It's Almost Here

Christmas is almost here - ready or not.  Us women usually are the ones who "make Christmas."  Standards (that we made up) are getting higher and higher.  If something we do one year is a big hit, it's a tradition and we have to do it every year, right? 

Every year some people write articles about how it's crazy to spend the days before Christmas rushing around in circles, wearing ourselves out to get everything perfect - does anyone listen?  The older I got, the less I was physically, emotionally, and mentally capable of doing it all.  One year I was out in a snow storm buying food for a party on Christmas Eve that almost no one came to because of the snow storm.  Something kind of crazy about that. 

I'm celebrating Christmas again this year - like many others in the recent past - celebrating the spirit of love.  There are some gifts but I bought them with my cash back from my credit card.  None of them are wrapped - they're in boxes and bags.  For a lot of the people that I don't know well that I wanted to give gifts to, I gave cash and Christmas socks.  The cash was a big hit!

And the Christmas miracle for me is that I don't feel guilty!

Create a New Kind of Christmas

Why not come up with some ideas for a different kind of Christmas dinner.  Maybe you can cook a turkey or a ham and have non-traditional accompaniments.  You could have only fresh fruit or only fresh vegetables.  Have a whole bunch of them - some you've never tried before.  Add some bakery bread - whole wheat.  For one thing the prep will be easier and for another you won't have a stomach ache after you eat.

Turn off the television and radio during Christmas week or at least during Christmas day.  Don't read the newspaper.  Just listen to beautiful music and relax.

Declare a moratorium on gossip during the holidays.  Starting on December 1st, don't discuss anyone who isn't in the room.  Don't declare the moratorium to anyone but yourself.  Just leave the room politely if anyone starts gossiping.

Don't bring any work home during Christmas week.

Sit down and just listen to anyone talking to you.

First thing each morning and the last thing each night, step outside and notice the outdoor world.  Count your blessings.

Easy, Thoughtful Gift Ideas

I love the idea that gifts can be consumable services like:  Tickets to a movie; a day at the museum; a  home-delivered meal; a gift certificate for a massage; a professional housekeeper for a day; an evening of babysitting; skill sharing like music lessons, singing lessons, computer advice; pet sitting; gift certificate for a facial; golf lessons; a day at a spa.  Thinking about the people I love, I can see how I might make a gift of the kind of help I can give.  Wouldn't this be a nice change from giving "stuff?"

Holiday joy

I'm thinking I've had some holidays like this snowman that looks like he's going to crash any second.  That's not what they're supposed to be about though.  So the question is how to get back to what they're supposed to be (Or were they ever what they're supposed to be?)  So what are they supposed to be?  Here's my idea - Thanksgiving is easy.  It's supposed to be about thanksgiving.  Designing the day around that concept would probably keep it from being about slaving in a hot kitchen for hours.  This year I just kept it extremely simple.  Don't tell anybody but I used mixes and short cuts and accidentally got finished with the meal before I had said we would eat.  I had a lot to be thankful for and I wish I had made a list of those things and posted it during the week.  Next year I will.

Christmas - well, the stores had their Christmas decorations up before Halloween was quite over.  So, now I'm thinking about what Christmas is supposed to be.  Why did humans start celebrating it anyway.  Of course, it's about God's sending us himself in human form to help us with our troubling imperfections.  That's something to celebrate for sure!  So - what are some ways to do that? 

Here are some more things I love to do during the lead up to Christmas.  I've collected some Christmas music that I really love.  I play it in the house every day and take some of it in the car to play.  Doing this helps me keep my mind on the joy of Christmas.  I get change at the bank and carry a little purse in my big purse so that I always have some change to put in the Salvation Army red kettles.  I get some potpourri of Christmas evergreens and put it in my car.  Putting birdseed out for the birds is fun even though the squirrels usually get it - whatever. 

I haven't tried this, but plan to this year - on December 1st I plan to begin writing Christmas letters - NOT about my family and our accomplishments to date - but about the person or family I'm writing to.  I want to tell them what I admire about them, what they've contributed to my life and thank them.  I planned to do this several years ago but never got around to it.  I especially wanted to thank the dear woman I called my spiritual mother who was and is responsible for so much of my joy in life that she taught me by her example.  Unfortunately she got sick and died before I could do the letter.  I'm going to use that event as my incentive to really do those letters this year!

Simple Ideas for Holidays

These are "extra" things, of course, but they are so easy and quick that you might find them more fun than some of the time consuming, stress producing stuff you do for holidays. 

One I really like is using gift tags for quick thank you notes.  I have some that have a dove and "peace" in blue letters.  I write notes on the other side.  I've left them with waitresses with "thank you for remembering my order."  I've left them with clerks with "Thank you for being so cheerful in what must be a stressful time!"  I try to give at least three of these per day - it can be anyone I come in contact with - the bank teller, a grandchild, a friend, etc.  It's all sorts of fun.

Another one I've enjoyed is to set aside an evening with the television, computer and phones off and all the candles I can find in the house lit.  I usually start this just a couple of hours before bed and by the time I do go to bed I am so mellow you would hardly know it's me!

Collect "consumables" for stocking gifts.  A consumable is something that will be consumed and so will not turn into clutter.  Little bottles of lotion, scented soap, tea bags, flavored coffee, small scented candles, etc.  Inexpensive and fun.

When the weather is reasonably nice, it's fun to go for a walk and scatter bird seed.  I have also been known to go for a walk with dog biscuits in my pocket and when I pass a dog in a yard, I toss a biscuit.

Holidays and Simplicity

When did the holidays turn into a source of stress instead of joy?  I'm guessing it happened when we were cutting back on staff at work so that investors and the company could make more money.  A lot of us had our work loads doubled or tripled.  Then there was equal pay for equal work (even though that hasn't quite happened for a lot of women).  So it was worthwhile financially for women to work.  The thing was, they still had their full time home care and child care jobs.  Sometimes husbands helped out - some more than others - and sometimes they didn't.  In addition, extended family may live far away.  But with jobs, home care and child care all together, the extra work of the holidays sometimes fell on only one or two people - thus the stress instead of joy.

So, what to do about that?  What has worked for me is to make a list of the things I love the most about each holiday and ask the people who celebrate with me for their favorites.  Then I do only those things.    I am judicious about what invitations I accept.  Parties are wonderful but trying to go to everything I'm invited to often doesn't work out.  Of course, lots of people start really early getting ready for holidays.  That really works when I do it because I can divide the extra work into tiny little bits that are easy to fit in to my daily life and because they are so small can be enjoyed.  Another stress buster is to stop looking at commercials and ads for ideas for gifts.  Using love as guidance for gift giving makes it easier and more fun.

