Self Improvement Information

Are you one of those who can still be described as a spa virgin? Well, there is no, harm if you are one. There are many women and men out there who are yet to become a spa pro. One of the first things that you should remember if you wish to become a spa pro is that you need to learn certain spa etiquettes. And you thought spa is all about chilling out?

Never arrive late:

This is, of course, the cardinal rule. You have got to be in time for your session. When you arrive late, you are actually lessening your spa time and you wouldn’t want that. As a matter of fact, experts say that you should arrive at least half-an-hour before your session. That way, you will have ample time to keep your things, change and relax.

Get into the sauna or hot shower:

Well, if you arrive early (and not just in time), you could straightaway head for the steam or sauna bath or head for a hot shower. This will relax your muscles and will help to make the massage session a more enjoyable experience.

Switch off your cell phone:

You visit a spa to relax and de-stress. What is the point of keeping your phone on and allowing the entire world to reach you? Spa time is your time. Do not spoil the experience by keeping your mobile on. Moreover, you could also be disturbing others.

Refrain from talking:

Take a silent oath before entering a spa. Do not gossip, do not bitch, do share the latest news with your therapist. Talking might just entertain you, but it will definitely not allow you to relax and de-stress. The idea of visiting a spa is to keep all tensions outside and rejuvenate yourself to face the worldly worries. When you talk, you are still attached to the world.

Are you comfortable being nude?

If you aren’t, have a talk with the spa authorities and find out whether or not you can wear your undergarments. Usually, you will be covered with a sheet, but if your aren’t comfortable, there is no harm in voicing your opinion. Of course, there are certain massage like Thai or reflexology where you can stay fullyclothed.

Discuss with your therapist:

Before embarking on a programme, sit down with your therapist and discuss it. Do not make a hue and cry afterwards.

Listen to your therapist:

He or she knows best. For example, if he or she tells you that you can take sometime before getting up, take just a few minutes. Do not fall asleep.

Want adjustment, speak softly:

If you’re uncomfortable with anything during your treatment - the pressure, the music, the temperature - tell the therapist. He or she will definitely make an adjustment. Of course, it would be in your interest not to scream and shout. Simply raise your head and speak softly.

Do not discuss other spas:

You might be a member of various other spas or have friends who visit different spas. However, it is prudent not to discuss about them while you are visiting the other. It is not exactly a good idea to project your present spa in bad light. If you do not like it, simply do not visit again.

To get more information about massage spa, massage school, massage therapy and all other massage related topics… please visit

If you are someone who follows my article posts, you may have noticed that I haven’t written so many lately…Why? Okay, excuse time! It’s summertime, I love the sun, being outdoors, and being active, and this has been one of our very few heat-wave type summers! No, that doesn’t mean I have lost my motivation to be successful at my online business, but let’s face it, we all go through ups and downs, productive times and unproductive times – and this maybe isn’t my most productive time of year. Maybe it’s a good thing I live in Canada where there are four seasons and not just one hot, sun-sizzling summer year round! Yes, I am truly blessed to be where I am. As much as I love the outdoors and enjoying the beauty and solitude of the Rocky Mountains, I also have a pretty strong work ethic that makes me want to be the best I can be at the online business that I have started. At times like these it is tough to stay motivated, but that’s precisely when you have to take charge of your self and the direction you are headed.

A lot of motivation has to do with your attitude about yourself, your life, and your direction. You know what I’m going to say…If it’s the pits, then so is your level of motivation. Attitude is not only about the state of mind you are in – it’s also about taking action. You not only have to think what it takes, you have to do what it takes to get your desired results. What some people don’t realize is that a lot of what it takes to have a positive attitude is all about self-maintenance. Taking care of your physical, spiritual, emotional, mental, and intellectual self is the key to maintaining a healthy attitude that leads to success. Simply having an awareness of what motivates, challenges, and inspires you can give you the energy and passion you need to do what it takes.

I know it’s not easy to always stay positive. Truth be known, I have always been very strong, but never the perfect model of positive thinking. I am working on it though, and the more I learn about success, internet marketing, and personal development, the more I feel changes taking place within me that feel good and that I know are steps in the right direction. It’s important to engage yourself in continuous, life-long learning in any area that interests you. But when you make an investment in yourself and your success, then you are doing yourself a huge favor.

You never really become a true master of yourself as things change, people change, and circumstances change. That’s why learning is a life-long process. Once it stops, you stop growing, and when you stop growing, you are stuck with negativity, which always finds a way of sneaking in and taking hold of you. So keep your learning in check, and keep yourself in check. When you have mastered this concept, then you can take things a step further by realizing the importance of giving something to others, or making a contribution. When you do things for other people, you have found a cause greater than yourself, and this can only make you better.

