by Blogsip Admin | Mar 10, 2022 | Changing Personal Habits
Pursuing Your Dreams
What is a dream? No, not your dreams. I’m talking about the ones that happen when we are awake. Dreams are those things that we would love to accomplish in our lives.
The problem with dreams these days is that they are hard to make into reality. No one dreams about something that is easily accomplished. For example, no one ever dreams of walking down the sidewalk because that is something that we do every day. There is nothing extraordinary about it. Hence, it cannot be a dream.
What I wonder is, are dreams too hard, or are we too lazy. What I mentioned before is accurate. Objectives are not easily accomplished, so many plans stay dreams and never become realities. We like to think of achieving something complicated, but we shrug it off as too hard when doing it.
Why don’t more individuals follow their passions?
Most of us lack the discipline to make a dream a reality. So many young boys, including myself, have dreamed of playing professional sports. We used to go out on the court or the field and imagine ourselves playing a professional game and making that game-changing play. Yet, when it came to working hard at the game to be better than anyone else around us, we quickly gave up at the first sign of opposition.
How many adults are the same way? How many of us have a dream job that we wanted and pursued, but when the first person in the industry told us, “no,” we quickly threw in the towel and settled seeking a paying job? How many of us have dreamed of looking a certain way, but when it came to eating less and exercising more, we quickly gave up and said it was all hopeless?
Dreaming is ok. We do it. It is only human to imagine our world how we would like it to be. What is wrong is to quit on your dream at the first sign of opposition. M.J. was dismissed from his tenth-grade squad. Imagine if he had stopped in his dreams as most of us do. We would never have seen one of the greatest players ever play the basketball game if he had left at the first sign of opposition. Don’t quit on your dreams!
by Blogsip Admin | Mar 10, 2022 | Changing Personal Habits
Imprecise New Year’s resolutions are made to be broken. Design a personal development program using SMART goal setting for a solution that works.
New Year’s resolutions seem broken: the most popular fail. Yet, they are the most desired changes in oneself and the most complex changes to stick to because they deal with ingrained habits or personality quirks. Give up? Laugh it off? If a resolution is essential, the intelligent thing to do is do a little goal-setting.
Top New Year’s Resolutions
According to USA.gov, the following are popular new year resolutions.
- Less alcohol
- Educate yourself
- Better job
- Exercise
- Weight loss
- Budgeting
- De-stress
- Don’t smoke
- Save cash
- Travel
- Become a volunteer
Readers are sure to have their variations to add to this list, but if they are phrased in this way, they are bound to fail.
Don’t Design a Poor Personal Development Programme.
The above New Year’s resolutions are woolly, imprecise wishes because they are do not incorporate sound goal-setting features. For example, “I want to get fit or get a better job” carries no more mental weight or a sense of purpose than “I want to make six million dollars and retire.” So they will always be on a wish list, doomed to fail because the motivation is not there or the means to achieve or measure results.
If making a New Year’s resolution means anything more than breaking open a fortune cookie and reading the slogan, it must be approached in an entirely different, purposeful way. The above statements could be turned into a great personal development program.
Setting Goals for New Year
Don’t wait for someone at the New Year family celebration to say, “What’s your New Year resolution?” That’s when the imprecise, poor goal setting happens. Instead, prepare for the moment right now. The better the preparation and motivation, the better the chance of the resolution working. If it matters, pay attention. Applying the SMART principle is a time-honored process for goal setting that seminar presenters and personal trainers trot out. The idea may be old-hat, but use it to the personal development goal chosen for a New Year’s resolution, and it will help.
SMART Goal Setting the New Year’s Resolution
The SMART principle means applying the acronym to any project. Make a decision
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant and Realistic
- Time-framed
A glance at the list of resolutions published by USA.gov reveals that none meet these criteria. To illustrate, let’s use the SMART approach to losing weight. Of course, some settings may have to be adjusted as progress is made down the list.