Grocery Shopping

I'm not fond of grocery shopping.  Since I live alone, I can postpone for quite awhile by doing the drive thru thing.  But, of course, that's quite unhealthy and I feel bad about it.  When I had a MUCH busier life, it was even more of a problem.  Then as I was working on simplifying my life, I ran across a book that had a method I still use.  I made a list of the items I regularly buy, and then I put them in the order that they are laid out in my grocery store.  I did this task on the computer so that the list was stored in the data base. 

Each week I decided on menus, checked to see what ingredients I would need, went to the master list and highlighted the things I needed and anything else that I needed - such as paper products - printed out that list and headed for the store.  Since it was in order of the layout of the store, it took very little time to pick everything up - no back tracking.  Also, I had already done a lot of the work only once.  That simplification probably saved me an hour - maybe more - at the store.  Since the list was thorough, I rarely had to go back to the store during the week.  This method still works for me.

Less is More

I was talking to someone the other day about time management, and she assured me that she never wasted any time and got a lot done.  I guess that's the usual way people think of time management.  But a long time ago I learned that time management is really about priorities.  Careful elimination of low priority things gives me time for the things that really matter which include rest and recreation.  I think the less "stuff" I have to dust, the happier I am.  Things require care.  I'm just not into that.  I would rather listen to music, go to the movies, visit with friends and go to bed early.  Of course, I'm not everybody; so everyone has to make his/her own decisions about what's important to them. 

Commitments and Time

Another part of simplifying life is to look at how we spend our time.  I learned about time studies when I was managing a department full of people with different levels of skills.  I asked them (and myself) to track what we were doing every hour.  This is not as hard as it sounds, by the way.  It just requires stopping for a minute every hour (set an alarm) and writing down what you did during that hour.  After a week of doing this, I was always amazed at what I learned.  At work a lot more of my time was spent checking email than I would ever have imagined.  Email is actually not a priority most of the time.  So I just checked it about three times a day - when I came to work, at noon and at mid-afternoon. 

There were a lot of other time wasters too - answering the phone every time it rang was another one.  So I began to just block out periods of time during the day when I did not answer the phone.  Now in order not to make people angry who were trying to reach me and who thought what they wanted was urgent, I was dedicated to returning phone calls immediately after I finished with a phone-free period of time.  If I didn't reach the person, I left a message as to when I could be reached that day, and I answered the phone during that time period.   I also answered email as I checked it during email checking times.

I also had the bad habit of saying "yes" to everything I was invited to do.  In the process of checking how I spent my time, I looked at my commitments.  Like a lot of people, I think, I was in the habit of thinking I could do everything.  The trouble is, like everyone else, I only have 24 hours a day, and every commitment I keep is one that keeps me from doing something else.  What I decided to do instead was make a list of everything I was doing, thought I should do, and that I wanted to do, and looked at how that fit in 24 hours a day.  To my astonishment, the time needed for all of it would have taken about 72 hours a day.  No wonder I felt unsettled with my life!  So I worked on prioritizing which was a painful experience since it meant I had to cross things I actually wanted to do off my list.  But 24 hours a day, is still just 24 hours a day.

For a time I tried to make 24 hours go further by sleeping less and being productive every second of every day.  Some people can do that.  It turns out I'm not one of them.  I need about ten hours of sleep out of 24 and I also need some do-nothing time as well.  So it turns out I don't actually have 24 hours a day - it's actually more like 10.  When time is that scarce, it really motivates me to give deep, prayerful thought to prioritizing.  This is my life after all.  How am I going to see this day at the end of my life?

More on Simplicity

I really hate to bring this up, since everyone thinks they need just the right car and a big house with big furniture, but are you sure you really need this?  I have a little house and it only takes 10 minutes to vacuum all the carpet.  I have air cleaning machines so that there's almost no dust in my house (almost eliminates dusting). 

I have a small, very simple car.  There's not a lot to keeping it reasonably clean.  I can keep the dash, steering wheel, etc. clean by spraying some water (a tiny bottle in my package compartment) on a cloth (also in the package compartment) and wiping dust off in the amount of time I have sitting at a stop light.  When it rains, I put on a rain coat and go out with a sponge soaked in detergent.  I can wash my whole car in 10 minutes flat, and the rain washes it off.  Then I pull into the garage and the car dries.  Voila!  All done.  Every once in awhile I use my shop vac to vacuum the seats and the floor.  Small car; small job.

Now that I'm in my 7th decade on the earth, I feel the need to simplify as much as I can and use my time only for the really important stuff.  Of course, if I had thought of these things sooner, I would have had a lot more time in my 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s for hanging out under trees, necking with my husband, dancing, playing with my children, playing with pupplies and other vitally important stuff.  Better late than never!

Simplify Your Clothes

This suggestion is probably just for women, but maybe not.  I learned this late in life.  I knew I spent way too much time for my taste trying to figure out what to wear, taking care of my clothes (washing, ironing, taking stuff to and from the cleaners), and moving stuff from closet to closet, etc.  I finally found a style that suited me (meaning I look good, the clothes are appropriate for every occasion, they require almost no care and never wear out).  I got rid of pretty much everything else I owned and settled in for a lifetime of peace in the wardrobe department.  I often say that the brand of clothes I wear cured my dressing disorder.

Everyone is different so the style each person chooses will be different.  But the point is that clothing should add to our quality of life, not create stress, indecision, and time crunches.  The initial work of finding just the right type of clothes and then buying them will be time and energy consuming but worth it in the end.

Busy Work

Defeating the voice in our heads that tries to sidetrack us from the activities that bring us to the life of our dreams can seem like a full time job (and it is, in a way).  One of the favorite ways I get sidetracked is with busy work.  I used to think of things like dusting plant leaves as a way to not start work on something vitally important.  Those plant leaves looked terribly dusty and anything that's dusty must be dusted, right?  Actually, no.  Since we are all supposed to be busy, busy, busy in this day and age, the only way we can legitimately loaf is to elevate busy work to an art form.  Then we can say, "Well, I just didn't have time (to do whatever the vitally important thing is), and we can prove it since we were incredibly busy all day. 

My favorite way of defeating busy work is to make a "to-do" list and put down all the plant leaf dusting.  When I can't think of even one more thing to write down, I just cross off everything but the vitally important stuff.

