Weight: Lost 10.8 lbs

Body Fat %: Lost 4.1%

Muscle: Gained 2%

I may not be breaking any speed records for weight loss, but for the first time in more than a decade, my weight is consistently going in the right direction. I now have hope that it is possible to get back to that pre-baby, pre-career, pre-adulthood-responsibility weight!

This has been a totally fun adventure – I always thought that I hated to cook but what I really hated was spending hours in the kitchen making food that made me feel like crap! I love trying new healthy meals that take less than 20 minutes to prepare and even enjoy trying some that take longer.

While I’ve read pretty much every book on the topic at this point… Mark Sisson’s book “The Primal Blueprint” is the easiest to follow and to implement – some of the others are way too detailed and strict about what you can or cannot eat – I’m trying to simplify my life, not make it more complicated!

If you want ALL the details, I love Ori Hofmekler and Gary Taubes! If you just want to get started, then Mark Sisson’s stuff is awesome. His blog http://www.MarksDailyApply.com is one of the few that I actually read on a regular basis.

Another thing that Dan & I have been doing is much shorter, more intense workouts – instead of working out 45 minutes to 1.5 hours 5-6 times per week, we’re working out 20 – 35 minutes 4-5 times per week. Check out “You Are Your Own Gym” (http://www.marklauren.com)- I love this workout! All of the exercises can be done with stuff you have around the house and there’s a totally awesome iPhone app. I do confess that we recently bought a TRX – makes a lot of the “Pull” exercises easier…

The gains that we’ve seen in both strength and muscle tone over the last few months is incredible and it still fits easily into our crazy busy schedule.

What if you don’t? Do you feel like there’s literally never enough hours in the day to accomplish everything you want or even need to do? The following three tips will help you be more like that awesome overachiever you used to be so envious of.

Utilize Every Scheduling Tool In Your Arsenal

While it’s true that computers and smart phones can sometimes make for time wasting distractions (whoops—did you really just spend thirty minutes on Twitter?), they can actually help you manage your day better thanks to calendar applications. The best thing about digital calendars is that you can set pop-up or email reminders in them. If that reminder appears one day before your doctor’s appointment, you’ll be that much more likely to plan the rest of your day around it.

Whether it means waking up early so you can get in an extra hour at the office before the appointment, or making sure that you gather all the medical info you need to bring well before you have to rush out the door, reminders can help you save time and plan ahead. After all, doing things last minute can make you late and harried and throw off the remainder of your day.

Take Advantage Of Downtime

It’s true that we’re all busy, but it’s also true that we sometimes have a slow day. It’s important to take advantage of free time, particularly when it’s at work. If new projects and problems aren’t flying at you fast and furious, take the time to work on long term projects or put together a to-do list complete with ideas for solving problems you’ve been repeatedly encountering.

Downtime is also great for organizing things, whether that means making files and documents easier to find on your computer or cleaning out your closet so you can find clothing with ease. Doing this stuff now will help save you time on the busier days to come. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy some relaxation on slow days, too—it just means you should balance that relaxation with some easy-paced productiveness.

Multi-Task Whenever Possible

First thing’s first—multitasking will only help you out if you can do it well. That means that neither of the two things you’re doing simultaneously can suffer in quality as a result. For instance, driving and checking your emails on your smart phone is a bad idea, but checking those same emails while you’re waiting in a long, slow moving checkout line is fine.

Texting your spouse about tonight’s dinner while you’re sitting in an important meeting is both rude and distracting, but planning that dinner while you’re eating your lunch is fine.

This can also be a good way to fit in entertainment with obligations. Plan to run on the treadmill or lift weights while you’re watching your favorite TV show, listen to that new album you’ve been wanting to check out while you clean your place, or read a book while you ride the bus or train to work.

The key is to pair a somewhat mindless activity with something enjoyable or productive that you can easily accomplish simultaneously. That is practically the definition of maximizing your time.

Whether you took a class on it in college, or you’re just a big fan of the movie Billy Madison, you’ve probably heard the term “business ethics” before. Yet you may not realize that good business ethics can also help you with your personal growth. To understand how, you need to first gain a better understanding of business ethics.

Business or corporate ethics is a type of applied ethics which considers the many moral and ethical problems that can occur in the work environment, and helps workers handle those problems in the most morally sound way possible. It teaches people in the world of business to make decisions that help their company continue to be successful, but in a socially responsible manner.

This includes a wide range of issues, from fair trading practices, proper tax payment, and executive compensation, to human resource issues like workplace safety, discrimination, and employee harassment. It even involves marketing issues like truth in advertising and fair pricing. So what is the big takeaway from business ethics, and how can it apply to other areas of your life and help with personal growth?

What’s Really IMPORTANT?

Ultimately, the main point of business ethics is that, no matter how much money your company is raking in, you can’t consider your company to be legitimately successful unless you’re making that money in an ethical, honest manner. In other words, winning the game isn’t worth nearly as much if you cheated or hurt people on the way to your win.

What good are large profits if the public finds out you’ve been falsely advertising your products? How can you feel proud of your department’s great numbers if you watch your boss sexually harass your coworker and never speak up to HR? This is a concept that most definitely carries over into your everyday life. It’s just as important to hold yourself to a high moral code as it is to hold your company and coworkers to one.

This can be as simple as not cutting in line at the store, even if you’re in a hurry and see other people doing it. It can also be as complex as being honest with your significant other about a problem in your relationship, even if it means you might have a big argument over it.

The truth is that we can make our lives seemingly easier if we don’t speak up when something goes wrong, or if we sometimes cheat the system. Yet taking the easy, less-ethical route can take much of the joy out of accomplishing something. It can even replace that sense of joy or pride with guilt over the immoral manner in which said accomplishment was achieved.

Live More Ethically = Personal Growth

If you elect to live your life in a more ethical manner, you are taking a huge step toward furthering your personal growth. It won’t always be easy of course, and sometimes it can be difficult to tell what the truly ethical way to handle some situations is. After all, not every scenario we find ourselves in is a black and white situation.

However, making a commitment to yourself to always try your best to take the high road shows a degree of strength and a desire to better yourself. That can go a long way toward making you a better person, which is something to be proud of.

Often in life, it’s hard maintain a peace of mind. Things are constantly being asked of us. This can range from very benign requests, like a good friend inviting you to a party, to more troublesome ones, like your boss asking you to take on yet another project on top of an already overgrown workload. You don’t want to be the type of person who refuse everything, but you also can’t agree to everything that comes your way, or you’ll lose your sense of personal balance.

After all, no one can do it all. Veer too far in one way or the other, and your whole life will be thrown out of whack. That’s why it’s so important to be able to determine what things are important enough agree to and what things are unimportant enough to turn down. If you can get good enough at doing this, you’ll go a long way toward finding better personal balance.

Right about now, you’re probably thinking something along the lines of “easier said than done,” and it’s true that it won’t always be easy to decide whether or not to decline. You can take some steps to make it somewhat simpler, though. First and foremost, always remember that you’re not alone and you don’t have to handle everything yourself. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s time to figure out what can go undone and what can be delegated.

Your Home World

Are you exhausted from a crazy work week, but you feel like you can’t take a break to relax because your home is a mess? Go easy on yourself and only do the bare minimum—if you skip dusting every single piece of furniture for one week, no one else is going to notice. Better still, ask your spouse or a roommate if they can handle the cleaning. Maybe they won’t do as good of a job as you would, but sometimes we have to be willing to sacrifice satisfying our own high standards for being able to take a break and let someone else handle things for a change.

Your Work World

The same thing goes for work—if you have too many projects on your plate, figure out which ones are the least complicated or important, and ask another coworker to help take on some of the other work. This kind of delegating is so important in the workplace. You can’t delegate everything, or you will look lazy and risk angering your coworkers and possibly getting fired. Yet you should delegate some work to others when you’ve got too much to handle.

Never be afraid to tell your boss that you can’t take on something new, as long as you have a big enough workload to back up your claim of being too busy. It’s important to also point out that you’re worried your work quality might suffer if you’re spread too thin—that shows your boss that you want to make sure you’re only turning out work that’s impeccable.

Your Social World

Sometimes you need to turn down some of those benign requests and offers, too, like the party invitation mentioned previously. Your friends will understand if you can’t make every single party or movie night. Sometimes you’re just too tired or too busy in other parts of your life. Just make sure that you’re there for the big stuff, like your best friends’ weddings and birthday parties, as long as you’re able to be in town for them.

If you’re there for your friends during the truly important events or the really tough times in their life, like when they need a shoulder to cry on after an awful breakup or death in the family, they won’t get their feelings hurt when you turn down an invite to girls’/guys’ night because you’ve worked a sixty hour week.

With friends and significant others, in fact, it can be a little easier to determine what demands a yes and what can be said no to—just ask yourself how you’d feel if the situation was reversed and they turned you down.

How To Determine “Yes” Or “No”

Ultimately, the best way to determine whether you should agree to something or not is to ask yourself whether it’s truly important. Will saying no jeopardize your job or your relationship with the person who is asking? If not, is it something that someone else can handle while you handle other, more important issues or projects?

Is it something that you can make up for later? For instance, if you turn down an invite to grab dinner with a friend this week, can you take them out to dinner the following week instead? If you can’t handle another project right now, can you assure your boss that you’ll take on the next project once your current project is completed in a few days?

Learn to ask yourself these sorts of questions before you reply to a request, and you’ll be far more likely to give the right answer. That means you’ll eliminate the unnecessary obligations in your life, have more time to focus on the important stuff, and end up leading a more balanced existence.

That means figuring out better ways to maximize your effectiveness on the job. You have to figure out your strengths and put them to use whenever and wherever possible. You need to get results in an efficient manner.

Stress Management

You also need to make sure that you practice stress management and keep and your mind clear, so you can think on your feet and stay sharp. This may seem like a tall order, but if you follow the tips set forth here, you’ll find you can increase your effectiveness before you know it.

Identify Strengths And Weaknesses

First and foremost, you need to identify your work-related strengths and weaknesses. These can be both big and small. Are you really good at coming up with new ideas to solve problems? Do you have a knack for making great visuals for presentations? Is there room for improvement when it comes to staying organized? Are you great with emails but tongue-tied on the phone?

Once you figure out what you’re good at, you can start brainstorming ways to utilize those skills wherever possible. You might be surprised to discover that there are other areas of your job that can benefit from your talents.

Likewise, if you understand your weaknesses, you can try to improve upon them. Seek out a coworker who is really good at something you need to improve in, and ask for their advice. Look to your boss or another trusted senior staffer as an example and mentor. If you flatter them by telling them you admire the way they do something, they’ll be happy to give you some tips.

Be More Productive

Once you’ve worked on your strengths and weaknesses, you need to figure out how to maximize your time and work more efficiently. Utilize email reminders and your calendar to keep you on track with meetings and deadlines. If your work load starts to get out of control, figure out what work can be delegated to reliable coworkers who have some extra time on their hands. Make sure to promise them that you’ll return the favor, and follow through with that promise.

Never underestimate the power of teamwork if a project is too big for you. Better to share part of the credit with another coworker on a successfully executed piece of work than to take full credit for a poorly done job because you got in over your head.

Another way to maximize your time is to figure out what parts of the day you are typically more productive. Do you do your best work first thing in the morning, or a couple of hours after lunch? Schedule your work to coincide with your particular power time, so that you work on the most intense, difficult projects during those hours when you’re at the top of your game.

Remember To Relax

Keeping yourself alert and on point is also important. Take brief breaks, in ten or fifteen minute chunks, every couple of hours. That will help your mind stay fresh and sharp, and keep your eyes from getting fatigued from staring at the computer screen for too long. Taking a walk around the block or to another part of the building will get your blood flowing and keep you energized. That will definitely help the quality of your work. It might even put you in a better mood, which your coworkers will certainly appreciate.

Combine a strong work ethic with smart, strategic planning and these tactics, and there just might be a promotion-related meeting with your boss in the not-so-distant future.

We’ve all had goals that we wanted to accomplish at one point or another. They might be something big, like going to graduate school or buying a house, or something adventurous, like spending a month traveling the globe. They can be long term goals like saving a certain amount of money to retire on, or short term goals, like losing ten pounds before swimsuit season arrives. Regardless of size, they’re meaningless without a plan to achieve them.

So just what turns something from an idea or vague future plan into a specific goal to work toward? First and foremost, you can’t just say “someday I’d like to learn a foreign language.” Instead, you have to put a timeline on it. That means deciding that you want to learn to speak Spanish within the next five years, and then figuring out when you need to start taking lessons in order to fulfill your goal within that time frame.

Be Specific

The key to setting goals is being as specific as possible, from setting a start and end date, to defining exactly what you want to do. Don’t just decide you want to move to a new city eventually; flesh the idea out and decide that you want to move to a specific location, like Portland, Oregon, within the next two years. Then write down your goal and come up with a plan to achieve it.

In order to achieve your main goal, you need to set up a plan containing mini-goals. For instance, if you want to lose twenty pounds within the next six months, set sub-goals along the way to lose four or five pounds per month. Then set a goal to research diet and workout plans over the next week.

After you’ve finished your research, set mini-goals to workout at least four times a week, to eat more vegetables and less red meat, etc.

