Gimme A Break

I used to have a few pots of cacti sitting on my window ledge at the office. Although spiky and stiff, they were a source of comfort and inspiration whenever I felt stressed out.

I wasn’t very happy with my job but my cactus was there to constantly remind me that I had to be hardy like the cactus, to stand up for myself and bear with it no matter how thorny the situation at work.

I used to imagine my boss standing at the door and my cactus flying straight for him. Interesting thought. It’s just like how many golfers imagine their boss is the golf ball they’re hitting.

It’s not that we’re being mean or anything. It sometimes helps to imagine the tables being turned and being the one in the position to get back at some of the most idiotic bosses around, that’s all.

• come rain or shine or croc
• used golf balls, anyone?
• present from a buddy
• disappearing golf balls
• meet mr golf

by minutechaser - No Comments →

It’s mostly around this time of year when many of us are pondering about the year that’s soon over. We rarely have time in our hectic lifestyle to stop and ponder about life too often?

In fact, the only time when I actually do take a moment to reflect on some of the most mundane things in life is when I read David Woon’s blog, Just a Thought.

I don’t always have time to read his thoughts but then again, reading what someone else has to say about life and some of its curiosities can be the most refreshing thing ever.

It can inspire us to look at things from a completely different perspective. I find it very interesting. It’s like looking at the world wearing someone else’s glasses, know what I mean? And I enjoy that very much, even though those thoughts may differ vastly from mine.

I like chewing on other people’s opinions and perspectives and pondering on why they’re so different than my own. Hmm, I really need to find more time to read blogs like his. It’s a shame I’m not into New Year’s resolutions or I might just make that one of mine for next year .

• thoughts of hibernation
• what not to do every day
• going for gold everyday
• reading the news
• nosy’s in town

by minutechaser - No Comments →

A month off real exercise and I’ve gained 3 pounds. Not that 3 pounds is that big a deal. In fact, you won’t even notice it on me. It’s just that I feel fat and unenergetic, and I don’t like that.

If you want to lose weight fast, you have to combine regular exercise with a balanced diet. No excuses! Work out a plan and stick with it. It’s not use just talking about it and wishing the pounds away. It won’t work. It takes commitment.

I have friends who’re constantly saying they need to lose weight. They work at it for a week and when they see a little progress, they celebrate their success and the next week, they’re back to eating and no exercise.

• considering weight loss
• why exercise?
• dieting fun
• fake-’em friends
• you go, girl!

by minutechaser - 1 Comment →

To those of us who want to exercise but can’t seem to stick with anything we try, have you considered walking? I think it’s the easiest and the least strenuous form of exercise, and you don’t need a partner.

I normally start my gym workout by walking a couple of kilometers on the treadmill. I’m in a sharing mood since I missed my workout this morning and need to “walk” myself out of my semi-withdrawal mood. So I’m going to share some walking tips.

1. Get a good pair of walking shoes.

2. Warm up before you start. Your muscles and joints need to be woken up from their slumber.

3. Start on flat ground at an even pace and increase your pace slowly over time.

4. Walking on an incline or slope helps work your heart so gradually incorporate this into your walk.

5. As you build stamina, gradually increase your distance, incline and speed to maximize the benefits. Your body gets conditioned after a while and this is when many people complain that they’re exercising but not seeing any effect.

If you keep this up consistently, you’ll start feeling much healthier and more energetic, I promise. And that endorphin rush, you just gotta love it as much as I do . But as always, my key phrase is ”whenever you’re ready”.

There’s no rush to raise the level of your walking routine. If you don’t feel physically up to it (and on certain days, you won’t, that’s okay), just skip it rather than risk injuring yourself. Happy walking .

• friendly tips from a workout fanatic
• dieting fun
• starting over at the gym
• you go, girl!
• The Common Sense Diet

by minutechaser - No Comments →

Last night, I dreamt I was a multi-millionaire with a boat, a mansion with 16 rooms and a motley crew of managers, chauffeurs, butlers and maids. I don’t remember seeing a bodyguard but I’m sure he was right there along with the rest.

That was just a dream. Everyone has dreams. Dreams are good so don’t let them out of your sight. But are the people around supportive of your dream of becoming, say, a hugely successful mom or business person?

