Five Easy Steps to Change Your Life (warning: long!)

Since it’s New Year’s day, when many make resolutions, I felt inspired to share this. We all struggle with wanting to be a better person, change our lives, or be happier. Here are some ideas and thoughts in this area that I have collected and developed over the years. Some of this may not ‘fit’ with you-- please, take what you like and leave the rest. Some of this may seem very, very obvious, but it often helps to say the obvious and return back to it when we are struggling.

So without further ado:

STEP ONE: BODY BASICS

To me, you have to have a solid foundation in your life before you can really take off and run with the other things you want to do. In much the same way that rockets are fueled by giant tanks that give them the boost to get out of the atmosphere, your life is fueled by good basic habits that give you the support to do other things. So I begin with, first, the body basics, the things that are necessary for your body to be happy:

1) Take your vitamins every day. (And, of course, whatever regular medication you may be on, if any.)

2) Drink plenty of water. Four to six glasses a day.

3) Eat good, regular meals, and especially eat your fruits and veggies. We’re supposed to get four to six, but if that doesn’t work out, try for at least one at each meal.

4) Get some exercise. You don’t have to go out and become a triathlete, just make sure you’re getting a short walk in every day, or some active movement of some kind.

5) Get enough sleep. Go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Okay, so these things aren’t exactly rocket science, but they need to be said and they need to be done. I actually have a checklist where I make sure I’m doing this kind of seemingly trivial stuff, otherwise I skip three days on my vitamins before I know it!

STEP TWO: LIFE BASICS

These may be a little more controversial to some, but I firmly believe that there are mental and organizational habits that help you feel happier and be more productive, and that having some of these in your life, rather than just “winging it,” will ultimately be better in the long run. They are:

1) Clean and de-clutter your living environment. A house has energy, and too much clutter and mess contributes to the bad energy of a house, which in turn makes YOU feel bad when you live there. You don’t have to do it all at once. Just fifteen minutes a day working on getting rid of “stuff,” done every day, will work miracles. I actually use the Flylady.net system and although I find her irritating sometimes, it has done a lot for my house.

2) Develop some kind of organizational system for your life. This is sort of an extension of #1 above, but adding in your psychic space as well. Some people swear by “Getting Things Done.” There are a lot of blogs on this out there as well. Just a calendar, a list of To Do’s, whatever works for you.

3) Keep your finances on a sound footing. If you’re the kind of person (like me) who can’t stand this stuff, you absolutely have to get into the habit of periodically examining your money and making sure you’re not going to skip a bill or bounce a check. Don’t shove it under a rug: You have to face up to it.

4) Love your neighbors, friends, and family. In this world that’s so busy and fast, sometimes it’s easy to forget about the human connections which are so important. So remember to slow down and call mom, invite your neighbor over for cookies, or join some local club or group. Look for the good in people. Every person has something good in them – connect with that good, and honor it.

5) Love yourself and be grateful for your life. No matter who you are, there is something wonderful in you, and something shining in your life. We tend to concentrate only on what’s wrong in ourselves and in the world. If you want to be happy you must break this habit immediately. If you have to, practice feeling like this. Every day, find five things to be grateful for and write them down. Leave yourself little notes about things that are good about you. Fill yourself up with so much love that it’ll spill over into the world.

Now. You may be saying, GOSH, she’s still on step two and she’s telling me to do all of this stuff that I only WISH I could do, I’m stuck on one of these already in a big way! What’s coming up? :scared:

Or, you may be saying, that’s great, but what I really want is to do X, and you’re setting up all of this garbage that I have to do before I even start thinking about X.

Well, the problem is that you have to read these in order, because that’s how reading works, but you don’t necessarily have to DO them in order. Except Step 1. That really is the most important one. Otherwise, think of it as a patchwork quilt. It doesn’t much matter what order you do the patches in, but you’ll want them all eventually if it’s going to keep you warm. So, let’s continue:

STEP THREE: LET GO OF WHAT YOU DON’T NEED

Here’s a fact: If you have too much stuff in your house, you’re never going to be able to organize it. It’s like putting ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag: it just doesn’t work. As we go through our lives, we accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, but stuff doesn’t make us happy. If we don’t want to drown in an ocean of stuff, we have to learn to box that stuff up and take it to the Goodwill.