Be sure to know why you are doing what you are doing. It may be tedious to write down what you want out of life, but when you have it in writing, you can read it over and over again when times get tough, as a reminder of what you’re shooting for. Our minds can be nasty sometimes – flooding us with negative thoughts that can completely take over. We need constant reminders, just like a refresher course they offer in schools. Even though we already know the concepts and know what it takes, how we have to think, and what to do, there are just too many outside influences that affect our thinking, and our attitudes. Writing what we want down on paper, and keeping it in front of us where we can read it often will help us stay focused, motivated and successful. This article is my partial written word of inspiration to keep me learning and motivated. I hope it helps you too!

Liane Bate owns a Plugin Profit Site web business, is a member of Success University, and the IAHBE.
Visit:

Do you already know the average college graduate changes careers five-times
during his/her working life? Not jobs, careers, meaning different industries re-
quiring additional core knowledge each time.

Graduates have told us merely hearing or reading this fact chills their bones.
It is normal to deny, avoid and blame in the face of personal anxiety and threat to your status-quo. We would kill to protect our comfort-zone (status-quo and homeostasis).

We see external change as a threat to our very existence, survival, and life. You are hardwired evolutionarily (genetically) to fear change. Believe or Google it. Perhaps
Fight-or-Flight is critical element of self-protection from change.

After the usual denial, fussing and fuming at the fickle-finger of fate, is your successful behavior focusing on how to cope with the coming changes?

Dr. Virginia Satir (B. 1916 - D. 1988)

She developed the field of family therapy as her specialty and created the five stages of coping with change. Her change-model is equally valuable to organizations and to
you and me.

It is not another boring program to read and forget because it gives you tools to win the game of change that is bound to occur in your working career.

But first

Lock-in this triple sequence: mental-imagery creates your mood; your mood produces your feelings; and your feelings trigger your behaviors.

What creates your mental-movies?

Your brain communicates in pictures and remembers by association (linking) the
new with your old long-term memories.

Your environment and specific experiences, together with your beliefs and expectations, are the directors of your mental visualizations. If you are relaxed
and thinking macro and micro pleasurable-thoughts, you create a short film reinforcing a happy mood and attitude.

Think (left-brained) thoughts of death and destruction, (crash-and-burn) of your
career, relationships or health, and your right-brain switches to a horror film in technicolor of a monster cutting up your body-parts.

You are programmed with just two hardwired imperatives, other than survival and
self-preservation: the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain.

Pleasure and pain are distributed by your right-brain through your mental switchboard, the corpus callosum. Pictures are produced in your Occipital lobe and Precuneus (episodic memory) of your brain. Once your mental movie plays, emotions follow, and your behaviors (decisions) are influenced and persuaded by your feelings (emotions).

Coping With Change

The verb coping, is often defined as struggling, wrestling or contending with people, things or circumstances. It is that, but producing a degree of success. Coping requires an attitude of calm and adequacy leading to your personal success.
Oh yeah, I just found out Nike is from Greek meaning Victory.

Dr. Satir and her Model For Change

1. Late Status Quo: You are in your comfort-zone (homeostasis);
things and people are familiar and consistent. Order prevails. You
own a sense of belonging to the group and have a persona identity.

2. The Foreign Element enters: there is a threat to your familiar
power structures. Normal hierarchy and rituals are in danger.
Resistance awakens and you struggle with change by blaming,
denying and avoiding the reality.

3. Chaos, the unknown. Your experiences are attacked;
relationships are in danger. Your sense of belonging is tottering,
your identity is crumbling. You feel vulnerable, anxious and stressed. Your programming reverts to evolutionary personal survival. These threats have pierced your intelligence and well-being.

4. Integration: your coping pays off. Your mental-visualizations
change with practice in your new strategies, to clear benefits from the changes. Performance improves, as does mood, attitude and
expectations.

Your self-worth returns strengthened. You offer feed-back to the powers that be to improve the process of change.

5. New Status Quo: Now You are thinking with feelings of
accomplishment, not fear and anxiety. You act with an expectation of success. You feel calm and breathe deeply; you sit erect and think clearly.

Your body language is powerful; you take up space.
You feel safe, look folks in the eye and smile a lot of the time.

Quotations

Dr. Satir said:

1. We must not allow the perceptions of other people, to define us.
It is a choice between internally and externally driven.

2. We can learn something new anytime we believe (decide) we

can. Check your attitude and expectations.