Of course, this works for pretty much any kind of goal you’re working toward. Once you’ve settled on a big goal, the initial stage should always involve setting smaller goals (or milestones) and doing research to help figure out how best to reach your goal.

Are you trying to save enough money to travel to Europe two summers from now? Research various savings accounts’ interest rates so that you can pick the highest-yielding option. Read travel guides and websites to get an idea of which cities you’ll want to visit and what hotels or hostels you want to stay in, how much airline tickets and rail fares will cost, etc. Then you can estimate the amount of money you’ll need to save to reach your goal. After the research is done, you can set mini goals to set aside a certain amount of your earnings every pay period in the savings account.

Ask For Help

Finally, never be afraid to ask for help and advice. Do you have a friend or relative who has achieved a goal similar to yours? Ask them for tips! This is especially worthwhile if your goal is life changing and involves something financial, like saving to retire or buy a house, or something related to career advancement or education, like learning a language, going back to grad school, or working toward a promotion or new job.

People who have been there before can give you helpful strategies for realizing your specific goal. So utilize all the information sources you can get your hands on, from your successful coworker or thrifty parents to the internet and your local library. Then draft up a plan and stick to it—you’ll be celebrating your achievements in no time.

—–

Hi Mike, thanks for all the tips on getting a six pack. I just subscribed, but I’ve been trying to get six pack abs for over two years now.

To be honest, it’s been extremely frustrating. The rest of my body I don’t have any problem with…but for some reason my abs are still soft and flabby no matter what I do. I’m not obese or anything, but nobody would ever say I have a six pack either which is what I want.

I’m doing hardcore workouts all the time and I’m keeping my eating fairly clean. I haven’t bought any courses on how to get a six pack yet, but I’ve studied a ton of information which I’ve gotten for free on blogs and forums. I feel like I’ve put so much work into this. But for some reason I’m not seeing results. I’m beginning to think my genetics are such that six pack abs are just not in the cards for me.

Am I doing something wrong? HELP!

Andrew E.

—–

Hey Andrew,

You’re actually facing three VERY common issues that sabotage guys from getting six pack abs. I’m going to clear up the confusion for you…

And if YOU are reading this right now, and you’ve been trying to get a six pack but not seeing results, you’re likely GETTING SABOTAGED BY THE SAME THREE THINGS. Make sure to pay close attention to this newsletter, because it’s going to address what’s been holding YOU back specifically and show you how to eliminate these “six pack sabotagers” from your life.

SABOTEUR #1: YOUR METABOLISM

What you said:

“The rest of my body I don’t have any problem with…but for some reason my abs are soft and flabby no matter what I do.”

What this tells me:

From the vague way you described your body, I can tell that you have not yet gained a large amount of muscle. Because I’ve spent most of my life hanging around guys who HAVE…and let me tell you, they’ll never describe their body in vague terms like this.

Guys who have bulked up and have built a lot of muscle will be EAGER to provide you with specifics like:

“I’ve gained X pounds of muscle in the past year.”

“I have a muscular build – I regularly get compliments on the rest of my body from women”

“I can eat 3000 calories per day and not gain any weight.”

So I’m going to guess that while you’re in shape, you’re not exactly “muscular” yet.

So here’s what’s been sabotaging you…

There is a myth spread by fitness marketers that you can get six pack abs just through diet and ab training alone. This is 100% FALSE.

If you just try the “crunches and diet’ method of getting a six pack, you’re sure to fail. This is because getting six pack abs requires you to become very LEAN – otherwise your abs simply won’t be visible.

In order to get this lean, your metabolism needs to be very high. Otherwise, you’ll have to severely restrict the amount you eat to 1500 calories per day or less – which just isn’t realistic for most people to do as a lifestyle.

What you need to do BEFORE you diet, and BEFORE you do any direct ab exercise is to INCREASE YOUR METABOLISM.

This way, you burn massive amounts even when you’re resting. Eventually, you’ll be able to eat over 3000 calories per day and not gain any weight (this is where I’m at right now).

The best way to increase your metabolism is to gain lean muscle mass through weightlifting. This lean muscle mass will consume calories day in and day out, just to sustain itself.

This is why you RARELY see six pack abs on guys who don’t have muscle on their entire body – and when you do they don’t look good. If you don’t have bulk on your ENTIRE BODY, getting six pack requires you stay close to a starvation diet. But if you are muscular, you can enjoy food and be constantly full, yet still have a six pack.

TAKEAWAY –> The FIRST thing you need to do when building six pack abs is to INCREASE YOUR METABOLISM THROUGH TOTAL BODY MUSCLE GAIN. This can be done quickly if you want to – but if you don’t do it AT ALL, your six pack efforts are doomed.

SABOTEUR #2: NO UNIFIED TRAINING AND NUTRITION PROGRAM

What you said:

“I’m doing hardcore workouts all the time and I’m keeping my eating fairly clean. I haven’t bought any courses on how to get a six pack yet, but I’ve studied a ton of information which I’ve gotten for free on blogs and forums.”

What this tells me:

SOME free information can be great. If you’re applying the stuff you read here, that’s great. If you’re applying free stuff from another qualified trainer with a good reputation, that’s great as well.

But you have to realize, MOST of the free information out there on blogs and forums is complete garbage. Following random tips that you read from the internet can SERIOUSLY screw up your progress.

If you’re serious about getting a six pack, then you can only take advice from:

1. Guys who have a six pack themselves (this should be common sense…but sadly, it’s not)

2. Who ALSO have years of training experience, and a solid track record of getting results for clients

You cannot, cannot, cannot follow any random thing you read on a forum. You have to realize that most people who post on these forums are overweight losers who enjoy the ego boost of being an “online fitness guru.” They’ve can’t even get themselves in shape, never mind anyone else.

Also – from your vague language about “hardcore workouts” and “eating clean” I can tell that you do not have a single, unified program you are following right now. You are combining tips and advice from many different sources together.

This is a bad idea, EVEN IF ALL THE INDIVIDUAL TIPS THEMSELVES ARE GOOD. Here’s why:

First of all, unless they’re part of a unified SYSTEM, many of these tips probably contradict one another. Some “fitness experts” say that you should eat tons or protein to get a six pack, others advise eating very little. Some experts say that you should do lots of crunches, and others say that crunches are a waste of time. Some tell you to take certain supplements, others tell you that you absolutely cannot take supplements if you want a six pack.

If you just try and collage all these contradictory tips together, you’ll just end up confused.

Second of all, if you do not have a SPECIFIC EXERCISE PLAN and SPECIFIC EATING PLAN, you will not be doing these things with any consistency. Guys who have a six pack will often say things like:

“My workout routine is to get at 10:30 AM, for 30 minutes 5 days a week.”

“My eating plan is to have two healthy meals of brown rice, chicken and broccoli per day, and to give myself one ‘free’ meal”

TAKEAWAY –> If you can’t tell me SPECIFCIALLY what your eating and exercise plan is in one sentence, then you don’t have one. And I can guarantee you that if you have no plan, you are not working out or eating right CONSISTENTLY. You absolutely, positively MUST be following a definite plan if you want to get six pack abs.

SABOTEUR #3: DEFEATIST ATTITUDE

You said:

“I’m beginning to think my genetics are such that six pack abs are just not in the cards for me.”

What this tells me:

I get it…I don’t have the greatest genetics in the world either. And I recognize your genetics CAN play a part in getting your six pack…

But the reality is, for 99% of the male population six pack abs are VERY ATTAINABLE GOAL…IF you are consistently eating and training the right way.

How do I know? Well, despite bad genetics I eventually got six pack abs myself. And I’ve trained hundreds of guys who have every genetic handicap you can imagine, and I’ve seen many of them get the six pack abs they wanted.

If you blame 100% of your failure on genetics, you’re grossly out of touch with reality. I know it’s tough to hear, but it’s really just an excuse you’re using to justify your lack of results.

And even worse, you said that a six pack “wasn’t in the cards,” for you. This type of defeatist attitude is absolute POISON for getting six pack abs, and will keep your gut hanging over your belt for a long, long time.

I’ve said it for a long time…getting six packs abs is only 50% physical, and 50% MENTAL.

You need to have your mind right, because getting six pack abs does take some commitment and effort. You’ll face various obstacles along the way, as well as having to deal with jealousy and lack of support from your friends who aren’t as committed to having a great body as you.

The only way to press through these obstacles is to have a strong, unwavering belief that you WILL get a six pack if you are consistently eating and training right. Even when it seems hard, and even when you’re frustrated.

You need to shed this defeatist attitude ASAP in order to get six pack abs. You have to realize that there are no “cards” – there is only what you accomplish, and what you do not accomplish. It is 100% within your power to get six pack abs. If you don’t get them, you have nobody but yourself to blame. And if you DO get them, you’ll have only yourself to thank. Not your lucky stars, not “fate,” and definitely not “the cards.”

TAKEAWAY –> I’m not judging you for making these mistakes, because I made them all myself at one point. But I do want you to know that there is hope — that you can get a six pack. You just have to shed the defeatist attitude, and learn how to THINK like a guy who has a six pack.

THE NEXT STEP:

If you liked this article and you’re serious about getting six pack abs, I recommend you sign up for my email newsletter. I send out free articles like this one every 2-3 days that teach you exactly how to get six pack abs. I also send out videos of the best exercises for getting defined abs, and videos that show you how to eat for six pack abs.

And it’s all completely free. Check it out here:

<a href=”http://www.sixpackshortcuts.com”>Six Pack Abs Exercises</a>

Mike Chang

Click here to view the embedded video.

Affirmations are important and you need to be using them. Why? They work. Well, that is if you do them right. Let’s take a step back for a minute. Why do affirmations work? Simply put, your brain is a computer, but it’s not exactly a fancy computer, at least by today’s standards. It’s more like a really great computer by 1985 standards. What do I mean by that? Well, according to scientists the brain can process 2,000 pieces of information at any given time.

That sounds like a lot until you realize that your brain is being BOMBARDED with 2 BILLION pieces of information at any given time. Your brain simply can’t handle them all. Your subconscious mind holds the operating system for your mind. As we’ve said, it simply can’t handle them all so it uses the operating system made up of your previously held thoughts, beliefs, experiences etc to process them. That’s why you find yourself in patterns, doing the same thing over and over again, because your mind processes them based on it’s own internal operating system.

But what if you want to change that software program? That’s where affirmations come in. The questions you ask determine answers you get so if you don’t get the answers you want you need to ask different questions. In terms of affirmations, what you want to do is overwrite old patterns in your subconscious, and if you want to change, and if it’s extreme enough you need to do affirmations to rewrite or upgrade the software program that is your brain.

How often should you do affirmations? Well, they must be done enough to over ride old programming, however many times that takes. You don’t necessarily need to do them in a one for one ratio, just enough to see results and reprogram yourself. Some things to keep in mind: #1 it must be said in your words. It can’t be said in anyone else’s words or voice. My affirmations won’t work for you, for example.

# 2 The feeling behind it is critical. Just saying it won’t work. Focus on what would it feel like if the affirmation really worked and your program had really changed. Be as incredibly specific as possible. Really take the time and effort to get into that feeling, and then you’ll find that affirmations really, really work. Some people use recordings to reprogram themselves, but remember, you can’t just say it into a recorder and then listen to it back and expect results. You really need to perform the affirmation. You need to remember that your voice must have emotion behind it. When you record yourself, focus on how it feels when you’ve really made that change, what would your life really be life if and when you made this switch? What would this new programming feel like? How, exactly would your life be different? Really get specific, the more specific, the better.

The subject of affirmations is an incredibly broad topic, one worthy of considerable study. If one was interested, they might find themselves reading and studying all the can on affirmations, hypnosis and Neuro linguistic programming (NLP). However you choose to proceed, I highly recommend affirmations to you as a means of self growth and personal change. They really do work and are highly effective, though they may take a bit of practice, but what doesn’t? Invest in the time and invest in yourself. I guarantee you will find that it is well worth the effort.

How should you get started? Make a list of things you would like to improve, brainstorm. Put everything on paper. Then pick one. Practice the art of crafting an affirmation until you have one that you think will work. Then test that theory. Be patient and be prepared to be surprised. This is a very powerful form of change, but often a very subtle one. You may find yourself just magically exhibiting the new behavior you want. That sounds good, doesn’t it?

Today’s question, affirmations, what are you experiences with them? Have they worked, have they not, why or why not? Leave us a comment, tell us about your experiences, and please don’t forget to check out all of the other great today is that day articles we have here on the site and share them! Tell all your friends about us! Thanks for getting the word out.

In fact, the following are ten of the many ways that these practices can help you increase your inner strength. Yoga and meditation can:

Increase Your Physical Strength

Seeing and feeling the results of your yoga practice—from increased flexibility and muscular strength to having a leaner, more toned appearance—will make you feel strong on the inside, too. You’ll feel more confident in everything you do, because you look and feel great!

Teach You Patience, Even In Difficult Situations

When you’re holding a tough yoga pose or really need to scratch an itch while meditating, it can take tremendous patience not to move too soon. Increasing your patience in these instances will carry over to your ability to take a deep breath and remain patient during all those tough times when life keeps you waiting.

