Mini Makeover #77
(W.A.D. stands for Worry - Anxiety - Depression)11 pages
It was once believed that depression or anxiety that made people think negatively, but psychologists and psychiatrists have discovered that most people who struggle with anxious or depressed feelings first had negative, pessimistic, distorted thoughts that pro¬duced those feelings.
This Mini is divided into two sections. The first section will help us to identify areas in your life where negative thinking may be immobilizing or harming you. The inventory we create in this section will serve as a foundation for the second section where you will learn about the 11 negative thought traps. We will examine how these traps have been working in your life and then take steps to free yourself from the traps that create anxiety, worry, stress and depression.
Positive thinking, for whatever reason, doesn’t spiral at the same speed as negative thinking. I believe this is because most people are trained to prepare for the worst versus expecting the best. Because we live like that, or live around people who think like that, negative thinking has the power to build more quickly—like the first little snowball that is soon rolled into the belly of a big snowman. In this Mini we will look at how the mind influences our thought patterns and practical strategies you can start NOW to tune out the negative and tune in to the positive.
Mini #68
6 pages
“Historically more than 80% of resolutions are abandoned by late February, Many women believe they are doomed before they begin. A resolution becomes another pressure in an already pressure-filled life.
As I waited for the clock to strike midnight this year, I was deep in thought about this challenge we face when reaching our goals. With statistics like these, it seemed creating a resolution is a way for many people to procrastinate on the very thing they resolve to do for another year.
If you have been discouraged by goals and set them half-heartedly or not at all, then the technique I present in this Mini offers a new approach for creating fun, Mini goals. You can use this technique to set goals for a week, a month, a quarter or an entire year. It is a great technique for regaining focus that flows with life.
Mini #67
13 pages
Includes positive and negative reinforcement worksheet, habit analysis, and obstacle exercise
Almost everyone has some habit in their life that robs their day-to-day life of a little (or a lot) of joy. Sometimes the habits are obvious—overeating, procrastinating, over-spending, drinking too much caffeine, smoking—other times they are less obvious like avoidance of health-enhancing behaviors (exercise), making excuses, spending too much time on a computer, blaming others, getting angry quickly, not taking care of ourselves… just to name a few.
Over time the word “habit” often becomes synonymous with “excuse.” We begin to feel that we cannot change an area because it is a “habit,” and stereotypically habits are hard to break. However, if we have the power to create a habit, then we also have the power to un-create it. How do we know if a habit needs to be broken? When it begins to negatively impact our relationships, self-esteem, finances, career, or any other area important to us, then a habit has become a hurt.
Habits are not formed overnight, but through repetition. Each time we repeat a behavior, whether positive or negative, we strengthen neuro-connectors in the brain. Fortunately, science has shown that we can “rewire” our connectors and thus rewire our habits. Breaking a habit takes focus, awareness and intention, since we need to turn off the “autopilot” we have created and make deliberate new choices.
In this Mini I’ll walk you through the science of breaking a bad habit. Of course reading the Mini is only the first step. Taking deliberate action on each step over a realistic period of time will be the key to unlock your life of negative habits.
With the stressors and health challenges of today’s busy lifestyle, maximizing our health through a multi-vitamin is a simple and important step we can take for ourselves. But not all vitamins are created equal. Many o fthe “mega” vitamins can actually do harm to the body. Plus, since the vitamin industry is not regulated by the FDA, it is important to know how to make an educated choice–and what to look for to promote health. This Mini will guide you through choosing a Multi and a calcium supplement to help your health.
Many people think “day dreaming” is a useless exercise – they may be right – but I can guarantee that visualization is not a useless exercise. Visualization is the practice of vividly and clearly envisioning something you wish to manifest in your life. The clearer this image in your mind, the more likely you are to see it in reality.
Visualization in terms of our goals is very important. We must have a crystal clear vision of how it will feel to live this goal to get us through the obstacles that will undoubtedly surface. In this Mini we work through the process of creating a Vision Statement for your goal and then illustrating your goal with a goal poster.
Most of us are great at setting goals; in fact, we are goal-setting experts. We have set goals a thousand times or more. What we are not so great at is reaching them. In order to help ourselves reach our goals, we need to concisely state our goal and make sure it is a S.M.A.R.T.Goal.
This Mini takes you through the five components of creating a S.M.A.R.T. goal– Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely; and helps you create a goal that gets the year off to a smart start.
