Please Help Make My Life Changes Even Better!

Hello My Life Changes blog readers! I am asking you to help me make this a better site for you in 2 simple ways.

• Please go to my Facebook page and “like” it
• http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Life-Changes/7296693295
• After this please go to the Facebook mini survey “What part of your life do you wish to change the most? and spend 5 minutes answering it.

Thanks!!

The survey results will help us to make this an even better site for you!

Your time is ALWAYS  greatly appreciated.

Terry

My Life Changes Founder

Now You Can Always Be Happy While Reaching Your Goals.

What makes me happy? Remembering that I’m human.

Remembering that I’m human means:

• Celebrating my life warts and all.
• Celebrating …successes and failures.
• Accepting who I am.
• Always finding more joy in the journey than the destination.
• Loving myself.
• Embracing each and every precious moment of my life.

When you make some big life changes always remember that you might fail sometimes. You might put on a bit of weight one week, you might spend a bit too much money… you might not exercise one day.

Gently remind yourself that you are human.  You have emotions. You have self doubts sometimes. You are influenced by your culture, family and those human genetics.

It’s ok not to be perfect in reaching your goal. You may stumble. But dust yourself off and get back on that horse.

And celebrate and find joy in your humanness.  Find the wonder in your life and your journey.

You aren’t superman and a life change may not help you leap over tall buildings.

But a life change can help you take a few baby steps…. fall down …and then you find yourself walking.

Without any downs how can we have ups?

Shouldn’t Life Be One Big Fat Mind-Blowing Journey?

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve given lately is to improve the one thing in your life that bugs you the most. Don’t try to make 5 major life changes at the same time. For example, you’ll find that losing weight will naturally improve many areas of your life.  Weight lose will improve your energy, make you feel more attractive and probably reduce plenty of stress.

Don’t chase so many life changes that you get discouraged after a couple of weeks. Pick one. Lose weight. Save money. Get out of debt. Change careers. Become more loving. Each one of these in itself will open many wonderful doors for you.

And as you go through the ups and downs of a major life change don’t ever forget that you are only human.  Got that?

As humans we get emotional.

As humans we get frustrated.

As humans we get discouraged.

All this is part of the human experience. If we always get what we want we would have nothing to feel proud and …well …human about. We would not feel.

So remember you are a human being on a big blue planet that is twirling around in the vastness of a gigantic universe. You get to experience all the ups and downs that living on this amazing planet will throw at you.

Don’t be so damn hard on yourself. And don’t let your human emotions and judgements talk you out of your goal. It’s just your human mind wondering what the hell is going on.

Life changes aren’t always easy but they should all be an extraordinary journey.   A human journey.

Go out there and do your best. Stay true to your path. Learn to love the trip and the end result will come in no time at all.

Oh…and pick that one thing you really want to change.

What Everyone Ought To Know About Happiness

Isn’t happiness your main purpose in life? To live a life full of happiness and have happiness surround you? I like to use the word “content” not happiness. We all have moments of happiness and joy but we all seek a life filled with being content. But for this piece of writing we can stick to happiness.

Over the last 20 years, I’ve read hundreds of books on happiness, optimism and living a great life. I live a pretty great life myself. Here is what I’ve learnt.

Happiness is about making wonderful memories not buying stuff. When you think back on your life what truly makes you happy? Was it that that nice car you bought 6 years ago? Was it the latest laptop? How about when traveled with your friends or family?  How about all those walk on a sunny day with your pooch by your side? Remember any particular sunrises or sunsets?   Cherished memories like a simple sunset will always beat out thinking about some object you bought. Go out and make some great memories now. They can cost you nothing and bring a lifetime of joyful thoughts.

Money does not buy happiness. I value my time over money. It’s been scientifically proven that once we have shelter, food, decent health and happy relationships anything more than this will hardly raise our happiness level.  If you think that next raise will finally make you happy it won’t. Think about how much time you spend at work to make more money or worrying about money. Now think about how you really want to spend your time.  Think about what makes you happy. Is it more money? Or is it spending great times with friends and family? Money will not buy you a happy life.  Time to do what you love will.