3. Change when the situation calls for it, and find ways to
accommodate to what is new and different, keeping that part of the old that is still useful and discarding what is not.

4. Problems are not the problem. Coping is the problem.

Endwords

Familiarity is 90% of decision-making. When we experience a sense of familiarity
with a product, service or person, we expand our comfort-zone to include what is
now familiar. Sure, fear-of-loss, is greater than desire-for-gain, but familiarity
overcomes your limited comfort-zone.

Be aware it is your job to create familiarity in all your social and career experiences.

We suggest having a unique competitive advantage places you in the fast-lane for
career advancement. If you can read-and-remember three-books, articles and reports in the time your competitors can hardly finish one, you go to the head of the
line. Be prepared for the certainty of major changes in your career.

See ya,

copyright 2007
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
hbw@speedlearning.org
————————————————————————————————————

Author of Speed Learning for Professionals, published by Barron’s; partner of
Evelyn Wood, creator of speed reading, graduating two million, including the
White House staffs of four U.S. Presidents.

Interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and fortune Magazine for major articles.

speedlearning.org speedlearning.org
mailto:hbw@speedlearning.org hbw@speedlearning.org

In addition to working hard and refusing to give up, something else separates winners from losers. Those who understand and apply it are winners. You can apply it too. You can be a winner!

I don’t know anyone who would admit that they do not want to succeed. It is very difficult to find someone who proclaims that they would really prefer to fail, rather than to succeed in life. Most people would say that they do want to reach their goals (at least those who still have goals).

However, you and I know that not everyone achieves their goals. We have all seen some succeed and some fail. In life, there will always be winners and there will always be losers. Some will fail while others succeed.

Some people have a real desire to do something or to be somebody. They can see where they would like their life to be. But, the problem for them is that they never really get started on the journey. They cling to the wishing attitude of, “Well, that would sure be nice.” They may see where they would “like to be,” but they don’t know how to get there, and that’s as far as it goes. Instead, they just choose to settle for wherever their life is now.

Then, there are people who get really excited about their goals and dreams. They begin with all the enthusiasm of a champion racehorse exploding out of the gates at the Kentucky Derby. They run full speed as fast and as hard as they can. But, sadly, that excitement is short lived, and they give up, and quit very quickly.

We have all seen people who decide to roll up their sleeves, and begin to work hard and systematically, refusing to quit and refusing to get discouraged. They come up with a system or a plan that they are convinced will work. However, they lack the flexibility to make adjustments along the way. They have convinced themselves that their plans and methods are the only way to arrive at their destination. They unknowingly wear blinders, and consequently, they miss great opportunities for success.

For example, a person may be convinced of a certain marketing strategy. That’s what they will use exclusively, no matter what. They are not open to investigating any other avenues. They believe that if they just work hard and long using this strategy, and don’t quit, it will happen eventually.

Without being flexible, your margin for success becomes very narrow. The times we live in are changing daily. (Even our English language adds new words every week.) Working hard and refusing to quit are both admirable qualities, but resistance to change can hinder your success.

Finally, there are those who work hard, refuse to give up, and are willing to change their plans and strategies if necessary. They don’t have the attitude, “I know what I am doing, and I have it all figured out.” Instead, their attitude is, “I want to learn. Is there something more I need to know? Is there another way?”

Horseracing offers a good analogy. Although I do not know very much about the sport, I do know that it is not just the fastest horse, or the horse that breaks out of the gate ahead of the rest that wins the race. There is strategy involved. Strategy not only plays a major role, it changes from time to time depending on the circumstances.

In fact, I am told that there are numerous factors involved in the strategy for each and every race. Factors may include the type of track, the weather, the length of the race and the other horses competing in the race. You cannot instruct a jockey to just simply go at full speed and not give up. Strategy is involved.

In life, there are times when we too need to adjust our strategy.

So, work hard, refuse to give up, but be flexible in your plans and strategies. You can cross the finish line a winner. You can succeed!

Michael A. Verdicchio is a husband, father, minister, and broadcaster. He has been the voice on numerous productions over the years. Michael is the author and producer of “Inspirational Pep Talks”, available at

In this article I write about how we need to chill out, relax and to live a stress-free life. For many years I did not live life this way and found myself constantly worrying about what other people thought of me. This was not exactly a happy period in my life and after a lot of hard work and determination, I have managed to turn my life around. I now do not care at all what anyone else thinks of me.

I had always wanted to be popular, liked and part of the in crowd. I bent over backwards to achieve this and often did and went to places that I did not want to go to, just to please other people. You should not bow down to peer pressure but I certainly did. I am not really sure why I craved this attention but I seemed to have a need to be liked. I was constantly paranoid that people were talking behind my back and laughing at me.

