The Ten Minute Challenge

With the New Year in full swing, resolutions or goals set in place, the question becomes: Are you following through on your goals and resolutions? Are you taking the steps you laid out for yourself? I hope you are well on your way to a new and glorious year, but if you are struggling with those resolutions, or haven't been able to set out clear and specific step by step goals for yourself, then I have a challenge for you. I came up with this idea based on the ideas in my Seven Keys to Happiness program.

We often overwhelm ourselves when we want to make changes in our lives by setting goals with no clear cut path to achieving them. Saying I want to lose twenty pounds is a great goal to have, but how are you going to achieve it? Finding a new job as a goal is fine, but what will that require of you? So here's the ten minute challenge: every day set aside just ten minutes towards achieving your goals. Just ten minutes a day will make a difference because most of us, by the end of January aren't spending even a second thinking about those goals. What then do you do with those ten minutes? You take one step towards your goal. Want to lose weight? Use the ten minutes to change one habit, so instead of grabbing a hand full of chips for a snack, you cut up an apple and you do this every day until it becomes a habit. Need to change jobs? Spend ten minutes every day researching the job you want to attain and writing down the steps necessary to achieve it. Want to change your attitude? Spend ten minutes reading something positive everyday. Ten minutes is not much to give when you consider the number of minutes most people watch television. Give this a try and once ten minutes is part of your daily routine, you will probably find yourself allotting more and more time towards improving your life in all manners. Take the ten minute challenge for thirty days, that is all it takes to begin new habits that can change your life.

I am a strong advocate for the power of writing. Writing forces your brain to think differently and more precisely. Take the time to write in your journal and if you are working on achieving goals, I guarantee you, there will be a change in your ability to follow through when you write the goals down and then write about your progress! Take the challenge and choose happiness!

Goals for the New Year!

2010! New Year and New Decade! I have been working on my goals for this year and enjoying making the plans for a new year. There is something definitely exciting about the chance to start anew; to look at the coming year as a new beginning no matter what the last entailed. I love that feeling of promise it brings. I am also planning out my weekly calendar as well, with goals that should be accomplished each day. I've never taken this step before, but working mostly from home has made me realize that the day to day planning is what makes or breaks any goals I set for myself.

In my last blog entry I talked about setting your goals. I hope you have all been taking some time to do so. After a divorce, when much is riding on your shoulders, this can make the difference between constant frustration or confident movement forward. I always have at least one goal pertaining to weight and this year is no different. I have yoyo'd about thirty pounds of unnecessary weight on and off for so long that I sometimes thought it was futile to keep trying, but this last year I managed to keep my weight under a goal weight that I set for myself and this year I'm going to move it down five more pounds and try holding steady there. This has worked far better than any other method I've ever tried. I also have made a far greater effort to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, more fish, and less sugar without evoking the "d" word and amazingly this has helped too. So again, no "d" for me this year, just a steady diet of good, healthy, as close to nature food as possible and a steady walk/run routine six days a week and I think I can lose another five and stay below that set weight the entire year! And by the way, I never even gave up my daily dose of dark chocolate and a glass of red wine, and it still worked!

Set your goals and go at them with all your might! Life is too short and too sweet to do less! Write as you go, and you will find that journaling can help you stay on target. Good luck! Choose Happiness!

Goals II

"There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it." -Napoleon Hill Moving forward in your life will require that you set goals for what you would like to see happen in your future. In last weeks blog I talked about the importance of setting goals and decided I should expand that discussion this week into some concrete methods of goal setting. First, I believe you must decide what you see as your purpose in life. Your goals then are built around how you envision yourself fulfilling that purpose. I have spent most of my working life in the field of education and believe my greatest purpose in life is to assist others in learning and growing! My goals tend to center always on this purpose. Even though I am no longer formally teaching in a classroom, I still see my purpose as the same, but I am expanding into other fields of fulfilling my purpose and my goals correspond to this change. What is your purpose in life? Are your goals centered on what you believe is your purpose? If you are unclear on your purpose, take some time to investigate your strengths and weaknesses. Evaluate where you feel you have been successful in life and how you might build on your success. Also, think about what you enjoy most in life. All of these elements will give you some insight as to where your purpose lies. Once you have defined your purpose you will discover that setting goals is much easier and more fulfilling as they are driven by what you see as important! Each day set a goal which leads towards your longer term goals. When I began blogging again, I wanted to assure myself and my readers that I would be diligent in scheduling time for the blog. I set my goal to write my blogs on Friday so I could reread over the weekend and post on Monday mornings. My daily goal then is to seek the subject for the week and write notes on the topic so that come Friday, I am ready to write! I have barely scratched the surface in the how and why of goal setting, but I hopefully have inspired you to consider the importance and the necessity of writing down your goals. I encourage you to read more on this subject and seriously begin to take stock of your purpose and how you can achieve all you desire. Again, I suggest Brian Tracy’s book, Goals! How to Get Everything You Want-Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible. Take time this week in your journal to begin exploring your purpose in life. Define this for yourself and write your goals! Another step which will lead you to Choose Happiness!

Goal Setting

You can’t just muck around in your life;

you better take off the waders, put on the diving gear and get going! I have been working diligently on writing down my goals, not just long term goals, but daily as well. My first goal is to choose happiness today. I write this in my journal to impact my brain with the importance of the message. I have discovered too, writing goals increases my happiness in all areas of my life because I feel focused and I have a vision, not only just for today, but for everyday. However, writing daily goals is not about writing a to do list, though one goal might be to accomplish so many tasks today from your to do list. Writing daily goals is about the tasks or activities which will bring you happiness. What does goal setting have to do with happiness? Plenty! People who set goals for themselves express a higher degree of satisfaction and obtain a greater level of success in life, and those who actually write down there goals do even better because the action of writing them down and having your goal set concretely in front of you will help you visualize the goal and make it real. A study conducted with Harvard students over a ten year period showed that the 3% of the graduating class that had not only defined their goals but written them down, ten years later were earning ten times more than their fellow classmates. If you want to be happy each and every day of your life, then it only makes sense that having goals and striving towards them will help you in choosing happiness everyday. How then do you set goals? You have to take time to really consider what you feel is important, what you want to achieve in life and how you are going to achieve it. Then you have to step by step work towards each goal. I have known most of my life I wanted to be a writer, but had never set any goals towards this dream. I have written sporadically over the years, but did not set a specific goal until I conceived of the idea for Choosing Happiness after Divorce. When I first began writing, however, I didn’t realize how important goal setting could be to me. I had days when I would write for awhile and days when I wouldn’t. I only made progress when I finally set a goal of 1000 words per day and required myself to sit at the computer until I achieved this goal. At this point, I began to make progress and I loved the feeling of accomplishment at the end of my writing session. Since then, I have been writing goals and daily working to achieve them and now I am achieving my dream of being a published author. I continue to learn more and more about goal setting. Brian Tracy’s book, Goals! How to Get Everything You Want-Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible, is a great source for learning how to set goals. If you are not setting goals, I encourage you to begin this discipline. Thinking about what you want from you life and then taking the time to write the goals necessary to achieve what you want is worth all the effort required. Take time in your journal this week to seriously think about your goals and get going! Choose Happiness!