Ideas and negative events in our past are the same thing. We’ve got to let it go, and keep letting it go. Throughout your life, look for habits that hold you back, ideas that don’t work for you anymore, things that make you sad, things that make you unproductive. Don’t ruminate on them. Box them up and take them to the psychic Goodwill in the sky! Change happens, and unloading your baggage (physically and psychically!) is the only way to travel lightly. You have to free up some space for the stuff you really want around.

Today I’m going to write down on a piece of paper all the crap I want to leave behind in 2007 and burn it. Do this today – or anytime.

STEP FOUR: VISUALIZE WHAT YOU WANT TO BRING INTO YOUR LIFE, AND WORK ON IT.

Acknowledge that dream, that goal that makes your heart sing, the one that’s been whispering in your ear a long time. Write it down and look at it honestly. Is it something you really want to make real? Chew it over. If it feels like the right thing, then dream on it, put your energy into it, and make a plan for it. If the goal is big, or a long way away, it may seem impossible. Your steps may not seem clear. Or your goal may be abstract, and the shape it will take may not seem sure. Just keep thinking about it, keep dreaming on it, and keep taking the next step. As you walk your path, you may meet obstacles you have to climb over. But you will also meet unexpected helpers. Only you can know the right way to walk your path for you. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Every time in my life that I have accomplished major things, I have had a clear idea about what I wanted to do (graduate from school, go into the Peace Corps, ride a bicycle across Texas, buy a house) and the persistence (see Step 5) to chip away on it every day.

If your path is clear like that, embrace it. Today, for me, I am still thinking about the next step. Sometimes we come to places where we have to cast about a bit and wonder and let things just come together. So, today, I’m going to write down one word that symbolizes what I want to bring into my life for 2008. I’m going to write it on smooth white stone that I can carry in my pocket or put on my desk and concentrate on it, and bring that energy and clarity into my life to illuminate the next step. Do this too, today, or anytime!

STEP FIVE: PERSISTENCE AND DETERMINATION

“Fall down seven times, stand up eight.” -- Japanese proverb

“We can do anything we want as long as we stick to it long enough.” – Helen Keller

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all." -- Dale Carnegie

This is perhaps the most difficult thing to learn, or at least it has been for me. To continue when you want to quit. To pick yourself up after a failure and start over again. To face defeat but not let it get the better of you. But you have to apply it over and over again, and do it for every single thing on this list, everything that’s listed in numbers 1-4. Because there will be so many times something gets undone, or something gets messed up, or something gets lost, or something gets forgotten, or a detour gets made. The only way you can recover is just to say, “Oh well, now we know, let’s start again” and pick yourself up and start over again.

I have learned a lot of this in my garden. If you planted something that dies, plant something else. If you forget to cover something, and it froze, next time, cover it. If your spring garden fails, plant a fall garden. If your fall garden fails, order different seeds and start sprouting for the spring.

I always used to get so frustrated with myself. For example, when I would spend six months in a row exercising and getting really into a good habit and feel good about myself, and then I’d let something knock me out of my rhythm and before I knew it, six months had gone by and I hadn’t exercised and I just felt awful about myself. Now I was back at the beginning and I had to start over again! All of that effort wasted. I was starting in the same place. But gradually I began to realize that I had learned a lot from that earlier effort and I wasn’t in the same place. Some cultures think of time as a spiral. So in that new beginning, you’re not starting over, you haven’t been “set back” along a straight line, you’re continuing along in what looks like the same place, but is different, on a different loop of a spiral.

So you can say to yourself with love, “Yes, here I am again, in the garden of the soul, in the garden of the world. It’s time once more to sprout some seedlings and see what will grow.”

Namaste,
- C

p.s. I hate to post and run – but I have to go get some black eyed peas on the stove. I’ll be back in a bit. Happy New Year, ya’ll! :bounce:

sorry I didn't see this sooner. Was reading a novel this morning, luxuriating in not having to get up early to go to work.

and Happy New Year.

Something simple might still take determination to do. Running a marathon is simple, but it sure isn't easy.

That's also very good advice in that message. One foot in front the other. One step at a time.

But from my own experience, I can testify that some of this stuff is not easy.

Thanks! :hi:

It's the #5 where "hard" really comes in, because by heaven, it is always hard to start over again and to develop the persistence it takes to "fall down seven times, stand up eight."