I lived life like this for quite a long time and was basically being a fool as I was often depressed. I needed to get myself out of a rut and sought inspiration from books, newspapers and television.

I was now twenty-two years of age and had achieved very little in life up to this point. In one of the newspapers I read, there was an article in the letters page which had been sent in by a woman who was in her seventies. It was quite a funny letter and she wrote about how she loved being old. She mentioned that she can now stay in bed all day if she wants to and does not care what people think of her. If she is invited to a social occasion which she does not want to attend, she will say no without feeling any sense of guilt. She wrote that for the first time in her life she does not care at all what people think of her and lives life doing exactly what she wants to do. She ended by saying that she felt free for the first time in her life and that she had never been happier.

I thought about what she had written and realised that I also felt trapped. I did not want to wait until I was in my seventies to be set free, I wanted freedom now. I had to change my attitude to life and I decided to stop trying so hard. I no longer go to places I do not want to go to. If people call me boring I do not care, I reply, boring but happy. I now feel that I am stronger mentally than I ever have been and I am also happier than ever before.

I have looked at myself in the mirror (a bit weird) and have thought about how I live my life. I think I am a decent person, I try to be kind to everyone I meet, I do not cheat and I work very hard to achieve my goals. I actually for the first time in my life, quite like myself, therefore if other people choose not to, that is fine by me.

In conclusion life is to short to waste worrying about what other people think of you. Make the most of life, learn to like yourself and relax, worrying about something does not help anyway, it makes situations even worse.

Good luck in your quest for happiness and freedom.

Stephen Hill helps to promote a number of websites including:

A quiet amusement of mine is to watch the expression of people who arrive late for my time management seminars. (Now you’re going to be worried every time you go to one of my programs!) The look resembles a child who just got caught with a hand in the cookie jar. Tail between the legs, these people shuffle in sheepishly mumbling something about traffic, while their friends jibe, “How can you be late for a time management class”?

The number one complaint I receive from managers who bring me in to coach their folks on performance is something around “the inability to meet deadlines, is always late, is constantly running behind, or he/she forgot.” There are actually three types of people I see:

1. “Late” people are typically perpetually late, for everything.
2. “On time” people typically arrive a minute or two ahead or behind the goal.
3. “Early” people are rare and are generally early to everything.

Victor Borge’s famous comment in concert sums it up nicely. He was well into his performance when a woman came in late, fighting her way through the rows to her seat near the front. Borge stopped playing and as she proceeded—trampling over people, embarrassing, rustling, and disturbing her way to her seat—he said (much to her chagrin, as all eyes focused on her ill-timed arrival) “Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me.”
After she sat down, he walked over near where she was sitting and said, “Where are you from, Ma’am?” “Fifty-Seventh Street,” she said. “Well, Lady, I’m from Denmark and I was here on time.”

People are much more irritated by lateness than we ever know, it can dampen everything from promotions and raises to friendships. Late people crowd us, physically and mentally, all the time. We all hate the fact that their lateness undoes our schedule and disrupts our day. Showing up late for work or sending something in late, no matter how well done, still means a black mark against you.

For example, let’s say that you hired me to speak at a conference you were planning. I was slotted to be the opening speaker, and I was scheduled to speak at 9:00 AM. At 9:05, I came rushing in, exclaiming that I was trapped in a major traffic jam. Would you care? NO! You could care less about my reason. You only care about your conference at the time. People expect you to honor their time and your commitments, just as you
expect that from them. After I gave an incredible speech and everyone loved me, would you ever hire me again? NO! In fact, you would remember how embarrassed you felt when I was late. You would probably even tell other people about my tardiness and recommend they don’t hire me either!

So I’m an Early, not because I’m soooooo productive, but because I’ve discovered the benefits in doing so. For one of your New Year’s productivity goals in 2003, I’d like to
encourage you to become an Early. Why is it important?

• You get the first choice of many things
• You gain admiration and respect
• You are able to relax and not sweat
• You get good press and publicity
• You get the rest of the tine to relax or read

Being an Early makes you look competent and lets others know you can be depended upon. Being a Late, however, makes people wonder if you’ll come through this time. You’ll always be bringing up the rear, never totally trusted, no matter how skilled you are. Even if you’re on “on time,” that’s fairly typical…boring? It just doesn’t stand out. It’s okay…just expected…yawn. Don’t be simply “average”!

LATE says, “I can’t make deadlines.” EARLY says, “I don’t need deadlines.”

LATE says, “I’m out of control.” EARLY says, “I’m in control.”

