[Guest Blogger] Remember to Make Time for Fun
At the end of the year, I usually reflect back on what I accomplished, whether I’m happy, and where I want to be next year. For me, 2014 was a very busy year filled with travel commitments, publishing deadlines, and starting a new business. It felt like I was working seven days a week – weekends, evenings, mornings, and afternoons. I enjoy my work very much and really wanted to reach my goals by year end, but at what cost? If we end the year feeling burned out then what good are we?
When you’re self-employed, you don’t have the same structure in your day as someone who works a conventional 9 to 5 job. Carving out time for fun requires discipline. It begins by establishing Time Rules. This is about the quality of your choices and your commitment to them. Plan ‘work’ days, ‘buffer’ days, and ‘free’ days into your schedule. Work days are for focusing all of your energy into what you do best – your main job. Buffer days are for loose ends like dealing with tech bugs, social media updating, paying bills, making appointments, and returning emails. Free days are for experiencing pure fun like holidays, vacations, party celebrations, sleeping in, nesting at home, trying new recipes, and shopping without a list. On free days, you simply unplug and have fun. That means no technology. When you make a commitment in your calendar to have free days you allow yourself to be free to experience what is.
Here’s a list of fun things to try in 2015:
- Learn to play a musical instrument like the piano, the guitar or maybe even the trombone.
- Read an old classic such as Little Women, Gone with the Wind, or The Grapes of Wrath.
- Go mountain climbing, hiking or take a long forest walk.
- Attend an open mic night at the local comedy club and meet new people.
- Put on crazy hats, big glasses and feather masks. Then crowd your family into one of those mall photo booths for a fun picture you’ll always treasure.
- Gather a few friends together and play soccer, basketball, bocce ball, or miniature golf.
- Learn a new language. Then plan a trip to practice your new skill in a foreign country.
- Instead of walking the neighborhood, try skipping and galloping. You may get some funny looks, but you can chuckle too while burning major calories!
- Go roller skating and bring back this wonderful childhood memory!
- Try a new look ~ cut your hair, color your hair, or get hair extensions. Donate your old clothes and then treat yourself to some colorful, hip, modern clothes that will make you feel young again.
- Take a train ride to a town that you’ve never visited. When you arrive, explore the village and see what you can find that’s fun and new.
- Try a new sport like kayaking, surfing, sailing, skiing, paragliding or even raising honey-bees.
- Go camping! Take a portable stove, sleeping bag, and a small tent and leave technology behind.
Whatever you decide to do in 2015, be sure to carve out time in your schedule to have fun, to laugh a hearty laugh, or just to be silly every once in a while.
Happy New Year!
About Gale
Gale O’Brien is a cancer survivor, motivational speaker and the award-winning author of Transformation: Creating an Exceptional Life in the Face of Cancer. Transform your life each month with timely tips on food, health, fitness, relationships, travel, and art. Subscribe to the Transformation monthly newsletter or order the book by visiting: www.galeobrien.com.
[O.W.W.L. Success Tip] Sending you my gifts of Peace, Joy, and Serenity and how to get them
I have been thinking of you recently. Have you been feeling stressed out lately? Are you up to your ears in travel, family, spending money, cooking, or any other “to do’s”? Would you like to know how to give yourself the gifts of Peace, Joy, and Serenity?
O.W.W. L. Success Tip: Decide not to let the outer world dictate your stress reactions.
We have no control over events, people, or circumstances. What do we have control over? We can control the meanings we give things and the relationship we have to stress. In other words, we can’t control the outer circumstances, but we can control how we think about them – our inner world.
If you are making this busy time mean stress, frantic, over-worked, and anxious and if your relationship to stress is that it’s bad, here are my tips for shifting to Peace, Joy, and Serenity:
- Clean up your vocabulary…use “busy, excited, productive” instead of “overwhelmed, stressed, too much to do.”
- Be curious about why you are stressed out. Is it because you don’t think you’ll be appreciated, loved, or respected if you don’t get it all done? Is it because of unrealistic expectations? Is it because you think you have to be perfect? Is it because you are judging others or yourself? What’s all that about?
- Declare that you will not be stressed out, and look for alternatives to make things easier. Take a stand for yourself.
- Take good care of yourself.
- Ask for support everywhere. Separate, alone, and hard is one of the sabotage patterns we learn to dismantle in the Janis Pullen and O.W.L. coaching programs.
- Shift criticism to gratitude. Isn’t this self-explanatory? An attitude of gratitude for everything everyday creates the Peace, Joy, and Serenity you want.
- Adopt a mantra such as, “All is well” to practice daily.
- Contact me at www.JanisPullen.com to schedule a complimentary coaching session.
- Consider hiring a life/business/health coach as a gift to yourself.
I believe you can have a wonderful holiday season and finish your year with grace and ease. I believe you can have the calm and love you want. You are a precious gift to those who love you. Take care of you.
Warmly,
P. S. Register now for our special free teleclass, “The Ultimate Coach: Three secrets to extraordinary profits and results in your weight loss practice.” To register for this free class, please visit www.janispullen.com/ultimatecoach. If you can’t make it live, don’t worry. It will be recorded for your listening convenience.
P.P.S. Have a New Year’s Resolution to make more money and keep more of what you make? Then this is a must: My special Weight of Money Breakthrough 90-day Group Coaching Program. Visit www.JanisPullen.com and click the “Wealth” tab, then click on “Weight of Money Breakthrough Programs.” Or contact Janis@JanisPullen.com for more information.
