make it the best year ever …

“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

How many goals have slipped by this year that you wish you had put just a little bit more effort into?

What do you really desire to achieve?

A start of a new decade, the start of a new year, and it is so easy to let a wish, desire or a dream fade away yet again.   Be determined to start this year off like no other.  Reach higher than you have reached in the past and develop a plan that will allow you to have the best year ever and the best decade ever.

information overload

Never before has there been so much change.   People consumed about 34gigabytes of data per day.   That is a lot of data to absorb and make sense of.  It is no wonder that people can’t remember the things they want to, there is just too much data coming at them in too short of a period of time.  We grab at pieces of information and add it to something else to make something up that isn’t true at all.

Information overload from twitter,Facebook, news, and other sources of fast moving information can quickly turn into time that isn’t spent in the best possible way.   What gets neglected when social mediastreams are being reviewed and responded upon?       One organization reports that information overload is costing the economy billions in lost revenue.

If you find yourself out of time to do things that you need to do, ask yourself where is my time being spent?  Is it being spent sifting through endless emails, updating facebook, tweeting, or searching for “something” out there in the internet space?

Take some time off – stop – reflect in the quiet, in the peace of a moment without any incoming data.  Listen to the silence even for five minutes a day and let your brain and body synchronize with the world.  Find peace in life rather than trying to fill every moment of life with information.

my best year ever

“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

Carl Gustav Jung

What is 2010 going to look like?

Are you setting new goals with a new anticipation of what a new decade will bring?

Is 2010 the year that 25lbs of weight will be lost?

Will 2010 be the year that a new career is begun?

Will 2010 be the year that a family relationship will be restored?

In 2010, will it be the year that new friendships are made?

What will happen for you in the year 2010?

Will it be the year for adventure, romance, restoration, revelation, seeking, finding, keeping, building or stabilizing?   What do you want 2010 to be?   Will it be the start of something new?   Will it be the time you say, I can and will?

Will 2010 be the best year ever?   Will it lead to prosperity for the decade?

What happened between 2000 – 2009 in your life that made a positive difference?   What significant changes were you able to make that improved your life?

What happened in the world … ?   What happened in your decade?

What will your goals be for the decade?

What will your goals be for the next five years?

What will your goals be for 2010?

What meaning do you want to add to your life?

What will keep you from achieving your goals?

In many cases the only thing stopping people from achieving their goals is the self.   The excuses will form on the tip of the tongue why such-and-such couldn’t be done.     “I didn’t have time”, “I didn’t have the money”, “I had to do”, “I couldn’t find …”, and on and on.

Write down your goals.

Focus on your goals.

Create weekly measurable goals that will help you reach your target goal.

Have someone help you stick to your goals (anyone who will be able to work with you week after week).

It is your life; the life you create, the life that you desire can be exactly what you want if you want it to be.

Make 2010 the best year ever, make the decade the best decade ever.

sit back and relax

Just for a few minutes sit back and relax, collect your thoughts, be at ease with the world (click here) and listen to the songs of the season.

searching for peace

“Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.”  Gandhi

“Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth; Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust; Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace; Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe”

Satish Kumar

When we arrive at this time of year there are many people who focus on the concept of peace.  Peace in the world and peace within themselves.   It is a season to look for peace, create peace and experience peace.   When we meet with our families, relatives and friends we should remember that we are responsible for bringing peace to others.

To bring peace to others means to be at peace with ourselves.

Where do you find peace?

When do you experience peace?

What is stopping you from being at peace with yourself and others?

Experiencing Christmas in its fullness is to experience peace.

Seeking happiness?

“Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy.”, so exclaims the WikiPedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness

Happiness is freedom from suffering.

Martin Seligman considers happiness the result of experiencing positive emotions.

Whatever happiness means it is something people are desperately seeking.   Where is this happiness that life is supposed to produce?

The answer is, we have to create it, in our terms, in our experience and in our thoughts.   Coming in the next few days is a book that is going to help people discover those moments of happiness.   The Happiness Project written by Gretchen Rubin will hit the bookshelves Dec 29^th.    If you are seeking methods to help generate happiness there may be just a few clues on how to do that.

Stop by the Happiness Project and learn more.   Better yet, pick up a copy of “The Happiness Project”

Is happiness a goal of yours?

An inspirational moment

Choice –  life is all about the choices we make or we don’t make.    It is our choice to be happy, to be sad, to be glad or to be all that we can be.

Our success is a matter of choice.   What choices are you making today that will influence your future?

Here’s a short video clip on success, or choices, the choices we live with and the choices that live with us.

Success is a choice.

a season for hope …

The season for hope is nearly here and yet many believe that hope is only a dream.   Hope is knowing that tomorrow can be the start of something new, something grand, and something wonderful.   Hope is having the ability to not only dream but to watch that dream unfold in your own life.

Albert Einstein has been quoted saying, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”, and what wisdom exists in those words.  Learn what we can from the past, live in the present and enjoy what it brings and then hope for a better tomorrow.

Rekindle the dream, let a new light shine on the dream, and then with hope and determination shape that dream piece by piece into a new reality.

Let hope live within you as you pursue your dreams.

essence of life …

“The experience of essence is subtle.  If it weren’t, we would all be aware of having it already.  By facing our own limitations, a process of expansion begins as old boundaries dissolve.  We know this isn’t an illusion of brain chemistry, because as resistance vanishes, hidden possibilities unfold.   Suddenly a person can feel love and express it.  Insights reveal new truths about the self and about life.” 

Deepak Chopra

Consider for a moment that most people fight barriers that exist within themselves.   Most of the time those barriers only get stronger rather than weaker.   The idea is that what we resist persists and the more we push against our own personal boundaries the stronger they seem.

At some point we fear creating goals, creating a new trajectory for our life because we mistakenly believe that we can’t achieve that goal for some reason.   Perhaps that dream that was once alive was squashed and in that moment you said, “Never again!” and sure enough that wall instantly appeared.

What would it take to remove that wall?    What is stopping you from removing brick by brick that wall that was erected because of something that occurred in the past?

what is leadership?

What is leadership to you?   How do you live when you are leading?   How do you lead you?

Ancient wisdom from Tao 17 offers us a good definition of leadership.   There are many others, tons of leadership definitions all trying to explain what leadership is.

Tao 17

The best leaders are those the people hardly know exist.
The next best is a leader who is loved and praised.
Next comes the one who is feared.
The worst one is the leader that is despised.

If you don’t trust the people,
they will become untrustworthy.

The best leaders value their words, and use them sparingly.
When she has accomplished her task,
the people say, “Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!”

From http://www.wright-house.com/religions/taoism/tao-te-ching.html#17

Imagine the possibilities if all leaders practiced the kind of leadership expressed in Tao 17.   Leaders have to learn to let go, to shift the control to the people and then let them reach the goal.