Or are they a bunch of wet blankets pouring cold water over your littlest whim?

Success - How To Overcome The Naysayers

by Jason Osborn

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, “We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.”

Sometimes the closest people to you are the ones that stop you form achieving greatness in your life. You go to them, full of excitement, to tell them all the great things that you want to do in life. Instead of hearing the support and encouragement from your friends and family, you hear words of doubt and fear.

They may not be saying these things to purposely hurt or discourage you, but they don’t want you to fail or get hurt. So, to stop you from getting hurt down the road they try to stop you at the beginning.

Still, others may try to tell you why it can’t be done and how there are many obstacles in the way that can’t be moved. They look at who you are currently and don’t see the greatness that’s hidden on the inside.

Don’t let these people stop you from reaching your greatness. Here are 4 ways to overcome the naysayer’s.

1. Protect Your Dream.

Whenever you have a burning desire to do something great in life, it’s very hard to not tell everyone you know. You just assume that everyone will be just as excited about it as you are.

Minimize the amount of naysayer’s in your life by not telling everyone. You will probably still have people who are negative, but a few naysayers’ are better than a ton of them.

2. Surround Yourself With Greatness.

If you want to do great things in life you need to be around others that have done great things. I’m sure you have heard the saying ‘Success breeds success’.

If you are always around people who have never accomplished anything, and never want to accomplish anything great, it will be hard for you to do it yourself.

Successful people will help you understand how to overcome the obstacles that you will face. Which leads me to the next point.

3. Get A Coach Or A Mentor.

If a professional sports team wants to be the best, they hire a coach to help get them there. If they don’t have a coach that can encourage them, train them, guide them, and give them a good kick in the backside when needed, they will never become a great team.

Find someone that has done something similar to what you want to do and have them mentor you. Keep this in mind, they are probably very busy and may not have any interest in coaching or training anyone.

Don’t let that stop you. If they can’t or won’t, keep looking until you find someone who will. Also, bring something to the table for them as well. You need to give to get.

4. Your Past Doesn’t Dictate Your Future.

You may not have a successful life but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a successful future. Naysayer’s will always try to remind you of your past failures or inadequacies. Keep improving yourself and keep growing. Learn from your past but don’t let it stop you from having a great future.

If there is something that you need to change in your life in order to achieve success, then change it. You are the deciding factor on how great your life is going to be. DON’T let your past dictate your future.

If you want to do something great with your life, there will always be someone there to tell you that it can’t be done. Practice these four keys and you will be able to overcome the naysayer’s.

Is there greatness on the inside of you but you don’t know how to achieve it? Jason has just completed his brand new 7 part e-course, ‘Find Your Greatness’

Get it free when you subscribe at: http://www.findyourgreatness.com

About the authors:
Jason and Rebecca Osborn have dedicated themselves to changing thousands of lives by helping people find their greatness and true potential through their Find Your Greatness Newsletter.

• what not to do every day
• refreshing thoughts and perspectives
• Forget New Years Resolutions. Play Games Instead.
• how to complain effectively
• an interesting mom

by minutechaser - No Comments →

by Steve Errey

I’ve never liked New Years Resolutions. Let’s face it, it’s pretty pointless waiting all year to decide on one or two things that we kinda sorta want to stop doing, but that we know full well we’re not really committed to following through with anyway.

I don’t like resolutions, and I’m not a big fan of goals (which might sound a little strange considering how often coaches pontificate about goals). Most people think they need to set themselves goals and objectives to see things happen, but that’s missing the point. Goals and objectives are okay, but as we all know real growth and real joy is in the experience, NOT in the end result.

So forget about creating goals and instead create a winnable game and START PLAYING!

This is the whole point about games - the joy of the game is in the playing. You get to decide what game you want to play and what winning looks like, and when you start playing you get involved and engaged in a way that doesn’t happen with goals. Games are fun.

It’s by playing winnable games and learning how to play them well that truly amazing things happen in life.

A couple of things I want to point out about “winning”. One thing I’ve seen people think to themselves is this - ‘For me to win someone else has to lose, and that isn’t something I want to be involved with.’. Another one is this - ‘I’m not sure I have what it takes or that I even want to be a winner. That whole puffed out chest, single- mindedness and “Go Team!” thing isn’t for me.’