To make this Goal specific: set an amount: I want to lose 10 kgs
Make the Goal measurable: Weight loss is one of the easy things to measure – select a date with the bathroom scales. Decide how often and when progress checks will be made.
Make the Goal achievable: If you want to lose 5 kg in a week, common sense says, it’s not an attainable goal. Instead, a more extended period of lowered expectations might be required. Likewise, it is not achievable if other aspects of the dieter’s life, such as poor health, might preclude dieting.
Make the Goal relevant and realistic: if the person who wants to lose 10 kgs already only weighs 50 kg, it’s not pertinent or practical – it is just plain risky.
Make the goal time-framed: This is important. Set a realistic time frame – say 20 weeks – to lose 10 kgs. By all means, set a longer time frame – one year to lose 10 kgs. Intermediate goals and progress checks have become more critical now. If the dieter is satisfied to lose 10 kilograms over one full year, it makes sense to ensure that approximately 1 kg is lost each month.
In addition to the SMART principle, it is a great idea to force yourself to examine progress at particular times and have a failsafe mechanism in place. For example, have a friend circle a date on their calendar when they must demand your results and help you achieve the Goal if you faltered.
Re-state New Years Resolutions as Measurable Goals
The waffly resolution Lose weight could become: I will lose 5 kilos by December 24, 2011, measuring and charting my weight loss on Friday each week. If I find on February 31 that I have not lost a whole kilo, I will seek help from my friend Jenny.
Perhaps this all seems like too much trouble. Nevertheless, it is essential to remember that people make new years resolutions because they are dissatisfied with some aspect of their lives. So what’s the point of complaining year after year and not taking intelligent steps to make a change. This year’s resolution could be the one that changes your life for good.
by Blogsip Admin | Mar 10, 2022 | Changing Personal Habits
We can’t wait until we experience a massive amount of pain to get motivated to change.
We are all conditioned to move towards happiness and away from pain and discomfort. People hire therapists to find out what is wrong with them and receive treatment for their problems. In my experience, clients rarely lack knowledge of what is wrong with them or what is needed to improve. Self-motivation to change is always the limiting factor.
My transition from Behavioral Therapy to Professional Coaching was a natural and concise improvement resulting in quicker and more sustainable results for my clients. Coaching is action-oriented, which always results in goal achievement, whether the client and I deal with addictions, anger management, or obesity. My philosophy is that we devote 5% of our energy to the problem and 95% to the solution. Unfortunately, I have found that therapy is often the other way around, which explains why many people remain in therapy for years instead of days or weeks.
Awaken to your Potential and Thrive
People struggle with taking consistent action – applying what they know regularly. We are all self-driven by nature but have grown mentally lazy due to faulty acquired mental programming. Since birth, we have been taught to depend on people and things instead of ourselves. People are also conditioned to believe what someone tells them, often accepting it as fact at face value without verifying themselves. We forget about our intuition – our internal truth gauge that is available at every moment to direct our lives and verify whether someone or something is correct.
We do not have to wait until we experience a massive amount of pain to get motivated to change. A promising sign of emotional maturity is recognizing when a life adjustment is needed and taking action immediately. Pain is a great motivator, no question about that; There are times when we don’t get a second chance, like when we have a heart attack because we didn’t move for a long time.
Change starts and ends with self-honesty, which is born of self-love. Self-love is inherent; however, we forget who we are because of our acquired emotional and mental baggage. So, regardless of what people think of you, it’s essential to believe positively about yourself. Once you get beyond just intellectually understanding this and come to know this as truth, that you are the source of your psychosis, change starts to happen.
We must wholeheartedly take full responsibility for ourselves and realize there is no benefit in living below our potential. The momentary comfort that we experience by remaining complacent and content causes inevitable regression as growth is a continual process of forwarding motion.
Make a promise to live your best life and reach your full potential because when we live a low-quality life, we affect ourselves and the rest of the world.
by Blogsip Admin | Mar 10, 2022 | Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is key to a cheerful existence. So make your 2022 resolution(s) into a five-point game plan for a joyous and effective New Year.