Help You To Better Understand Your Body

Yoga and meditation put you in touch with your body. Before you know it, you’ll realize that, say, tensing up your shoulders is your body’s way of saying that you’re getting too stressed out. Understanding cues like that can help you see when you’re starting to get stressed, angry, sad, etc., so you can better combat your negative feelings.

Get You More In Touch With Your Thoughts And Emotions

These practices, particularly meditation, can teach you to tune into your thoughts and feelings in a way that will help you better understand the “why” of your actions. Do you overeat when you’re stressed? Blow your top at the drop of a hat when you’re overworked? Some introspection can help you work toward changing these bad habits.

Give You Peace, Even On Difficult Days

If you can fit in a mere half hour of yoga or just ten minutes of meditation somewhere in your day, it can give you something relaxing to anticipate. Thinking about your impending “me time” can help get you through a miserable day at work or a rough patch in your personal life.

Bring More Balance To Your Life

Yoga and meditation do this both literally—through balancing postures like Tree Pose— and emotionally—through an increased ability to manage stress and unhappiness.

Teach You To Slow Down In A Fast Paced World

People are working longer hours and taking less vacation time thanks to the tough economy. Moms and dads are stretched thin between their careers, their parenting obligations, and just trying to find time for date night. Putting everything on hold for even a brief yoga class or meditation session is a great reminder that we all have to take time out for ourselves and just slow down.

Show You How Consistency And Determination Will Improve Your Life

Routinely practice yoga, and you’ll be able to lean further into every stretch as time progresses; routinely put in time toward achieving another goal in your life, and you’ll get closer and closer to realizing that goal.

Lift Your Mood

The exercise aspect of yoga and the relaxing practice of meditation can increase your endorphin levels, which helps to elevate your mood. Happier people are healthier people, which means you take fewer sick days from your job and are generally more of a go-getter. Not only will you find yourself accomplishing more, but your good mood will win over your friends, co-workers, and more—all things that lead to success.

Force You To Unplug And Focus On Yourself

You can’t check Facebook on your laptop while you’re in Downward-Facing Dog, and you can’t answer your cell phone while you’re meditating in a Half Lotus. Instead, yoga and meditation make you focus on yourself, your mind, and your body. Being more in touch with your self is a huge step toward developing increased inner strength.

You couldn’t keep it from happening, and, in fact, you couldn’t even see it coming. That’s why it’s important to develop strong stress management skills. If you can make good use of the techniques found here, you can greatly reduce your stress levels, no matter what the situation.

Breathe!

The first and perhaps easiest way to reduce your stress is to breathe. Yes, just breathe, but not as you would normally or thoughtlessly. As you feel yourself becoming stressed and anxious, pause and take a slow, deep breath inward. Then let it out just as slowly. Don’t think about anything else; just focus on the in and out of your breathing. It might even help to close your eyes when you do this. Roll your shoulders a few times to help relax them.

Try doing this for ten counts, thinking a number in your mind each time you breathe in and thinking the word “out” when you exhale (i.e. “one, out, two, out, three , out, etc.). The counting will take your mind off of everything else and bring your focus back to your body and your physical wellbeing.

What you may not even realize is that being mentally stressed out exacts physical stress on your body. Your shoulders and jaw may become tense, you may slump further and further forward at your desk, etc., without even being aware of it. Doing this simple breathing exercise forces you to relax your body, and that helps you to relax your mind. Understanding the physical signs of stress that present in your body when you’re stressed out, and then knowing how to properly address them, will help greatly with stress management.

Take A Break

Taking a brief break from whatever you’re doing can also be helpful. This doesn’t just apply to work, but can also apply to stressful problems in your personal life. Let’s say you’re in charge of Thanksgiving dinner this year, and you’ve got a day full of cooking and dealing with guests on your plate. Try to find a few fifteen minute intervals to walk away from the insanity. Step outside for a quick walk around the block in between turkey basting intervals. Thirty minutes before your guests start showing up, sit down and read a chapter in a book or an article or two online.

Little breaks help refresh you. Anything that involves movement, like walking or stretching, gets the blood flowing and energizes you. Activities like reading or watching a few funny videos online will lift your spirits and take your mind off of the stressful situation at hand.

Listen To Music

Another thing that can help is listening to music, which can even be done while you’re in the midst of the stressful activity. Are you freaking out about having to write a big term paper or put together a report for work? Pop on a pair of headphones and listen to some of your favorite music while you work—you’re bound to feel more relaxed and happy as a result.

Ask For Help

Finally, never underestimate the power of asking for help, particularly when you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. Having a spouse play sous chef or assist you in cleaning before a dinner party can help you stick to your schedule, which prevents the added stress of being late. Enlisting a coworker to help with an overwhelming project can keep you from falling apart at work.

Have A Good Support Network

Plus, seeing your significant other, friends, coworkers, and/or family members come to the rescue for you is a wonderful reminder that you’re not alone in the world. There’s not much that’s more stressful than feeling like you have to solve all of your problems on your own. Leaning on your support system now and again can be a fantastic stress management technique.

Books That Have Inspired Me Lately

The Physics of Miracles: Tapping in to the Field of Consciousness Potential

The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits

Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age

Busting Loose From the Money Game: Mind-Blowing Strategies for Changing the Rules of a Game You Can’t Win

Busting Loose From the Business Game: Mind-Blowing Strategies for Recreating Yourself, Your Team, Your Business, and Everything in Between

Affirmations

I am Love…

I am Happiness & Joy…

I am the Infinite potentiality, the inexhaustible possibility…

I am the Power and Presence of God

I am the Infinite Power of the Universe

I am the Absolute Creator of my Life

I am complete and perfect in every way!

My very nature is limitless freedom and happiness

I am playing the Human Game without limits or restrictions

I am experiencing Infinite Abundance – right here – right now

I am responsible for everything I create in my life

My Consciousness is creating everything in my human experience down to the smallest detail

Everything that happens to me I create consciously or unconsciously

There’s NO power outside of me – not in anyone, not in anything…

I experience ever-expanding feelings of unconditional love and appreciation for myself and all my creations

I feel my connection to my Expanded Self in everything I do

I trust my inner guidance completely

My fears are melting away and my Joy and Abundance are growing to infinite proportions

I am always filled with Happiness and Joy – no matter what’s going on around me or the story I choose to tell myself about it

I love myself unconditionally and nurture myself in every way

I openly give and receive unlimited love and appreciation

I am free of judgement – both of myself and of others

I choose to forgive everyone for whom I feel less than unconditional love

I choose to see the perfection in everything, just the way it is…

I accept people and situations exactly as they are – absolutely perfect

Every pressure or discomfort I feel is a signal to relax, release, and let go…

My life is filled with Infinite Abundance

All my needs, desires, and goals are met instantaneously for I am one with the Universe

I have an infinite supply of money to express appreciation with – right here, right now

My capabilities and potential are unlimited

I express my Infinite potential more and more each day

I can be, do and have everything I want

Lucrative opportunities always come my way

I am a generous giver and an excellent receiver

I am appreciated and I appreciate others

I am open and willing to receive massive amounts of appreciation and abundance into my life – right now

I start each day with enthusiasm and joy

I live every day with power and passion

My life is a great and exciting adventure

I love myself unconditionally and nurture myself in every way

I am perfect just the way I am

I am healthy and strong, filled with energy and vitality

I always have more than enough energy to do all I want to do

I awaken each day feeling healthy and alive with energy

Every cell in my body vibrates with health, healing, vitality, and love

The cells in my body work together in perfect harmony to create perfect health

Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better and better…

Source - http://www.examiner.com/animal-shelters-in-san-francisco/animal-sheltering-101-turbocharging-your-adoption-program

title:

Animal Sheltering 101: Turbocharging Your Adoption Program

Dog Shelters – 10 Steps To Stop Killing Healthy, Adoptable Pets

Animal Sheltering 101 – How To Stop Killing Healthy, Adoptable Pets in 10 Easy Steps

Animal Shelters – How To Stop Killing Healthy, Adoptable Pets in 10 Easy Steps

Animal Shelters – 10 Steps To Stop Killing Healthy, Adoptable Pets

“You can’t adopt your way out of killing.” It is one of the most enduring dogmas in the animal shelter field. But it could not be more wrong. You actually can adopt your way out of killing. The data proves it. Experience proves it. And that is good news for animals and animal lovers.

The Data

Roughly 8 million animals enter shelters every year.  Can we find homes for that many shelter animals? The good news is that we don’t have to. Some animals need adoption, but others do not. Some animals, like unsocialized cats, need neuter and release. Others will be reclaimed by their families. Some animals will go to rescue groups. Others are irremediably suffering or hopelessly ill. And many more can be kept out of the shelter through a comprehensive pet retention effort. While about four million dogs and cats will be killed in pounds and shelters this year, roughly three million will be killed for lack of a new home. Can we find homes for those animals? Yes we can.

Using the most successful adoption communities as a benchmark and adjusting for population, U.S. shelters combined should be adopting almost nine million animals a year. That is almost three times the number being killed for lack of a home. In fact, it is more than total impounds, and of those, almost half do not need a new home. But the news gets even better. There are almost two times that many potential adopters each year.

There are over 23 million people who are going to get an animal next year. Some are already committed to adopting from a shelter. Some are already committed to getting one from a breeder or other commercial source. But 17 million have not decided where that animal will come from and research shows they can be influenced to adopt from a shelter. That’s 17 million people vying for roughly 3 million animals. So even if 80% of those people got their animal from somewhere other than a shelter, we could still zero out the killing. And many communities are proving it.

The Experience

There are communities with extremely high per capita intake rates who have done it. There are now No Kill communities across the U.S. and abroad: in New York and in California, in Colorado and Virginia, in Utah, Indiana, Kansas, and Kentucky, in Nevada, and across the globe. Washoe County, Nevada, for example, has been very hard hit by the economic downturn. Loss of jobs and loss of homes are at all-time highs. In fact, the state of Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation. As a result, the two major shelters (Washoe County Regional Animal Services and the Nevada Humane Society) together take in four times the per capita rate of Los Angeles, five times the rate of San Francisco, seven times the rate of New York City, and over two times the national average. If there was ever a community which could not adopt its way out of killing, it is Washoe County. But they are doing just that.

And it didn’t take them five years to do it. All these communities did it virtually overnight, by adopting their way out of killing. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the other programs and services of the No Kill Equation aren’t crucial. They are. Some, like foster care, keep animals alive long enough to be adopted because, quite simply, some animals are not ready for adoption when they first arrive at the shelter. But, in the end, all these animals found loving homes.

The Excuses

High-kill, low-adoption shelters like to peddle the fiction that increasing the quantity of adoptions results in the lowering of the quality of adoptions. They do this to deflect criticism by painting the alternative as darker. But increasing adoptions means public access adoption hours when working people and families with children (two important adopter demographics) can visit the shelter. It means greater visibility in the community, working with rescue groups, competing with pet stores and puppy mills, marketing, offsite adoptions, special events, adoption incentives, foster care, alternative placements, a fun and friendly shelter environment, setting and meeting goals, and a good public image. It has nothing to do with reducing quality.

Some shelters, for example, are open for adoption Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm, when many people cannot visit the shelter. To adopt more, shelters need to be open when the kids are home, families are together, and working people can get to the shelter.  That doesn’t always have to mean morehours, just different ones. Moreover, holidays are when families and working people can come to the shelter and when promotions and media outreach can have great impact. When shelters are closed on holidays, they are still staffed, they still take in stray animals, and they are still required to care, feed, and medicate animals. Days closed are just days of lost adoptions. Last year, an animal control shelter in Indiana stayed open for the first time on the 4th of July and did a big promotion, finding homes for 153 animals in a single day—animals who would have been killed in years past. It was, and remains, the single best adoption day for any shelter in Indiana ever.

So how does a shelter adopt its way out of killing? Here are ten steps to success.

The Steps to Success

1. Get the Right People on Board

People are the heart and soul of any organization, so staff members who are committed to the organization’s mission and goals, share lifesaving values, and have a strong work ethic are crucial. Just because someone works at a shelter, humane society, or SPCA does not mean they care about animals and it does not mean they will leave no stone unturned to save a life. For many staff members, working at a shelter is a job, not amission. And given the built in excuse of pet overpopulation and public irresponsibility, they’ve never been held accountable to their performance or results. Consequently, there is an epidemic of uncaring and underperformance in our nation’s pounds and shelters.

To save lives, a shelter must be staffed by people who not only like animals, but like other people as well. That may mean termination of employment for some. Admittedly, this is no fun for anyone involved, but it may prove a necessary step to move forward effectively in many communities. It is always better to fire a bad staff member than kill a good animal. On the plus side, it means the shelter gets to reward the hard workers. It means new people with a passion for saving lives get hired. It means the job just got a whole lot easier because when a shelter has the right people on the team with a good attitude and a strong worth ethic, a lot of things fall into place right away.

Tompkins County, New York had 50% turnover in the first six months of its No Kill initiative. The result: a 93% save rate (75% decline in killing). In Reno, only three of the original pre-No Kill 60 staff members remain. The result? A 91% communitywide save rate. Two communities in Delaware saw a 70% decline in killing following an 80% turnover in staff at the shelter. In fact, we are not aware of any shelter/pound going from a culture of killing to a culture of lifesaving without turnover in management and staff.