LATE says, “I can’t look beyond the moment.” EARLY says, “I look ahead.”

Convinced? So how do you become an Early? It has nothing to do with setting your watch five minutes fast and “fooling” yourself, because psychologically, you know it’s five minutes fast, and make up for it anyway. Keep your clocks on the correct time. It also doesn’t really have anything to do with time management, but with planning. In fact, this simple, inexpensive principle will actually *prevent* 50% or more of your “time management” problems.

So instead of thinking, “I begin speaking at 9:00 AM,” my thoughts rather go something like, “I should plan on arriving at 8:00 AM to set up and get prepared.” Then I have to figure out how long it should take me to get there, a buffer in case there’s traffic, what time I would need to be dropping the kids off at daycare, what time to get them up, so what time I’d have to wake up in order for all that to happen. And I have lots of things to do once I have arrived and set up…bills to pay, magazines to peruse, that report to read, or thank you letters to write.

Here’s a quiz. If you had a speech to give in March, and it’s January now, when would you begin preparing? The week before? If you started now and researched over time, you would be much less stressed and have prepared much more when the time came.
If you have a trip coming up, do you pack the night before? Why not set the suitcase out and drop things in it over the week ahead? If you have to run to the store for something you’re out of, no problem. You won’t be in a last-minute rush and picking
out clothes at midnight, starting your trip tired and grumpy. When did you think about your holiday cards????

Before you sit down to relax each night, ask yourself, “What’s coming up next week?” “What can I get out of the way now?” I can never go to bed at night without going over the next day, knowing exactly where I need to be, what I need to have, and everything laid out in front of me. I have clothes selected, school papers signed, lunches made, briefcase packed, and schedule outlined. Each month, I plan for the next month and
look ahead at what needs to be done.

Become an Early, and you won’t have “deadlines.” They will be unnecessary since you complete things early. Deadlines were made for people who would not get things done without it. Deadlines eliminate all the job of accomplishment as you work for the deadline, not the completion of a project or task. Deadlines are often irrelevant anyway, because the task is often put off until the deadline, but it could have been done much sooner.

It will take a bit to catch up, but once you’re on top of things, stay one step ahead. You will experience a new peace of mind. If you are early (no extra cost, no strain, no explanations), you don’t have to worry about deadlines. So make working ahead and early your style, convert “later” to “now,” and you’ll be much more efficient in 2006.

Make it a productive day! ™

“Laura M. Stack, MBA, CSP, is “The Productivity Pro”® and the author of Leave the Office Earlier. She presents keynotes and seminars on time management, information overload, and personal productivity. Contact her at 303-471-7401 or mailto:Laura@TheProductivityPro.com Laura@TheProductivityPro.com”.

Last time, I talked about creativity in general,
discussed creative ‘blocks’ and provided strategies for Generation as a
way of being more creative.

This month, I’d like to focus on the second broad area I identified in the field of creativity – Synthesis.

The word ’synthesis’ is derived from the ancient Greek and
describes an integration of two or more pre-existing elements which
results in a new creation.

Using the creative process of Synthesis results in
modular thinking – “What if I took a feature from this thing and
added it to that one?” The process is one of breaking something down
into its component parts or features and then combining some of those
with elements from elsewhere.

This approach is often used in mechanical engineering,
electronics and other processes which arrive at tangible, practical
solutions in response to an established need.

Inventive Synthesis

Synthesis is often the Inventor’s pattern and a great
example of synthesis at work is the clockwork radio. Here’s how it came
into being:

Inventor Trevor Bayliss watched a documentary about the
spread of AIDS in Africa. The program commented that in many regions,
radio was the only available means of communication, but the need for
batteries or electricity made them impractical. An educational tool was
needed that did not rely on electrical power.

Bayliss experimented in his workshop at home and found
that hand-turning a motor would supply sufficient electricity to power
the radio and a clockwork mechanism could be used to store the energy.
As the spring unwound the motor would turn and the radio would play.

This is an excellent example of creative Synthesis
because the result was not a ‘slightly better’ radio – something
entirely new was created.

I’m not suggesting that his creative process exactly
matched that shown in the diagram above, though it does show how the
process of Synthesis can operate.

Webinars (web seminar) and Podcasts (iPod broadcast) are further examples of the creative synthesis of concepts.

Finding Common Ground

A practical method for the integration of concepts is
the ‘visual squash’ technique from NLP. In a therapeutic setting, it’s
commonly used to integrate conflicting values or beliefs. It’s also
possible to use this excellent technique to determine a common ground
between supposed opposites, or to fuse two things to form a new whole.