More Simplicity

Of course, simplifying your life is a very individual thing.  It requires time, thought and introspection to decide what will benefit each one of us the most.  Some women would be horrified to learn that I quit having my nails manicured because this is one of their treats.  For me it became annoying though.  It meant I had to get in the car and go someplace.  I had to protect my nails for awhile to make sure I didn't mess up the polish, etc.  So now I just cut them and file them once a week.  When I take a bath I push the cuticles back.  That's it.  Saved me a lot of time and trouble.

Also, lots of folks would be surprised to learn that I kept all my house plants.  Some people get rid of them because they require care and thought.  Ditto outside plants (which I don't do very well caring for).  I, however, love plants.  They take the carbon monoxide I breathe out and give me back oxygen.  Plus they're lovely to look at.  None of my plants require much in the way of care except watering once a week and occasionally fertilizing.  Some of them need repotting, but they are waiting patiently for me to get around to it.  Then there's my beloved companion cat.  He requires some care but he showers me with love making it more than worth it for the tiny bit of feeding, brushing, cat box cleaning, etc. that he requires.

There are lots of things to consider that each one of us may or may not want to do.  Streamlining Christmas, for example.  I don't do Christmas cards anymore.  I would rather stay in touch some other way.  The whole Christmas card thing is weird anyway.  I have a couple of distant cousins that have me and my deceased husband on their Christmas card list.  Despite my having notified them more than once that he's dead, they keep sending them to both of us.  Plus they don't respond when they get my note that he's dead.  Their cards contain long letters outlining the accomplishments of theirs, their kids, and their grandkids.  To me that's very strange.

Another example:  if you belong to an organization whose meetings you dread, resign!  I don't go to business meetings any more.  They drive me crazy.  I know they're necessary, but I need to protect myself from stuff that drives me crazy.  But if you love them, go and enjoy!

Simplicity

I just saw the movie, "I Don't See How She Does It."  A young wife and mother with two small children and a high powered job in finance is trying to fit everything in and mostly in trouble either with her kids, her husband or her boss.  I was there at one time except that workloads were much lighter and night and weekend work was not expected - but I had five kids and three of them were disabled.  Later I had one of those 90 hour a week jobs plus a sick husband.  After the movie ended, I remember thinking how programmed I was to believe that certain things absolutely HAD to be done.  I didn't get all of them done, but I suffered daily from guilt.

Since I saw myself as a talented researcher and problem solver, I read a lot of books on time management, etc.  I soon figured out that just managing my time better wasn't going to cut it.  If I was to have a life that had any peace, I was either going to have to get someone else to do some of the stuff on my to-do-list, eliminate some of it, or streamline (simplify).  Since there was nobody standing in the wings waiting to come on stage to do some of my chores, I was left with elimination and simplification.

I did eliminate some of the stuff - like washing clothes every day and dusting (I just quit dusting).  Things got fairly messy around the house, but it wasn't life or death.  Much later in my life, I learned that doing 15 minutes of household chores a day would keep me pretty much caught up.  Then I learned about simplification - a miraculous gift.  One of my favorite books on the subject is - Simplify Your Life by Elaine St. James.  Some of the ideas I got from the book and implemented totally changed my life.  I learned how to cook good food quickly and simply.  Complicated recipes went out the window and were replaced by dishes that could be cooked in one pot, made in big batches and frozen for later.  I developed quick and easy ways to load the dishwasher so that it took almost no time.  I ran errands only once a week and ran them in sequence according to locations.  I learned to say "no" to some of the things I was invited or requested to do.  I carved out time on my calendar to do nothing or whatever I wanted to do at least once a week for several hours.  I treated that time as just as sacred as time I had promised to someone else.

Now that I don't have a bunch of commitments I still continue to try to find ways of even further simplifying what I do every day.  Peace is a priority!

Drive a Stake into the Heart of Procrastination

If not today, then when....are we going to begin on the task that must be done to create the life of our dreams?  "Drive a stake into the heart of procrastination..." - Simple Abundance.  Procrastination is a vampire that sucks the life energy out of us and tells us that we can put off being delighted, excited and creative.  It says that there are all these other things that must come first.  This is not true, by the way.  Procrastination lies to us all the time.  It tells us this boring t.v. show is the best thing to do right now.  Don't listen!!!

Artistry

What if, before everything we did each day, we asked ourselves how we could make the activity a form of art?  That sounds pretty lofty even to me because how could some of the drudgery (or at least that's how I regard it), be turned into an art form?  I've read that what makes art art is the spirit and love that goes into the creation.  That makes even routine tasks accessible to me to make them into an art form.  This is another one of those 30 day challenges for increasing quality of life that I think I will try in September.  I may get a headache from all the thinking it will take to try it but it sounds so wonderful I really must try it. 

Some of the routine things I do I could design ways to make them into art (with spirit and love), ahead of time.  When I do my morning to do list would be a good time.  Cooking comes to mind as an easy one to infuse with spirit and love into art.  Cleaning the cat box and taking out the trash seem to be a little more challenging.  More to come on this as I make the inevitable discoveries in doing a 30 day challenge.  But if the life I'm creating is to be art, then ESPECIALLY the routine tasks will have to be first on the list to be transformed.

Stressful thoughts...

There are several people writing books about stressful thinking and how it affects us -  Byron Katie, Don Miguel Ruiz, Marianne Williamson to name a few.  I do believe that a lot of the suffering we go through is because of our thinking.  I'm guessing that negative thinking developed as a survival mechanism in the distant past of humans so that we could anticipate and guard against possible threats to our survival.  Some of us who had difficult times growing up developed the habit of negative thinking on a personal level as a survival tool.  The trouble is that that was then, and this is now and all that negative thinking about all the possible horrible things that could happen mostly just makes us miserable.  Beyond sensible precautions against disaster, negative thinking doesn't help.  It's called "stinkin' thinkin'" in recovery programs.

Have you ever noticed that your thoughts just arise from some mysterious place - that you don't actually direct your own thinking?  Scary isn't it.  Where does it come from?  I don't know - it really is a mystery to me.  BUT, the good news is that I CAN direct my second thought.  I can choose to think the opposite of the stressful thought.  Why not?  Since I can't know for sure which is true, I might as well think of positive things and outcomes.  When my dear husband's severe health problems landed him in intensive care - which happened many times - my first thoughts were fears that he would die.  But I soon learned that it was at least as likely that he would survive and thrive.  So I chose my second thought to believe that instead.  I certainly was right many, many times and got to skip all the fear and misery that my first thoughts would have caused.