The more caring shelter staff are; the more educated they are; the more patient they are; the more helpful they are; the more creative they are; the more people will see the shelter as a resource—a resource to find lost pets, a resource to solve problems, a place to donate to, and more importantly, a place to adopt out animals.

2. Keep Pets Out of the Shelter to Start With

The job is easier if there are less animals coming in, especially animals with “behavior” issues and other impediments to immediate adoption. It is also easier if recently adopted animals are checked up on to make sure adjustment issues or little problems do not skyrocket into intractable ones and result in failed adoptions. And, finally, the job is easier if more lost animals are reclaimed by their families.

When someone calls to surrender their animal, many shelters fail to give them any more information than how they do so. But more successful shelters know that before a discussion of the process to surrender is had, they need to discuss why the person wants to do so and offer advice to help them keep their companion, if the person inquiring is inclined to do so. A study in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association found that targeted helpful advice that actually solves the problem results in a better than 90% decline in chances of relinquishment. At the Nevada Humane Society, their animal help desk, a central part of their pet retention program, fields over 20,000 calls a year. Of those who agreed to try and resolve their issues after calling to surrender their pet, 59% ended up not doing so.

One of the most overlooked areas for saving lives is getting more lost animals back to their families. Unfortunately, shelters kill unclaimed strays blaming the “irresponsible” or “uncaring” public. In reality, the reasons why reclaim rates are low are more complex and all of them contribute to the number of lost dogs and cats who are never claimed by their families. These include poor ‘lost and found’ matching techniques, filing lost pet reports but not matching them with animals in the shelters, lack of diligence, killing animals too quickly before a match can be made, providing erroneous information about animal behavior, and giving the public a false assurance that once the report of a lost pet is made, the “owner” will be called when the animal is recovered. Beyond scanning animals for microchips, however, most shelters do very little to help people recover their lost pets. Worse yet, most shelter workers and pet owners have absolutely no idea how lost pets behave, the typical distances that they travel, and the best techniques that should be used to recover them, even though shelter staff should know this information and provide it to the public.

The result is that people get discouraged. People who are discouraged lose hope. People without hope give up searching. And lost pets are not recovered. It is this broken system that dominates sheltering in the United States today and it is time for a new approach. Washoe County Regional Animal Services has increased their redemption rate for lost dogs to 65% by being proactive, working hard, utilizing technology, and working diligently to get animals home in the field.

Imagine this: If a shelter takes in 10,000 stray dogs, on average 2,000 will be reclaimed. Another 500-700 will be killed (at this time in history) because they are hopelessly ill, irremediably suffering, or truly vicious dogs with a poor prognosis for rehabilitation. That leaves roughly 7,500 dogs competing with “owner-surrendered” dogs for homes.

Now imagine this: If the shelter worked more diligently as they do in Washoe County, they could reclaim 6,500 dogs, leaving only 3,500 dogs. If they then partnered with rescue groups and, on the “owned” animal side, employed a pet retention program, the total number of dogs needing homes would fall to below 1,000, a world of difference.

3. Get By with a Little Help from Your Friends

At the Tompkins County SPCA a few years ago, adopters received a free health examination at any local veterinarian of their choice, free grooming at a local pet salon, a 15% discount at a pet supply store, free behavior advice for life, a free month of someone picking up dog waste in their yard, a free engraved identification tag, a free bag of pet food, a 10% discount at a puppy obedience class, a 10% discount for a pet massage, the “Pet Lover’s Guide to Your New Pet,” a discount at the local coffee shop, and more.  These were all donated by local businesses to encourage adoptions and gain customers—a classic “win-win.”

But a shelter’s biggest friends are rescue groups. Shelters are in the business of saving lives and like any business, successful shelters are rewarding their best customers by offering them special deals in return for their loyalty. That means giving something back to rescue groups, who typically save many animals every year. The deal: “any animal, any time.”

4. Set Specific Goals and Celebrate Success

Goals have a way of uniting and inspiring people, so setting a specific adoption goal for each month allows shelters to measure success, plan accordingly, and modify as needed. And every success should be celebrated. According to the Nevada Humane Society, “We ring a bell and everyone pauses to applaud when each adoption is completed. It reminds us all of what we are doing here and it makes the pet adopter feel special.”

5. Make the Shelter Fun and Inviting

Nothing makes a person feel welcome like a smile and hello, but getting people to stay and adopt can only be done by interaction with the animals. In other words, once you get them in the room, the animals do the rest. First, that means the shelter must remain clean. The smell of waste and filthy kennels undermines a smile and “hello” at the door. Shelters should set up play areas for cats, have lots of cat toys, and let people take them out of cages and interact with them. They should set up a doggy pool, have tennis balls and Frisbees, and invite the public to walk dogs and play with them, too. People will stay longer, interact more, and adopt more.

Old-school animal sheltering dogma advises minimizing public contact with animals, but it is human nature to want to make personal contact. Shelters should encourage the public to interact with the animals—to touch, spend time, and fall in love with them. Even if they do not adopt, the animals enjoy the attention. Studies show that the benefit of socialization and contact not only increases adoptions, but also decreases the animals’ stress which makes them more resistant to disease.

6. Go on the Road

Most shelters are located in remote, out of the way parts of the community. In other words, they aren’t located where people work, live, and play. In addition, many people think of shelters as sad and tragic places and may be reluctant to visit. So rather than wait for people to come to the shelter, successful shelters are taking the animals to the people. Over 20 years ago, the San Francisco SPCA created the nation’s first offsite adoption program, setting up adoption locations throughout the city: at shopping malls, in the financial districts, at neighborhood gathering places. During its heyday, roughly one out of four animals were adopted offsite, and over the years, that has meant over 10,000 animals have found a home while being showcased outside of the shelter.

7. Marketing and Promotion

Out of sight is out of mind when it comes to where people get their next companion. In a shelter survey of adopters, 83% said they were influenced to adopt from the shelter by hearing about the organization: reading about them in the newspaper, seeing them at a local community event, finding them online, hearing about them on the radio, or word of mouth. Only 17% said adopting from them was their first choice or something they always knew they would do. To get more adoptions, the shelter must be in the public eye.

A shelter gets the message out on radio and television, in the newspaper, with posters and flyers, by speaking to community groups, and doing offsite adoptions. In one year, the shelter in Tompkins County was mentioned either on the radio, television, or a newspaper 409 times, averaging 37 stories per month, with a public relations budget close to zero.

Have fun, be creative, and the community will do the rest. And just as importantly in this day and age, go viral. Today, having a website is an indispensable part of any organization. But in sheltering, it isn’t enough to save all the lives at risk. Seven out of ten internet users on social marketing websites like Facebook and Twitter. And if a shelter is not utilizing those social networks, it is missing out on an important market share for promoting their animals. According to Animal Ark shelter in Minnesota, a pioneer in this field, “The sharing of adoptable animals via social networking sites is viral marketing in its truest, purest and best form. It costs virtually nothing to get started, and the payoffs are tremendous: more and quicker adoptions, donations, and other support.” But all the animals should have names and photographs to get the benefits of increased adoptions.

8. Not All Photographs and Descriptions are Created Equal

According to shelter directors who have tops-in-the-nation rates of lifesaving, there is no doubt that a good photograph that shows off the animal’s best qualities advertised in a newspaper, a pet of the week ad, a flyer, or online will get people to the shelter to meet him or her. But it is the story that will close the deal. Rather than focusing on the basics: name, breed, age, and gender, the most successful shelters tell something about each animal: what they like, their favorite activities and treats, and even a little about their ideal home. In fact, PetRescue, an online adoption gateway in Australia, doesn’t allow people to search by breed. Their philosophy is that people want to know what the dog is like, not what he is supposed to be like and they are trying to replicate the experience of going to a shelter and looking at all the dogs. And the payoff has been big: 65,000 animals have found a home through them.

9. Be Reasonable

Some shelters think that by charging an arm and a leg, they guarantee good homes. But this is a mistake. A multi-state survey found that even waiving adoption fees did not reduce either the quality of the home, the strength of the bond, or the longevity of the adoption. It did find, however, that it greatly increased the number of adoptions. Why? People have lots of choices on where they can get an animal and price will influence their decision. In addition to the adoption fee, adopters have lots of other expenses such as collars, leashes, toys, and even a trip to the veterinarian.

Moreover, adoption policies should be thoughtful, not based on outdated myths. Before a cat, dog, rabbit, guinea pig, hamster, or other animal is killed while a home is being turned down, shelter managers should honestly ask themselves what they would want if they were the one facing the needle. Some shelter animals already have enough going against them: false perceptions that shelter animals are “damaged goods,” poor shelter location, poor hours, poor customer service, a dirty and dilapidated facility. Shelters should not add unnecessary roadblocks like one rescue group in Pennsylvania which refuses to adopt to “unmarried cohabitating adults.”

Ensuring a good home doesn’t mean arbitrary rules, it doesn’t require that potential adopters be grilled for an hour or to fill out a 10-page application. Americans have lots of choices when it comes to getting a new best friend, and when they make the decision to adopt from a shelter rather than going to more convenient places, like the local pet store, shelters shouldn’t start out with the presumption they can’t be trusted.

Screening may be an important part of the adoption process, but a rigid, bureaucratic undertaking is hardly necessary. By talking to and educating potential adopters rather than interrogating them, shelters can place animals in loving homes, without alienating people or making them feel like criminals.

10. Turn Challenges into Opportunities

At some point, every shelter experiences an extraordinary influx of large numbers of animals. The difference between those shelters who are successful and those who fail are the decisions made by those who run them. A shelter’s options are only limited by imagination.

Imagination allowed a shelter which has a “capacity” of 375 but found itself with 750 animals due to a hoarding bust to empty its shelter without killing.

Imagination allowed an open admission shelter in New Zealand to triple its adoption rate overnight. And it allowed a Nevada shelter to more than double its number of adoptions on a weekend the Roads Department closed the street it was on for repairs. All by being creative, marketing animals, running promotions, and engaging the community.

Creating a Brighter Future

Imagine:

• Through your pet retention program, you reduce the number of people who surrender their animals after you help solve their problems by 59%.
• Through your proactive efforts to get strays home, you triple the percentage of dogs and increase seven-fold the percentage of cats being reclaimed by their families.
• Through your TNR program, many feral cats don’t come into the shelter. Through your barn cat program, when they do, they go into barn homes.
• Through your low cost spay/neuter program, almost 70% of people with unsterilized animals get their animals altered.
• Through your partnerships with rescue organizations, your volunteer foster parents, and medical and behavior rehabilitation programs, animals are moving expeditiously through the system and into the care of the community.

And then, you turbocharge your adoption program. What would be the result? For the animals who remained in your shelter, you will have adopted your way out of killing.

You will have achieved a No Kill community.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So can words be really good or bad?

We’re really, as society, very hypocritical on the subject. We always say “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” But really, that’s B.S. We teach people that curse words are bad. For example, you can’t drop an “F bomb” in church, or on YouTube. You can’t say “oh f*ck!” You can, of course, say “oh crap!” or “oh fudge!”

I mean, really, are we still trying to pretend there’s any difference here? Because there isn’t. The words, are of course, different, but the INTENTION is exactly the same. Both words have exactly the same emotions, thoughts and feelings behind them. In that respect, they’re completely identical, in terms of content that is.

If you use the “F word” and you’re angry, it’s bad. But if you use it during sex, it’s good. Heck, if you don’t look at your man and say “F me harder daddy!!” then it’s probably not going to be much fun for him. Same word, two completely different contexts, and very different levels of happiness!

We would argue that it it’s time to get rid of all the hypocrisy surrounding words.

Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words can cause lingering damage that never really heals. It’s not just an issue of political correctness any more. In the old days, if someone called you names on the playground you had a fight. These days if someone does that you snap and grab an assault rifle.

Emotion and intention is the real issue in terms of language.

“Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.”
– George Carlin, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

George Carlin is famous in large part due to his “seven ‘dirty’ words you can’t say on television” routine. The basis of said routine is the hypocrisy surrounding language, as if just the words themselves cause the damage.

Yet anyone who’s ever watched C-SPAN can see how our elected officials have taken curse-free hate-speech to the level of fine art. They never call each other any dirty word, yet what they say, if you actually take the time to listen to it, is far more offensive than any “F bomb”.

So going forward, be really of your speech patterns as well as your internal dialogue.

One interesting thing to do is simply take an inventory. For a week or so, write down every emotion you feel when you say something. Do this consistently and you can start to see a pattern. Are you always happy? Sad? Depressed? Overjoyed? You think you know, but do you really? Not until you see it all there in black and white. It’s kind of tedious to do, we admit, but just do it. You’ll be glad you did. We promise. Seriously. You believe us, right? Who wouldn’t trust these faces?

And don’t forget to check out our other articles and videos here on Today is Today Is That Day! TodayIsThatDay.com is your one stop shop for inspirational videos, quotes and articles! Everything you need to make the life of your dreams a reality! Thanks for reading!

First a few tips on dog psychology, to help you and your puppy be on the same page and speak the same language.

1. Dogs are not humans. Their social structure revolves around a “pack”, not a human family or a social friend group. You are the “pack leader”, the lead dog in this pack. Your dog instinctually knows he relies on you for his survival. He will do his best to please you and to protect you when necessary

2. Dogs are not social animals like humans are. They don’t wish to enjoy tea parties and go to rock concerts. Their first priority is their own safety and the safety of their pack. Yes, you can train them to be OK around people and other dogs. But realize that dogs naturally are highly territorial pack animals. Think of human beings earlier in our evolution, when we lived in small warring tribes.