But, once you realize and accept that that's what must be done, (and we're ALL doing it, ain't nobody got a free ride on THIS train) it does sort of get easier. The hard part is the struggle with your own mind that doesn't want to do the hard work (or to accept the suffering, the difficulty, etc.) and once you have conquered and accepted that, yeah, it's hard, it's supposed to be hard, so keep putting one foot in front of the other, then that's half the battle.

cheers! :toast:

whether they know it or not. If you visualize yourself as successful (however you define it) you will be.
I believe it.

.

The only difference is I call it "getting my house in order," and in that "house" are rooms called "physical," "emotional," "mental," "familial," "social," "professional," "environmental" - there are 10 of them in all. I've set a goal for each room, how to put it in order, and how to keep it in order. Hoaky, I know - I'm a serious dork - but my goals for 2008 - what amounts to a list of New Year's Resolutions, I guess you could say - looks very much like your list, just more detailed (I'm terribly anal retentive :P ).

Oh, and flylady.net - very cool! THANK YOU!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My new year's resolution is along the lines of your Step Two #1 (clean and de-clutter) and your Step Three (let go of stuff -- and I mean material stuff, although it's crazy thinking patterns and emotions that make it hard to get rid of). Major, major necessity in my life right now!

Happy New Year to you! :toast:

After my kidney surgery last year, my health spiraled, and I've been a mess. A friend talked about Flylady on her blog, and while I'm not doing everything she sends out (I get the digest version), my house is the best it's been since having kids. It's all about small increments, and that I can do.

Regarding your first suggestion, there was never a more critical time to get yourself in the best physical condition possible. Start where ever you are & don't get discouraged. With health care the way it is in this country the best thing you can do is take as much preventative action as possible.

BTW, I decluttered my entire house two years ago. It took about 6 months of dedication & it felt fantastic! Seven truckloads of stuff went to various thrift shops around town. We had so much room in our basement we were able to set up spacious exercise areas for both my husband & me. Stuff has started to accumulate again -- Mom died this year & I brought home more of her stuff than I should have, but I plan to start again with a new declutter project before it gets as bad as it was before. FlyLady is a great place to get advice on how to declutter. Beware signing up for their automatic emails though. They will clutter up your inbox like crazy! ;)

Hope you are well & have a wonderful new year!

rather than "cursing the darkness" is hard to do but if you can manage it - it will change your whole life.

Its easy to be thankful for the good things but its the bad ones that are difficult - they are an opportunity to offer up your suffering/pain for a worthwhile cause.

:loveya: Long time no see! How's it going? :)

Please put this in your journal so idiots like me can find it again. :)

Happy New Year!! :toast:

dg

Happy New Year! :toast:

I certainly will put it in my journal. Good idea!

See you at State, yes? :hi:

Maybe National too! :woohoo:

dg

Thanks for the reminders! :hug: Many of these are things that I've been working on making progress on over the last year or two, and am wanting to make even more progress in the coming year(s). Thank you for laying it all out for me again!

thank you and happy new year!

:kick:
Great stuff here!

:kick:R

you think we're all posting from kindergarten here?

sorry to pee in your wheaties but come on, it would be nice if DUers respected the intelligence of other DUers once in awhile and just tried assuming, once in awhile, that we actually do have half a brain

this kind of post would be okay on the mixed boards where you could actually assume a "moran" who had no clue that you're supposed to drink water and eat food

happy new year anyways!

:kick:

perhaps folks like hearing what they should know?:shrug:

I'm bookmarking it. I really need to work on the part of liking myself. For 34 years I have hated myself and never forgiven myself for anything I've done or said, no matter how small. It's like carrying around an elephant on my back and I can't do it anymore. Have any suggestions on where to find help/ideas for that?

BIG HUG :hug:

Changing thoughts is the hardest thing to do. Perhaps you should look into meditation. It really does teach you that you can control your thoughts. Most people don't realize that you can do that, but you can. Once you understand that you can control your thoughts, you pay attention to what you are thinking about yourself at all times and when you catch yourself thinking something negative about yourself, stop and replace the thought with something positive about yourself. Changing your thoughts is like water wearing away on a stone. Drip drip drip -- little changes in habit wear new grooves slowly, over time, and change is not immediately apparent. But it will come gradually and you can feel the difference over time, most definitely.