Also, it’s a great way of removing either/or limitations
in your choices. For example, have you ever been told that you can have
a job done quickly or it can be done well? The presupposition in the word ‘or’ entirely rules out the possibility of a job that is quick and
done well. The visual squash technique can help to change that ‘or’
into an ‘and’, opening up new possibilities for consideration.

Here’s how it works:

Exercise: Creative Synthesis with the visual squash.

Identify the two ideas or pieces you want to integrate.

Hold your arms out in front of you, hands apart, palms facing up.

Imagine one of the ideas/pieces in your left hand.
Does it have a colour, shape, sound, texture, temperature or weight?
Make it as real as possible.

Imagine the other idea/piece in your right hand. Does it have a colour, shape, sound, texture, temperature or weight?

Understanding that at a higher level everything is
one, allow your hands to move closer to each other only as quickly as
your unconscious can bring those concepts together.

Imagine a line of communication between the two, connecting them as they continue to move closer.

When the two concepts fuse/integrate, you might have
a flash of inspiration, or the two pieces might just seem to work
better together. Or you may not be conscious of the change and the
connection will become apparent later.

A note of caution

The concepts (clockwork radio) work well together, as
do (house boat). So far, so good. However, it’s necessary to check
for practicality and ecology of the finished idea, otherwise you could
end up with (inflatable dartboard) or (waterproof towel) instead!

That’s one of the reasons why this is the inventor’s
pattern – the more plausible solutions can be tried out to see if they
work in practice, though I’ve seen some fairly ridiculous inventions
too! Once the possibility is there, common sense comes in useful.

Further Ideas

If you need further examples of creative invention, a great place to look is Creativity Pool ( creativitypool.com).
It’s a website where people can propose ideas for new inventions or ask
for solutions to a particular need. The ideas range from the brilliant
to the bizarre and it’s a great example of constructive idea sharing,
itself a synthesis of (inspiration web sharing).

Famously, Thomas Edison said “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” It’s important to remember that you still need that 1% inspiration to make everything happen.

Next time, I’ll explore the third category of creativity – Innovation.

About The Author:

Philip Callaghan is an NLP Trainer and Coach who has been working full time with private clients for several years. He is a Licensed Master Practitioner and Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and a member of the International Association of Coaches.

Visit Phil’s website resourcefulchange.co.uk/ resourcefulchange.co.uk/ for further articles.

Learn NLP with Phil at bronze-dragon.com/index.shtml bronze-dragon.com/index.shtml

You may be thinking there’s nothing really to discover about you. Here you are with years of experience, a mature adult with fairly fixed habits and a routine for living life. You may say “of course, I know myself, I know all there is to know about me!”

Yet sometime, don’t you yearn to be adventurous and discover new aspects of yourself like you did as a teen-ager, or to be called “young at heart”? I love the statement Doris uses to describe her husband Mike, “he is just a big kid.” She follows that with “but if he ever grows up, that’s it!”

As you get older it becomes more and more critical that you maintain an aura or spirit of playfulness in your life. Part of that playfulness is welcoming and creating change in your life. It is literally what keeps you young. Whether you realize it or not, all of us are in a state of becoming. You’ll never reach the point of being a finished product.

When you realize that you are always changing and always becoming, it makes sense to have something you call “having a team meeting with myself.” Find out what is really important to you, yet is still left undone. When you get this information you can use it to give yourself a whole new level of control and ability in directing the changes in your life.

To get this information can be a challenge. Like most of us you have spent most of your adult life in a state of compliance. You felt you had to satisfy the criteria for education, doing what ever high school, college, or university required of you for graduation. Then you entered the work force and complied with the requirements of your career in order to support your family and yourself. There are many aspects of you that can be described using words such as perseverance, discipline and responsibility. I ask you though, do these words really describe you or do they describe more your reaction to what you feel you had to do to be accepted in the adult world?

There may be a whole new set of adjectives that could be used to describe you if you felt you were free to explore new facets of yourself. Adjectives like adventurous, spontaneous and creative might fit now when there is less pressure and need to conform to external pressures.

Doing some self discovery doesn’t have to be a response to a midlife crisis, but an opportunity to express more of yourself than what you have in your past. Now is the time to look to look at what retirement means to you. Maybe there are new paths, rather than the traditional retirement for you to follow that would give you greater satisfaction and a sense of purpose.

For instance, when was the last time you pondered what you wanted to do in life, like you did at the age of 10 when someone asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Imagine feeling like you did at the age of 15 or 16 in high school where there seemed to be to be so many possibilities that it was hard to focus sufficiently to make a career choice.

