, “Well, Fred, what do you think?” And for the first time in a situation where we didn’t agree, I felt Dad was really interested in what I had to say.

From that point on, though we still would hit occasional rough spots, Dad and I began having meaningful conversations. He became increasingly interested in my opinion and his tone of voice lost that cutting edge. For the first time ever, we were actually friends!

What an incredibly empowering change in my life – in our lives! I was amazed that although my deep intention was just to let Dad be who he was, once I made the big shift, Dad shifted, too! What a gift!!! From that point on, our relationship gradually grew warmer and deeper.

Many years later for my Dad’s 70th birthday, I recorded his fascinating life story on over two hours of audio tape. What great, rich stories he had! What a wonderful, bonding time we shared!!! What a long way we’ve come!

Thanks, Dad, for being such a wonderful presence in my life. And I give thanks for the divine guidance which helped me to realize that if I want to transform any significant relationship in my life, I can stop trying to change others and open to accepting and loving everyone just as they are.
By focusing on making shifts and changes in myself, I now know without a doubt that I alone can positively change any relationship in my life.

Fred Burks served for 18 years as a language interpreter for such notable figures as Clinton, G.W. Bush, Gore, and Cheney. After receiving a wealth of eye-opening information on major cover-ups from respected friends and colleagues, Fred is the executive director of the PEERS network of websites and manager of www.WantToKnow.info.

If you felt moved, inspired, touched, helped, annoyed, or anything after reading this, please let us know. Our wonderful bloggers really do appreciate your comments and feedback. It’s super easy and takes a minute. Click on comments below.

Posted by First 30 Days on January 31st, 2010 in Family, Relationships | 1 comment Read related posts in reconciliation with the past

Make Life an “Event”

Life is precious – and really short in the grand scheme of things. So, I am determined to live each day the best I can – to celebrate each day – to make each day of life an “event.”

For me, making it an “event” is not about elaborate trips or expensive dinners. Rather, life becomes an “event” when you pay attention to the little details that show those in your life you care, love and value them. The greatest value in any relationship is not found in the things you have to do, but in the extras you choose to do.

Coffee in the morning may be ordinary. But adding a rose on the table, making a quick trip to Starbucks or bringing coffee on a tray to bed can make even coffee extraordinary – you can make coffee an “event.”

There are so many places during the day to move from ordinary to extraordinary – to do the little things that make life a constant celebration.

Life is an “event” when:

1. You get a note in your lunch in addition to your favorite sandwich.
2. Your favorite cookies or crackers never seem to run out.
3. You thought you needed gas in the car but it has been filled up.
4. Candles are lit at mealtime, even at lunch.
5. A book by your favorite author shows up on your nightstand.
6. You forget and ask the same question 3 times, but you get the same gentle response.
7. Your favorite shampoo or soap shows up in the shower.
8. A card is left on your computer or in your briefcase – just because.
9. Your conversations about easy or difficult things are always easy to do.
10. The bedsheets get a spray of lavender when they come out of the dryer to smell great on the bed.
11. There are boxes of your favorite candy in the car, in the kitchen and everywhere else.
12. Regular wine become sangria and dinner becomes a festival.
13. You tell a story you told before and are not interrupted.
14. Your least favorite task (emptying the dishwasher for me) seems to happen by itself.
15. A look, a smile or a wink means “it is you, it has always been you, it will always be you.”

A life that is extraordinary gets the big things right and constantly celebrates the important little things. Details matter. Feelings matter.

I have this kind of life; it means everything to me. It encourages me to respond – not because I have to – but because I want to. It empowers me to be fully present and constantly show how I care about the important people in my life. I make life an “event” for those I care about. And in the process my life becomes extraordinary.

So, how do you make your life, and the lives of those you care about, an “event”? Don’t wait – you don’t get these days back. Do the little things. Do a lot of them. Do them often.

Jay Forte is a motivational speaker and performance consultant. He is the author of Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition, The Hunt for Opportunities Success Manual and the on-line resource, Stand Out and Get Hired. He works to connect people to their talents and passions to work strong and live stronger. More information at www.LiveFiredUp.com.

If you felt moved, inspired, touched, helped, annoyed, or anything after reading this, please let us know. Our wonderful bloggers really do appreciate your comments and feedback. It’s super easy and takes a minute. Click on comments below.

Posted by Jay Forte on January 31st, 2010 in Family, New Directions, Personal Stories, Relationships | 1 comment

Self-confidence from the Self

In my experience, there is only one real way to increase your self-confidence, and that is through Self-confidence. Self-confidence, with a capital “S”, comes from focusing on the Self, your true Self, your actual Self. Self confidence with a small “s” comes from looking for stability, safety, and security, in that which is inherently unstable, transitory, and fleeting, which is never ultimately effective. Let me explain…

A lack of self-confidence, or low self-esteem, comes from the ideas, beliefs, attitudes, etc. that say you are not quite enough the way you are, that something is lacking. Perhaps you think your body is not thin enough, strong, enough, or healthy enough. Maybe you think you are not smart enough, not fast enough, not loving enough. Maybe you think you are too selfish, or too giving. No matter what your particular story line, no matter what your particular perspective, you think and believe that something is wrong with you, that you are somehow flawed and lacking in some way.

This belief-system, this set of assumptions, is the result of your conditioning and is simply not true.

You can spend your whole life working to build your self-confidence by changing certain things about yourself. And it can feel like it is working, like you have improved your self-confidence.

