Reduce Stress . . .

Reduce Stress: Honor Your Commitments
Copyright © 2005 Stephanie Marston, MFT
www.stephaniemarston.com

Keeping your word is critical to reducing your stress and creating a life you love. When I say keeping your word what I'm referring to is honoring what you commit to. It's keeping your promises, especially with yourself.

Unfortunately, we usually betray ourselves more than we do anyone else. We say one thing and do another. For any of you who have children or for that matter, who once were children, you know how it feels to have a promise made and then not kept.

You lose faith and trust in the other person. Well, the same thing occurs with you. When we don't keep our word we lose credibility and it undermines our self-esteem. Every broken commitment is a crack in the foundation for creating a high quality life.

How many times have you said you're going to exercise or eat better and not followed through? We've all fallen into the trap of saying we're going to do something and then finding every possible excuse not to do it.

Have you noticed that the next time you make a similar promise to yourself it's tainted with doubt? You don't completely trust that you're going to do what you say.

Whatever you neglect to respect-the commitment to spend more time with your kids, to live by a financial budget, to be more understanding of your parents-these betrayals poison the well of your credibility.

They undermine your integrity and trustworthiness. It's not that the fickle finger of fate is going to come down and punish you. It's about your not having the internal support to accomplish the changes you want to make.

The key to being successful is to start small. Don't make any grand proclamations that will set you up for failure. Keep it simple. Only commit to what you honestly know you can and will do. Otherwise don't say it. For example: rather than proclaiming, "I'm going to leave the office everyday at 5." A more reasonable and achievable approach would be "I'm going to leave work at 5 today." It's the old AA concept of one day at a time.

Instead of saying, "I'll never yell at my kids again." (Which is next to impossible to do.) Why not be more sensible and say "Today I'll speak to my children in a calm manner." Or "From now on I'm going to spend at least a half an hour a day doing something that nurtures me." Wouldn't it be more realistic to say, "Today I'm going to set aside a half an hour for myself." The secret is to make promises that you know you can keep. Manageable commitments allow you to be successful and to become a person who keeps her word and is trustworthy.

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Stephanie is an acclaimed speaker and author. She speaks from experience. Stephanie is the "go to" expert for those who seek to create quality driven lives. She is the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul's Life Lessons for Women: 7 Essential Ingredients for a Balanced Life, If Not Now, When? Reclaiming Ourselves at Midlife and Life Coaching for Parents: Six Weeks to Sanity. For more information please visit her website: www.stephaniemarston.com

Pump Up Your Passion

Pump Up Your Passion In 6 Simple Steps
Copyright 2005 JoAnna Carey, Carey'D Away Enterprises, LLC.
www.RatRaceRelaxer.com

Love life. Lose track of time. Get caught up in the moment. Choose to be not only present but truly, utterly involved in the things you do. Sing, laugh, dance and play. Life really is too short to not participate passionately in every moment.

PUMP UP YOUR PASSION IN 6 SIMPLE STEPS:

1) Even when things seem to be going "wrong," look for the gem in each experience. Are you one of those people who take the same route to work every day? Do you always eat at the same restaurant? Do you choose the same parking space every time you visit your favorite haunts?

If you always do things the same way, you will always get the same results. Be willing to try something new. If you don't like what you try, you've got a perfect reason to try something new the next day. If you do like what you try, it will give you the confidence to continue to search for other things that add joy and passion to your life.

2) View each situation you encounter this week as an opportunity to live passionately in the moment. Here's an example: Your spouse or significant other is passionate about historic facts and monuments. You are not as interested in history but love to learn new things.

Therefore, when you travel together and visit notable places, your partner focuses on the historic significance and you focus on how this experience may apply to current events. By slightly shifting your perspective, you will be more able to become passionately involved in the moment.

3) Document some of the moments that stand out in your mind, either good or bad, and notice how your attitude affected the outcomes. Life really is about the journey. That is a difficult concept for those of us who are always striving toward a particular goal. Savoring the moment means allowing yourself enough time to celebrate each victory before rushing on to the next event.

When you're working diligently to live to your full potential, give yourself permission to accept a reward: take a day off work, have a nice dinner, visit a nearby attraction or park, plan a vacation, or throw a celebratory get-together. Above all, acknowledge that you accomplished what you struggled to attain.

4) Exercise regularly. An active lifestyle is vital to your well-being. If you are so busy that you won't schedule regular workouts, start by incorporating daily routines such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator, parking farther away from buildings, walking instead of driving whenever possible, even pacing and stretching at your desk while on the phone.