6 pages plus
Energy Log Worksheet
Energy Mapping Printable
Online Sleep Quiz
Tired or being tired? Wondering how to give your energy a tune up? This Mini will show you how to track 17 different energy-influencing factors to see how they impact your day to day energy level.
The Mini begins with an Energy Log Worksheet. This daily inventory provides the basis for determining how to improve your energy. The second part of the Mini shows you how to convert these logs to the Energy Map–which is the fun part. The Energy Map works like a graph chart, quickly showing the trends in the highs and lows of your energy. We wrap up with an Energy Map plan to continue collecting information to create a solid foundation for enhancing your energy.
Adapted from the online course: High Energy Living
Mini #57
Includes Reality Routine worksheet Please note this Mini will not be available until November 7, 2008.
Recently I have had quite a few conversations with women about their Master Task Lists. I found that many women assumed I followed my Master Task List to a tee. In one conversation I began explaining that the Weekly list is what is most important to me and receives 90 percent of my energy. The 2x a month tasks, monthly tasks, and quarterly tasks are all those I hope to get to (and often do) but they are not my focus. By focusing on a solid weekly routine the longer term tasks tend to be much more easy to manage because my life is managed. I may not get everything done, but I get what is most important done.
Then there are the times when life goes haywire. The unexpected trip, or unexpected guests. The overtime at work or the problem with a close family member. The unexpected illness or the emotional rollercoaster. During these times a solid weekly routine is one tool that can help us keep our sanity and stay above the chaos.
This Mini takes you step by step through building your weekly “Reality Routine.” This is not a routine based on everything you WANT to do, but based on the “anchors” that help you stay sane, maintain balance, and feel good about home and self. By the end of this Mini you will have created a solid routine and run it through the reality test.
Mini #53
Please note this Mini will not be available until November 7
“Gratitude turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie
Developing a thankful attitude, goes a long way toward developing a more resilient, confident, and appreciative self, while also dramatically influencing life joy, contenment and inner peace. In this Mini we work thorugh practices for keeping a Gratitude Journal to increase your attitude of gratitude.
This Mini includes printable Gratitude journal pages, exercises, and prompts to help you discover the magic of this timeless tool.
What if picking up a pen could more than double your weight-loss results? Would you be interested? Recent research conducted by Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research and published in the August 08 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine showed those who kept a food diary ended up losing twice as much weight as those who did not.
“The more food records people kept, the more weight they lost,” says Jack Hollis PhD, a researcher at KPCHR and lead author of the study published in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. “Those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who kept no records. It seems that the simple act of writing down what you eat encourages people to consume fewer calories.”
In this Mini you’ll learn
The benefits of a Food Diary
How to maintain your Food Diary (includes template)
Track how your mood affects your food choices
How to analyze your intake and discover trends to help you reach your weight loss goal
Nine out of ten American’s drink some sort of caffeinated beverage each day, making it the United States’ number one “drug.” Recent research showed a direct correlation between rising caffeine consumption and the need for both prescribed and over-the-counter sleep aids
Just because the majority of us use caffeine doesn’t change its effect on the brain, central nervous system, and our energy level. In a nutshell, caffeine is manipulating the same channels in the brain as amphetamines and cocaine-but on a much milder basis. Understanding caffeine’s influence on stress, sleep, anxiety, mood, and energy is important. Especially since sleep and stress are directly correlated with many long-term health ailments and emotional health. If you consume caffeine and also suffer from anxiety or stress, depression or mood swings, or fatigue you might be surprised at caffeine’s influence.
In this Mini you’ll learn how caffeine affect mind and body, how to tell if you are addicted, what the “safe levels” of caffeine are, when to avoid caffeine to maximize energy and emotional health and how to create a realistic plan to curb or cut caffeine from your life.
Mini Makeover #038
Includes a 7-Day Anti Stress Calendar
When we are stressed it is often because we something is pressing, or we are overwhelmed with to-dos and projects, or a relationship needs time we can’t find. When pressure reaches its peak, we carve out time to handle a particular stressor. Any guesses on where we most often carve that time out from?
We tend to pick up the needed time by neglecting healthy habits. While this might seem a solution in the short-term, it is actually a catch-22. By skipping healthy habits, we reduce our physical and emotional energy making it harder to cope with the stressful situation. So what’s a gal to do? While eliminating all stress would be ideal, it isn’t a realistic solution. Since we can’t eliminate it, we need to learn to manage it. Proactively minimizing stress and increasing our coping abilities can drastically reduce the impact of stress on our lives.
Studies have linked stress to headaches, heart disease, intensifying existing asthma, gastrointestinal problems, fatigue, and chronic pain.