Being kind to others brings you more happiness than being kind to yourself. When we are kind the brain releases endorphins, the chemicals that give us feelings of passion and joie de vivre.  Being nice also gives the brain a boost of serotonin, the chemical that gives us the feeling of satisfaction and well-being.  Try it. Start being a kinder person today. Do 3 acts of kindness a day. Today I made my wife a sandwich as she worked hard on her website. She was incredibly happy for that small act of kindness. And it really made me happy to do it and hear how happy she was for such a small gesture. Such a small thing with a huge happiness payback! Like they say….Isn’t it the small things in life that make us happy?” Now get out there and be a kinder person. In turn happiness will always find you.

If you like this article , kindly tweet or post it on your Facebook page. That would be a lovely act of kindness!

FREE. The Best Kept Goal Setting Secret EVER!

Get your friend to ask you questions. That’s it.

Ok, let me explain. You have written down your goals. Now you need to find a great way to keep on top of them. You absolutely need to FOLLOW UP!

You are all psyched to lose weight, save money or have less stress in your life.

Here is what you need to do. Find a good friend that will ask you a set of 5-10 questions each night that are relevant to your goals. Then have them phone you every night and ask you the questions. They in a sense become a great life coach for you. To make it fair, do the same thing for them. An example of questions might be.

Did you at eat foods filled with sugar today?

How long did you walk today?

How much time did you spend writing today?

How many minutes did you waste today on something that adds 0 value to your life?

How much money did you spend on stuff you really don’t need today?

If you get sick and tired of the questions then GREAT! That means you will want to make a change. Once you begin changing the questions get much easier to answer.

So think about. The main cause that we fail at our goals is lack of follow up. Right? Right.

Now go find that friend (or coach) that will follow up with you. It’s a simple solution to the biggest reason why we fail at our goals.

Give Me 5 Minutes And I’ll Show You How To Get What You Want Out Of Life

I’ve gotten in a rut lately. I’m not particularly motivated and each day is blending quietly into another. Some of this is due to the cold of winter settling in and some due to allowing each day to be easy and repeatable.  Ever go through these phases in life?

I’ve decided to give myself a serious attitude adjustment by understanding my daily habits and finding out how they REALLY make me feel. Do they motivate me? Inspire me? Make me content? Am I learning? Do I find meaning in what I do? This weekend I’ve visited my Dad, slept in a bit, read a few books, downloaded some new music, and wrote this article. Here is what I’m looking for.

Contentment. We usually refer to this as happiness, but I like the word contentment. It’s that fuzzy warm feeling, like a warm blanket wrapped around you on a cold day while reading a good book.

Meaning. Is what I’m doing providing me meaning? Will it benefit me long term?

Knowledge. Am I learning from this activity? Is it opening my eyes to new things?

Pride. Am I proud of what I’m doing? Do I feel accomplishment?  Is it making me better as person?

Inspire. Am I being inspired and motivated by my actions and behaviours?

Love. Am I becoming a more loving person?

Now I’ll list a few things I’ve done this weekend and rate them from a scale of 1-10.

Visiting my Dad.  Love -10. Pride -8,

Writing this article. Meaning -10. Pride- 10,  Inpsire- 10, Meainng -10

Sleeping in.  Pride 3, meaning 2,

Hmm, I did not work out, slept in and procrastinated on a few household tasks I was supposed to do.

As you can see certain activities are high and provide me with what I really want out of life. Some are showing that I’m wasting my time.

I challenge you to take a good look at your life and begin to see what daily habits are benefiting you the most both short and long term. List out these values and rate yourself. You may get your ass off the couch and begin to start building the life you really want.

I’m going to build a work sheet in the future for all of you to use.  I think it’s a fabulous idea.

Please retweet this article to all your good buddies  : )  Thanks!!

Don’t Think About It Just Do It

The moment we make a life change decision our mind gets in the way.