Lifestyle

There are a lot of definitions of "lifestyle."  It really depends on who you ask as to what it is.  But everyone has one.  It would be helpful to creating the life of your dreams if you took a look at what your lifestyle is right now.  To begin, take a look at how you spend your time and money.  Attach some adjectives to your answers.  Would you say you were "organized?"  How about "spiritual?"  "laid back?" "political?"  "cultural?" "artistic?"  "healthy?"  How would your friends describe your lifestyle? 

Having taken a look at what it is now, use some creativity and imagination to discover what you would like to be able to describe.  How do you feel about your current lifestyle?  Is it really what you want?  If so, you've arrived at the life of your dreams.  Or have you?  A lot of our lifestyles are developed completely unconsiously.  But an "unconscious" lifestyle isn't likely to actually be the one we want.  Try making a list of the adjectives to describe the lifestyle of your dreams.  Then add the actions you would need to take to make the dream real.

A Totally Different Way to Learn Something New and Shake Yourself Up!

Have you ever found out that an acquaintance is on the other side of politics than you are or has a completely different opinion about something you consider important?  One of the deeply ingrained habits us humans have is to distance ourselves from people we disagree with.  We like to hang out with people who believe the same things we do and if we're stuck with somebody we disagree with, we usually argue with them. 

Personally, I've found that engaging in a dialogue with that person and asking respectful questions is a terrific way to learn something new.  So far, I've not changed my opinion but at least I've increased my understanding.  These dialogues have also kept me from making enemies of people I associate with.  I believe that making the effort to understand someone whose ideas are opposite to mine really increases my own creativity in navigating the world.

Failure

Can there be anything else that hold us back from creating the life of our dreams like fear of failure?  I don't believe there's anything that can even begin to compare with that fear.  The fear is trying to protect us from pain, but the thing is, if we try, we are going to fail.  That's just a given.  There's no way to escape.  No one knows how to do something on the first try, so everyone fails as a huge part of the process of doing anything.  What if babies tried to walk and quit the first time they fell down?  We would all be crawling through the world.  So the solution is to give our egos something else to do while we are being creative.  It's really our egos that fear failure.  The rest of us is just like a baby - ready to try pretty much anything - no ego involved.  The more we fail, the better we can get at failure - which will eventually lead to some kind of success.  The iconic true story in recent times is J.K. Rowling's many, many, many rejections as she tried to get the Harry Potter series in print.

"Ever tried?  Ever failed?  No matter.  Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better."  Samuel Beckett

Fear or Regret?

A very big part of the life of my dreams, as it is for a lot of people, is making use of my creativity.  What gets in my way is fear - fear that what I create will not be received with appreciation from other people.  I'm guessing that I'm not alone - that lots of people have this fear.  The thing is, it's impossible to create anything while being afraid of fear!  So, the answer is - for me at least - to fear regret more. 

A few years ago I went to hear a presentation by Anne Lamott who wrote "Traveling Mercies" which is one of my favorite books.  I would have brought tissues if I had known I was going to cry.  As it was, my husband had to go to the restroom and get paper towels because I was crying so much.  As part of her presentation, she talked about all the "writers" she had met that desperately wanted to write but were stopped by fear.  She said that they were holding back something that wanted to be born and that at the end of their lives they would deeply regret not having given birth to their creations. 

So, which would you rather fear?  Fear?  or Regret?  I fear regret more.

Ideas for Trying a 30 Day Challenge

There are lots and lots of things you could do as 30 day experiments to see if they improve your life's quality.  Here are some (some are from Steve Pavlina and some are mine):

     Go out every evening - somewhere different every time.  Make it fun.
     List something new to sell on ebay every day (a way to clean out).
     Spend 30 minutes a  day organizing your home.
     Call a family member, friend, or business contact every day.
     Do 5 things to market yourself every day.  (Everybody has SOMEthing to market)
     Read for an hour every day.
     Meditate every day.
     Start a blog and post every day.
     Take a picture every day.
     If you're in a relationship, give him/her a massage every day.
     Eat 5 fruits and vegetables every day.

If you miss a day, just try again, but never give up.  That's all there is to it.  Some of these may really increase your quality of life, some may not, but you will know for sure after 30 days.

Preparation for Change

I love Steve Pavlina.  He has a lot of weird ideas that don't interest me at all, but in the area of personal development that requires big changes, he's my favorite.  He's tried out all his methods on himself so they're not just ideas.  On the other hand, he's much more self-disciplined than I will ever hope or even want to be, so I'm not totally in love with everything he comes up with.  I have tried one of his ideas several times, and it has worked like a charm for me and that's the 30 day challenge.  He recommends trying out new ideas for personal development for 30 days to see if it's really something you want to add to your life or not.  After 30 days it will have become a habit and will be easy to continue if that's what you choose, or you can discontinue it if it hasn't been all that much use.  It's the best for preparing for change that I've ever come across.

Here's the way it works:  First, of course, you will come up with some ideas for ways to improve your life and then you will choose one for the 30 day challenge.  It's been my experience that if it's the first time you've done a 30 day challenge, don't pick the hardest one to start with.  It can be too much of a challenge.  I like to pick one that sounds like a little bit of fun like reading for an hour every day, but every body's will be different.  Then you will want to make your decision public (which makes it harder to give up).  It works even better if you have an accountability partner who won't cut you any slack. 

Next, carve out some time to implement whatever you've decided on.  It won't work well unless you have decided on how you will make time for this new thing.  It needs a home in your day and the way to do this is to decide on what time you will focus on it and for how long.  Tracking this is a good idea - a calendar page posted on the refrigerator might work for you.  Check off each day when you've finished.  Celebrate at the end of the 30 days and decide whether you want to continue.

Over time, I've made some big changes in my life by using Steve's 30 day challenge.  It has worked for me in areas where I was likely to forget to do it - such as setting aside a time for daily meditation, exercise, fixing healthy food.  I don't want to end up at the end of my life wishing I had done the things I wanted to do, and the 30 day challenge continues to help me do the things that really benefit me.

An Easy Way to Shake Things Up

Here's another way to shake yourself loose when you're stuck and not making progress toward the life of your dreams:  Do something different.  Do something VERY different.  It doesn't have to be a big deal - just very different.

I have a daughter who has many disabilities, and her development as a young child was severely delayed.  That was the bad news.  The good news was that when we found ways to help her move forward in her development, she responded marvelously.  A brilliant occupational therapist worked with her, and I carried out her suggestions at home.  At one point, progress had completely stopped for weeks, and we were at our wits ends.  We had no idea why she was stuck and no idea what to do about it.  Finally the therapist said, "Let's shake things up - WAY up."  Her suggestion was to clean the bathtub really well, make a whole bunch of chocolate pudding, put her in the bath tub with it and let her play in it.  Well, I can't tell you how much fun that little 18 month old had with that!  And what was more important, she began to make progress like a race horse at top speed.  What the chocolate pudding in the bathtub had to do with her sudden ability to stand up, we had no idea.  But whatever... we didn't care.