In this Mini we begin with a quick stress-test to check your current stress-level. Then we uncover your stress-triggers and sources so you can work to stop stress before it starts. A 7-Day Anti-Stress calendar will give you simple activities to do each day to help eliminate stress and create contentment.
Clutter, whether emotional or physical, is the number one robber of simplicity. Clutter robs peace and leaves anxiety and maintenance in its wake. In this Mini-Makeover we work through five exercises and activities to understand why we collect clutter, the true cost of clutter (on both our time and our wallet), and accomplish the simplification goal Hans Hoffman offered: “To simply means to eliminate the unnecessary so the necessary can speak.”
Ready to trade in the remote control or computer time for a bit of physical activity? This Mini Makeover offers a simple solution to set your mind for success and “warm up” to incorporate fitness in your daily life. I’ll share the many benefits of routine activity, and we will focus on a starting walking plan to ease into activity. In June our MTM Walking Club will begin which combines gratitude, self-discovery and accountability… with exercise! If you are currently inactive or exercising irregularly or less than twice a week, consider this “warm up” if fitness is a top a goal for you.
“Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. If you have them, you have to take care of them! There is great freedom in simplicity of living. It is those who have enough but not too much who are the happiest.”-Peace Pilgrim
Physical cutter can rob your time, your wallet and your energy. Clutter takes up free space in which energy could otherwise roam. In this Mini we explore the true cost of clutter and embark on a de-cluttering challenge. Includes access for the month to an open sprint room where you can arrange to meet with others working on this Mini to “de-clutter.”
I have noticed over the past decade a growing tendency “to be tired.” In the past week how many people (yourself included) have you heard say: “I am tired,” or “I didn’t make much progress today,” or “I just couldn’t sleep last night,” or “I’ll have to get to this next week. I was sick/tired (or sick and tired).” On the flipside, how many people have exclaimed: “I woke up feeling great!” or “Wow! I had a productive day.”
When we hear people speak these tired phrases, the most common response is: “Really? I didn’t sleep well either…” or some other empathetic statement that confirms our own fatigue. We may even find ourselves one-upping another person: “You think you’re tired…” In this Mini you will learn the three most important strategies for recovering lost energy (and no…they don’t require exercise or any other time-consuming act!)
Water makes up more than two thirds of the weight of the human body. The human brain is made up of ninety-five percent water, blood eight-two percent, and lungs ninety percent. A mere two percent drop in our body’s water supply can trigger signs of dehydration: fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on smaller print, such as a computer screen. Mild dehydration is also one of the most common causes of daytime fatigue. An estimated seventy-five percent of Americans have mild, chronic dehydration. (Source: APEC)
In addition to energy water plays a key role in regulating metabolism, joint health, radiant skin, regulating body temperature and prevention of disease. And let’s not forget the financial benefits! You can consume over a thousand safe and filtered glass of tap water for the same cost as a couple sodas.
But how much water do you really need? While experts recommend eight, eight-ounce glasses per day when I asked my doctor where this sixty-four-ounce water guideline originated she was stumped! Shortly after my doctor visit I discovered CNN had the same question. The news channel scouted for the source of the guideline. “This eight, eight-ounce glasses a day, it turns out, after talking to the USDA, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institutes of Health, people at various universities, they say, you know what, this appears to be kind of a myth. We can’t find a single study that says that that’s what people ought to do.”
Given all the health benefits, how can we determine how much water we need? What water routine would help us increase energy? How long until we see results? This Mini-Makeover wades into the topic of water and helps you uncover your personal water needs. Also included is a twenty-one day tracking worksheet to help you measure the results of your new water routine.
Have you ever felt there must be “something more” but been unable to identify what it is? Have you ever felt your life is a series of to-dos but that you aren’t really living? These feelings are often caused by a disconnection between actions and values. This Mini-Makeover will help you rediscover your personal values–not the values others would like you to have. You’ll work through a values worksheet to deduce your core values.
These core values act as a filter. In times of indecision, we can compare options to our guiding values to make a decision. Values are the seams which shape the fabric of our lives. Without defined values, we have torn seams where the unwanted can sneak in, and our energy can sneak out. Values allow us to advance confidently in a meaningful direction. Without them we will be blown around by the emotions, people, and external events of the day. Recommended for ALL LIFE AREAS.
Related Minis: Creating Value Cards for Your Personal Power Deck #11, Creating a Personal Vision Statement #018 (It is recommend to complete this Mini before working on Mini #018.)
