Loving the Chaos

This month’s 10 in 2010 challenge is to Move More.

Your challenge for the month is to incorporate 15 minutes of physical activity into your day.

One over looked fitness component is flexibility.

Everyone likes to skip the stretching part.

Why is flexibility so important?

It helps prevent injury, alleviate stiffness, maintain a good range of motion, and prevent pain.

Some of the minor aches and pains you feel as you get older may actually be a result of decreased flexibility.

You can use your 15 minutes moving more this month by working on your flexibility through stretching or yoga.

Please take a minute to post a comment and share how you stay flexible…or what gets in the way.

Remember you can always find all of the previous 10 in 2010 tips posted located in the 10 in 2010 category on the right hand side.

April Fools’ Day has been around for hundreds of years. On this day, people like to play light-hearted practical jokes and hoaxes on friends and family. Even newspapers get in the game by slipping in a slightly far-fetched story. At some point today, you just might find that you have been tricked, deceived or had the wool pulled over your eyes in some fashion.

Here’s the real question to consider:

Are you fooling yourself?

It’s not the tricks that others pull on you. It’s the one’s you pull on yourself.

I’ll bet that somewhere in your life you are likely fooling yourself – playing a little game of denial.

It sounds something like this:

You can burn the candle at both ends and it won’t take its toll.

You can be a couch potato and make poor food choices and your body won’t mind.

You can avoid meaningful conversations with your loved ones and your relationships won’t suffer.

When you read those statements, you probably think, “Well of course you can’t.” But if you look at your behaviour you just might find that’s exactly what you have been doing.

If you have been playing the denial game for a long time, you might not even realize it.

So how do you know if you are fooling yourself?

You act like there is no cause and effect in your behaviour.

Or perhaps you keep repeating the same behaviour and are surprised that you never get different results.

Ask yourself this:

Are the results I desire a reasonable expectation of my current behaviour?

There’s another way that we hoodwink ourselves. We tend to believe that changing what we’re doing will be complicated or too hard.

Only if you want it to be.

Change begins with one simple step. Begin doing something different and then keep doing it consistently.

Eventually, as my mother used to say, the chickens always come home to roost.

Today’s just as good as any to stop fooling yourself.

Most people in North America own a car. They also know that these 2 things are true:

Perform regularly scheduled maintenance and your car will run smoothly.

Wait for the engine light to go on, and you likely will find yourself with a bigger mess than you needed to have.

Everything from checking your oil to taking it in for a tune up helps you to assess how things are going with your car. Sure sometimes you need major work but more often than not, a little adjustment is all that’s required.

When was the last time you did a maintenance check on your life?

If you are like most people, it’s been a while, Perhaps never. Making the time for a life inventory is one of those jobs that can be easy to put off. There are probably 101 more pressing things on your to-do list. But just like your car, if you ignore the simple tune ups, you’ll find yourself with a life that’s not working nearly as well as it could.

Saving time, focus & energy

Many things in your life can be easily fine tuned if you pay attention to them soon enough. When life has become overwhelming, it’s more challenging to find balance. When relationships have broken down, it takes more energy to rebuild them. When finances are out of control, it’s harder to rein them back in. When you are overweight and out of shape, it takes more motivation to get off the couch. Of course you can always make the changes you want. It’s just that the earlier you catch things, the more time, focus and energy you will probably save. That’s time, focus and energy you can then put into something else.

Making the time to complete a life inventory helps you to identify what’s working and what’s not working in your life. Done regularly it can point out where simple changes can help get you back on track before you need a major overhaul. Even if it turns out that there are some serious adjustments to be made, the sooner you take stock and begin making changes, the more likely you will avoid your life stopping working all together.

Ask yourself:

Right now what area of my life is working the best?

Knowing what’s working can provide you with good information you can apply to other areas.

Then ask:

Right now what area of my life is not working the way I would like it to?

Become your own mechanic. Decide what needs to be done to get this area running more smoothly. Now take one step that will get going in the right direction.

Treat your car well and you can put a lot of miles on it. Same is true of life.

This month’s 10 in 2010 challenge is to Eat Well.

Your challenge for the month is to make at least one healthy substitution in your current diet.

I know simple substitutions may not seem like they can make much of a difference.

Remember your mantra for this year:

Simple steps taken consistently create change.

Here’s the thing – most people give up when they try to overhaul their entire way of eating. They feel deprived or overwhelmed at taking on so much change all at once. Eating well is about making changes that you can stick with – forever.

How much difference can simple substitutions make?

A lot. Making a substitution that saves 100 calories can result in a 10 pound weight loss in one year – even if you change nothing else. If weight loss is not your goal, substitutions can also be healthier choices for your body, particularly your heart.

Here are some other substitutions to try:

• substitute egg whites for whole eggs
• substitute olive or canola oil for butter or partially hydrogenated fats
• substitute nonfat or low fat dairy for full fat dairy

Post a comment  & let us know what substitution you are trying.

PS – Remember you can always find all of the previous 10 in 2010 tips located in the 10 in 2010 category on the right hand side.

Congrats to Jeannette Cholach of Thorhild AB who is the January 10 in 2010 draw winner.

We’ll be sending Jeannette a journal to help her keep track of her 10 in 2010 journey.

Subscribe to the free 10 in 2010 challenge and your name will be entered into our monthly draw.

Remember….

Small steps taken consistently create change.

