Today is day 17 of the 30 day challenge.

Today’s tip:

A visual reminder is powerful tool to help you hold your focus and remind you of your meaningful motive. When you post it where you will see it often, it acts like a habit buddy who continually keeps you on track.

As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Images tend to stay in your mind. A visual reminder could be a photo or a race entry or a dog leash. Choose something that speaks to you and captures the essence of what you’re doing and/or why you’re doing it.

Next place your visual reminder in a prominent place - on your fridge, your bathroom mirror, on the back door, on your car dashboard or your desk.

Feel free to use more than one. If you have posted your “track your progress calendar”, it acts like a visual visual reminder. And it’s okay to change the image or item as you build your habit.

Tune in tomorrow to learn about responsibility.

What image best captures your new habit?

Today is day 16 of the 30 day challenge.

Positive reinforcement goes a long way in keeping your focus.

The temptation though is to hold off on celebrating until you think you are “done.”

Reward yourself now for your accomplishments to this point. You don’t have to wait until day 31 to celebrate.

Treat yourself.

Compliment yourself out loud.

What would  you do at this point to celebrate a friend’s success? Go ahead and do that for yourself.

When you take the time to acknowledge your ongoing success, you contribute to your overall self esteem. You see yourself as someone who is capable of taking on a challenge and sticking with your commitment.

High fives to all of you

Tune in tomorrow for a tip about visual reminders.

How are you celebrating?

Today is day 4 of the 30 day challenge.

Out of sight out of mind.

We write things down that we want to remember.  Whether its your grocery list or an important phone number or appointments on a calendar, we write things down so we won’t forget. With your new habit, it’s not so much that you might forget about it. It’s more that you might become distracted from it.

Making a written commitment, rather than just keeping it in your mind, is a great strategy to both hold your focus and make a written declaration of your priority. Partnered with your meaningful motive, your have a strong anchor to help keep you on track.

At the bottom of your calendar there is a space for writing your new habit. Look at what you have written there. Is it a strong statement of your commitment? If not, write it again using more powerful language such as “I am commited to ….”  Then add your meaningful motive.

Think of your written commitment as your contract with yourself. You are probably very good at honouring your commitments to others. Take the next 26 days and honour your commitment to you.

Tune in tomorrow to find out why timing is everything.

How’s your challenge going?

The 30 day challenge begins tomorrow!

Remember the question I asked yesterday?

What one habit, if you added it consistently into your life, would make a difference in your happiness or health?

That’s the first key step in the 30 day challenge.

Choose ONE habit - not several - to focus your enegy on during the next month. The more new things you try to introduce at the same time, the less effective you will likely be.

Choose something simple that you can do on a daily basis.

If you are trying to create a new habit and you only do something 2  or 3 times a week, its easier to lose momentum. Let’s say you want to create a habit of going to the gym 3 times a week. For the next month, focus on 20 minutes (or whatever is appropriate for you) of physical activity each day - which could include some trips to the gym.

Pick something specific, rather than something vague - eat 3 servings of veggies rather than eat better or 10 minutes of meditation rather than relax more.

Don’t forget to print your 30 day challenge calendar here.  More about tracking your success tomorrow.

My challenge?

Let me introduce you to a dear friend of mine. 

This is Cal, our 11 year old border collie. Used to be that he and I would regularly go for walks. Over the past little while, I’ve let my commitment to him slide. Not for any particularly good reason - just the usual excuses about being busy with other less important “commitments”.  He has an awfully sweet disposition and like most dogs a very forgiving nature. He loves me anyway. So my 30 day challenge is to get back to daily walks with Cal.  

What’s your 30 day challenge habit?

Post a comment and let us know.

Once every four years the Olympic games capture our attention. Whether you are a sports fan or not, there’s something about dramatic competition, Cinderella stories and the pursuit of excellence that makes us stop and tune in to events of all kinds.Maybe it’s our appreciation of the dedication and focus required by these athletes to compete on the world stage. Maybe it’s those moments of watching the seemingly impossible unfold. Maybe it’s the knowledge that these individuals are fully engaged in being the best they can be.

citius altius fortius

The Olympic motto citius altius fortius - higher faster stronger - sets the standard for participating in the games and serves as a benchmark for performance.

What if you were in training for a gold medal life?

How would your life change if you played full out?

Imagine what would be possible if chose your best performance every day.

Here’s some ways you can apply these Olympic standards to your life:

Set the bar higher

Mediocrity is a cultural comfort zone. Most people are content in doing just enough to get by. They lose sight of what is really important and make choices based on the path of least resistance. Life gets really busy and “just ok” seems good enough.

It’s easy to not require too much of yourself. In the end you get the life you settle for. If you’re not leading your best life, it’s time to raise the bar for yourself. If you’ve been content with average, reach for above average. If life is good, go for great.

Where do you need to require more of yourself?

In what ways do you let important things slide?