The idea of so many alternatives may feel onerous when you recall the idea “you cannot teach an old dog new tricks.” I assure you this saying has nothing to do with the “old dog” being able to learn. It does address how much desire the “old dog” has to learn!

If you are in normal mental-health there’s nothing that blocks your ability to learn, however there is the inertia to deal with. You know the physics principle - an object has a tendency to remain in its current state either at rest or in motion. Applying this principle means that you naturally resist change. You have a tendency to continue doing the things you usually do. Your behavior remains relatively constant and your habits carry you through a lot of your day.

This gives you considerable efficiency but remember you’re not a machine and efficiency is not necessarily your goal. As a human being you were created with a natural inclination and purpose to grow and expand your awareness.

So what do you need to do to overcome this inertia and allow your desire to push you into action? Here are some points to consider:

• You are considering changes because you want to expand your life. Change does not have to suggest there is something wrong with you or that you are flawed or deficient! Feeling you are correcting negative aspects of self will cause you to restrict yourself and to feel disempowered. What you want is to feel an expansion in your energy and an expansion of yourself.
• Dwell on what you feel are your positive traits that can always be expanded on.
• You can only do one thing at a time, so if you are focused on your positive traits your perceived negative traits will not have an opportunity to be expressed.
• You are always in a state of becoming, regardless of your age you are not a finished product, so rekindle the sense of adventure.

Every discoverer has to have a sense of adventure, so you need to look at ways that allow you to open your mind to new areas of excitement and growth. To do this it’s necessary to develop a different mindset, and the best way to do that is to change some of your routines and do things slightly differently. Some simple aids in doing this are:
• Return home a different route than usual.
• Put your pants or slacks on with a different foot first.
• The next meal you have out in a restaurant choose something different from the menu that you haven’t had before, or if you eat out frequently, every third meal try out a new entrée.
• Once a week, chose a different source for your news so that you get another view of the world.
• If you dress conservatively, wear more dramatic clothing or conversely dress conservatively if you are accustomed to wearing clothes that shout for attention.
• If usually you read fiction, try a history, self help, or a biography to read. Similarly, try the opposite if you seldom read fiction.
• When eating at home sit at a different place at the table for a week.
• Do something, once a week for the next month, just for the fun of it, where there is no rational supportive reason for doing it.
• For the next month, spend at least 15 minutes doing quiet reflection, where you talk to no one and there is no radio or TV.
• During one of your times of reflection imagine yourself in high school and choosing a different vocational path than the one your chose.

The whole point of this is to help you loosen up, to stay in a flexible place about change. Make the above exercises fun and don’t take them serious as if they were work. Play with them.
The outcome of these exercises could be that you find new interests or some that you have suppressed. They now want your attention to continue the wondrous process of becoming.
You could feel some dissatisfaction with your work. You may feel you can hardly wait until you retire. These feelings can mean that you’re missing something and there are talents in another area that you will find very satisfying to express.

To get some help in discovering what these talents might be, check out vocational testing, interest inventories or aptitude testing on the Web or through career counselors at colleges in your area.

Several sites on the Web offer free quizzes and questionnaires that can provide new insights to your interests. It is a similar process to what many students do in their high school years. Use it now in your mature years. Paraphrasing Shaw’s statement “Youth is so precious it is a shame to waste it on the young.” Take some of the attributes and opportunities from your youth and use them now in your midlife.

Don’t let your age restrict you from trying something different and being considered foolish. There is no time in your life where outside pressures and opinion can be given less heed than in your midlife. You are established now with a track record and you have probably never been in a stronger position enabling you to risk outsiders’ questions.

You have never been so qualified in terms of skills and experience to take corrective action in case you do make a mistake. Also, you have probably learned making a mistake is not really a mistake, but only part of learning, so let’s up the learning curve. Although I deplored it in my youth, my father’s advice to me is very valid in this situation, “you can never learn any younger”.

Now with your focus shifting to the direction you would like your life to take, there is no thought that you are experiencing a midlife or later life crisis. Instead there is the feeling you are embarking on a new adventure with all its excitement. This leads to renewed enthusiasm about this point in your life.

The new attitude leads you to discover many new aspects of yourself and helps you realize that the alternatives and choices are many. Rather than winding down, life now appears to be picking up in tempo. You are in a new phase of life that you welcome. This all can happen if you’re willing to allow yourself a period of self-discovery.

