My 2010 mantra – Required, Desired, Inspired!

I was on the elliptical the other day. It took all I had just to get on the darn thing. I just was not in the mood. I said to myself just get 15 minutes in. That’s all I require today – just 15 minutes. I can do that. About 10 minutes in I felt better and felt I could make it more than just the 5 minutes I had required of myself. So I reset my expectations to 18 minutes and increased my pace. Ah, I can make it past my required time to my new desired time I thought. At 17 minutes I was feeling inspired and felt I could push it up a notch and go to 20 minutes. I did it. I took that work out from required to inspired.

I have now started setting my day with a REQUIRED goal, a DESIRED goal and an INSPIRED goal. Now the idea hear is not to make INSPIRED too easy so if I am hitting INSPIRED too regularly it’s time to make that the new REQUIRED.

Obviously I would like to push to INSPIRED as often as possible but some days I just don’t feel inspired and ‘required’ is an accomplishment in and of itself.

Everyone has their own motivation techniques. This is a new one I developed and am trying out. Since I just thought it up while working out a few days ago I felt with the new year it would be a perfect way to implement this new plan.

I’m not really setting a New Year’s resolution. I’m already on a path of improving my health by exercising and making better food choices. All I want to do is stay on the path, take each day as it comes and make time to enjoy the journey.

Exercise makes me feel great mentally and physically. It improves my appearance and therefore, self esteem. It relieves stress and releases toxins from the body. I can enjoy the occasional bad food choices without guilt because I know I can burn it off through exercise. I  believe exercise is the magic bullet, the key to long lasting health and happiness.

I will turn 40 in 2010 and my oldest son will graduate from high school and start college. It’s going to be a big year and I can’t wait.

Bring it on!

Recently I read something about recruitment that saying ‘don’t take the Eeyores’. It took me a moment to understand the concept. Once I did I quickly recognized the Eeyore in my life. Basically it’s that you don’t want to bring into your business those who constantly need reassurance & generally bring you down.

As I had identified my Eeyore within seconds of grasping the concept I realized the importance of this. We’ve all heard the idea that you need to surround yourself with people who are where you want to go, in business and in life.  Realizing the importance of such a statement and implementing it is a whole other achievement.

Recently I started running again. After breaking my leg in 3 places over 5 years ago I have not been able to handle the impact of running though I have tried many times.  I went to a specialty shoe store and got the best pair I could get to support my situation. I got magnets (seriously they work) for my ankle and wrist. Suddenly I could go, albeit not far due to the condition my body was in, but I could do it without horrendous pain in my break areas.

Before I knew it I had a couple of runners/fitness people following me on twitter due to posting my run times I’m sure. These tweeters posted great, motivational information and led me to pick up new tweeps to follow. In no time a snowball effect occurred and I discovered I was following and communicating with people who were achiever where I wanted to be. This has an amazing motivational effect.  I’m not their Eeyore. I want to emulate their achievements, not bring them down to my level. Enjoy the successes of other. It’s proof that anyone can achieve anything they set their mind to. Enjoy your own successes along the way. Pick yourself
up and learn from your failures. They are the stepping stones to success.

Positivity breeds positivity. Negativity does the same. Surround yourself with what you want in your life and you will be amazed by the effect it has on you. I choose positivity!

O&O ~ Jennifer

Last weekend a new friend asked me to play racquetball with
her. I warned her about my serious lack of hand-eye coordination but she insisted it would be fine. I’m in a “try anything” stage of my life so I agreed.

Now where to find the time. Finding time to do more than
keep my head above water has been challenging lately but I was determined to work it out. We agreed on Friday at 2pm. This should work for me as I usually try to finish up with one of my 2 careers early on Fridays.  Then it happened. Mass chaos with career 1, an
unexpected overwhelming load of work that HAD to get finished. How on earth was I going to make it all come together? I’m tired of canceling this or that to take care of everything else. It’s time to figure it out and just make it happened. I rearranged my schedule, had to cancel attending one event on Thursday night so I could work late, got up early on Friday and skipped my morning run
figuring I would make that up playing racquetball. I did it. I found the time but it was not easy.

How does a woman find the time to do all that needs to be done when she has 2 full time careers, 2 full time kids, 2 full time dogs and a husband? It would be easy to park it on the couch after finishing the necessities and just shut down. I’ve been there and done that. It’s great from time to time but when it become a habit and you discover that you cannot remember the last time you went out and were around people it’s time to rethink your balancing act. A social outlet is an important stress reliever. Time for such events needs to be fit into everyone’s world.

I’m still a work in progress, still seeking balance in everyday life but I’m well on my way. I’m learning to let go of the tasks that just aren’t that big of a deal and embrace a reemergence into the outside world. The world is not going to wait for me. If I want my piece of it I’ve got to Get Up & Get Moving.

O&O ~ Jennifer

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Yeah, it here! I haven't had time to test out all the fun stuff I received in my Mission Pack from Shaklee but I did mix up my super concentrated Basic H and get to cleaning. I sprayed down everything I could find and wiped it clean. AMAZING stuff. Wow my granite looks great. No streaks. I had a bunch of veggies out and it was quite a thrill not to need to clear them completely way away from the space to keep from getting chemical cleaners on them. Even better, I didn't need to wash my hands after cleaning to get the chemical smell off.  I'm super happy to have Basic H back in my house. *I don't know how long the "jazzed to clean" feeling will last though - lol!

O&O ~ Jennifer