Being busy is not an excuse to neglect your health. Exercise does not have to mean hours on an exercise bike or trips to the gym. Give yourself permission to improve your health and wellness without the guilt often associated with weight loss as the only objective.

5) Pencil in a few appointments with yourself! Amid today's culture of information overload and multi-tasking, taking time to "be" is a formidable challenge; grant yourself permission to schedule a few minutes of nothing! Be a trendsetter, write "alone time" in your calendar or take as many non-working lunches as you can for one whole week. Find at least 10 or 15 minutes each day to just sit quietly sipping your drink of choice.

Shun all outside input: no idle conversation, no telephone, no reading, no radio, and no television; the point is to just 'be" with yourself and your own thoughts. Use the time to think about where you have been, where you are going and how to live in the moment. This is not as painful as it may seem; difficult, and maybe a bit frightening, but you won't know if this can help you pump up your passion unless you try.

6) Laugh at yourself! Don't take life too seriously. Whether you are happy, sad, embarrassed, confused, or even indifferent, learn to laugh at yourself. It's impossible to know everything. It's impossible to always do the right thing. Being human means making mistakes, learning from the experience and moving on to a new lesson.

To live a life full of passion, you will have to let go of the need for perfection. When all else fails, look for a reason to laugh at yourself. Let go of the need to control what will happen next. Giggle, belly laugh, laugh until you cry -- but just keep laughing and your pumped up passion is destined to unfold.

Use these six simple steps to create a more passionate lifestyle. When you decide to pump up your own passion you also seize the opportunity to add joy to the lives of others. A smile, a compliment, a small gift, or a card can make a world of difference in every life that is touched. Spread joy and your passion will soar!

All Rights Reserved. * Adapted from the book Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey.

About The Author:

JoAnna Carey, aka "The Rat Race Relaxer," is available for radio, TV and print interviews. She's an energetic, young entrepreneur who merges her life experience and business success to perform enjoyable, influential presentations. She is the producer and host of her own weekly television program titled The Rat Race RelaxerT Show and the author of Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life. Contact Carey'D Away Enterprises, LLC; www.RatRaceRelaxer.com .

How To Play To Your Strengths

How to Play to Your Strengths
by Jo Ball

Are you clear on your unique qualities, talents and personal strengths? And what's more do you centre your life around these gifts?

You're busy, trying to be a good worker, colleague, partner, parent, friend and neighbour; you've been brought up with parents and peers ideals, educated well, maybe have a religious background, and perhaps a little of your past behaviour might been influenced by something you saw on TV or in a movie.

In fact, maybe, just maybe, and you're not alone here, some of your thinking and behaviour belongs to what others have told you to think or feel in any given situation.

In fact, it is highly likely that other people might influence a large chunk of your life. Maybe you followed a career path based on your father telling you it made good career sense or because you'd earn a lot of money; maybe because everyone else drinks tea or coffee or beer you do the same, even when the taste doesn't excite you; and maybe you buy certain brands of food because an advertisement makes it look good.

What am I saying here? I'm saying it is easy to be steered down one path, then another, then another, and then before you know it, "BANG" you're in the middle of a forest, cut off from your original path, and have no idea how to get back on the right trail. On a journey we call this being lost. In life we end up calling it something else.

When we get lost on our path we say we got disillusioned. But if we get disillusioned surely that must mean we had an original illusion in the first place, (because if we didn't have an illusion, how could we become dis-illusioned). It's a fact that many teenagers through to twenty-seven year olds are already disillusioned with life, disconnecting from life with behavioural change like attention deficit disorders and by using gaming stations, DVDs and in some cases drugs.

In older generations the same disconnection is manifesting in other ways, stress, sick notes from work, anxiety and depression. In my understanding we come to this life with a purpose.

Life = Active principle of living things and movement

Purpose = Thing intended

But what happens is life - education, religion, friends, family, TV, work - all lead you away from this purpose or illusion, until you become disillusioned. It is only then, in disillusionment, that you begin to find your true self. You are furthest from your true illusion when you lose the concept that you have unique qualities, talents and personal strengths and when you don't centre your life on these gifts.

Teenage and early adult behaviour problems and the issues of later generations begin to disappear the moment you live in alignment with 'YOUR PURPOSE.'

Love and best wishes,
Jo Ball

p.s. Happiness comes in through doors you forgot you left open. At Unstoppable Life, Jo Ball is developing the next generation of leaders who play to their strengths. These people are discovering and defining their life purpose. Join Jo's Fr>ee newsletter at Unstoppable Life now and discover the mass of information others are already using to enhance their lives.
www.unstoppablelife.com