The problem is that anything, absolutely anything, that you perceive of as an object is transitory and fleeting. So you can improve your health, increase your income, experience beautiful relationships, but all of this is subject to change, and when it does, it can undermine the sense of confidence that you worked so hard to achieve. So consider instead shifting your focus entirely. Shift your focus from the ever-changing person of your imagination, to the Self which is immutable and never-changing. This is the Source of true Self-confidence.

The fact of the matter is that who you are, or rather what you are, is already, has always been, and will always be perfect. Who you are is the eternal Self, the Source of all reality. You cannot not be perfect. Yet in order to see this, you need to continuously shift your reference point. You need to fastidiously shift your focus away from the fleeting and temporary “person” that you think yourself to be and shift it toward that which is eternally perfect.

Instead of constantly looking for ways to improve yourself, give up the idea that you need improvement. Instead of spending your whole life attempting to perfect your “person”, discover that you not a person in need of perfection. Who you are is already perfect.

Life then becomes a practice of letting go of all the false ideas and beliefs that you carry around with you. Just like an overweight suitcase, these false assumptions drain you of your energy, vitality, and beauty. They eclipse the experience of your perfection.

So if you are interested in true Self-confidence, consider this as a practice:

1. Accept the premise that who you are, exactly as you are, is already perfect.

2. Become aware of every thought, idea, belief, behavior, feeling, and perception that runs contrary, that tells you somehow you are not quite good enough.

3. Practice letting go of those perceptions. Let them go, one-by-one, staying focused always on that which is eternal and unchanging.

When you realize that what you are is already perfect, all questions of self-confidence disappear of their own accord and you are left with the ultimate Self-confidence.

Sarah Maria, author of Love Your Body, Love Your Life, outlines her 5-step process for helping you feel great in and about your body. Her work embraces the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, for true, lasting healing. Purchase your copy, begin to love your body today. Visit: SarahMaria.com, BreakFreeBeauty.com.

Posted by Sarah Maria on January 30th, 2010 in Uncategorized | 2 comments Read related posts in body image and self confidence, how to love yourself more, love your body love your life, sarah maria, sarah maria body image, self confidence

Is It All Right Not to Know?

Once upon a time, a great scholar and a very wise person, a true sage, lived on the same street, and they arranged to meet. The scholar asked the sage about the meaning of life. The sage said a few words about love and joy, paused to reflect, and the scholar jumped in with a long discourse on Western and Eastern philosophy. When the scholar was finished, the sage proposed some tea, prepared it with care, and began pouring it slowly into the scholar’s cup. Inch by inch the tea rose. It approached the lip of the cup, and the sage kept pouring. It ran over the top of the cup and onto the table, and the sage still kept pouring. The scholar burst out: “What are you doing?! You can’t put more into a cup that’s already full!” The sage set down the teapot and said, “Exactly.”

A mind that’s open and spacious can absorb lots of useful information. On the other hand, a mind that’s already full – of assumptions, beliefs about the intentions of others, preconceived ideas – misses important details or contexts, jumps to conclusions, and has a hard time learning anything new.

This week, let yourself not know:
• Be especially skeptical of what you’re sure is true. Remind yourself: “Just because I think it doesn’t make it so.” One of my relatives was a wonderful person, but she had a problem: she never had a thought she didn’t believe.
• In conversation, don’t assume you know where other people are going and then stop listening in order to rehearse what you’ll say when they finally stop talking. Don’t worry about what you’re going to say; you’ll figure it out just fine when it’s your turn. Remember how you feel when someone acts like they know what you’re “really” thinking, feeling, or wanting.
• Let your eyes travel over familiar objects – like the stuff on a dinner table – and notice what it’s like during that brief interval, maybe a second or so, after you’ve focused on an object but before the verbal label (e.g., “salt,” “glass”) has popped into your mind. Try to expand that interval of not-knowing by relaxing your mind and your gaze and dropping any need to categorize what you see. Or go for a walk. Notice how the mind tries to know the things all around you, to place them in boxes so it can solve problems and keep you alive. Appreciate your mind – “Good boy! Good girl!” – and then keep letting go of needing to know.
• Now, go even further into the deep end of the pool – look at something and ask yourself if you really know what it is. Say it’s a “cup.” But do you know what a “cup” is, deep down? You say it’s made of atoms, of electrons, protons, quarks. But do you know what a quark is? You say it’s energy, or space-time, or sparkling fairy dust beyond human ken, or whatever – but really, do you ever, can you ever, actually know what energy or space-time truly is?? We live our lives surrounded by objects that we navigate and manipulate – spoons, cars, skyscrapers – while never truly knowing what any of it actually is.
• Deeper still – since you don’t really know what a spoon is, do you even know what you are? Or what you are truly capable of? Or how high you could actually soar? Consider any limiting assumptions about your own life . . . how you’ve “known” that your ideas were not very good, that others would laugh (or that it would matter if they did), that no one would back you, that swinging for the fences just means striking out. Is that so?

Notice how relaxing and good it feels to lighten up about needing to know. Soak in those good feelings so you’ll feel more comfortable hanging out in don’t know mind.

May you know less now than at the beginning of reading this.
And therefore, know more than ever.

Dr. Rick Hanson’s latest book is Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom. www.buddhasbrain.com

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Posted by First 30 Days on January 29th, 2010 in Spirituality | 1 comment Read related posts in open minds