Hugh Wiley: co-owner of Full Life Seminars with his wife Joanne, is also a psychologist, seminar leader and writer discussing how to find passion and purpose in your life at any stage, but especially at that unique time known as retirement. Find more information at their website retirement-wishes.com retirement-wishes.com

Hypnotherapy, or hypnosis, is one of the most popular mind therapies for a quick change. The relaxation and positive suggestions made in hypnotherapy feel good. Hypnotherapy is often the first choice for giving up smoking, overcoming a phobia, losing weight, and increased confidence.

And there is something really nice about your hypnotherapist taking over and relaxing your mind. It feels good, and the results are good to enjoy too.

Sometimes, we need more than talking can achieve and still want to relax and have someone else do it all for us. Perhaps we need some extra TLC from more than just talk, as effective as this can be. This is when it is great to have a hypnotherapist who also practises Reiki.

Reiki is what in complementary therapy is called an energy. Energy healing involves your body’s electromagnetism and so helps balance your mind and body’s energetic flow. Often referred to as hands-on healing, it usually involves the channelling of healing through the healer’s hands. Reiki can be felt as hot, cold, tingly, sometimes like a breeze or a wave, and may be felt near the healer’s hands or at a different location. Reiki goes to where it is most needed, which may or may not be where you expect healing to occur. As with talk hypnotherapy, occasionally there is a healing reaction or an emotional release, although this soon passes. Reiki is very gentle and suitable for everyone.

A Reiki session can be easily integrated into your hypnotherapy treatment. Your hypnotherapist can start with the Reiki and allow the Reiki to flow, balancing your mind and body and facilitating change. Then the talk hypnotherapy can start as usual or expected. Or your practitioner may choose to have breaks in the talk hypnotherapy for Reiki when encountering a stubborn negative thought pattern for that extra energetic oomph. Some practitioners start with a 10-minute Reiki to centre you then carry on with the hypnotherapy, finishing with Reiki so you feel more grounded at the end.

An added bonus is that you may feel more deeply relaxed with the combination of Reiki and hypnosis. And that is always nice!

My name is Suzanne Zacharia and I am committed to spreading the word about health options. I believe that the more and better options one has, the more choice there is.

A virus caught along with 5 other students at university at the end of 1986, plus medical negligence, meant that I got smokers lung at a relatively young age. In desperation for help with my symptoms and quality of life, I turned to complementary therapy, and this is the 11th year I have outlived one doctor’s prognosis.

I am now a complementary therapist, author and trainer specialising in “energy” therapy. My company is called New Age London, named by my clients, with some carefully-chosen experts in their fields working with me under the New Age London banner. More details via the links below.
NewAgeLondonTherapies.com NewAgeLondonTherapies.com
StopSmokingLondon.com StopSmokingLondon.com
EFTLondon.co.uk EFTLondon.co.uk

Lately I have been studying mindset and goals, and wanted to share a Success story in our family.

Our 3 year old Quinn is potty training, and has had a huge goal to get “Gordon the tank engine”.
We were having a hard time getting him accustomed to the idea of using the toilet, until one day we went to Barnes and Noble.
Was it a book on Potty training you might ask????
No!!
We were looking in the Kids section, and up on the top shelf, Quinn eyed a Gordon Engine toy.
Quinn has always been a fan of Thomas, but this was a burning desire.
For the next hour every word that came out of his mouth was “Gordon”, and it ended in a screaming fit when we tried to leave.
As I was doing research on goals.
I thought “Hey lets give this a shot”

So I sat Down with Quinn and told him that if he went Potty in the toilet for one week, he could have Gordon. He smiled and said “Gordon”…I said you can have it, but you have to work for it.

The next day my wife made him a chart. On the chart was a train track, with picture of Gordon.
Each day that he completed his goal of going Potty in the toilet, he could move Gordon one stop closer to the end of the track.
Everyday we would go over the chart and talk about Gordon. We built the dream with him, and showed him pictures, and games of Gordon online.

Well today Quinn finished his week long trek and we are going to buy Gordon tomorrow.!
Congratulations Quinn!!!

So how does this apply to you and I?????

Well Quinn had a huge dream.. he wanted that train.
We set a goal that was a stretch for him to achieve his dream of the toy.
We tracked his daily progress and reviewed his dream VS. his actions.
It wasn’t until he achieved his goal that he got his dream.
You can have it, but you have to work for it.

Set goals..track it daily.. review your goals…make your dream come true!!!

Shane Clevenger has been in the Home Based business industry for over ten years.
He is now focused on helping Business Owners Master the Art of Building Relationships, and Building their Business to the Highest Level.
Have You Seen The Movie Thats Sweeping the World??
Discover How a Greeting Card Revolutionized the Entire Home Business Industry…Forever!!
SocMovie.com SocMovie.com