P.P.P.S. Do you want to improve, expand, or change careers in 2014…If you are a coach or a health practitioner who would like a booming business and would like to help people keep their weight off forever, please check out the new O.W.L. Weight Loss Certification and Training Program which begins in February. This program combines leadership skills, powerful coaching techniques, business building training, as well as teaching the 9 sabotage patterns block permanent weight loss and how to shift them. Contact me at Janis@JanisPullen.com or visit www.owlweightloss.com/programs/certificationtrainingprogram for more information. This program can be your pathway to expanding your income stream and improving your finances in the coming year.
Success Story:
I had the privilege of being coached by Janis when I was in the midst of turmoil in my life. Janis’ ability to ask the right questions allowed me to make decisions that brought order and peace in my work, and opened my life to greater possibilities for the future. And, I am re-inventing myself! Thank you!
~Vanaja Ghose, Artist
OWL Success Tip: THE POWER OF PLAY
Play and fun are powerful components of weight loss, or achieving any results, for that matter. Why?
…Because humans veer toward what’s easy, safe, and comfortable; and we resist what’s hard, scary, and painful. Since most people view change as hard, scary, or uncomfortable and since weight loss involves change, it’s understandable that most people cannot successfully release weight and keep it off permanently.
On the other hand, play is fun. When we play, we don’t want to stop. We look forward to the next time. We generate energy. We raise our spirits.
So how can you include the concept of play with your weight loss goals?
OWL Success Tip: Replace the word “exercise” to “recreation,” doing movement that you love, love, love. Or create your menu as a puzzle with all the pieces to fit into one day. Or make a game out of your project with rewards at every milestone. Or invite others with similar goals to play with you as in a team sport. A playful attitude is vital. What playful ideas do you have?
Another more relevant question is “How can you include more play in your life as a whole?” How we do anything is how we do everything. “Wherever I go, there I am.” So if weight loss seems hard, probably other areas in your life are hard. And if weight loss is fun, chances are you are having fun elsewhere.
Take a look at yourself and your life. Are you having enough fun? Be more playful everywhere, and see what happens.
To learn more about “The Power of Play” register for a complimentary Weight Loss Breakthrough session.
With Love,
OWL Success Tips: Celebrating Victories and Expressing Gratitude: A Success Formula
Did you know that celebrating victories and expressing gratitude help you lose weight?
OWL Success Tip: We have voices inside our heads that tell us what to do. All goes well unless the voices compete with each other, at which time the loudest voice wins or there is an impasse.
Example: The voice of Nancy Noitall says, “Stay on your food program,” and the voice of Velma Victim says, “No, it’s too hard and boring.” If Nancy’s voice is louder, you will eat according to plan. Otherwise, Velma wins, and you won’t. And if Velma does cooperate, she wants to be rewarded.
Nancy wants to be rewarded too. When we put our energies and time into a project, we must receive something in return; otherwise, we won’t continue for very long. Even self-discipline, without a payoff, is only a temporary motivator. It isn’t sustainable. A sustainable motivator involves pleasure. It pulls us forward. It inspires us to cross the finish line.
Recognizing our victories, big and small, and celebrating them is imperative to the success of any project. When we acknowledge our accomplishments, celebrate, and express gratitude, we recharge and empower ourselves toward the next step. We take action, celebrate victories, and continue. Wash, rinse, repeat!
To learn more about “Celebrating Victories & Expressing Gratitude” register for a complimentary Weight Loss Breakthrough session.
With Love,
OWL Success Tips: The Passionate Dieter
Have you ever considered the role your passion plays in weight management?
Webster’s Dictionary defines passion as…
- extreme, compelling emotion;
- intense emotional drive or excitement;
- strong love or affection;
- sexual desire;
- suffering or agony, as a martyr.
Do any of the above factor into why you did or did not lose weight or keep it off?
When I fell in love (with my husband or with Latin dancing or anything), the weight just melted away. And when I was in a miserable, agonizing relationship, the pounds appeared as a warm, protective insulation of my heart.
“Yeah,” you say, “we know how the love butterflies in the stomach replace appetite, and we know about emotional eating. So what? Those are temporary conditions.”
Here’s so what: I want you also to consider that when we live our lives intentionally being who we were meant to be and doing what ignites our hearts and spirits – passionately, we allow our authentic selves to be seen. We give ourselves permission to express. We give ourselves permission to soar. Acceptance of who we are and what we are here for dissolves the need to hide out beneath excess weight.
And I also assert that when we live our lives with “should’s” and “have to’s” while suppressing our true selves, we are more likely to turn to food as a distraction, comfort, or substitute for the real passion that yearns to be expressed.
OWL Success Tip: What lights you up? If chocolate and Crème Brule weren’t options and if excuses disappeared, what would you love, love, love to be and do? My advice is to take a step toward that, and another step. I would bet money that if you do, you will lose some excess weight and keep it off…effortlessly!
To learn more about “The Passionate Dieter” register for a complimentary Weight Loss Breakthrough session.
With Love,
Just Released!
Lose Weight for Life:
9 Unconscious reasons you can’t keep the weight off and what to do about it
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9 Unconscious reasons you can’t keep the weight off and what to do about it
ORDER NOW