In the end, Christmas shopping and the holiday party are over. Finally, the New Year is here. But, with just a few days gone by, do you find yourself poised on the edge of your bed, like the statue of the thinker, pondering this question, “what can I do differently to make this year better?”
Here is a suggestion, make your 2022 resolution into a five-point game plan for success in the New Year.
Don’t Live Life on Overload.
Think of your brain as a computer circuit board that keeps track of data. Burnout is likely to occur if too much activity or too much intensity of thought is racing through it. That is too much, too fast, and not enough time to process.
Lesson one is to take control of the flow of activities in your life. Once it has reached its capacity, the general nature of any object or conveyance is it will not function at its optimal performance.
Learning the difference between essential and unimportant activities is vital to succeeding in the New Year. We each formally or informally put together a ‘To Do’ list which often gets cluttered with projects. However, one critical element of leading a successful life is establishing criteria for choosing a project to add to the to-do list.
We should ask ourselves, will this project help us reach a future goal. If yes, then include it on your to-do list with the provision that it can be accomplished. If no, then scratch it off and move on to other tasks that will help us be successful.
It’s your life, and you decide what goes in and out.
Live in the Here and Now
Self-awareness is one key element to a cheerful existence. Although we are just a few days into this New Year, we can plan our future course with past challenges in mind, but we have a choice not to live bad decisions repeatedly.
Living in the here and now is a choice that the future holds the promise that we can act more toward. So, right now, we choose to make the most of life.
We can take the advice contained in a quote by Leonard Ravenhill that says, A once-in-a-lifetime chance must be taken. But unfortunately, we cannot take advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime in 2022, thinking and rethinking our failures and disappointments of the last year or years before.
We can exercise control over our minds to focus on the here and now to broaden our self-awareness. Try to realize the undiscovered country before you by looking beyond what you see to what you can become in the future.
Remove the Extra Weight from Your Life.
If the truth were told, most everyone is carrying old baggage weighing them down, and they need to let go. So in 2022, whether it’s your waistline or a crowded room of stuff in your home, consider getting rid of the heavy stuff to lighten your daily living.
Be committed to throwing out unnecessary and unused items in your personal space. One man’s garbage is another’s treasure. If items in your private area are no longer a treasure to you, then make them available to someone who can use them. However, if they are trash, send them to the trash heap where no one will waste valuable personal space with useless things.
Next, learn to recognize that you have are tools to use to accomplish a goal. Do not let them be a collection of reminders that you either cannot complete a project or that you cannot complete what you start.
Collectors and hoarders are often confused.
Allow for Creativity
Unlike the pants you have grown too big for overtime, allow yourself a little latitude to grow intellectually, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. If you have had a dream for years that returns from time to time, give it a chance to make its way into your world.
One option is to begin by trying an activity or exercising a latent talent that you have always dreamed of doing. It does not have to be on a grandiose scale but try it somewhere. For example, if you have a talent or desire to sing (dance, draw, etc.), find a venue where aspiring artists can showcase their talent. The skill does not matter, it just matters that you leave the negative words of all the Nay-Sayers behind, and you try.
A second option, change your daily routine to have a sense of freshness around you. Utilize your innate gifts and talents to transform your environment into the oasis that floods your soul with joy and happiness. Finally, if you do not want to share your skill on the world stage, find a forum that suits your needs.
A biblical scripture designed for those who do not know if they should share their innate talent with the world should keep in mind, “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.”
In 2022 take a chance that what you have inside is worth sharing with others, but remember the lesson on keeping life off of overload.
Be a Special Blessing
Lastly, begin this year with a fresh attitude that includes blessing someone you do not know. So often, we are engaged with activities and projects that cloud our minds and eyes to the point we cannot see that other person less fortunate than we are struggling.
If you can conceptualize that your gifts and talents have made room for you to live the life you have, then use them to help others. But, on the other hand, if you do not feel very philanthropic to help the needy and poor because you have limited resources, here is a suggestion.