Excuses , self doubts, rationalizations all creep into our heads to try and stop us from achieving our goals.

I’ll get to it tomorrow.

It wasn’t a great idea anyways.

It’s not THAT important, I’ll get tested next year.

You are stronger than your mind. You are smarter than your mind. Don’t listen to it and just do it.

Lace up your running shoes. Throw that extra money into savings. Don’t buy the sweets. Leave the office at a regular hour. Call up your friend.

Ignore it, don’t argue, just do it. You’ll see it makes all the difference in the world.

Make 2012 A Great Year

My Life Changes was developed to help you live by your core personal values. As I have previously written my most cherished value is freedom. By keeping this value in mind I strive to live a life stress free, free from money worries, free from health problems and free from work related stress.

It’s not enough to just set goals. Your goals must be aligned with your personal values. And these values that you cherish should drive you to better and bigger things every day. Whether your value is freedom, love, wealth, health or peace these values should evoke a feeling deep down in your core that drives you live the life you believe you deserve.  So wake up every day with your value behind every action you take.

My 2011 was a pretty good year.  I became more disciplined with my money, had good health, visited Disney World, finished my Dale Carnegie course, was invited to speak at a conference in Florida and bonded with my Dad.

For 2012 I look forward to better health as in deeper sleep and less weight. I would love to become a spiritual teacher (meditation, mindfulness, peace) and will work towards this. I will clear out a bunch of junk and simplify my life. I’ll continue with elliptical running machine and begin to weight train again. I will spend more time listening to sounds of nature and less time in the artificial world of computers, smart phones and the Internet.  I will cut down on information overload.

I hope you have all taken some thought as to what your 2012 will look like and would love if you used the tracker to write your vales and goals down.  Welcome to this site and I wish you all the best in 2012 and beyond.

Best Always

Terry

2 Simple Ways To Reduce Stress and Find More Joy

As we drown in information overload and stay glued to our computers we live an increasingly unnatural life.  There is no way our brain can keep up with the amount of information we are subject to every day.

The amount of electronic devices that deliver information to us grows at an incredible rate. We have smart phones, tablets and don’t forget the lowly personal computer. Many people own all three devices. Billions of websites and hundreds of thousands of apps offer every imaginable type of information at the touch of our fingertips.

We text and Facebook our friends at an astonishing rate , spreading ourselves thin while losing those deep personal friendships that face to face camaraderie creates.

And don’t get me started about business productivity. We all know we are meant to produce at a high rate while the bulk of us don’t receive a raise near the rate of inflation.

Humans are meant to connect with nature. We need to find time to disconnect from the smart phones, take a walk in the woods, breath and clear our minds. I take a walk at lunch every day to get out of the office and see the horizon of the sky expand before me. I always come back in refreshed. I try to walk the dog as much as possible in the woods near my house.  Slowing down the information being thrown at us and reconnecting with nature is a simple change, yet is surprising how it puts a smile on your face and lifts a weary heart.

Seek true friends you can be honest and genuine with. I’m not sure if Facebook or texting is the best way to forge a deep friendship. Having heart to heart talks and opening up to someone, as well as having a shoulder to lean on, is essential to being a happy and well adjusted human being. Without close friends life is that much tougher and uncertain. Deep friendships allow us to express our fears, share laughs and celebrate victories. So the next time you think about texting or Facebooking how about meeting up for supper instead?

Less stress, more joy. It just takes a small effort every day.

Using The 80/20 Principal To Create A Fabulous Life

At work we achieve our highest value 80% during 20% of our time.  In our personal lives we are happiest and add 80% of greatness to ourselves, family and friends, 20% of the time.

If 80% of our time leads to only 20% of our most happy times, what can we do to better use our time?

I want you to really think about this now.

What activities bring you the greatest happiness? Why aren’t you focusing on these activities? Is watching television really bringing you happiness? What activities can you cut out?

Think about it. Start doing the things that truly make you happy right now.

List them out and make them lifetime habits.

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