3. Dogs are fiercely protective of their pack: that means you, your spouse, your children, and any other pack members. That means that by definition a non-pack-member is considered a threat.

If you let your dog in the backyard, close and lock your gate so a neighbor or a child doesn’t walk in and make your dog feel threatened.

4. Just like humans, every dog has his own personality, his own temperament, and his own baggage. He can feel happy, he can feel sad, he can feel loved, lonely, etc.

5. Unlike most humans, dogs will give you unconditional love. When you go out to take out the trash and then come back in, it’s just the best thing ever… he’s so happy you’re back, he’s wagging all over himself.

food – your dog is biologically not that different from you. You shouldn’t eat junk and neither should your dog.

The better (and more natural) the food you give him, the more healthy he’ll be and the better life he’ll enjoy. Feeding humans only granola bars and feeding dogs only “dog food” (kibble) is about the same thing. No need to go crazy and only feed them “raw food” (unless you do that for yourself too), just remember the same rule as for humans: natural, unprocessed food us best, and avoid grains whenever possible.

Dogs require plenty of exercise. Puppies especially have a lot of energy, and if they don’t use that energy constructively (walking, playing, running) that can lead to “bad behavior”. This is no different than locking your teenage boy in his room from the outside and wondering why he goes totally stir crazy.

toys – chew toys. puppies need to chew for their teeth to develop. give them things to chew on or they’ll find delightfully chewy things in your closet (i.e. your shoes). Pla ah

potty training

Dogs instinctively know not to “go” in their bed / home, but just like a small child, they can’t comprehend that your whole house is “their home”. Remember how as kids we all made “forts”? Same thing… you wanted a small area you could comprehend as safe, as yours.

Don’t hit your puppy. There are far more effective and more loving ways to correct unwanted behavior.

Hitting is cruel, unnecessary, and ironically ineffective. When we hit an animal (or a human) it’s usually out of anger, not to improve the situation. Or it’s because we saw someone else do it, so we think it’s the right way. But it’s not. When you hit, pay attention to how wrong it feels. That’s because it IS wrong.

A dog understands “dog speak”, not hitting. Hitting a dog (or a human) makes him fear you and trust you less than before, so he may be afraid to do something in front of you – but it does nothing to correct the behavior when you’re not there.

How to correct behavior: a firm “no” will almost always do it for a puppy. To escalate, make a low growling noise. Another escalation option is again what a mama dog would do: lightly grab the puppy by the scruff of the neck. Do not shake or grab hard, it coudl cause damage: the point here is the gesture, it will remind the puppy that you’re in charge and you don’t approve of the behavior.

Dogs are very much in tune with us: they already sense your disapproval. So a firm no, light growl, or light scruff hold will almost always make your point abundantly clear.

Reward positive behavior – not talking treats here. Say “good dog!” and give him quick pat on the header EVERY TIME you see desired behavior.

Make your home toddler safe.

Pick up any small objects that are easily swallowed. Like a human toddler, dogs of all ages like to chew on and swallow small components, plastic pieces, etc. which can make them very ill, require surgery, or worse.

puppy beds, pillows, blankets

barking – what it means and how to make it stop

Dogs usually bark when they’re scared. Think of a child yelling “stranger danger!!”… it’s the same thing. A dog locked up alone in a backyard is probably scared. he can hear and smell so much going on, and he’s all alone, away from his pack. Not a happy place for a dog.

To stop the barking: understand what’s causing it. then verbally discourage it. a sharp clap of your hands is also very effective – the noise startles your dog and gets his attention. Combined with a light growl this is a very effective approach.

consistency and persistency – as most women will tell you about getting your man to do “x”, be consistent in what you’re asking. if you’re “sometimes consistent” then you’ll get “sometimes good” results.

They focus every day on what they don’t have, on what they’re missing, and wonder why this foretold wealth doesn’t magically appear.

Don’t you have to live meagerly and save every penny so you can amass wealth?

Absolutely not! That’s the plan that KEEPS you broke.

It’s one thing to completely waste and not appreciate anything you have, but living out of fear and hording every single penny (again – out of FEAR) will actually repel any wealth that may be coming your way.

Some people have amassed fortunes in spite of themselves. Many actually wealthy people save every penny and live as though they were poor, even though they have millions of dollars stashed away in the bank and various couch cushions. At the end of the day, these people live a life of poverty every day, by way of their very own deliberate intent.

And then the financial planning gurus come on television and tell everyone how the need to always stash money away for a rainy day. Then regular people who WANT wealth and abundance in their lives follow these penny-pinching examples and wonder why they stay broke and miserable.

Are you coming from a place of lack and fear, or one of love and abundance?

People who are always saving everything away for a “rainy day” are statistically blessed with more rainy days than most anyone. Rainy days are, after all, where their focus is. And we all know that what you focus on grows.

This is not to say that you should spend every last penny you have. But rather, don’t focus your energy and conscious intention on “rainy days” and lack.

Surrounding yourself with poverty and lack at every turn does NOT condition your mind to be at ease with wealth and abundance. Quite the contrary, you’re enforcing a reality of poverty, and virtually guaranteeing that’s what you’ll be experiencing from then on.

Ultimately this means you are living each day out of fear. Not love, hope, excitement and enthusiasm – but fear. And that is the greatest deterrent for wealth and abundance.

The Trick to Money is Having Some – Stewart Wilde

Here’s a radical approach that has worked wonders for us, and should work for you as well – if you can only allow yourself to believe in the possibility.

In The Trick to Money is Having Some, Stewart Wilde recommends immersing yourself in the lifestyle you dream about: a life of wealth, abundance, and possibility.

He encourages you to think and live big – more into the nicest possible house you can afford, and stay at a 5 Star hotel whenever you possibly can.  If you can’t afford to stay at a very expensive 5 Star hotel, you can still go there for a coffee, a drink, or maybe even a modest meal.

The point isn’t to spend beyond your means, but rather to FEEL what it’s like to live surrounded by wealth and abundance. You must feel and experience the sensations, what it’s all about. And then, you will slowly come to expect for life to unravel in this manner. And the more you expect something to go a certain way, the more it will.

Another great book that helps to dispel  many of the myths around money and wealth is  Why You’re Dumb, Sick & Broke…And How to Get Smart, Healthy & Rich! by Randy Gage.

Ask yourself this question every day: where is your focus?

Are you focusing on the experience you wish to have, or the problems you wish would go away? Most people just focus on their problems and what they’re missing. Remember: whatever you focus on grows stronger. So if you focus all your energy on your “problems”, bills, and whatever else is making you unhappy, then guess what you’ll get… More of that.

What IS money anyway? Can you REALLY get excited about it?

Money itself is worthless paper, it means nothing. The real value to money is the promise of what you can do and achieve in exchange for it.

Logically, we know that money can solve a lot of the issues we’re facing. It can allow us to purchase whatever creature comforts we desire, and so on. But it’s hard to get excited about any of that. At the end of the day, what truly excites you is the dream, the thing that money will get for you. So, let’s go to the source.

How can you REALLY manifest money and abundance?

Our true power to manifest our desires into reality is based on feelings, emotions. The best and fastest way to attract something into your life is to focus on what you want, see it clearly in your mind, and experience the joy and feelings of ALREADY HAVING IT. Close your eyes and experience the joy of driving your brand new exotic sports car. FEEL the exhilaration, the excitement, the luxury and abundance. Every morning, set aside 10 minutes for a brief meditation where you close your eyes, sit perfectly still, and repeat this exercise.

So stop focusing on “having a lot of money”. Rather, train your focus on what you want to attract into your life… a beautiful home, a wonderful neighborhood, an exotic car, a great job, freedom to work from home for yourself, etc.

But there’s good news – this is probably just because you’re making one of a few common mistakes guys make when trying to get ab definition. If you can just avoid these common errors, you’ll see much more success in your quest to get a six pack.

So, here are the 10 most dangerous mistakes men make when it comes to getting six pack abs. If you make these 10 mistakes it’ll be incredibly hard and frustrating to get abs, and you probably will never get them at all. If you do learn these mistakes getting abs will be much easier, and you’ll start seeing abdominal definition more quickly than you could imagine.

Mistake #1 – Doing Sit Ups And Crunches To Get A Six-Pack

The biggest mistake that I see in almost every gym I’ve been to is watching people do endless ab exercises one after another in hopes of getting a flatter stomach. Ab exercises only build the ab muscles but don’t get rid of fat that’s covering it. We all have abdominal muscles, if we didn’t our bodies would go limp without its support. In fact, doing too many ab exercises actually has a negative effect when it comes to slimming your waistline.

When you do a lot of resistance exercises for your arms they get bigger right? Well guess what, if you do that for your abs they will respond the same way. When you work on your abs too much, the muscle gets really big and bulgy and actually makes your waist bigger. Now you have a bigger waistline than when you first started because of the larger ab muscles, plus the fat is still there covering any visibility of a six-pack.

The only way to get rid of fat on our stomach is to allow our body to convert it into energy and use it. Doing crunches and sit ups is not intense enough for our bodies to have to break down fat because the abdominal muscle so small compared to using a larger muscle group like our legs. You need concentrate on burning the fat before you start building up abdominal muscle – otherwise you’re just bulking up your beer gut.

Mistake# 2 – Doing Cardio

Cardio only burns calories when you’re doing it, is doesn’t burn when your heart rate is not elevated. Think about the last time you did any type of cardio exercise. Your heart rate and body temperature was increase and when stopped they went back to normal.

Even if you did cardio 30 min a day 7 days a week, there’s 24 hours in a day so what are you burning the other 23.5 hours? Not much, because if it was a lot, you would be lean by now. Throughout the remainder of the day its then up to our natural metabolism to burn the rest of the calories. And doing cardio all day long doesn’t seem like a very reasonable solution either.

Can you think of the last time YOU did cardio? Did you get a six-pack? Did your stomach at least get a little flatter? Probably not. If it did, it’s not flat anymore isn’t it? The cold hard truth is that long cardio workouts are completely ineffective for burning fat, and for getting a six pack. If you’re spending long hours on the elliptical, treadmill or bike, you’re completely wasting your time if your goal is to get hard, defined abs.

Mistake # 3 - Diets

Think of all the people you know who got on a diet, how many of them actually stayed on it. Losing weight and having a lean healthy body is a lifestyle change and unfortunetly, when you ask someone to change their habits of eating that they been doing all their life, that’s almost like asking someone to change their personality permanently. Sure, you can pretend for a short period, but you will always go back to being you.

Most diets now are so low in carbohydrates; it’s likely the initial weight loss is primarily water weight, as carbohydrate encourages your body to hold water. As soon as you go back to a normal amount of carbs, the water weight comes back and the weight goes back to normal. No real fat was really loss.

There is no point in “going on a diet,” or temporarily changing your eating habits. Because as soon as you change them back, you’ll gain back all the fat you lost – and then some more on top of that.

Mistake # 4 – Using Fat Burning Supplements, Diet Pills, And Other Drugs To Burn Off Fat

You can’t get in shape through supplements alone. All fat burning drugs do is first suppress your appetite so you don’t feel the need to eat as much. Now your body doesn’t have the nutrients to give you energy. But wait! The fat burners are also filled with other stimulants so your energy level doesn’t go down. So what that does is decrease your natural metabolism (which is what your body does to burn calories) and increase your fat storage because your body will now go into “survival mode”

• Your body will lower its calorie burning because it’s not getting enough of it.

• Your body will hold on to your fat and not use it as energy because fat is your most valuable energy source in your body and in survival mode; it will do the smartest thing to survive.

• Your body will also break down muscle tissue as fuel causing your metabolism to lower even more.

• Once you stop taking the supplement, your food intake goes back to normal causing you to gain all the weight you loss plus more. The reason why you gain more than you started is your metabolism is now lower than when you first started due to the loss of muscle.

This is why most guys who ACTUALLY have a six pack take very few supplements, or no supplements at all.

Mistake # 5 - Getting Advice From People Who Never Had Flat Abs

Think about the last time you at the gym or at some sort of gathering and you received advice on how to lose your gut. People tend to consider themselves experts at something after only doing it once or twice. When it comes to losing body fat and getting six-pack it get even worse. You will notice a lot of times the people giving advice on how to get lean or ripped are either genetically very lean their whole life and never had a problem with excess body fat or an overweight guy who use to weigh 300lbs and is now 200lbs and still has a gut but giving advice on how to lose belly fat.

First, the skinny lean guy: Naturally lean all his life, can eat whatever he wants and always seems to have a six pack no matter what. He is genetically build that way and really has no idea how it’s like to have a gut nevertheless teach someone how to lose it. It’s like asking a rich kid who never had to work a day in his life how to make money in the real world.

Second, the fat guy who loss some weight and is now an fat loss expert:

When your 40 – 100 lbs over weight, you can walk in a circle in place for an hour and lose weight. Cut out a couple sodas or snacks a day and their goes 10lbs. But if you ask him if he ever had six-pack, the answer is always no. The lower the body fat, the harder it is to get leaner. Someone who is 40 – 100lbs overweight can lose very easily, but someone who is 10 – 15lbs away from having a six-pack can spend 6 months and not see any changes.