Get to your goals faster

Do you find yourself saying, “I’ll get to that someday”?   Procrastination will never get you to the finish line. We’ve all got our favorite excuses about why we can’t tackle a project, fulfill a dream or take things to the next level.

The clock is going to run out on your life. You just don’t happen to know when that might be.  Making the most of your time is golden. Once today is done you can’t get it back so make choices that leave you feeling satisfied at the end of it.

What have you been putting off for way too long?

How do you let excuses get in the way of your success?

Be stronger in facing your fears

Fear is probably the number one reason why people don’t go after the things they want: fear of failure - or success, fear of what other people will think, fear of stepping out of their comfort zones.

At the end of your life you’ll likely regret the things that you choose not to do out of fear rather than most of the things you did end up doing. Once you decide, fear is not such a formidable opponent.

Where do you let fear become an obstacle to your success?

If fear wasn’t a factor, what would you take on?

The Olympics only happen once every four years. In life, the games are always on. You get to decide how you want to participate. Your gold medal life is waiting for you. Simply summon up your inner athlete and go get it.

What Olympic principles do you play by?

Ask Laurel…

I hear all the time “don’t sweat the small stuff.” How can I begin to do that?

We all get distracted by little annoyances, wanting to get it right or our particular pet peeves. When we let them become the focus of our days, we tend to feel irritated and overwhelmed.  The key to not sweating the small stuff is being clear about the big stuff. What matters most to you? In the big scheme of things, are mismatched socks, Cheerios for dinner or how the dishwasher is loaded really all that important?

When you are feeling overwhelmed or annoyed, one simple technique to try is to stop and ask yourself, “Will this really matter one year from today?” If the answer is no, then take a deep breath and let it go.  If the answer is yes, then take a deep breath and re-focus with that in mind.

Another way to sweat less of the small stuff is to have less of it on your plate. Get back to basics. Are you someone who tends to say yes to too many commitments? Do you have difficulty saying no because you feel guilty or selfish? Learning some simple tricks to setting boundaries can go a long way in having less small stuff to deal with.

Here’s the most important reason to let the little things go.

Richard Carlson, the author of the “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” series of books, died unexpectedly at the age of 45. You can be sure he was very glad that his short life was not cluttered up by small stuff.

What life coaching question would you like to ask Laurel?

Minus 35 Celsius with a wind-chill.  Yikes!

 Here in beautiful Alberta, Canada we are experiencing one of the nastiest cold snaps in years.  And what seems to come along with the frigid air is people’s tendency to get down right cranky.  Most people are crabby, complaining and frustrated as if somehow the weather forecast was a personal attack.  The only thing that makes this kind of cold seem worse is people whining about it.

Last night, in spite of the bitterly cold weather, a large group of people gathered at the University of Alberta to hear Dr. Paul Farmer speak about community based global health care.  This talk was part of International Week - a series of events focusing on global citizenship.

Message of hope 

Dr. Farmer is one of the founding members of Partners in Health, an organization that partners with poor communities to combat disease and poverty.  Check out the really cool resource he used to illustrate some of the inequity that exists in the world.  He also shared the dramatic impact that people can have when they tackle global issues from a perspective of collaboration and possibility.  His message was one of hope even in the face of some of the most depressing situations. 

During his talk no one was thinking about wind-chill or car batteries.  No one was muttering about shoveling snow or frostbite.  Everyone was considering what their contribution might be locally or globally to address issues that belong to all of us no matter where we live.  Everyone was experiencing a global warming of the heart.

Out of your control 

When you become focused on things that are out of your control - things like the weather - you can easily become stuck.  Shifting your perspective to something that is more positive, more proactive, more empowering is a great way to come in out of the cold.

What are you focusing on?

Yes it’s that time of the year. 

I asked some of my favourite people what their resolutions were for 2008 and here’s what they had to say:

Michele McDougall, CityTV BT host & all round fab chick

As a rule, I do not make resolutions.  I think it’s because I can foresee the guilt that I will be feeling when I don’t follow them.  But I want to have something to be proud of at the end of 2008.  I don’t have a goal to lose pounds,..but I do want to eat better than I did in 2007.  For some reason, I would put off a nutritional lunch because I don’t want to take 10 minutes to dollop cottage cheese on a plate and re-heat noodles.  Oh NO! -The hardship of it all!!!  It was s-o-o much easier to slide a toonie in our chip machine.  But no more!!! 

David Darst, coach extraordinaire

Less resolution with more evolution.

Sue Kenney, modern day pilgrim and author of My Camino

My resolution for 2008 is to be accountable to being creative in my life. I will manifest my intentions as a contribution to the happiness of the universe and I will continue to live the virtues of being a simple pilgrim everyday.

Marc & Craig Kielburger, visionaries and authors of From Me to We

Our resolution is to continue to have shameless idealism. We are a society which does not celebrate idealism and we even tend to downplay the idealistic thoughts to of children, telling them what is “reasonable” or “realistic”. It has always been idealism which has changed the world. We hope 2008 will be the year of the shameless idealist.

What is your focus for 2008?