Since then I have discovered that doing something VERY different when I'm stuck in my progress works for me too.  Some ideas:  change the environment I'm working in - take my project to a friend's house and work in her kitchen.  Do my hair in a totally different way every day (need lots of hair spray) that I'm working on a project.  If the project lends it self to it, lie down in the grass to work on it.  Eat some dark chocolate with every meal on the days I'm working on the project (chocolate seems to cure everything).  You will have your own ideas.  Something about doing something VERY different can break loose your motivation.

Music and Motivation

There's a lot of research showing that music evokes emotion in most people.  One was to get motivated is to listen to music that has an emotional motivating effect.  For example, if the goal you're working on has to do with exercise, listening to energetic, exciting music could help you get going.  If, on the other hand, the goal has to do with relaxation, soothing music would probably help.  Each goal you're working on undoubtedly has an emotion associated with it that it would help you to evoke.  Look at each of your goals, identify the emotion that if you were experiencing it would help move you forward, and then look for a piece of music you can play during the time you're taking action on that goal. 

The work to find the right music might be challenging and time consuming, so maybe the only goals you'll need musical accompaniment for are the ones where you are stuck.  Getting unstuck with music might be the most useful thing you can do.

Making Life Work

"We must have the stubborness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world." - Jack Gilbert.

I love Martha Beck.  I love her because she is wise without taking herself seriously.  I love her because she has a child with a disability and is happy about it.  Her latest column in September's Oprah is on being stubbornly optimistic.  According to her, we are evolutionarily hard wired to be negative - it's a survival mechanism.  Is it more important to survival to smell the flowers or notice the rattlesnake?  The trouble is, we're not living in a jungle now so most of our constant negativity - far from making us safer - just makes us unhappy and stressed - which ends up shortening our lives.

Our negativity - which makes us constantly afraid - makes the people around us fearful.  Then everybody gets more than a little bit aggressive.  "Billions of people are doing this right now, fomenting little tornadoes of pain that swell with every reciprocal negative interaction," Martha says.
To counteract this, we will have to learn to be "stubbornly glad." 

But what about all the problems we have and that the world has?  How will those get solved if all we do is focus on the bright spots in life?  According to Martha, there's nothing to worry about.  We will be stronger, more confident, more creative and more energetic in solving problems if we're focusing on delight.  Research shows, she says, that painful, negative emotions only last about 90 seconds if we don't prolong them by negative thinking.  The next time we have a painful emotion, she recommends we throw a fit for 90 seconds, then do something to bring relief - ice cream, a nap, a visit with a friend, a bubble bath.  Then the rest of the time look for delight and focus on that!

It appears that the more we defy our inbuilt negativity, the happier AND the more effective our lives will be.  Plus our delight is just as catching to others as our fear!

Changes

Would that life were like the shadow cast by a wall or a tree, but it is like the shadow cast by a bird in flight.  The Talmud.

Change is a constant even in the life of our dreams, so learning to change easily can make the life of our dreams flow.  Change is easier if I don't have a bunch of rules about how things are supposed to be and a lot of extra "stuff" hanging out in my house and on my to-do list.  Clearing clutter with my rules, "todos," and closets makes room for the effort needed for change.

I think us humans are hardwired to focus on short rather than long term gain which makes change difficult even when it's a positive change.  So to make change easier, I remind myself of the results I want.  Recently I changed how and what I eat in order to be healthier.  It has required time and energy to think through what and how I wanted to make the change as well as time and energy to actually make the change.  Constantly reminding myself of the benefits I would receive in the long run made the expenditure of time and energy easier.

Simplicity

Right up there at almost the top of my list for creating the life of my dreams is the concept of simplicity.  I always thought I had a complicated mind, which caused me to be a complicated person, which in turn made my life complicated.  At last, after years of the stress of a complicated life, I finally saw that all that complication was just my ego trying to convince me I was more important than other people.  I usually ran myself ragged trying to keep up with all the complications I had created for myself.

"When it is over, what will my life have been about?"  Harold Kushner

When I stopped letting my ego drive me, what I was left with was the answer to the question above.  Talk about a radical change in the way I ordered my time and priorities!  Everything got so much simpler.  I was able to eliminate all the things on my "to-do" list that had to do with ambition and stick with the ones that had meaning. 

What kind of car I drove and how fancy my house was ceased to matter.  For some folks those things really matter, and if they do, they should spend time and energy on creating cars and houses that make the life of their dreams.  For me the people and living things in my life became so much more important.  For example, now the first thing I do in the morning is water plants, feed my cat and brush him.  Living things come first.  Then I feed myself good, healthy food that I love because I am a living thing too!

Making time for contemplation of what we want our lives to be about and using our thoughts to order our lives will pay off!

A Day Off

According to the Bible, God took a day off.  Many religions recommend the day off idea, but how many of us actually do it?  I've noticed that when many people "take a day off" they rush around doing a bunch of things they consider fun and arrive at the end of the day, completely worn out!  My idea of a day off is to sleep as long as I do in the morning and take a nap if I get sleepy in the afternoon.  I eat food I love, making sure it's what my body wants and needs.  It turns out that it's not true that the only food I love is food that's not good for me.  There are lots and lots of ways to fix vegetables and fruit that I truly love!

I listen to music I love and really listen to it.  I lie down on the floor so I can feel the vibrations of the music, close my eyes and don't do another thing but listen.  I listen until I'm full of music and am ready to do something else.  Usually that entails several hours of reading since I love to read but usually read in spurts.  Several hours of reading is an incredible treat.  On my day off I almost always spend a lot of time outside.  If the weather is hot, I will probably make this time early in the morning (instead of sleeping in, I have a longer nap).  If the weather is very cold, I may just take some time to look out a window for awhile.  Even if it's too cold to sit outside, I can walk around for a little while and just take in my surroundings.

My day off is a good time to take a bubble bath for as long as I want to.  Sometimes I get a pedicure or a massage.  For much of my life I was a driven person - anxiety about not getting everything done wore me out even if I was lying down.  After several years of that, I was ready to have days off when all I did was nurture myself!  Someone elses' day off will surely look different than mine, but I believe days off are completely necessary for the life of our dreams.

Rituals for Home

For me rituals are the way I can make the ordinary things I do everyday more enjoyable.  Since I eat, sleep and take baths everyday, why not make those habits a little more enjoyable?  I've been doing some of these things for over twenty years now and still enjoy them. 