I know some of you have specific goals for 2010 that may or may not line up with the simple changes we’re going to implement through 10 in 2010.

No worries!

You can use the same “small steps taken consistently create change” philosophy with your personal goals too.

Here’s how:

Think about your goal.

Write it in one sentence.

Then make a list of some simple changes that you could make that will contribute to that goal.

Remember you don’t have to take it all on at once to ultimately be successful.

Pick one of those simple changes and make a commitment to it. When that change has become a consistent habit, go back to you list and add in something else.

If you need some ideas about simple changes you could implement for your personal goal, just ask!

Monthly draw!

And there are so many people joining the challenge I’ve decided to run a monthly draw. If you have subscribed for the 10 in 2010 Challenge, you name will automatically be entered into the draw. January’s winner will be announced next week.

Leave a comment and share:

What do you hope to change in 2010?

January is often a time when people reflect on the past year’s accomplishments and look ahead to what’s possible in the new year. People think about the bad habits they have and all the things they really should stop doing. You’ll hear them talking about giving up smoking or being a couch potato or not spending so much money or being disorganized. Depending on your personal goals, giving up any or all of these things could be a great use of your time, energy and focus.

While there are lots of things that you might choose to give up this year, there’s one thing you can let go of that will most definitely create positive changes in your life. It actually would impact on any of the goals that you set for yourself this year.

So what’s the one thing to give up this year?

Mediocrity.

We currently live in a culture that embraces mediocrity. That’s probably because many people are overcommitted, overscheduled and overwhelmed. When that happens, the idea of doing things that are “good enough” is awfully appealing. You slip into a pattern of settling for an “okay” existence because it feels like the path of least resistance. The problem with that approach is you end up cheating yourself out of the best life available to you.

Think about personal best

Instead of choosing mediocrity this year, think instead of your personal best. That’s something completely different from focusing on perfection which is a highly over-rated and unattainable goal. Striving for perfection often leaves you exhausted and unsatisfied. Imagine your daily personal best in fitness or nutrition or relationships or self care. If you set that as the standard for guiding your choices each day, now imagine what changes you would create by the end of the year.

Giving up mediocrity is more about giving your best effort on any given day. What does that mean? You make a conscious effort to give your focus and attention to the task at hand. You recognize that on some days you have more – or less – energy to give to a task. It also means that you stop overloading your plate with so many commitments you can’t possibly do any of them well. By focusing on your personal best you stop settling for so-so and will likely experience a greater degree of satisfaction.

When you think about what you want to give up this year, stop giving up on what’s possible and think seriously about giving up mediocrity.

Time Magazine has just released its issue of the 100 most influential people in the world.

They’re divided into various categories like leaders & revolutionaries, builders & titans, artists & entertainers, heroes & icons and scientists & thinkers. If you thumb through the pages some of the people will be familiar to you and some you may not recognize. Some you will identify with as influencers and some not so much.

That’s the thing about people who influence us. It’s a pretty subjective experience. Someone once shared with me that they were surprised that they weren’t a bigger influence on me than they were. Just because we think we can, or should influence another person, doesn’t mean they will feel that way. We can’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

Maybe the key to being an influencer is not worrying so much about who you are impacting but more about what impact you’re creating.

I think we’re often most influenced by people who speak to a deep longing we have. People who have trail blazed a path that calls to us. People who see us for who we are, and can be. They’re different for each of us.

These are the people that help you shift your thinking, believe in what’s possible, and in subtle and not so subtle ways create change.

So let’s high five those people you influence you.

Who’s on your most influential list?

Looking for some cool and best of all – FREE – resources?

Check out this list of free personal development ebooks compiled by Peter at thechangeblog.

As he says… ”many of these ebooks require you to subscribe to regular updates or a newsletter to receive the ebook (you can always unsubscribe, right?”

Take some time to browse. The tidbit of info you’ve been looking for might just be a click away.

Here’s an interesting headline:

Recession offers potential for more work-life balance.

That’s according to a researcher at the University of Iowa based on what happened during the Depression.

His theory is that as people’s hours are cut at work during the current economic down turn, they will have more time for leisure activities.

Well sure. That makes sense. But actually creating more work-life balance?

I’m not so sure.

It’s one thing to say that when people have more time they will use it for non-work related stuff. If you have six more hours available to you because your shifts have been cut, then of course you will likely spend them with your family or on your own fitness or volunteering in your community.

It’s a completely different thing to say that people will consciously choose more work-life balance.

Life balance comes from making conscious choices about how you spend your time.

It’s about knowing your priorities and then aligning your actions with them. It relies on the same principles whether the economy is turned up, down or inside out.

I’m sure if you could add an extra 2 hours to the day – stretch it to 26 hours – you’d think that there was more potential for work-life balance. But what would likely happen is you would go back to your unbalanced ways once you got used to the extra 2 hours. Unless of course you starting making decisions about how you spend your time based on your priorities.

That’s exactly what will happen as a result of the recession too.

People are considering all kinds of life changes – simplifying things, getting back to basics, enjoying  their leisure time. But they will return to old habits once the economy picks up unless there they make a concerted effort to do something different. During this recession people are reacting to the circumstances, rather than being proactive about creating the kind of life they want.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

You can take this opportunity and begin to create more life balance. You can be proactive. You can begin to do the things that will help you sustain this balance once the economy starts rockin’ and rollin’ again.

Tune in tomorrow for some tips to get you started.