Mistake: # 6 - Being A Gym Rat

People who goes to the gym 6-7 days a week, or spends 2 to 3 hours at the gym, or the twice a day members. More is not always better. You’ve heard the term before, “TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING IS BAD ALSO!” Working out that much causes overtraining and will break down your muscles rather than build. It doesn’t give the muscles enough rest to recuperate and rebuild. Imagine a football player having to play 10 straight football games back to back everyday. Every game he is a little more fatigue than the last and his performance gets worse and worse. Give him a week to recover between games and he will play at his best.

Mistake#7 – Wasting money on AB Gimmicks

These machines only work on your abs, and nothing more. You’re only burning a little bit of calories because the abs is such a small muscle group and doesn’t require much energy to contract.

It’s all marketing. Hire a fitness model to be your front cover and make a couple of DVDs on how to use the machine. Then pay some people to do your testimonials and you have a new AB product.

Just like a get rich quick scheme. But this is a get lean and rip quick scheme. Think of about it, everybody has tried some get rich scheme one time or another. Did it work? Was it as easy as step 1, 2, 3?

When it comes to abs machines nobody ever got in shape using just the machines. They fail to mention the part “ in addition to low calorie diet and exercise regimen”

Mistake# 8 – Lack Of Sleep

Sleeping affects us more than what you think. When we go to bed, our bodies replenish and rebuild physically and mentally from the wear and tear throughout the day. Today’s norm of staying up past our bed times due to computers, cell phones, 24 – hour cable has made our bodies fatigue, reduced health, and even weight increase.

Grehlin and Leptin are hormones in our body that control appetite and weight gain or loss. Leptin suppresses our appetite while grehlin increases it. When your body doesn’t get enough sleep, grehlin levels increase while leptin level decreases which means not getting enough sleep could be one of the reasons why many overeat and have weight issues. Ever experienced a sleepless night followed by a day when no matter what you ate you never felt full or satisfied? If so, then you have experienced the workings of leptin and grehlin.

When lack of sleep becomes a chronic problem, levels of grehlin increases, causing greater appetite, and levels of leptin decrease. Regardless of diet and exercise, it’s possible that some obesity is caused, or made worse, by sleep deprivation.

In fact, have you ever experienced a sleepless night followed by a day when no matter what you ate you never felt full or satisfied? If so, then you have experienced the workings of leptin and grehlin.

Mistake # 9: Doing Isolation Workouts To Rid Of Specific Fatty Areas

Your body fat is spread out thru out your body. When you gain weight, you gain it everywhere, not just in one place. So why would you try to get rid of it just in one place? A lot of guys always tell me their ok with their legs, just need to get rid of some fat around the chest and stomach area.

Your fat doesn’t go, “ hey let’s all jump on your chest today and tomorrow, we’ll go fatten up the gut area!”

So when you’re attacking the fat, which is your goal and to get a six pack you must attack it from your whole body. Instead of doing exercises like bench presses or curls you need to do functional multi body group exercises to increase more cal burning in your body so your body will be forced to utilize fat as the energy source.

This doesn’t mean you do the same isolation workouts but just all in one day, because your still only using 1 to 3 muscle groups in every individual workout instead of using your entire body. Increase the calorie burning and your fat will melt away.

Mistake# 10 – Not Getting The Right Help

This is by far the biggest mistake of all that will keep most guys from ever getting the body they truly want. I know most guys don’t like to admit that they are tired and fed up with having a gut. They usually act like its not a big deal, play it off real cool by making jokes like “ I have a 1 pack instead of a six pack” but deep down inside all guys would like to have a lean, chiseled midsection if they knew how to get it.

Trust me, I been there myself. I know exactly how its like to be embarrassed to take off my shirt when there are girls around wondering if I had a nice body and my shirt was the only illusion I had.

About 6 years ago I decided I was going to get a six-pack no matter what it took. I was at a party one night and as everyone was drinking and having a good time, this girl went up to this guy, whispered something in his ear and lifted up his shirt and holy crap, this guy had some of the baddest looking abs I have ever seen in my life. I swore his midsection looked like one of the super heroes out of a comic book. Seconds later all her friends flocked over to him and begin to flirt while they groped over his stomach. Right then I knew what ever I had to do, I was going to get me a six pack because I wanted the attention, the girls, the confidence, just the whole looking and feeling physically strong and athletic.

The last 6 years, I tried everything from crazy diets I read about to working out twice a day for 3 months straight and after years and years of trial and error I finally figured out exactly what to do to get a six-pack and maintain it. Since then, I trained and helped hundreds of guys get the body they want by showing them how to train, how to eat and some of the best shortcuts and tips I learned. Now I enjoy my life more than ever because I feel so confident, my clothes fits good, I don’t have anything to hide. I now became That GUY the one girls would grope on and go OMG for and you know what, it feels great!

If you’re reading this right now, you’re probably thinking…is it worth it? Let me tell you it’s worth every second to have this great feeling. Since then I’ve helped others do the same. I send out weekly newsletters on tips and step-by-step articles on what it takes to get a six-pack, from what to do first to get started to what to expect along the way and special tricks to do and maintain your lean midsection while still having fun and doing normal things like eating out and drinking with your buddies. I show people how to cheat on their diets and still stay ripped. I would highly suggest you check out my website to get more tips and info so I could get you started in the right direction.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Valuable life lesson from your dog #1: Unconditional love

Your dog loves you, period. This love is pure, unconditional and ever-present. It isn’t conditional. They don’t love you when you do what they want or when you spend a lot of money on them. They don’t care if you’re fat or skinny, tall or short. They don’t care how the stock market is doing or what kind of car you drive. They just love you, pure and simple. They always have, and they always will.

(or, at least it shouldn’t)

LESSON LEARNED: Love really is all you need, and no, it doesn’t cost a thing.

“To love someone unconditionally is not to care who they are or what they do. Unconditional love, on the surface, looks the same as indifference.”
– Richard Bach, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

Valuable life lesson from your dog #2: Living in the moment

For your dog, there is nothing but this moment. They don’t care what has happened before and they aren’t concerned with what is coming next. If they want to play, they want to play, they don’t care how many times you may have taken them to the park or for a walk. They want to go. Now. And it’s always exciting to them. If they want food, they want it NOW. They don’t care that you fed them five minutes ago. That was the past, and the past is nonexistent for them. They only care about what is happening right here, right now, in this very moment.

LESSON LEARNED: Focus on the now, and the future takes care of itself.

“Stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there’.”
– Dr. Seuss, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

Valuable life lesson from your dog #3: Shake it off

What’s the first thing a dog does when it comes out of the rain? Or if your dog gets in a scuffle or excited? They literally shake it off, whatever “it” is. It could be they’re trying to shake off the adrenaline, energy, or whatever. But it’s the first thing they do. And the crazy thing is we’ve tried it, and it works. If it helps, you can think of this as basically an NLP tool. In NLP, everything is just a “state.” Happiness is a state, sadness is a state. If you don’t like the state you’re in, you change it. You literally shake it off and step into a new one. Who knew Fido was that wise?

LESSON LEARNED: Walk it off, whatever it is, and move on to the next challenge.

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.”
– Buddha, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

Valuable life lesson from your dog #4: Say it like it is.

Canines are delightfully unpretentious. You never wonder where you stand with them. They don’t pretend to like you, they either do or they don’t, and they let you know in no uncertain terms. They don’t put up any facades when they greet the world. They never pretend to be someone they’re not. They simply are who they are. If they want to be petted, you’ll know, if they want to be fed, you’ll know. They put it all out there. No B.S. There’s a lot to be said for that.

LESSON LEARNED: Be who you are. If people don’t like it, that’s their problem.

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
– Arthur Schopenhauer, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

Valuable life lesson from your dog #5: Balance

Live hard, play hard, work hard, be lazy, relax. Laugh more, play more, be lazy. It’s okay to do nothing for a day or two. Turn the brain off. You can’t think all the time, really, really get your sleep on. Don’t feel guilty for being a couch potato, as long as you’re an occasional couch potato, and make sure you earned that time on the couch. Exercise, and eat right, but don’t deprive yourself of those occasional indulgences. Life seems short, but only if you do it right. If not, it can seem long and hard and not in a fun way.

LESSON LEARNED: Work hard, play hard, be lazy, relax.

“Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.”
– Colin Powell, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

There you have it! Those are the five lessons we learned from our dogs. Now for our question for you: what lessons have you learned from your dog?

Old school psychology loves to ask the question “why”. In my line of work, dealing with criminal types, I can’t use this “why” based focus. It encourages the criminal to blame someone other than themselves for their poor choices and criminal behavior. Rather than trying to get the criminal to cry, morn, or place blame on past experiences with mom, dad, the church, a friend or a trauma, I focus on their present behavior and present thinking errors.

Change the thinking and you change the behavior. In regard to our emotions, they follow our thinking, not the other way around. So, if you want to feel better… change the thinking. Do you get the picture?

It’s especially true that criminal personalities do not benefit from placing blame. It’s actually counter productive and they will use it as justification for their behavior and/or minimize their responsibility for their criminal actions past, present and future. We are all accountable for our actions as adults no matter what was done to us, or not done for us.

Early on in my counseling experience, I treated a multiple personality client, now called Dissociative Identity Disorder. I spent a lot of fascinating time chasing causes. Her father was probably a bad man, but the problem was that her memory was severely compromised and the facts were impossible to corroborate. Eventually I had to stop trying to determine how she got these thoughts and who did what, and simply work on changing current behavior by identifying the current distorted thinking.

Identifying false guilt, shame or false responsibility is a natural by-product of addressing distorted beliefs or irrational thinking. Where it came from is ultimately inconsequential to changing behavior. We older folks forget so much as we age and young children often have distorted recall and the average person’s memory changes so much that we can never know exactly when, or where the erroneous thinking started. It’s enough to know that it did and it’s enough to know that we can change without going back and digging in the past.

People seem to have a love relationship with trying to identify why they do what they do, or did what they did. It’s as if this knowledge will lessen their culpability, or reveal some inner emotional need yet unmet. Oh come now, do we really need this? If you ask me, no, but don’t tell practitioners of some of those really groovy psychological orientations that want you to look at your family of origin. That may be fun if you have lots of time and money, but for most of us real world people, we just want to change behavior and increase our happiness and success in life, not emote over the past.

Those countless pop psychology books, which once seemed so chic, are now fodder for Goodwill stores in every state of our illustrious union. They were fads, which made someone a paycheck, but the long-term benefit is highly suspect. If you want comfort, or feel like emoting, go talk to a caring friend. It is way cheaper, and personally I think it’s much more satisfying. If you really want to improve your life, change self-destructive or self-defeating behavior then its time to identify distorted thinking which leads to inaccurate emotions and ultimately wrong behavior. It’s time to apply some good old… err newer, cognitive behavioral psychology.

“If you want truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between “for” and “against” is the mind’s worst disease.”

– Sent-ts’an, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

My ability to remain calm often dictates my ability to remain reasonable. More importantly, my ability to keep my perspective accurate and my assessment honest keeps me fair and thoughtful, but I do this best when I don’t take sides on every occasion.

The outcome of such “for” or “against” thinking is that it keeps us from insight, understanding and truth. We see this divided thinking in religion with all the many different religions pitted against one another. We see it within a particular religion with its many different sects and denominations. We see it within our country through its divided political parties. And we see it within marriages when they end.

I have been afforded enough time in my life to have once, been for religion, and now skeptical of religion, for one political party and now another, to have been married then divorced. I’m moving toward another path, one where I don’t have to be “for” or “against”. I try to just be assertive and honest. I share my feelings and thoughts with the hope that the other person will work with me toward a solution and not against me. Of course I don’t believe I will change them. I simply hope that my authenticity will allow me to remain true to my intent.

I realized long ago that we can’t change people, we can change only ourselves. I don’t strive to be right, I strive to understand. I believe this approach helps me remain reasonable even when the other person isn’t. Personal change depends on our ability to take responsibility for our lives and make an honest and accurate assessment of life each and every day, especially when a major event shatters our dreams. Simply taking a stance against, or for something with the undesired result of blinding ourselves to truth both personal and real need not be the outcome. We need not be divided and fighting if we seek to understand rather than take sides.

Let Go Of Your Past

The story you tell about how you had a rough start because you were always sick as a kid. The idea that you were a challenging child, or an easygoing child. That you were bright, or creative, or rebellious. The way that story developed into your current ideas about how you ended up the way you are. Do you think that is who you are, the culmination of those stories? What if you let that go, just let it all go? What if you let go of your attachment to that manufactured idea of who you are?

Let Go Of Your Desires

What if you let go of the idea that you’re a morning person, that you’re a cat person, that you’re a vegetarian. That you don’t like traveling, that you do like reading, that you prefer dark colors to pastels. That you’d probably find your soulmate sooner if you could lose that extra twenty pounds. That you wouldn’t crave a soulmate so much if you could just get a job where you made more money. That you wouldn’t crave money so much if you could just find your soulmate. That both your work life and your dating life would pick up if you just moved to a bigger city, a smaller town, a different state.

