Happy New Year!

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Happy New Year! The new year always feels like a blanket of fresh, untouched snow. It is perfect with endless possibilities. But the minute you step into it, it is no longer so perfect looking. Or to use the analogy from the first quote, the new year is like a blank journal waiting to be written in. It is exciting and full of possibility, but it is also intimidating. Whenever I start a new journal, I want to make the first entry really special. I don't want to ruin the beautiful, clean pages with anything less than perfection. But sometimes that stops me from writing anything at all. The point of having a new journal is to write in it, perfect or not. The joy of the new snow is to play in it, not to keep it looking pristine. So as we start this new year filled with hopes and dreams and resolutions for making this a better year than the one before, let's give ourselves permission to do whatever it is that our heart desires, knowing that it won't be perfect, and it might be messy. The joy of the new year is that it symbolically allows us to let go of the past and think of all the possibility in the future. It makes us think of how we would like to be living our lives. So don't just think about it. Do it! It might be risky, but the alternative is that you never create what you desire.

And have fun with whatever it is that you want to create.  If you want to lose weight, (which I do), think about fun exercise activities that you like to do. Don't make it a misery. It can be an opportunity to create a great routine, get outdoors, dance, play sports or whatever it is that you like to do. Have fun planning delicious recipes that fit with your healthy diet plan. Look through magazines and cut out images of clothes you would like to wear and how you would like to look. And then start. Even if you make mistakes or fall off the wagon, you are moving in the right direction and get back on course.

Whatever you dream up for yourself in this new year, make it something that makes your heart happy and that will be a joy to work on. When it gets challenging, (and it will get challenging), you can remember why you chose it in the first place and that will give you energy to keep moving towards realizing your goals and dreams.

And as you embark on this new year, whatever you do with this year, do it with a spirit of fun! Make every interaction you have as happy as possible. Do your best to make your experiences joyful for yourself and others.  "Leave a little sparkle wherever you go!"

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Be Your Own Cheerleader

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I sometimes wonder if anyone could be harder on us than we are on ourselves. The negative voice in your head may have originated with something a parent, teacher, or peer said to you, but you are the only one who keeps that voice going. You have a choice on what that voice in your heads says to you.

Nothing will kill a dream faster than self-doubt. How can you ever expect to create something wonderful, if you don't believe in yourself. I think we all understand that the better we feel about ourselves, the more we can achieve and the better our quality of life will be.

But how do you start believing in yourself? How do we change that voice in your head to be your greatest cheerleader? How do you become the person you most admire?

Unfortunately, there is no magic pill you can take to feel great about yourself. But it starts with a decision. Decide to be kind to yourself. Decide to feed yourself positive messages. Decide to acknowledge your gifts and use them. Decide to do the best that you can with what you have. Decide to forgive yourself when you make a mistake. Decide to take a risk and do the things that you want to do, even if they scare you.

How you feel about yourself and how you live your life is your choice. You decide what you think about yourself. So make the decision to best person you can be. And remind yourself who you really are. Invest in building yourself up to be the person you want to be. It will be the best investment you will ever make!

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Be Your Own Best Friend!

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When you start to take notice of your thoughts and self-talk, it can be shocking to hear the things you say to yourself. Some of the things I have said to myself, I would never say to a friend. Why is that? Why do we treat ourselves worse than we would ever treat one of our friends?

It could be that we heard those messages from others and then repeat them to ourselves. We might say negative things to ourselves to protect us from being hurt by others.  We might predict the worst so we are not disappointed if the worst happens.

If you say, "I can't do that," you prevent yourself from trying new things and potentially making a fool of yourself. If you say, "I'm fat," then it won't hurt as much if someone else sends you that message. If you say "Bad things always happen to me," you won't be disappointed if they do.

How has that strategy been working for you? Have your negative words to yourself helped you accomplish any goals that you wanted to achieve?  Have those words given you confidence? Have they made you a better person?

What if you turned those words around? What if you said, "I can do that!", "I look great just as I am?",  "Good things happen to me all the time." Do you think those messages could get you closer to living the life you want than the negative self talk? Why don't you experiment and try? What do you have to lose?