There are almost always fresh flowers on my table.  When I quit smoking almost 27 years ago, I promised myself that I would always have fresh flowers.  The money I was saving on cigarettes was enormous and a $5.00 bunch of flowers at the grocery store was surely not going to break the bank. 

Some time in there I fell in love with soft, flowing, new age music and began a collection.  I also found radio stations that played it, so you will almost always find that type of music playing in the background at my house. 

Someone gave me a scented candle many years ago, and I fell in love with those too.  I don't like all of them, for sure.  I mostly like herbal and flower scents, and so there's almost always one of those candles burning when I'm at home. 

I have two particular types of bubble bath that I like and every bath I take is a bubble bath.  From time to time I try others but always come back to my favorites.  I've used what I call my extra cigarette money to buy sheets I like.  In the summer they're satin and in the winter they're flannel. 

My bedroom is as much a reflection of what I love as anything in my house.  For example, there are a myriad of teddy bears on the bookshelves covered with books I love.  The teddy bears were all given to me by friends when I was in the hospital after a terrible wreck.  I look at them before I go to sleep and am reminded that love always surroundeds me.

Making Home a Beautiful Place

I used to simply hate and avoid a lot of the tasks I had to do at home, so I often just wanted to be somewhere else besides home.  The first thing I did to solve the problem, of course, was get some help, but I was still left with the day to day chores.  During that period of my life several books were available that helped a lot.  One was Alexandra Stoddard's "Living a Beautiful Life" and the "Simple Abundance" book I've already mentioned.  Another book that came in handy was "The Woman's Comfort Book" by Jennifer Louden.  All three of these books recommended that I turn tasks I hated into rituals of beauty.

I truly thought the authors had gone nuts at first.  Drudgery is drudgery.  Finding a way to make laundry, dishes, vacuuming and bill paying beautiful was way too lofty to suit me.  But the concept that my home is a blank slate that I can use to paint a beautiful picture kind of spoke to my heart.  And all three of the authors pointed out that home is where I spend more than half my time so why wouldn't it be worth putting some creativity and care into making it and the care of it beautiful?

Some ideas I tried:  Choose music to accompany a task.  If I was cleaning house, I picked rock and roll - the faster the beat the better.  I went just as fast as I could and used the cleaning as a workout.  So I not only got to enjoy the music but scratch exercise off my list as well.  Classical music seems to go with paying bills.  I use a pretty pen, and I have a filing system that helps me keep bills straight and in order for paying.  Planning meals with appearance as well as taste is another creative joy.  It's worth a few extra pennies to buy garnishes at the grocery store.  Coordinating the bright yellows, oranges, greens and reds of fruits and vegetables at each meal is fun too.

Homecoming

How do you feel when you walk in the door of your home?  Do you sigh with relief and comfort?  That's the way it should be.  Where else are you going to go for comfort and refuge?  If you don't feel that way, maybe making that so could be the first of the goals you set for creating the life of your dreams. 

The next question is, "What would it take for you to sigh with relief and comfort when you come in your door?"  For me the answer often was - someone to clean my house and get rid of all the clutter.  I finally surrendered and got help with keeping my house clean and with getting rid of clutter.  Most of the time I'm satisfied with the degree of cleanliness and order in my home now.  It probably wouldn't pass inspection by someone who has higher standards than I do for cleanliness and order, but I set my own standards with the goal of comfort and refuge and higher standards would not help me reach those goals.  I don't want to come in the door and start criticizing my home and feel the stress of demanding myself to clean and de-clutter. 

What are some other things that might make your home a comforting refuge?  Comfortable places to sit, good lighting, a bedroom with soothing colors, a kitchen with a clear and convenient workspace, scented candles, fresh flower, beautiful music?  It's worth the time to walk through your house and think about how you could make each room more welcoming and comfortable.   I'm NOT talking about redecorating and all the money, time and effort that would cost.  I'm talking about creating order, putting furniture in places where it will provide more comfort, adding plants, lighting candles, turning on music.  Why not set aside a little time and have fun with it?

Your Calling

"The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time."


— Mary Oliver

What is your creative power?  Everyone has creative power.  So don't say that you don't have any.  Ask yourself, "What is your creative power and how is it restive and uprising?"  When will you give it power and time?  If not now, when?  At the end of your life will you regret not giving it your power and attention?

Clutter

In all the research I've read about creating the life of your dreams, I haven't seen a thing about tidiness.  However, getting rid of clutter seems to crop up everywhere - on television, books, magazines, etc.  It makes me wonder if tidiness should have been part of the research on happiness.  Of course, I don't mean the compulsive, harsh, obessive effort to have everything perfect at all times.  It's been my observation that that way of being doesn't promote happiness.  Instead it seems to promote stress, frantic activity, and anger at anybody who interferes with the program. 

What I mean by tidiness is that there's some place to put things away so that things that don't have a home don't pile up and disturb me everytime I see them.  Usually when the "piles" appear in my life, it means I have a lot of trouble finding things I want.  So then there are two sources of disturbance.  Also there's the feeling I have when I'm at home that I can't relax since I know I really need to clean up the "piles."  Over the years I've learned to include these tasks on my to-do list so that I create a home for those things that are just sitting around.  Periodically, I donate things I no longer need to good causes.

I still have little piles of books and magazines here and there, but those are things that give me pleasure when I look at them.

Stress

Making changes is stressful even when the changes will bring us closer to the life of our dreams.  So, managing stress is vital to being able to take the necessary steps to change. 

First of all, we need to check out our foundations - are we getting enough sleep, eating an enjoyable and nutritious diet, taking time to have fun and relaxation?  If not, that's the best place to start in making changes. 

Next, have we taken the time to think about why we want to make the changes?  What is the end result we want?  Is it REALLY what we want?  If not, our stress levels will be extremely high when taking the steps toward change.  Who wants to work hard to make changes when we don't feel thrilled about the end result?

How about the rest of our lives?  Are there people and events that are adding stress?  If so, those may need our attention before everything else.

Finally, are our expectations of ourselves realistic?  Are we expecting ourselves do to more than is needed on a daily basis?  It's not the life of our dreams if we're overextended and miserable on the way there. 

Home

No matter whether you're a girl or a boy (although girls tend to pay more attention to this), home is still where you go after everything else.  An essential part of the life of our dreams is home.  I hope that home is our refuge, that we love everything about it, that we give home the importance that it needs for it to be our favorite place to go after everything else.