Let Go Of Your Self Judgments

That you need a faster computer, a newer car, or a bigger apartment. That you have too many sins on your slate to wipe it clean. That your lover will leave if you don’t start being more like what they want. That you need to slow down and enjoy life more. That you need to hurry up and start making the most of your life. That there is a way to measure how full your life is. That someone else can help you decide how to take those measurements.

Let Go Of Your Fixed Ideas Of How Things Are

What if you let go of your ideas about your favorite foods, your most comfortable jeans, or your happiest memory? Your proudest moment, your deepest regret, your most intense longing. Your dreams for the future, your fears for the future, your expectations for the future. Your ideas about how other people are, which ones can be trusted, and which ones cannot. Your religious beliefs, your political stance, your ideas about whether or not you are a likable person.

Letting Go Is Liberating

The idea that who you are is a factor of where you grew up, who your parents were, and what kind of education you received. That things are getting better, that things are getting worse, that one brand name is better than another. All these attachments you have to all these ideas . . . what if you really, truly let them go? Even just for a moment? Collect everything you are and everything you think and just let at all go. What is left of you now? Can you see who you are after letting go? Now, let that go, too! It is amazing how liberating it is to keep practicing letting go.

Now hang on, before you go accusing me of male-bashing, have a look at the facts. For more than two millennia nothing has changed – when a man creates his own empire, it’s perfectly acceptable for him to go out and bend things to suit him, and in fact he’s praised for it. “He never let anything stop him from his goals” is considered a compliment. But when a woman does the same thing, she’s called willful, a coldhearted bitch, or even worse.

Developing A Healthy Attitude Towards Achieving Your Dreams

Now, I’m not saying that women should go out there and act selfishly to prove a point. Of course not. But I do think that we could all use a healthier attitude toward achieving our dreams, and celebrating others when they embrace their abilities and make the most of what they can do.

If all of us, both men and women, could embrace the philosophy that there is enough in the universe to give everyone what they need, then we could let go of this archaic notion that women have to choose between being good little subservient wives and mothers, or having the word “feminist” thrown at them as an insult. As if there were no in betweens.

I’d like to offer a few suggestions about how you can promote yourself without fear of being perceived as a selfish bitch, without feeling like you’re doing something wrong by offering your talents to the world, and without worrying that you might offend all the wrong people and end up worse off than when you started.

Promote Yourself!

One: Remember that everything you see and experience externally is actually you projecting the stories you tell yourself onto others. It’s frustrating, but it’s also the key to turning your perceptions around. If you start healing your own beliefs and start telling yourself a new story, it’s surprising how soon the new story becomes true for you. No longer do you have to believe that men have opportunities that women don’t, or that self promotion is something only shameless attention whores do.

Two: Remember that you are the source. If you ask yourself who you think the source is of money, energy, or whatever else in yourself, and you believe the answer is outside yourself, then you definitely have some work to do on refocusing.

Three: Try testing out the new stories you’re creating for yourself. Promote yourself out loud and see what happens. Do people accuse you of shameless self promotion? And if they do, does the world stop spinning? Some people will love what you do, and some people will hate it, but remember that they’re all projecting their own internal stories, too. What they think about you generally has very little to do with you, so don’t take it personally. Sometimes there’s a process of “getting over it” that can sting a bit at first. It means you have to face your fears, in this case promoting yourself, and stare at it until it isn’t such a big deal anymore. It may seem uncomfortable in the beginning, but as with any other anxiety, the longer you immerse yourself in it, the less anxious you become. You’ll heal your own insecurities, and soon self promotion will be no big deal anymore!

Just What Is Racism?

Racism can be as simple as a visceral reaction or as blatant as a white hood. People don’t want to admit racism when it might reflect poorly on them or distract from what they are trying to accomplish. Is it possible that racism plays a part?

Openess to change and new ideas seems to breed fear and most conservative thinkers, according to the research I’ve seen, and the conservatives I’ve witnessed, are not very open to change or new ideas. Everything needs to be laid out for them, from what to believe in, which party to support, to how the world will eventually end. Their thinking tends to be moralistic, and anyone who doesn’t fit their moral view is suspect or worse, vilified.

To be sure, all the strange accusations about Obama, from questioning his place of birth to his religious affiliation are based on irrational and unhelpful thinking. This line of unreasonable thinking is usually rooted in fear not evidence. As much as people want the same things, like peace, strong families, a strong economy and good government, many people differ on how to achieve this. The end goal usually isn’t the problem. It is the method and fervor people utilize with which to achieve what they believe to be correct. It is the source of these beliefs people should question before we even consider the method, fervor or behavior.

Getting To The Root Of The Problem

Fallacious thinking occurs when both right and left ideologically thinking groups pick sides over facts. They prefer their way of thinking verses accurate or positive thinking. People don’t really care to find the truth as much as they want to prove the other person or group wrong. This is because people like to feel good about themselves and no one wants to be wrong simply because it feels bad when we are wrong or make a mistake. If we allow our pride to rule it will degenerate into an us versus them argument. One tribe pitted against another. Truth, accuracy or helpfulness is rarely associated with this kind of tribal attitude.

In the scheme of things, racism most likely plays a part, but racism is hardly the heart of the problem. It’s the irrational and unhelpful beliefs furthered by fear and anxiety. It’s thoughts and ideas people harbor when they are confronted with something new and uncomfortable. It’s the refusal to consider another alternative. It’s the refusal to believe that my beliefs could be wrong, but more importantly, it is the narcissistic refusal to believe that “I” could be wrong.

Carter was considered a fool back in the 70′s when he tried to warn our country about dependence on foreign fuel. Now look at us. He may be a fool, or he could be a brilliant prophet.

What’s the old saying, “Even a prophet is without honor in his own town?”

This meant that I was probably going to go along crying through my day, feeling miserable and not at all in the mood to smile and be cheerful. I resented that this had to happen right now, when I had a full schedule. I wasn’t really feeling like this was an appropriate time for a meltdown!

Spend Time With Your Tears

But because I fully trust my practice, I know that the best thing for me is not to suppress or conceal whatever needs to be dealt with, but to go ahead and work through it and get things taken care of. I have to deal with whatever I have at the moment and allow myself to feel and heal as necessary. In this case it meant I cried all through my visit to the salon, before my radio show, after my radio show, during my acupuncture appointment, in my car . . . pretty much through the whole day.

Coming Out The Other Side

And at the end of it all, I knew the message of the dreams. It was simple: I needed to have a cry. Nothing more sinister than that. I had some stuff simmering below the surface, some grief and sadness I hadn’t dealt with. Eventually, it boiled up to the surface and demanded my full attention. The difference between the me of now and the me of a decade ago is that these days I know that loving myself means allowing myself to feel okay about crying, okay about expressing any feeling that I need to express. The people who witnessed my crying responded in kind with Kleenex and hugs. Amazing how that happens!

When I checked my e-mail later in the day, I noticed that a friend had sent me this Hopi prayer. Even as soon as I had unburdened myself of my emotional baggage, gifts were already starting to come back to me in an expression of the Divine. I was so moved, I thought I’d share the prayer with you, just in case you have some things in your own heart that you need to deal with and could use a little encouragement. Enjoy!

Hopi Message

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered: Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relationship? Where is your water? Know your garden.

It is a time to speak your Truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader. This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river. See who is in there with you, and celebrate.

At this time in history we are to take nothing personally. Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word “struggle” from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Tip #1: Control Your Liquid Calories

When we think about cutting the fat on our bellies, the first thing that comes to our mind is cutting down on solid food. But one thing that most guys don’t take into account is the amount of LIQUID calories they consume. These liquid calories are typically totally empty of nutrition, and they can really add up fast. If you’ve been trying to lose weight but haven’t been successful, liquid calories could be the reason why.

Think about it: a soda of the size typically served at restaurants has about 480 calories, all pure sugar.

And the average twelve ounce bottle of beer has about 160 calories. How easy is it to drink 5 or 6 beers without even thinking about it? That’s a huge amount of empty calories which go straight to your gut.

Before you even start worrying about changing what you’re eating, start paying attention to what you’re DRINKING. This means:

- Drinking tea, juice, water, or even diet soda in place of regular soda

- Replacing beer or sugary alcoholic drinks with healthier alternatives, such as a vodka tonic

- Avoiding excess consumption of sugary juices, even though they’re marketed as “healthy”

Tip #2: Boost Your Metabolism BEFORE Trying To Lose Weight

Another thing that will make weight loss MUCH easier for you is boosting your metabolism BEFORE you try and lose weight. If your metabolism is low, weight loss is going to be incredibly difficult. You’ll have to eat incredibly tiny portions of food every day, and even if you’re exercising all the time you will still have difficulty losing weight.

Your metabolism is the most important factor in your weight loss, bar none. An extremely hard cardio workout might burn 300 calories at the most but your metabolism will burn between 1500-3000 calories, EVERY SINGLE DAY, WHETHER YOU WORK OUT ON THAT DAY OR NOT.

It’s BY FAR the most important factor – you will easily burn 20x more calories through your metabolism than through exercise directly.

So you’re probably wondering, HOW do I boost my metabolism?

The best way to boost your metabolism is to gain lean body mass (muscle). This muscle will require energy every day to maintain itself, whether you work out on that day or not. This is what will jack your metabolism up, and make fat loss possible.

Back when I used to weight about 160 flabby pounds, I would eat about 1500 calories a day. It sucked – I felt like I was always starving, and I STILL didn’t lose any fat.

Now that I weigh 205 lbs. and I have much more muscle mass, I purposely eat over 3000 calories per day, EVERY DAY. I never gain any weight, because of my increased metabolism.

So if you want to lose weight, first focus on increasing your metabolism through building muscle.

Tip #3: Follow A Nutrition PLAN

Another huge mistake a lot of guys make is that they have no unified plan for their eating. They just try and follow whatever random tips they read off the internet whenever they remember them, and just hope things work out. The reality is, things never work out when you do them this way. If you don’t have a plan, then you’ll end up eating the wrong foods and you will just gain more fat on your stomach.

Because if you don’t have a definite plan — if you don’t know what you’re doing to eat that day in ADVANCE of when you actually eat it — you’ll have to make all your eating choices in the moment. And the only thing to keep you away from unhealthy food choices is going to be sheer willpower.

And let’s face it: NOBODY has very much willpower, and diets that rely on willpower inevitably fail. This is why 95% of people who “go on a diet” lose no weight, and actually GAIN weight beyond what they weighed originally.

But this isn’t to say things are hopeless — there are people who DO have the abs which come from great nutrition. The secret is, these people don’t have any more willpower than you. They just have a structured PLAN that determines what they eat, taking willpower out of the equation.

It is hard to avoid the triggers for our bad food cravings – we all experience stress and boredom and mood swings. But remaining a slave to these bad food cravings is not inevitable. We have found a way to minimize or eliminate the bad food cravings all together. Best of all, we have given up nothing and do not feel as if we are depriving ourselves of anything.

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Start The Day Off Right

We’ve all heard the old stories about eating a good breakfast – but what does that really mean? The answer is different for each of us. Some people operate better when they eat some heavy carbs or protein in the morning and others, like Dan and I operate better when we start the morning off with juice and then gradually work our way up to the heavier foods as the day progresses. The important things is that what ever you put in your body in the morning, it should be healthy fuel for your body. A simple rule of thumb is to stick to food that is as close to nature as possible and pay attention to how you feel 20-30 minutes after you eat. If you feel sluggish and tired, that means that you either ate too much or it was the wrong type of food for your body.

You Do Not Have To Give Anything Up

One of the best ways we have found to start the day off right and eliminate bad food cravings later on?  We have a green juice or green smoothie for breakfast every single morning. That’s right. We invested in a juicing machine over a year ago and have been juicing ever since. We gave up nothing, but added healthful green foods through juicing. We did this every single morning and over the period of a few months, we just did not want to eat bad food any more. The best part: we didn’t intentionally plan on giving up our favorite bad food! Somehow, the effect of green juicing has reduced the craving for bad food. We just don’t seem to crave the ice cream and nachos anymore.  

Why Green Foods Reduce the Craving for Bad Foods

How can drinking a green juice or a green smoothie in the morning reduce the craving for bad food? We all know that green foods like spinach and kale are nutritionally dense. Juicing provides a huge amount of nutrients in one small delicious glass. It could be that the nutrients in green foods make us feel nutritionally satisfied. As a result, our bodies no longer constantly crave bad food for purposes of refueling. Starting off the day with a green juice or a green smoothie certainly seems to provide a steady source of energy over a longer period of time. We no longer experience the huge spikes in blood sugar levels followed by the devastating crash. As a result of drinking green foods, we have more energy to exercise and engage in the other projects we love. Drinking green foods helped us break the vicious cycle of desperate craving for bad food naturally and with very little effort.  Over time, the practice of juicing simply became a lifestyle habit that has made a huge positive difference in our lives.

You can click on “Resources” on our website for delicious recipes for green juice and green smoothies.

Try having a green juice or green smoothie every morning for 30 days and see how you feel! Let us know your experience with green foods.

Probably the most important consideration to remember when buying a juicer is that you are going to use your juicer every day or almost every day. Why? Because the enzyme activity in freshly extracted juice decreases very, very quickly. Ideally, it is best to drink your juice within 15 minutes of juicing. That way, you obtain the maximum vitamin, mineral and anti-oxidant properties that juicing can provide. Keeping in mind that you will want to use your juicer every day, here is a brief overview of what you want to look for when buying a juicer.