Your self-talk is a self-fulfilling prophesy. It may feel uncomfortable, at first, to feed yourself compliments and positive self-talk, but the more you do it, the more natural it will become. And the more you do it, the more you will believe it. The more you believe that you are a fabulous person, the more you will act like a fabulous person and the more other people will respond to you as that person. 

It all starts with awareness. As Maya Angelou says, "...when you know better,  do better." You know that it is important to speak to yourself in a kind and positive way.  If you catch yourself saying something negative to yourself or about yourself to another person, stop yourself and rephrase your message into a positive one. Remember, you are speaking to your best friend - YOU! 

Start today and don't ever stop. It will be worth the effort!

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Look for the silver lining.

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I had the experience this week of seeing one of my family members falling short of their goal that they had worked incredibly hard for. I found it hard to witness because it didn't seem fair after all the challenges they faced and time and energy put into meeting this goal. At first it was too hard to look for the silver lining, but after the initial disappointment ended, there were so many good things to come out of it.

For me, part of my challenge is that I am always espousing, set your goals, work hard and you will get there. This felt like a lie in the face of my family member not achieving what they set out to do. But with a little time and perspective, this experience is just a reminder that there isn't always a straight line to get to your goals. There are many paths to get there and if you stop before you find a new route, you won't get there. And sometimes the paths don't lead to your original goal, they sometimes take you to a better place than where you first tried to go.

When things don't go right, it's hard to believe it's happened for a reason. And sometimes the reason is never evident. But there is always an opportunity for good things to grow out bad things.  There are silver linings there when you are ready to look for them.

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Why Go On a Women's Retreat?

Life Tip #10 - Find Inspiration Daily

Think Yourself Thin!

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In Napoleon Hill's 1937 bestseller, Think and Grow Rich, he stated:

"The greatest achievement was at first, and for a time, a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn,   the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul, a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of reality."

One of the main premises in Napoleon Hill's classic book on achieving success, is that THOUGHTS ARE THINGS. Our thoughts lead us to act. So we have to train ourselves to think thoughts that support what we want to achieve. You can't expect to become rich, if you are constantly thinking about being poor. You can't expect your dreams to come true, if you don't believe it is possible.

I was listening to a CD I have by Wayne Dyer on how to achieve the results you want in your life. He asked individuals in the audience to give him examples of what they would like to achieve. One woman wanted to lose weight and he asked her if she thought it would be easy or difficult to lose the weight. She responded that it would be difficult. He asked her if she knew that with 100% certainty, to which she replied, "no." Then he asked her the reverse question, could she say with 100% certainty that it would be easy to lose the weight. She couldn't say that with certainty either. So he said to her, "you have two thoughts, one, that losing weight will be easy, another that it will be difficult, either may or may not be true. So which thought will you choose? The thought that will take you in the direction of your desired results or the thought that will take in you in opposite direction?

Of course thinking the right thoughts to achieve our goals or dreams is only the first step, but it is an important one. If you can't even think the thought of what you'd like to achieve and how you will do it, how can you make it happen. I was thinking of the analogy of thoughts being like the dots on those dot-to-dot picture books for children. Having the dots (thoughts) in place, creates the framework for bringing the picture (dream) to life. It's so much easier to create what you want when there is a template for you to follow.

So take notice of your thoughts. Observe them and see if they are supporting you and what you want to create in your life. Some probably are, but there might be some that aren't. If you want to lose weight, imagine how you will do it . Imagine that it will be easy. Imagine enjoying healthy, nutritious foods and feeling great. Imagine doing exercise that you love - maybe with a friend. Imagine how it feels to be active and healthy - how great it feels to be at your ideal weight. Imagine it as if it has already happened. When your thinking is aligned with your goal or dreams, that is the first step to bringing it into reality.

Once you start taking the steps towards your dreams, keep monitoring your thinking. If you hit an obstacle, watch that you don't fall into negative thinking, like "I knew this would happen," or "I can't do this." You have the power to control your thoughts, so choose the thoughts that will take you where you want to go.

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If you don't know what your dream is or would like to know how to bring your dream to life, join us at our Dream Your Dreams Women's Retreat at the Rimrock Resort in Banff, October 14th-16th. For details visit www.dreamyourdreams.ca