Rubbish. That’s not what winning in life is about. The game you play, the rules and the definition of winning your game are up to you. Winning is not about crushing everyone else and it doesn’t mean that others have to ‘lose’. Winning is not about becoming some all-destroying automaton, focused entirely on winning at all costs. It’s about picking a game that resonates with you or choosing a game that matters to you personally and learning the skills and strategies you need to play it well. It’s about having the courage to play in games where both winning and losing are possibilities and learning from either experience. Here are five steps to help you play to win at any game you choose to play.

1. Define your game. To play well you need to know what game you really want to play and what winning looks like. Pick a game that puts a big ol’ grin on your face, slaps you with excitement or makes you sit back in your chair and say ‘Wow’. Only then can you start playing to win.
2. Figure out the skills and strategies you need to play the game well. Every game has certain skills and strategies that are a prerequisite for playing, and there will be other skills and strategies that make it easier to play and to win.
3. Figure out what’s happening in your head. When you start playing a winnable game there will be things that fire off in your head - things that block you, stop you, limit you and divert you. The more you know about what happens in your head while you’re playing, the better player you’ll become.
4. Set up a winning environment. If there are things in your life and the environment around you that aren’t supporting you to play the game well then you’ll need to look at shifting those things. Often what we have around us - our homes, jobs, partners, friends, families, colleagues, etc. - can unknowingly obstruct the game we’re playing. Consider those factors and consider how much easier the game would be if those factors were aligned in favour of the game.
5. One principle holds above all else though - Make It Easy. Winning takes effort and energy, of course it does, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be hard, difficult or a struggle.
   Think about it, do Federer or Sampras fight and struggle to play well, or does it seem like it flows naturally? Does Oprah struggle through every show like she’s hating it or is she doing it with ease? Does Tony Bennet fight through every song and take a break after each to recover, or does he allow what he does to happen naturally?

One last thing. Be aware that the possibility of defeat or failure is always there. That’s why most people don’t play the games they really want to play. The possibility that you can try for what you really want and not get it is enough to stop the majority of people in their tracks, but being willing to play the game is where things happen. That’s where you learn how to play the game well and that’s where you feel a great sense of completion or fulfillment from however the game turns out.

So go on, forget about those troublesome resolutions and start playing a great game instead!

About the author:
Steve Errey is one of the UK’s most in-demand coaches and specialises in personal growth for thirtysomethings. “I love to coach the heck out of my clients and always do my darndest to help them win.” says Steve. For more information please contact Steve on 0845 644 3001, by email at steve@steveerrey.com or visit his website at http://www.steveerrey.com.

Sign up for his fantastic ezine with proven and practical tips for ‘Being More’ and look at how you can have all the confidence you’ll ever need with his Effortless Confidence Home Study Pack.

• win a Wii and Charter High-Speed for life
• refreshing thoughts and perspectives
• an interesting mom
• best stress reliever
• the added stress of school

by minutechaser - 1 Comment →

Going for gold brings choices into our lives that add to the quality of our everyday experiences. Starting today, no matter what your current circumstances may be, you can make a decision to go for all the golden opportunities that life presents.

Going for gold will mean different things to different people. For some it will be financial, health, work, personal or relationships but for the majority it will encompass enjoying as many different aspects as you can possibly fit into your day that bring enjoyment, happiness and fulfilment on many different levels.

Before you have anything in life you first have to know exactly what it is you want. Determining what you don’t want is often the quickest way to establishing the things that you do want to incorporate into the framework of your life.

A quick assessment of your habits and your feelings towards them can often be very revealing by freeing your mind to concentrate on the changes you do want to take place that will expand your life in many different ways.

As you review your habits ask yourself if it is adding value to the overall picture you have for your life. If you consistently spend money on things that will have little or no value that don’t add to your life in some measurable way then maybe it is time to change your impulsive nature and to begin thinking about how this money can be better allocated towards the things that will have a greater impact on your future financial security and happiness.

Likewise, if you consistently overeat what will the long term consequences mean to the overall pattern of your health. Will all that extra weight and feelings of not being as healthy as you would like adding to the quality of your life experiences or is it a draining factor in your life. Only you can decide what goes into your life and what you want to take out.