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Considerations When Buying A Juicer

The main consideration in buying a juicer is SIMPLE. Get something simple and convenient that you will actually use. The best juicer in the world will do you no good if it sits in the corner gathering dust. You do not want a juicer that is too complicated, cumbersome, or requires time-consuming clean-up. You are looking for ease of assembly, minimal chopping of fruits and vegetables, and easy clean-up. Make sure you buy a juicer that fits into your lifestyle – and fits into your kitchen.  A gargantuan juicer with dozens of parts that need to be scrubbed and oiled daily does not promote ease of use. Pick a juicer that can be disassembled easily and is dishwasher-safe. You will also want a juicer with a large enough mouth to accomodate fruits and vegetables.

Another consideration in choosing a juicer is noise level. Basically, the more powerful the motor, the more noisy a juicer will be.  Unless your goal is to wake up the entire household with your 6 a.m. juicing, choosing a less powerful juicer will probably more than adequately meet your juicing needs and your housemates will thank you for not turning their living space into what sounds like a demolition site.

Of course, price is an important consideration in buying a juicer. Prices of juicers vary widely – from under $100 to over $500 and higher – depending on the available features. To start out, choose a juicer that is affordable for you. And make sure you read the warranty! Warranties can range from a few months to a decade to a lifetime. You are looking for a long-lasting warranty that covers the entire machine.

Below are a few examples of some popluar juicers and their features to help give you an idea of what is on the market today:

Breville Juicer Juice Fountain

The Breville Juice Fountain Professional is the juicer we have used for about a year.  It is simple – easy to use and easy to clean. The juicer is designed to conserve counterspace. It has a large mouth that accomodates larger fruits and vegetables. We paid about $150 for our Breville Juicer Juice Fountain, but you can find one on the internet for $109 plus free shipping.  It has a powerful motor and comes with a one-year warranty.

Jack LaLanne Power Juicer Express

Jack LaLanne is perhaps the world’s most famous body builder. He is is over 95 years old and credits exercise and juicing as the key to his long life.  Jack LaLanne has been selling his juicers for years on television and on the internet. We found a “Buy One Get One Free” offer on his website: buy one Jack LaLanne Power Juicer Express for $89.97 and get the second free with additional shipping and handling. This juicer looks very compact and the motor is less powerful than the Breville juicer. The parts are dishwasher safe for easy cleanup. It comes with a 60-day money back guaranty. According to the website, the “whisper quiet” motor comes with a lifetime warranty.

Omega Vert

The Omega Vert has the highest price tag of the three juicers we looked at. At $349, the Omega Vert has an electric induction motor and fewer moving parts than most juicers. In theory, this means the motor is less likely to burn out than other juicers. The Omega Vert has been built the same way for the past several decades, seemingly attesting to its quality design. The Omega Vert has a self-cleaning feature using water that keeps the juicer from becoming clogged. It comes with a 10-year warranty on the blade parts.

A good way to check out a variety of juicers is to view instructional videos on the internet. This way you can compare different juicers side by side.

Again, the one we use is the Breville Juice Fountain Professional. It works fine and cleanup is easy, so we recommend it.

We all know we should eat more fruits and vegetables. But most people have neither the time nor the desire to eat plates and plates of fruits and vegetables everyday! 

Juicing is a simple way to get all the benefits from a variety of fruits and vegetables in one small, delicious glass.

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What Is Juicing?

Juicing is extracting the good stuff – the vitamins, minerals, nutrients and water – from plants using a juicing machine.  

The benefits of juicing are almost too numerous to list. Below are just some great reasons to juice:

• Juicing at home is relatively cost-effective. Instead of paying over $4 for a small bottle of juice at a health food store, once you have purchased your juicer, you can juice your own healthful blends for just pennies a serving. 
• Juicing is an excellent way to get the recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables. The USDA currently recommends five cups of fruits and vegetables daily for a 2200 calorie diet (the average man’s diet), and four cups daily for a 1800 calorie diet (the average woman’s diet.) 
• Juicing enables you to obtain the vitamins, minerals and nutrients required for optimal health, vitality and functioning.  Fruits and vegetables have long been known to prevent and cure certain diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, allergies and certain mood disorders. 
• Eating freshly juiced raw fruits and vegetables allows you to digest and absorb a greater amount of beneficial nutrients. The juicing process breaks down cell walls for faster digestion, and  nutrients are not destroyed by heat or other processing. 
• Anti-oxidants contained in fruits and vegetables have an anti-aging effect for younger looking skin, hair and nails. 
• Eating a greater proportion of fruits and vegetables every day helps you lose those love handles and maintain a healthy weight.  
• Juicing is a fun and creative way to do something good for yourself and your family. You can go even greener by planting a garden and picking your favorite fresh and organic fruits and vegetables everyday!

Open Your Own Juice Bar Today

Literally hundreds of different fruit and vegetable juices are possible. In practice, the number and type of juice combinations are only limited by your own preferences. The one rule of thumb: only blend fruits with fruits and vegetables with vegetables. The exception to the rule is that you can blend apples with vegetables. Apples are sweet and taste great with vegetables. (Pushing an apple through the juicer also helps to push through a softer fruit or vegetable that may not have completely cleared the machine.)  You do want to thoroughly wash your hands and all fruits and vegetables prior to juicing. Remove any stems, pits and seeds. Orange rinds are nasty tasting, so remove those, too. Cut larger fruits and vegetables into chunks that your juicer can easily accomodate.   

A delicious tasting, simple base recipe is to juice one medium apple with two medium carrots. You can experiment with just about any fruit or vegetable you like. Green vegetables like kale and spinach can be bitter, so add those sparingly at first until you have acquired the taste. Parsley, garlic and ginger are more exotic flavors you can add when you’re feeling a little more daring. Keep watching our videos for some of our favorite juicing recipes. 

Try this experiment:  try juicing by drinking one glass of fresh juice a day for 30 days, and see how much better you feel! 

Important Note: you should consult with your doctor before embarking on your juicing journey.

Historically speaking,  ALL change has given humans  the opportunity to adapt and evolve  -  over tens of thousands of years  -  into who we are today. Sometimes the smallest, seemingly most insignificant changes have enabled humans to eventually make giant evolutionary leaps.

On both a collective and individual level, we create the change necessary to achieve our dreams. Yet even when change is desireable, we find that change is not always easy. . . .

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Why Most People Fail To Achieve Their Dreams

Most people fail to achieve their dreams because their dreams are TOO BIG. Deciding to lose 50 pounds. Getting a college degree.  Owning a successful business. Those are all pretty tall orders.  Just thinking about the enormity of those big dreams can cause some people to psych themselves out. They see the entire mile of road stretched out in front of them. Their dream seems too far away, too distant to achieve. They become daunted and disheartened and give up before they start. Supersizing your dreams can have the unintended effect of preventing desireable change.

Inch By Inch Life Is A Cinch

Remember when you were young and just learning to ride a bicycle? You weren’t popping wheelies the first day! You probably started out riding a little red tricycle. Then, when you got your first Big Kid bike, you rode around with training wheels for a few months. After the training wheels came off, dad steadied your bike until you learned to balance on your own. Little by little, you gained the confidence and the skills to perform fancy tricks – like riding with no hands . . . .  Okay, maybe not. The point is, you eventually achieved your goal by taking small steps and practicing every day. The same principle you used as a child applies to achieving your dreams today. Take baby steps. Small, achievable steps in the direction of your dream are easy to make. For example, instead of telling yourself that you have to lose 50 pounds, begin your commitment to a healthy lifestyle by adding a salad before every meal. Take a single night class to start working toward your college degree. Get to know the business you want to eventually own by starting in an entry-level position and working your way up. Doing one little thing at a time can turn that Mount Everest into a bunny slope. The Bonus: when you succeed at small things, your confidence builds, making it even EASIER to change your life!

Rewire Your Brain

The only way to make these little changes stick is to rewire your brain. You need to untrain your brain from its old habits, and retrain your brain for change.  But remember, old habits die hard! The best method for rewiring your brain is to practice, practice, practice. Practice your little step in the direction of your dream every single day for 30 days. This is how long it takes for changes to become wired into your brain. And you have to be disciplined. The 30 days have to be consecutive. No Fair Cheating! If you skip a day, you short-circuit your attempts at rewiring your brain. Be patient with yourself and with the process. You can make a decision at the end of the 30 days whether to commit to this change, if you believe the change has been positive. Finally, try this Experiment:  Make one small positive change that brings you closer to your goal every 30 days. Do this for one year. At the end of the year, look back and see how much your life has changed for the better!

What one little thing are you going to change? Let us know!

Sadly, we forget about the most important person in the world. We forget about ouselves. We forget about Me. Before we know it, we have run out of steam. Life becomes a habit and a chore and not the joy it was meant to be.

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.  You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”  - Lucille Ball

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Me Time

“Me Time” is the time you take to take care of yourself. It is the time you take to escape from the pressures of everyday life, to enjoy yourself, to make yourself whole. Ideally, Me Time is something you do everyday, maybe even several times a day. Me Time is anything that helps you relax and feel good about yourself. Me Time enables you to Love Yourself First.

Make Yourself Happy First

We all want our loved ones to be happy and to please our boss. But no one can give 100% if they are tired, worn out and overwhelmed. Me Time is so important because we cannot make others happy unless we are happy, first. Me Time recharges our battery and allows us to quietly focus our attention on what is really important. We become calm and centered and better able to deal with the everyday bumps along the road of life. As a result, we are able to give more of ourselves to others. Me Time is an investment in yourself, for yourself. And the dividends pay off big! The beneficiaries include our family, friends, co-workers and community at large. Have you ever noticed how when you smile at a stranger, their face lights up in a smile as well? People just seem to respond better to someone who is genuinely happy.

How To Take Care Of You

There are so many things you can do for yourself everyday to  make yourself happy. Enjoy a quiet cup of coffee in the morning before everyone else wakes up. Do some yoga stretches to improve your strength, flexibility and mental focus. Take a walk outside during lunch or go to the gym. Download music or audiobooks to enjoy during your commute. Meditate while gardening.  Play fetch with your favorite pooch. Once a month, you can splurge and treat yourself to something really special. Visit your local spa for a massage or a pedicure. If you enjoy the arts, purchase a season ticket for the symphony or a membership at the arts museum. Sports fans can do the same to cheer on their favorite team. If you’re saying to yourself right now “No, I really don’t have the time or the money to do something like that!,” remember that this as an investment in yourself. You are worth it!

What Me Time activity do you do to make yourself happy? Let us know!

Some people really do put their lives on hold, waiting to live the life of their dreams.  True happiness eludes them.  And so, some people discover, too late, that life has passed them by.  You can live the life of your dreams – not next year or in five years - but Today!

The amazing part is, living your dreams today does not require wealth, connections, or a genius IQ.  It’s fun, it’s free and it’s right here, right now!

“The best way to live the life of your dreams is to start living the life of your dreams Today, in every little way that you possibly can.”
– Mike Dooley, Inspirational Quotes from Today Is That Day

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Don’t Ruminate About The Past Or Dream Of The Perfect Future

Some people become mired in the past, thinking about regrets or missed opportunities.  They believe their dreams would have come true if only they had finished college or if only they had come from a wealthy family.  Others wait to really live their lives until they have achieved their goals.  They dream of how perfect life will be sometime in the future.  They believe they will be happy as soon as they buy that house, or as soon as they find Mr. Right.  Living in the past or idealizing the future only prevents you from living life in the present.  When you focus on the past or the future, you fail to enjoy the Now.  Forget the past and don’t worry about the future.  As Master Oogway once told Po, the panda, in Kung Fu Panda:

“Quit, don’t quit.  Noodles, don’t noodles. You are too concerned about what was and what will be.  There is a saying:  yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery,  but today is a gift.  That is why it is called the ‘present.’ “

Live Life In The Present

Enjoy life by living in the present.  Don’t wait to start enjoying your life  someday – Today is that Day!   Start living a part of your dreams now.  You can do this by doing little things everyday that make you feel as if you are already living your dream.  Enjoy a cup of coffee in that luxury hotel in which you’ve dreamed of staying.  Go to the dealership and sit in the Mercedes you want to buy.  Buy the outfit that makes you feel like a top executive.   Save money every day so that you can literally visualize your Financial Freedom.  When you start doing little things like this every day, you will feel as if you are presently living your dream.  You will begin to feel the abundance of living in the present.  You will feel the great feeling of gratitude for what you have now.   Living in the present will help you live the life of your dreams now.

Live Your Dreams Now

You don’t have to live your life thinking you would be happy “if only”  your dreams would come true.  When you visualize yourself living your dreams everyday and take every small step possible toward actualizing your dreams every single day, you will be living your dreams now.  You will enjoy the experience of staying in the luxury hotel.  You will feel as great as if you really owned that Mercedes.  You will feel as confident as a top executive.    You will watch your money grow and enjoy the feeling of Financial Freedom.  Living your dreams - now and everyday – is the best and quickest way to live the life of your dreams.  Give yourself the gift of the present by starting to live your dreams today.

What do you do everyday to live your dreams?  Let us know!