To the people you know, who are having a difficult time, send them a note of encouragement to say hang in there just a little longer. Think of the joy you feel when you receive a card in the mail on your birthday or an anniversary. Pay that feeling forward but add to it the inclusion of people you generally do not contact daily, weekly, or monthly.
It might be all the encouragement they need to press on in a year that they do not think will be prosperous. The idea is to be a blessing to others which does not always have to involve money.
A blessing to someone else can mean being a friend in need. And that’s an excellent New Year’s resolution to have, be a friend to someone, like never before.
by Blogsip Admin | Mar 10, 2022 | Self-Awareness
New Year’s seems to be the rare time we hear the word “resolution,” but we make and break them daily. Learn how resolutions should act.
A new year has come, reviving the cheerful hum of New Year’s resolutions once again. I have always enjoyed making New Year’s resolutions because setting goals and writing them down with a fresh new start makes my visions more tangible. But my enjoyment and practice of goal making didn’t start with New Year’s. As I think about my goals for the New Year, I realize that all of them have nothing to do with the New Year but with what I have long seen in myself. These resolutions are simply an outgrowth of the continuous self-examination I always try to practice. Hence my solutions are of much greater significance than a passing thought during New Year’s Eve parties or a suggested one I read on the Internet.
See how others see changing their lives this year. Still, instead of giving you the “Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions,” I suggest thinking about how you might want to choose resolutions and how you can view those choices for the new year and beyond.
Redefining
A “strong decision to do or not do anything” is a “resolution.” Unfortunately, with the high failure rate of New Year’s resolutions, the word’s original definition is now a joke.
People don’t have to make firm decisions about what to do or not do on New Year’s Day. It may be better NOT to make them during that time at all. This is a great tradition. Making goals to enact positive change is good, yet they shouldn’t come out of anywhere.
You will not achieve your goals if, deep down, they are unimportant to you. For example, “reduce weight.” It would be nice to “get organized,” and it would be nice to “fall in love,” but the question now is, why now and why you? What is your motivation for change? A new calendar year? Shouldn’t changes be more than seasonal bragging rights? Shouldn’t they be made because you have come to a point when you recognize that you need to change for your well-being?
Take Time to Reflect
It requires some deep self-examination. One will make goals deeply connected to who they are if they take the time to recall what is most important in life. So take a step back from the noisemakers and champagne to find some time to deeply reflect on where you are in your life: where you have been, where you are going, or where you hope to be. Then, daily, weekly, monthly, or annual resolutions may be set.
Doing this every week is even more beneficial. Taking some downtime for yourself after the busy work week is essential for our mental, physical and spiritual health. Consider who you are, your life, and your goals. How can you use your daily time more wisely to achieve those goals? The more self-aware we are, the more daily tasks we must perform a higher plan and purpose for our life.
Many people choose to quit a disgusting habit for the New Year, such as smoking. So, January 1st rolls around, and they decide, that’s it, I’ve quit smoking for good? One needs to ask, what has kept them from leaving the habit before? How did they start? Reflection of this nature takes the psychological and motivational factors into account. Once we target these, we may develop many smaller resolutions to heal the mind barriers or distractions holding us back.
What’s Most Important?
While reflecting on our most cherished goals, we may find that having more “stuff” or doing more “things” is an unfulfilling goal. So instead of overthinking revamping your wardrobe, how about updating your human relationships and quality of life? For example, think about how you treat others. Are you respectful, patient, kind, angry, superficial, or arrogant? So often, the “little” things, like how we conduct ourselves, become the “big” things and even keep us from achieving those resolutions.
Concluding the Matter
Make sure your resolution holds significance to you beyond the calendar. New Year’s Day is certainly not a sufficient motivation. Look at the big picture, and be true to your values. It would be better to make no New Year’s resolution than to make one you would never achieve because you read it off the Internet. One of my “resolutions” is to make non-New year’s resolutions for the record.
