Hi! We are getting close to the NEW YEAR and time for creating resolutions that we think will bring us closer to the kind of person we "OUGHT" to be! This is all fine and good, but it is important to get PEACE within, by also totally and completely accepting ourselves the way we are, FIRST. Louise Hay has a wonderful affirmation that I relate to. I will share it here.
I have found that there is only one thing that heals every problem, and that is: to love yourself.” – Louise Hay
As artists... it is sometimes a real challenge to keep actions that show love for ourselves, on the "TO DO" list....with projects and plans and always dipping our imaginations into the sea of infinite, artful possibilities. The article below, I feel, will help set the New Year off right for all my artsy-fartzy friends.., me included! Some very great ideas and we don't have to do them all! I found that to be a bit overwhelming! Letting our imaginations soar with all the ideas in the below writing, may have us creating some new and wonderful habits that we instill for ourselves in 2012~ A big high-five to Marelisa Fabrega for writing this!
ENJOY! AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!
________________________________________________
Contrary to popular belief, you
don’t have to make drastic changes in order to notice an improvement in the
quality of your life. At the same time, you don’t need to wait a long time in
order to see the measurable results that come from taking positive action. All
you have to do is take small steps, and take them consistently, for a period of
100 days.
Below you’ll find 60 small ways to improve all areas of your life in the
next 100 days.
Home
1. Create a “100 Days to Conquer Clutter Calendar” by penciling in one
group of items you plan to declutter every day, for the next 100 days.
Here’s an example:
- Day 1: Declutter Magazines
- Day 2: Declutter DVD’s
- Day 3: Declutter books
- Day 4: Declutter kitchen
appliances
2. Live by the mantra: a place for everything and everything in its place.
For the next 100 days follow these four rules to keep your house in order:
- If you take it out, put it
back.
- If you open it, close it.
- If you throw it down, pick
it up.
- If you take it off, hang it
up.
3. Walk around your home and identify 100 things you’ve been tolerating; fix
one each day. Here are some examples:
- A burnt light bulb that needs
to be changed.
- A button that’s missing on
your favorite shirt.
- The fact that every time you
open your top kitchen cabinet all of the plastic food containers fall out.
Happiness
4. Follow the advice proffered by positive psychologists and write
down 5 to 10 things that you’re grateful for, every day.
5. Make a list of 20 small things that you enjoy doing, and make sure that
you do at least one of these things every day for the next 100 days. Your list
can include things such as the following:
- Eating your lunch outside.
- Calling your best friend to
chat.
- Taking the time to sit down
and read a novel by your favorite author for a few minutes.
6. Keep a log of your mental chatter, both positive and negative, for ten
days. Be as specific as possible:
- How many times do you beat
yourself up during the day?
- Do you have feelings of
inadequacy?
- Are you constantly thinking
critical thoughts of others?
- How many positive thoughts do
you have during the day?
Also, make a note of the emotions that accompany these thoughts. Then, for
the next 90 days, begin changing your emotions for the better by modifying your
mental chatter.
7. For the next 100 days, have a good laugh at least once a day: get one of
those calendars that has a different joke for every day of the year, or stop by
a web site that features your favorite cartoons.
Learning/Personal Development
8. Choose a book that requires effort and concentration and read a little of
it every day, so that you read it from cover to cover in 100 days.
9. Make it a point to learn at least one new thing each day: the name of a
flower that grows in your garden, the capital of a far-off country, or the name
of a piece of classical music you hear playing in your favorite clothing
boutique as you shop. If it’s time for bed and you can’t identify anything
you’ve learned that day, take out your dictionary and learn a new word.
10. Stop complaining for the next 100 days. A couple of years back, Will
Bowen gave a purple rubber bracelet to each person in his congregation to
remind them to stop complaining. “Negative talk produces negative thoughts;
negative thoughts produce negative results”, says Bowen. For the next 100 days,
whenever you catch yourself complaining about anything, stop yourself.
11. Set your alarm a minute earlier every day for the next 100 days. Then
make sure that you get out of bed as soon as your alarm rings, open the windows
to let in some sunlight, and do some light stretching. In 100 days you’ll be
waking up an hour and forty minutes earlier than you’re waking up now.
12. For the next 100 days, keep Morning Pages, which is a tool suggested by
Julia Cameron. Morning Pages are simply three pages of longhand, stream of
consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning.
13. For the next 100 days make it a point to feed your mind with the
thoughts, words, and images that are most consistent with who you want to be,
what you want to have, and what you want to achieve.
Finances
14. Create a spending plan (also known as a budget). Track every cent that
you spend for the next 100 days to make sure that you’re sticking to your
spending plan.
15. Scour the internet for frugality tips, choose ten of the tips that you
find, and apply them for the next 100 days. Here are some possibilities:
- Go to the grocery store with
cash and a calculator instead of using your debit card.
- Take inventory before going
to the grocery store to avoid buying repeat items.
- Scale back the cable.
- Ask yourself if you really
need a landline telephone.
- Consolidate errands into one
trip to save on gas.
Keep track of how much money you save over the next 100 days by applying
these tips.
16. For the next 100 days, pay for everything with paper money and keep any
change that you receive. Then, put all of your change in a jar and see how much
money you can accumulate in 100 days.
17. Don’t buy anything that you don’t absolutely need for 100 days. Use any
money you save by doing this to do one of the following:
- Pay down your debt, if you
have any.
- Put it toward your six month
emergency fund.
- Start setting aside money to
invest.
18. Set an hour aside every day for the next 100 days to devote to creating one
source of passive income.
Time Management
19. For the next 100 days, take a notebook with you everywhere in order to
keep your mind decluttered. Record everything, so that it’s safely stored in
one place—out of your head—where you can decide what to do with it later.