You will probably already know the things you need to do to put you on the road towards going for gold. It is called the nagging voice inside your head that says you should do this, you shouldn’t have that done that and why did I do it as you lament on actions. What you know and what you do are often very different. No wonder our lives are not working out the way we would like.

Listen to that nagging voice for a few moments – it will usually
have a lot to say - and jot down the things that you find no longer serving your best interests. Writing down your thoughts has a way of helping you see clearly in black and white exactly what is you need to do. It also helps to generate the solutions and courses of action that will be more in line with who you truly want to see happen now and in the future.

Once you have established where you want to go in your life the next step is to implement the actions necessary. This can take time although simple changes can occur straight away – like the decision not to smoke cigarettes, to cut down on junk food, get more exercise or to only drink one glass of alcohol a day all of which are easily within our capabilities if we decide to.

That is the key thing “if we decide to”. For anything to really happen there must be a mental connection and shift within our minds to say’s “hey this is what I want” and for this to happen we have to have a reason to act on the information the mind is receiving. Often the things we say and the things we do are at totally opposite ends of the spectrum. Habitual ways of doing things hold us to “what is” unless we question the why.

Why do you hold onto those old habits that keep you trapped in a never ending circle of mediocrity? Often we do things in life merely because that is the way we have always done them. Ideas get instilled in our brain that we take for granted without ever really thinking about them.

Advertisers know that if a thing is repeated often enough the brain accepts the message without question and the next time you need there particular product or service you will remember them first. We buy particular brands of food for example, often because our parents or friends always buy that brand or that brand stands out in our mind through repeated exposure that has been registered on a subconscious level.

It is through questioning our thinking and finding out whose thought is it anyway that we can break free of many of the self imposed habits that are detrimental to our overall wellbeing and happiness.

Decide investigate the truth behind what you see, hear and do and you may be surprised at how many of your ideas about life have been conditioned by the thinking of the masses. Remember at school when you pestered your parent to buy you a particular brand of shoe because that is what everyone was wearing.

There are many ways of doing things and if the ways you have been using are not working then it is definitely time to look for alternative solutions. We get fixed ideas on just about everything and tend to forget that that different and sometimes better ideas are around us all the time just waiting for us to put to use.

Our information can become outdated and just like a computer if you don’t update your software you miss out on the benefits of the new features so why wait until our life stops working before making the effort to update your thoughts and bring them into the present.

There are never really any new ideas. Ideas that are considered new are old ideas combined in new ways. The objective is to find the right combinations that work for you. Make a commitment to at try new ideas and see how they can be used to enhance your life. This can be anything from a business idea that could potentially increase profits to a new fitness regime that could dramatically improve your levels of health and well being so decide to go for gold today.

Copyright 2007.

For more ideas for home, garden and everyday living visit http://www.netwrite-publish.com.

• are you caught up in a cycle of fitness confusion?
• investing in gold
• all that glitters
• mommy burnout
• need ideas for easy lunches

by minutechaser - No Comments →

I was out this morning paying my cellphone bill. While waiting my turn in line, I looked out the glass door and saw a man washing a car for a living. This particular man was different because one of his legs was deformed and he had to walk on his toes.

It was a sad sight and my heart sank as I watched how he bent over sideways to wipe the bumper dry. He looked depressed, but I guess it was probably the only way for him to etch out a living.

So often, we’re so consumed with our daily lives we don’t even notice the less fortunate. I complain when I’m stuck in traffic. I’m disappointed when they run out of my size on the pants I want to buy. I’m standing here looking out at some one who could probably feed his family for two months for the price of my cellphone bill.

Looking at this man has suddenly made me realize how much I have to be thankful for. It reminded me of an old woman serving me a bowl of noodles years ago. She must’ve been in her 70s and still she was working hard at her noodle stall. I felt so sorry for her I paid her double what she was asking for that bowl of noodles. It made me feel good for a week.

Strange how we tend to associate giving with giving ‘away’ meaning we’re parting with something, that we’re never going to get it back. The surprising thing is giving works like a frisbee. You let it go and it comes straight back to you in forms you least expect - joy, satisfaction, gratitude.

• the newcomer
• island vacation (3) - glorious street food
• ten years and we never met
• what he must’ve thought
• redone daily

by minutechaser - No Comments →