SELF IMPROVEMENT

As we quickly approach a new year we are all reflecting on the past and our goals for the future.

Many thoughts and questions come to mind.

How can you become more efficient?

How can you save time on one task to gain more time, and money?

How can you make more money?

What do I need to do to get that nice new car?

What do you need to do to look better or lose more weight?

How can you improve your relationships and make your spouse love you more?

How can you be more like the Joneses. They seem to have it all together.

We all are guilty of judging our own success by comparing ourselves to others.

Friends, there is not a single person out there better than you, as a human being, if you are not hurting people, or involved in criminal activity and doing the best that you can at what you do.

The most important goals we can set for ourselves are those that help us achieve satisfaction with life.

Take the time, as you write down your resolutions for the new year, to see if the following thoughts fit into your gameplan for the coming year.

1. Visualize How You want Your Life To Be- take the time every day to relax and think about what you want. Visualize how you see yourself. What you are doing, what you are wearing, who you hang out with.  Change how you dress if that makes you feel  better about yourself. See yourself as someone with endless energy and ready to conquer the world or at least your next task. Feel good about yourself.

2. Learn Something New Everyday- keep reading, researching, and brainstorming. Just reading something of interest may turn on a light that gives you an idea or answer to an issue you have been pondering.

3. Interact With Positive People- if your friends are negative they will bring you down. There are people who find something wrong with any experience, or idea that comes their way. These people may be members of your own family. Make it a goal to network and make friends with positive people that have similar interest to your own. Those are the people that will keep you motivated when things do not seem to be going as planned.

4. Enjoy The Simple Things- take the time to enjoy the things you like to do. What kind of life is it to only focus on what you think others expect from you. Take the time to smell the roses.

5. Laugh Alot- this is the cheapest, safest form of therapy anyone can have. Laughing helps you forget your troubles, decreases stress, and stimulates the release of endorphins, which are the bodies natural pain killers.

6. Make Fitness A Part Of Your Life- if you do not focus and take care of yourself what good will you be to others? Exercising decreases stress, helps clear mental cloudiness, relaxes you, improves your morale, and helps you be more productive. You will enjoy life, your work, be more pleasant to be around and increase your chances of living a longer and healthier life.

7. Stay Healthy- you should make educating yourself on what is considered optimal health a life long goal. Take the time to learn what your ideal weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol should be. Know and understand what illness you may be at risk for based upon your life style, family history, and habits. You may think that is your doctors problem, but in reality you are ultimately responsible for your own health. The most important thing you can do for yourself and loved ones is doing your part to understand your health so that you can live a longer and more productive life. If there are health problems that need addressed, approach them one at a time, unless it is something potentially life threatening.

8. Be Happy- if you are unhappy you must look inside to determine what keeps you in that state of mind. There is no question that financial, health, relationship, and others problems can weigh so heavily on you that it is hard to see the joy in any aspect of your life. Life and the issues that go with it can be overwhelming. If you are having trouble seeing light at the end of the tunnel talk to someone about your problems. Sometimes just hearing someone elses perspective on something will improve your outlook and give you direction. Do not be embarassed to seek professional counseling. Some of the brightest and most successful people have a therapist to help them keep things in check. Try to look inside yourself and find what you need to bring you happiness. Try to find inside yourself what would make you happy if you were never being able to change your current relationships, financial situation, or social status. I am sure there are others that would agree that having more than enough money, the biggest house, the nicest car, etc. does not ultimately bring more happiness. These things all come with there own set of headaches. Financial security does provide you with more oppurtunities, but not true happiness. This is not intended to give you an excuse to maintain status quo, but to encourage you to look deeper for what you need in life to make you feel content and happy.

9. Manage Your Stress- we are all unique in how we respond to life stressors. You must find ways to help relieve stress even if you only allow yourself 5 minutes per day. Unmanaged stress will impact all aspects of your life in a negative way. Offer to help someone out, so that they can take a stress relieving break. They will more than likely be happy to return the favor.

10. Take A Worry Break- constantly worrying about all of lifes issues can paralyze you. It can lead to procrastination in all aspects of your life. If you are constantly worrying about things take the time to write them all down. Then look at each one and determine if there is something or someone that could help remove that worrry. Letting someone else help you deal with issues that are overwhelming will allow you to focus on more important things in your life in a more productive way. It could be something as simple as letting someone else deal with phone calls from bill collectors that you find yourself avoiding. It may be hard to do and require some practice, but give yourself 5 or 10 minutes per day, to just worry about the things that are on your mind.Then get back to focusssing on more important task that will help bring back the joy in your life.

11. Teach Something- we all have unique experiences, knowlege, and wisdom that will benefit another. Keep learning then pass it on. The best way to keep feeling young is to feel useful. Make it your goal, for the new year, to pass along something useful to someone that expresses an interest in your interest.

No matter what your game, if you are doing the best that you can, then that should be good enough.

If you want to find contentment and happiness you must not allow your satisfaction in life to revolve around how someone else is living or doing things.

If you are making a living, taking care of your family, and being a good parent then no one can or has the right to say they are better than you.

If you are not happy with your performance then look at how others are doing something similar to what you are currently focussing your time on. Study their methods and then tweek your system until you feel things are good enough. Watching and learning how others perform certain task or conduct their lives does not make them a better person, they may be just performing a similar thing differently or more efficiently.

This could be applied to anyone. It doesn’t matter if your game is being a parent, teaching second grade, a physician, nurse, pumping gas, or running the most powerful country in the world. There will always be someone that does it a little better or different than you do. That makes them an oppurtunity for you to learn from and fine tune your skills.

I speculate that future wealth will not be reflected by our checking account balance, but in the value we provide to others through networking and just being a good person.

No matter how small or unbelievable your goals may be for 2009, make it your mission to share something of value with another. Those things that you consider trivial may be just what is needed to change your world and the world of those around you.