5 Crucial Questions That Can Change Your LifeWritten by Kathy Gates
Ever feel like you're stuck in a mud hole on Road to Happiness? Ask yourself these crucial questions and see where you can shore up your spinning tires. 1. Time: How do you spend your time? Is it wasted time, or refreshing time? Does it take your toward your goals, or away from them? Are you consciously spending time, or just letting it happen? It's an age- old proverb, but every single person get same number of hours each day, week, month, year. Write down how you currently spend your days, your week. Include sleep time, grooming time, wasted time, relaxing time, work time, etc. Be as specific as you can. You'll quickly see if you're spending your time where you WANT to spend it or not. 2. Environment: What is no longer working for you in your space, your immediate environment? Are there broken appliances or outdated equipment? Are there unfinished projects that were important at one time, but no longer intrigue you? When you look around, does your environment make you feel good? Make you smile? Research shows that your environment has a big impact on way you feel. Color and lighting can improve your mood. Changing direction your desk faces can give you a different perspective. You don't have to spend a fortune to make some small yet dramatic changes. Add color to your walls with some paintings. A fresh coat of paint can give you a fresh beginning. Add humor by using things that make you smile. Throw out clutter and focus on finding organizing solutions. 3. Relationships: Do people in your life support you and your goals? Are you proud to introduce them to others? Do you learn from them? "Nothing worth doing is worth doing alone" is a quote from Thomas Leonard in his book "The Portable Coach". As you've probably noticed, you don't live in a vacuum - whatever you do affects other people, and what they do affects you. While you CANNOT change other people, you can set up your life so that people closest to you provide support and encouragement. Create reciprocal, healthy relationships, such as working with other people who want same changes that you do, or who you can support in their own activities.
| | One Small AdjustmentWritten by Kathy Gates
I know that a lot of advice pundits often instruct you to focus on "big picture". And it certainly has it place in helping you move toward a better life. But it runs risk of letting you think that you need to totally redesign your life. And that's just not true! Often it only takes one small adjustment to make things so much easier, better, and happier in your life. Try instead to focus on details, and big picture will take care of itself. For example, I have a water hose that I use to water my garden. This particular one happens to be at far end of my concrete patio, where it hangs on a hanger mounted to wall of house. The problem is that where hose and concrete meet becomes a nesting ground for every blown leaf, stick, or piece of trash in my yard. After using hose one day, I decided to make one small adjustment - I wound hose back up so that bottom of it was about 2 inches off ground. Just one small adjustment took away completely one large headache. And that certainly helps me live a happier, easier, better life. Life's made up of small things - small frustrations - - like that. One small adjustment can take care of one seemingly large problem. Sometimes a small adjustment with a big pay off comes from making a small change what you require of yourself. For example, you might decide that you will make a small adjustment by requiring yourself to make sure kitchen is clean before you go to bed at night. Or you might decide that you will no longer purchase anything that you can't pay cash for. Perhaps you will decide to stop laying junk mail on kitchen table, and instead will go through it instantly. These are all small adjustments in what you require of yourself, yet, like my water hose problem, they can eliminate those big drains on your energy. Sometimes a small adjustment comes in form of simply asking for what you need, instead of accepting things "as they are". Years ago when I worked "for others", I had an office chair that had been used for years. It had lost its padding, its construction was outdated, and it had even become hard to roll around. When I realized that I spent an enormous amount of my daily precious energy fighting that chair, I simply went to my boss and told him that I was uncomfortable and I need a new chair. "Of course", he said, and I had a new chair within a week
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