Include things such as the following:
- Ideas for writing
assignments.
- Appointment dates.
- To Do list items
20. Track how you spend your time for 5 days. Use the information that you
gather in order to create a time budget: the percentage of your time that you
want to devote to each activity that you engage in on a regular basis. This can
include things such as:
- Transportation
- Housework
- Leisure
- Income-Generating Activities
Make sure that you stick to your time budget for the remaining 95 days.
21. Identify one low-priority activity which you can stop doing for the next
100 days, and devote that time to a high priority task instead.
22. Identify five ways in which you regularly waste time, and limit the time
that you’re going to spend on these activities each day, for the next 100 days.
Here are three examples:
- Watch no more than
half-an-hour of television a day.
- Spend no more than
half-an-hour each day on social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter,
and Stumbleupon.
- Spend no more than twenty
minutes a day playing video games.
23. For the next 100 days, stop multi-tasking; do one thing at a time
without distractions.
24. For the next 100 days, plan your day the night before.
25. For the next 100 days, do the most important thing on your To-Do list
first, before you do anything else.
26. For the next 14 weeks, conduct a review of each week. During your weekly
review, answer the following:
- What did you accomplish?
- What went wrong?
- What went right?
27. For the next 100 days, spend a few minutes at the end of each day
organizing your desk, filing papers, and making sure that your work area is
clean and orderly, so that you can walk in to a neat desk the next day.
28. Make a list of all of the commitments and social obligations that you
have in the next 100 days. Then, take out a red pen and cross out anything that
does not truly bring you joy or help move you along the path to achieving your
main life goals.
29. For the next 100 days, every time that you switch to a new activity
throughout the day stop and ask yourself, “Is this the best use of my time at
this moment?”
Health
30. Losing a pound of fat requires burning 3500 calories. If you
reduce your caloric intake by 175 calories a day for the next 100 days, you’ll
have lost 5 pounds in the next 100 days.
31. For the next 100 days, eat five servings of vegetables every day.
32. For the next 100 days, eat three servings of fruit of every day.
33. Choose one food that constantly sabotages your efforts to eat
healthier—whether it’s the decadent cheesecake from the bakery around the
corner, deep-dish pizza, or your favorite potato chips—and go cold turkey for
the next 100 days.
34. For the next 100 days, eat from a smaller plate to help control
portion size.
35. For the next 100 days, buy 100% natural juices instead of the kind with
added sugar and preservatives.
36. For the next 100 days, instead of carbonated drinks, drink water.
37. Create a list of 10 healthy, easy to fix breakfast meals.
38. Create a list of 20 healthy, easy to fix meals which can be eaten for
lunch or dinner.
39. Create a list of 10 healthy, easy to fix snacks.
40. Use your lists of healthy breakfast meals, lunches, dinners, and snacks
in order to plan out your meals for the week ahead of time. Do this for the
next 14 weeks.
41. For the next 100 days, keep a food log. This will help you to identify
where you’re deviating from your planned menu, and where you’re consuming extra
calories.
42. For the next 100 days, get at least twenty minutes of daily exercise.
43. Wear a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps, every day, for the next 100
days. Every step you take during the day counts toward the 10,000 steps:
- When you walk to your car.
- When you walk from your desk
to the bathroom.
- When you walk over to talk
to a co-worker, and so on.
44. Set up a weight chart and post it up in your bathroom. Every week for
the next 14 weeks, keep track of the following:
- Your weight.
- Your percentage of body fat.
- Your waist circumference.
45. For the next 100 days, set your watch to beep once an hour, or set up a computer
reminder, to make sure that you drink water on a regular basis throughout the
day.
46. For the next 100 days, make it a daily ritual to mediate, breath, or
visualize every day in order to calm your mind.
47. For the next 100 days, actively look for something positive in
your partner every day, and write it down.
48. Create a scrapbook of all the things you and your partner do together
during the next 100 days. At the end of the 100 days, give your partner the
list you created of positive things you observed about them each day, as well
as the scrapbook you created.
49. Identify 3 actions that you’re going to take each day, for the next 100
days, in order to strengthen your relationship.
These can include the following:
- Say “I love you” and “Have a
good day” to your significant other every morning.
- Hug your significant other
as soon as you see each other after work.
- Go for a twenty minute walk
together every day after dinner; hold hands.
Social
50. Connect with someone new every day for the next 100 days, whether it’s
by greeting a neighbor you’ve never spoken to before, following someone new on
Twitter, leaving a comment on a blog you’ve never commented on before, and so
on.
51. For the next 100 days, make it a point to associate with people you
admire, respect and want to be like.
52. For the next 100 days, when someone does or says something that upsets
you, take a minute to think over your response instead of answering right away.
53. For the next 100 days, don’t even think of passing judgment until you’ve
heard both sides of the story.
54. For the next 100 days do one kind deed for someone every day, however
small, even if it’s just sending a silent blessing their way.
55. For the next 100 days, make it a point to give praise and approval to
those who deserve it.
56. For the next 100 days, practice active listening. When someone is
talking to you, remain focused on what they’re saying, instead of rehearsing in
your head what you’re going to say next. Paraphrase what you think you heard
them say to make sure that you haven’t misinterpreted them, and encourage them
to elaborate on any points you’re still not clear about.
57. Practice empathy for the next 100 days. If you disagree with someone,
try to see the world from their perspective; put yourself in their shoes. Be
curious about the other person, about their beliefs and their life experience,
and about the thinking process that they followed to reach their conclusions.
58. For the next 100 days, stay in your own life and don’t compare yourself
to anyone else.
59. For the next 100 days, place the best possible interpretation on the
actions of others.
60. For the next 100 days, keep reminding yourself that everyone is doing
the best that they can.
----------------------------------