Rest

I don't believe that life is supposed to be about ceaseless activity, about getting things done, about getting to a goal as fast as possible.  I believe that life is supposed to be about enjoying everything, about a balance between rest and activity.  There's a natural flow to life that we really don't have the power to change.  If we resist we just make ourselves crazy and exhausted.  Martha Beck, a well-known life coach and author, recommends resting when we're the most stressed.  Of course, that's going to be easier said than done so she has a list of things to do:

- Sit down.
- Mentally scan your body and mind for the places where you have the most stress.
- Put your whole attention on those places, one-by-one.
- While your attention is on them, think the word, "relax."  Notice what happens.
- After a minute or two, think the word, "rest."  Offer it to your tired feet, your hurting back, your  
  broken  heart. Say to yourself, "I am resting now for my feet, my back, my heart."

This exercise should be done off and on throughout the day.  Without frequent rest, we are not even going to notice the life of our dreams!

How Do You Talk to Yourself?

One of the skills I've learned that has benefitted me incredibly is learning to pay attention to how I talk to myself.  Basically that just means that I notice my thoughts.  When I'm not moving forward toward goals the way I think I should, it's deeply ingrained in me to think things like:  "You'll never make it."  "You always do this - quit before you're finished."  Some part of me thinks that kicking myself will make me a better person.  So far it has never, ever worked.  When I learned to pay attention to how I talk to myself, I also learned to quickly change my thoughts.  I used to believe that my thoughts were just how they were - that there was nothing to do about them.  It turns out that no matter what crappy negative thinking I have, I can always choose my second thought to something positive like:  "No, that's not true.  I have succeeded at a lot of things and I can succeed at this too." 

Our automatic thinking is usually uniformly negative and does not deserve to be listened to.  Let us learn to think better thoughts!

You Are the Best You've Ever Been!

Do you realize that today you know the most that you've ever known?  How could it be otherwise?  You've gathered information every day of your life up to now whether you realized it or not.  So, you're the most prepared you've ever been to create and live the life of your dreams. 

In The Four Agreements, Don Miquel Ruiz says that we are the only living beings that continue to kick ourselves for our mistakes (and let other people kick us too) for years and years and years.  There's a part of our minds (and I don't believe this part of my mind is actually me) that keeps on reminding us of our mistakes.  Today would be a good day to stop listening to it and stop believing it.  Instead let's remind ourselves that today we know the most we've ever known in our lives and put our knowledge to work creating and living the life of our dreams!

Simple Ways to Simplify

One of the first ways to get off track in creating the life of our dreams is to let all the incoming information and requests to distract from our direction.  Take a look at the to-do list and see where the activities that create the life of your dreams are located.  Are they at the bottom or the top?  Of course, they should be at the top.  Make it a game to cross out all the activities that could wait until next week, next year, or never.  Ten of them is a good goal.  Then let's redirect our attention to the life-of-our-dreams activities.

Spring Goals

Since it's spring again, it's a good time to think about what you want to do in the spring weather.  Why not set some new goals - focused on the joy of the planet earth.  It's so easy to forget to enjoy the planet, but it's where we live and there's a tremendous amount to enjoy.  While creating the life of our dreams - even though we may not be quite there yet - we don't really have to do much to enjoy the planet except notice it, hang out with it.  Where I live the trees are in bloom.  There are lots of spring flowers.  Azaleas are shouting their colors.  It's definitely time to notice and add the joy to the life of my dreams.

What did I do to deserve this?

Sometimes the life of our dreams includes things and events we don't like at all, and we wonder why.  We wonder if we have done something wrong.  One of the tenents of Buddhism is that every day things happen that we don't like - it's the human condition and everyone experiences this - even in the life of our dreams.  Examples:  missed planes, traffic jams, getting sick, not getting a raise - the list could be very long.  We act surprised because we are surprised.  Somehow we got the idea that everything is supposed to go smoothly so we are upset.  This is what causes our suffering - being surprised.  What if instead we responded to these things as though the universe was giving us an opportunity to learn something.  What if we thought to ourselves:  "Well, since everything is going wrong, the universe must be telling me it's time for me to take a break and rest."  Hmmm.  There might be innumerable ways we could respond that would be beneficial instead of being upset.

What If...?

This is my cat, Cisco.  He knows what he wants at all times.  He has never been confused.  First priority for his attention is food, water, and a clean place to eliminate.  He is rather picky about all three and expects me to do a good job at providing exactly what he wants. When I've not done well, he calls my attention to the situation by giving me a whole lot of loving attention and then drawing my attention to the situation.  His very next priority is love and he is as good at giving it as he is at receiving it.  Then comes lots and lots of sleep.  Finally he appears to be on a mission to get people who don't love cats to love him anyway.  It appears to be his mission  in life.  He has never been influenced by his parents or his peers to want anything other than those priorities.  He is impervious to ads on television or any place else.  I have learned a lot from him.  A great deal of my life has been spent in unlearning what I have been taught to want that hasn't benefited me in any way whatsoever.  At almost seventy I find that I am letting go of still more things that I have been taught to believe would make me happy or at least happier.  Manicures, for example, are supposed to make me feel pampered and get me compliments (or at least no criticism) on my well-kept nails.  When I was doing this it got to be a burden.  It cost both money and time but began to cease making me feel pampered.  At my age compliments and criticism don't do much for me anyway.  So I've taken to just cutting my nails short once a week.  I sure hope I'm able to lose everything unnecessary for happiness by the time I leave the planet!

My suggestion to all of us is to spend some time thinking about how we spend our time and money.  There are no right or wrong answers.  But consider the possibility that you were taught some things that don't really contribute to your happiness but just benefit the folks that sell them to you.  In order to find the life of your dreams, you might want to let a lot of those things go so that you can have the time, energy and money to do the things that REALLY make you happy.

Abraham Maslow's Characteristics of a Self-Actualized Person

Cheryl Richardson's newsletter for this week listed these characteristics developed by Maslow who was the originator of humanistic psychology.   He is best known for his hierarchy of human needs.  I'm re-printing this list here because Maslow paints a picture of a person who has achieved a life of his/her dreams.  By using it as a checklist we can see what areas we might want to work on.

