Don't give up!

     Are you the type of person who allows failure and rejection to shape your attitude and cause you to then give up or limit your goals accordingly? If so, join the club! Most of us struggle with moving ahead after facing disappointment or failure to reach a goal.  Remember this though, you cannot get ahead with any goals you set – whether they are personal and health related or career and professional related without taking an element of risk.  What is the difference then between those who fail and give up and those who are successful?  First and foremost, accept that failure is sometimes inevitable; have faith in yourself that you can achieve your goal and if you fail view the failure as another stepping stone to your success! 

     Think about your own life experiences and take some time to contemplate and reflect on your vulnerability to rejection and failure.  Make a list of the times you failed in achieving a personal goal.  Make another list of the times you failed in achieving a professional goal.  And make a final list of times you faced rejection. Are there common themes?  Do you know why you failed? Did you reflect on the experience and learn from it or did you turn away from your goal out of fear of more rejection?  Use your reflections to build a foundation for your next steps to reach your goal.  Know that getting ahead, reaching a goal and experiencing success can be fraught with failure and rejection and in spite of the difficulty, believe in yourself, your purpose, your goals and your eventual success in reaching them. As Gail Sheehy remarked: “To be tested is good. The challenged life may be the best therapist!” 

Tips for Making a Change for the Better!

If you are contemplating making a change for the better, perhaps losing weight, improving your eating habits, getting help for anxiety or depression, or resolving issues in a relationship, you are at a stage of awareness.   But what you need to really move forward and begin doing rather than thinking about change is a level of emotional arousal and emotional energy. Use emotional energy to garner the momentum you need to make the change.  We know from research that knowing facts about a problem or dilemma is not enough to create behavior change. So stir things up a bit.  Here are some suggestions:

Create your own promotional materials.  Film yourself YouTube style and monitor your progress with a succession of videos.  Or paint or draw or create posters that are unique to your goals, post them at home and work and ramp up your emotional energy.

Start a group or join a group. There is a reason why joining and participating with a group of people with similar goals is a successful endeavor for many.  Participation can be emotionally energizing via the support you get from others in the group.

Use meditation, visualization and imagination. Take time out each day be in the moment, to reflect, visualize your goal and imagine how you will feel.   The emotional release you may experience may help you to move forward with the needed momentum so that you will be successful in reaching your goal.

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Making Changes for the Better: 5 Tips!

When you consider your health in the New Year, what changes do you want to make for the better?  Below are five broad areas for you to consider. When wanting to set goals and make changes, most people spend a great deal of psychological and emotional energy at the pre-contemplation and contemplation stage. They know they want to move ahead, but they struggle with identifying and creating a plan.  The first step in overcoming this barrier is to IDENTIFY what it is you want to change.  For many, a great place to start is with the Number One area listed below. You can then find success in achieving goals summarized in the items Two through Five. Even though it might sound simplistic, once you move ahead and begin with discovery and identification of your current status, you have accomplished a big step in becoming healthier and happier in 2011.

1. Obtain Baselines and learn about my health status.
This involves moving past denial and includes learning all you can about your physical health. It involves a visit to your primary care or other physician to establish medical measures and baselines on your health status and includes weight, BMI, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and other tests determined by your physician.  This should also include identifying your family risk factors, identifying your social support needs, identifying your psychological challenges, identifying the stressors in your life and your coping challenges and style.

2. Achieve Improved Medical Measures and Outcomes. 
Once you know your health status and baselines, including BMI, weight, cholesterol, blood pressure readings, etc., you can now move toward establishing goals for improvement where needed.  This may include lowering your cholesterol, lowering your blood pressure, reducing your risk of stroke or cardiac illness, reducing familial risk factors.

3. Improve Levels of Exercise and Fitness
If you are like most people, your intention is to make exercise and fitness a priority, but the busyness of your life gets in the way.  Identify your exercise routines and activities, including how many days, minutes and type of exercise you are currently completing.   Keep an exercise and activity diary for 2-4 weeks. One you have a numerical count of what you actually do during the week, you can then decide on areas of improvement. This might include any or one of the following:  getting more exercise, getting regular exercise, doing aerobic activities, joining a yoga class, achieving a good fitness level,  increasing strength, increasing endurance, increasing flexibility, increasing energy levels.

4. Make Better Eating and Nutrition Choices
This might include eating smaller portions, eating out less frequently, eating less fast food, learning more about nutrition, eating more freshly prepared foods and meals. This also includes beginning with establishing your current eating lifestyle. Keep a food diary and include what you eat, when you eat, where you eat. Include when you feel hungry and what you are doing.   Once you have done this discovery process, you will be able to establish clearer and more doable goals in this area.

5. Improve Your Quality of Life
This might include learning new cognitive and behavioral strategies for coping with stress, taking small and healthy risks, reaching out to others, practicing authenticity, and using meditation and prayer to release your worries and achieve a sense of well-being.

Where do you want to go?

Have you ever taken time out to really consider why you want to lose weight or get healthier overall, or let go of a substance abuse problem or even change your attitude?   You may experience ongoing demands and stress at work, stress at home, relationship struggles, illness, or financial crisis and rarely or never take time out to contemplate and really pay attention to who you are,what you are experiencing and why you have certain goals, hopes and dreams.  Practicing mindfulness is one way to accomplish a greater sense of self and others and gain a deeper understanding of what really matters to you.  What is mindfulness?  It is an awareness of the here and now, the real-time experiences in your day to day life. It is acceptance and fully attending to whatever happens in your daily life.  It is living each moment and each event as fully as possible, embracing the hope and the despair, the joy and the discouragement, the risks and the fear and as fully as possible.  This is counter to the manner is which most of us have learned to experience our lives.  We live in a society where almost everywhere we look,  the focus is on how to be more, accomplish more, be more successful, be more beautiful, and then be viewed by more as worthy. We cannot easily escape media's over-emphasis of the perceived and highly regarded rewards that accompany looking your best, losing weight, having cosmetic surgery, or undergoing that much "needed" makeover.  Consider this though. The real makeover needs to start from the inside.  Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of the book entitled “Coming to our Senses” reminds us of this: “There is no time other than now.  We are not, contrary to what we may think, “going” anywhere. Even though we may imagine some other future moment as more fulfilling, more pleasant, more rewarding, we can’t really know this."  Instead of living in a dream reality, wake up! Today is your reality.  Embrace who and what you are.  Does this mean you can't hope, dream, want, wish, work toward, strive, commit? Of course not.  You can do all of these things but remain mindful of the fullness and beauty and richness of your current experience.  How to accomplish this?  Practice mindfulness. Practice being in the moment. Practice letting go and accepting and moving on and letting go again and moving on again. Practice mindfulness and remaining in the here and now and experience a more peaceful and less turbulent journey as you pursue your dreams and goals.