Here is a good non-sectarian book on meditation that might be of interest:
http://www.amazon.com/Minding-Body-Mending-Bantam-Books/dp/0553345567/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199290371&sr=1-14

Also, many of us, for what-ever reason, think of others in more positive ways than we think of ourselves. We are often harder on ourselves than we are on other people. So when you catch yourself thinking something negative about something you have done, or judging yourself, stop and wonder, "Would I think that about X if he/she did that?" Substitute someone else who you love for X. Most likely you will find you treat others more tenderly than you do yourself. But you are a wonderful wonderful person who deserves just as much (if not more!) tenderness than you give to others!

I think this is your #1 goal to work on in Step 3!

It sounds like your burden is very heavy. Perhaps you should look into professional help, a doctor or psychotherapist, or a spiritual path, or both. In your tender state, though, please be VERY CAREFUL about putting your absolute trust into someone. Go slowly and trust your instincts and your common sense. Don't trust anyone who promises you quick fixes. This work is slow. And don't trust a spiritual path that asks an unreasonable amount of money from you, or unreasonable time commitments. Finding a spiritual home (and a doctor!) should be approached in the same way as buying a car: you should read up on it, take it for a test drive, and make sure to read all the fine print, even if you may feel very drawn to something.

May I recommend a book for you? This work-book is wonderful for those of us who are trying to get into the habit of love and joy:

http://www.amazon.com/Pronoia-Antidote-Paranoia-Conspiring-Blessings/dp/1583941231/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199290054&sr=8-1

((( HUG ))) Love and light to you! Never doubt that you are a Buddha and will surely attain enlightenment!

:toast:

K & R

more like 8 glasses a day, maybe more depending on conditions.

specifically for NOT saying to drink eight glasses of water a day!!! I noticed that "4-6 glasses of water a day" right away and really appreciated it. I thought to myself, "Now I might actually be able to do that." I've never been able to make any sense out of that "eight glasses of water a day" advice. Is that supposed to be in addition to all the coffee I drink or what? If I made a point of drinking FOUR glasses of water a day I might actually accomplish it. But if I think I have to drink EIGHT glasses of water a day in addition to the coffee, I won't even drink four of them--or ONE, for that matter.

What I really like about this post is that it's so down-to-earth and realistic. It seems to be written for real people who aren't all that perfect. I happened to focus on the water thing because (big surprise!) I tend to substitute coffee for water. Someone else who doesn't care much for fruits and veggies might appreciate the advice about one per meal instead of five per day.

is one of those things that has been passed around but is not entirely true:

http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

and, yes, :hug: the whole point is just "do your best" ... it's so easy to feel overwhelmed by the idea that you have to do everything perfectly right away, when in fact, all you have to do is try to get a little bit better and keep doing that little bit better consistently over time. :loveya:

Nominated.

to my kid.
We just got through saying all of this and you did it so much better and in a more concise way.
Thank you. K & R
A great way to start my New Year.

:D

. . . Take good care of your teeth. Most elderly people I've talked with said that if they knew that they were going to live that long they would have taken better care of them when they still had them.

From one of the finest people here. Happy New Year to you and yours!

It's supposed to bring good luck for the coming year. Hope it works for everyone!

... then re-read it today.

These are wonderful, simple (which is a good thing) and inspirational thoughts.

I am not given to making 'New Year's resolutions" ... but I am intent on being the best ME I can be. Your post caused me to think about and reassess whether I am on the right path (as defined by me) ... I am very grateful that you took the time to write this.

I will re-read again and again!

Thank you!

:hug:

:puke::boring::party:

GET LUCKY !!!!!

Thanks, I needed that ! :thumbsup:

I've let too may parts of my life get beyond my control. Financial, love, mental, physical. I've already setup arrangement for some money issues and most will be settled by the end of this year. I've let my heart wait for someone who has kept me waiting. Well, no more. This train is leaving the station so she better get ready to climb aboard. ;-) ... Physically, I'm already into a size smaller jeans. Only one more size to go! Eating better really does help!

Miss you. :-(

Thanks for the wise words, as usual! :D

Happy New Year! :bounce: :hug:

You have posted a lot of good advice I plan to use.
Two of your tips I have already benefited from...

Exercise: You don't need long sweaty workouts at the gym to stay in shape. Just do something... anything... at home. A really short workout every other day got me started.

Unconditional Self Acceptance (and acceptance of others): You can evaluate and improve undesirable behavior without beating yourself up. You can also stop letting the behavior of others bother you so much.

Thank you so much for posting these, Cripini. This is one that I am going to have to bookmark. Have a great New Year.

:bounce:

DemEx