Maslow's self-actualizing characteristics:

• See problems in terms of challenges and situations requiring solutions, rather than see problems as personal complaints or excuses.
• Need for privacy and comfortable being alone.
• Reliant on own experiences and judgment - independent - not reliant on culture and environment to form opinions and views.
• Not susceptible to social pressures - non-conformist.
• Democratic, fair and non-discriminating - embracing and enjoying all cultures, races and individual styles.
• Socially compassionate - possessing humanity.
• Accepting others as they are and not trying to change people.
• Comfortable with oneself - despite any unconventional tendencies.
• A few close intimate friends rather than many surface relationships.
• Sense of humor directed at oneself or the human condition, rather than at the expense of others.
• Spontaneous and natural - true to oneself, rather than being how others want.
• Excited and interested in everything, even ordinary things.
*Creative, inventive and original

Ten Commandments of Leadership

I've seen this list attributed to Mother Theresa and a variety of other possible authors including "anonymous."  The one I've got says the author is Howard Ferguson.  I like it because it points out that the life of our dreams is probably not going to be the one where we are popular with every human being we come in contact with, are rich and famous, etc.  Most likely we are going to love the life in which we do the right thing.

1.  People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.  Love them anyway.
2.  If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Do good anyway.
3.  If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.  Succeed anyway.
4.  The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway.
5.  Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.  Be honest and frank anyway.
6.  The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest
      ideas.  Think big anyway.
7.  People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs.  Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8.  What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.  Build anyway.
9.  People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.  Help them anyway.
10.  Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.  Give the world the best you
       have anyway.

Itty-Bitty Teeny-Tiny, Little, or Even-Smaller-Than-That Steps

I don't know about everybody else, but I am a rebel at heart.  If I dream up something for myself to do; something that will get me closer to the life of my dreams, I immediately think of all the reasons why I don't have to do it and go do something else.  Luckily I am also a stubborn, hard-headed woman who seriously pursues the life of her dreams.  So, I've always fought back against the rebel part of me and as a result come closer to the life of my dreams than I ever could have imagined.

As I've mentioned before, I accidently ran into a blog by Steve Pavlina who has written an immense amount about personal development.  I'm not crazy about his ideas about sex, but his ideas about motivating yourself work like a charm for me.  The one that has had the most impact for me is challenging yourself to take action steps - tiny action steps, for a tiny amount of time.  I do one-day challenges and then assess whether the action step was the right one for me, how I felt about it and whether I want to proceed.  Then I give myself a three-day challenge.  If it still feels right, I go to a seven-day challenge and then to a thirty-day challenge.  By that time taking the action is a comfortable part of my daily life, so if I still feel it's beneficial I can continue it.

By using this method I discovered that the reason I balk at change - even change that will benefit me - is that I'm afraid of failure.  So the itty-bitty, teeny-tiny goals that are so small it's almost impossible to fail to do them in a one-day challenge, gradually get me where I want to go without all the emotional uproar that used to face me as soon as I set a goal.  I have stopped kicking myself and instead, care for myself.
And that is the miracle.

How to Find Out what You REALLY Want

Maybe you are one of those people who was taught that only very unusual, talented people got to have the life of their dreams (and, of course, they told you that you were not one of them).  There's an almost 100% chance that you've been misled.  Even if you have some severe disabilities, you still have a really good chance of having the life of your dreams.  The thing is, the barriers you are meeting that stand in your way actually come from what you learned as a child.  So, the work you will need to do to reach the life of your dreams will have to start (and continue) with working on your own mind and your beliefs about yourself and the world.

Step One - and you can't skip this one - is to make it a habit to watch your thoughts.  This practice begins with taking some time every day to just sit still and observe how your mind constantly races with thoughts about this and that.  You are probably so used to this that you aren't really paying attention most of the time.  But this process totally influences how you feel and what you do.  That's the bad news because most of your thoughts are either going to be inconsequential or negative.  So, I'm sorry to say, a lot of what you and a lot of other people do every day is either inconsequential (having nothing to do with the life of your dreams) or negative.

Then off and on throughout the day, just notice what you are thinking.  You will find that a lot of your thoughts are kicking yourself for mistakes you made, complaints about other people and/or your environment, and worry about the future.  As you notice your thoughts, also notice that none of them are helpful to you in any way whatsoever and that none of them help you get to the life of your dreams.

Step Two - The good news is that all this noticing your thoughts is just a lead in to changing them to better and more helpful thoughts.  Yes, I know, most of us have been taught to believe that our thoughts are out of our control.  But the good news is, as I just said, that's not true - we can definitely make a huge dent in the nonsense our brains churn out on a day to day basis.  The bad news is that it's a lot of work.  So, if you really want what you've envisioned as the life of your dreams, it's going to cost you a lot of work - mental work, that is.

Step Three - Begin to imagine what the life of your dreams would be like.  All the goal-setting gurus say that without this step, you can't possibly have what you want.  Take the time every day to just spend a few minutes imagining what your life will be like when you get to the life you want.  Where will you live?  What will you be doing every day?  Who else will be there?  What will you do for fun?  How much money will you need and how will you spend it?  What will you wear for clothes.  How will your health be?  There are hundreds of questions to ask yourself.

Step Four -  Begin to occupy your thoughts with ideas about the answers to these questions. Trust me, you are going to enjoy your thoughts a lot more when they're focused on what you want.  As part of this process, be sure to ask yourself if these are things you REALLY want.  As you imagine them, see how you feel emotionally and how your body feels.  Do you feel happy and excited or does imagining these things make you feel anxious.  If you feel anxious, ask yourself why.  Maybe you just thought you wanted these things but there are other things you might like better.

Step Five -  As you imagine these things and what it will be like to have them, there would be nothing wrong with also using your creativity to imagine what you would need to do to create them.

With these five steps you can make a terrific start on creating the life of your dreams.  The positive emotions you will have by changing your thought will motivate you to begin taking the steps to a life that is closer and closer to what you REALLY want.

Speak Peace

More from "Speak Peace in a World of Conflict"

Rosenberg ends his book with a discussion of how to get social change in a peaceful way - by committing to understanding the people we deal with - what their human needs are and how we can help each other make the world a better place.  He says, however, that unless we can be at peace with ourselves and with the others in our lives, we don't have much in the way of hope for making social change but what else could we do that would do as much to create the life of our dreams?

What is Your Request?

More on "Speak Peace in a World of Conflict"

Since we've agreed that everyone without exception does what they do because it meets their needs, the answer to changing our own behavior and maybe helping others to change theirs, is to find the needs the behavior meets and then look for ways to meet those needs in a better way - a way that meets the needs better and maybe makes the world a little better.  That sounds pretty lofty to me but just maybe it could work. 

Those folks whose behavior we want to change - what are their needs, what's going on with them.  What do we want them to do differently (instead of just telling them to stop what they're doing)?  Will what we want them to do differently meet their needs?  When we want to change our own behavior, wouldn't it work best if we consciously knew why we were doing what we're doing and found a way to meet our needs in a better way?