Week 2 - New Year New You.

This chapter deals with setting internal goals for the year for yourself. Taking a quality that you admire or would like to adopt or be better at and making that your target for the year.

I need to focus on a selection and then I need to write a short positive affirmation in the present tense relating to that goal.

Then I need to post in my working and household environment ( Lisa- I could learn to cross stitch it! I need a new hobby!).

Then I need to come up with three actions I take immediately to start honoring that quality and adopting it as part of my person.

I always have trouble with this and have a tendancy to wimp out and pick something that's too easy to fix. Or worse yet, one that's not even broken.

So in thinking this through I have decided that this year I am going to be focusing on surrounding myself with people who honor and support the values that are important to me. Yes, this sounds very basic I know. But all of us have people that we hold onto for sentimental reasons but you have grown apart, or people who are just plain toxic to you, but you stay because you don't want to deal with confrontation.

So this year I am either going to massage the relationship so that both people truly benefit from it or I am going to cut it loose. Of course, I will be slowly evaluating each one and asking some questions like:

• Does this person support the value set that I have?
• Are we family?
• Does the relationship make me a better person? Do I contribute that to the other person as well?
• Is the relationship something I enjoy or is it a "chore"
• Does this person represent an ideal for me?
• If any of the answers reflects in the negative, can the relationship be salvaged ?

This is going to be tough and I need to come up with my three point plan on how to accomplish this on a daily basis.

More on that later!

Week 1 The Journey Begins: 25 accomplishments from 2006.

1. Performed my first 1 hour long vocal recital
2. Improved my relationship with my brother and mom
3. Survived my 5th merger at my company
4. Organized my kitchen cabinets AND Maintained them
5. Organized my bedroom closet and maintained it
6. Continue to attend my Weight Watchers meetings
7. Acquired the tools that I need to be a better singer and teacher
8. Improved relations with my oldest friend.
9. Worked on relationships with my friends in general
10. Brought in a significant amount of money for ALS fundraiser
11. Continue to do my job well despite personel issues relating to merger
12. Maintaining my skin.
13. Have worked my finances so that I teach what/who and when I want not when I HAVE to teach.
14. Standing up for myself in a respectful manner
15. FINALLY acknowledging that I am GIRLY Girl. I like frills, clothes, even pink in small doses. Yes I own Maribou slippers in pink AND white.
16. I hooked up and am working the Dubbing VHS/DVD AND figured out my Ipod.
17. Lost a dress size - two actually.
18. I sang backup to Andy Williams.
19. Auditioned for and got selected to sing First Soprano in LI Masterworks last season
20. Learned enough HTML to be dangerous ( and still make pretty Blog pages)
21. Consistently blogged for 6 months on blogger and 4 months on Myspace.
22. have managed my finances so that I have the best retirement plan for me plus additional savings accounts.
23. Respectfully Stood up for my beliefs and needs despite the demands being put to me by others
24. Helped a friend through a divorce
25. pulled the copper tiles off the walls of my kitchen and replaced it with wallpaper.
26. Maintaining my cats health and our happiness together.
27. My teaching has improved. My kids are happy and I have retained the same kids for more than 3 years
28. Made two new friends - one is a neighbor in my building
29. Brave enough to have my eyelashes curled AND tinted.
30. Using Self awareness to help make better choices for me.
31. Healthier this year than previous years through some uses of holistic remedies
32. Keep in touch with my grandmother and aunt more frequently.
33. Have started using the internet to improve my time. ( Peapod, bill pay, medco delivery)
34. Keeping God and Church a priority for me rather than just a job.
35. I'm starting to get comfortable with being "my age". I may look young but I'm not 20 anymore.
36. Created and Maintained a household budget that enables me to know what I want to do and then go out and earn the money in order to do it.

I think my personal preference for my top 5 accomplishments are;

• Performed my first 1 hour long vocal recital
• Improved my relationship with my brother and mom
• Created and Maintained a household budget that enables me to know what I want to do and then go out and earn the money in order to do it.
• Respectfully Stood up for my beliefs and needs despite the demands being put to me by others
• Improved relations with my oldest friend

Three ways that I have Grown in the last year:

• I'm starting to get comfortable with being "my age". I may look young but I'm not 20 anymore
• FINALLY acknowledging that I am GIRLY Girl. I like frills, clothes, even pink in small doses. Yes I own Maribou slippers in pink AND white.
• Using Self awareness to help make better choices for me.

This was a fun exercise. I have done it before - each year actually. I am going to be moving through the book faster in the beginning to catch up to actual calendar week that we are at. So for awhile you will see 2 exercizes per week.

Week 1 - The Journey Begins

This week I am tasked with keeping a journal, which I already do, and also to make a list of a minimum of 25 things that I have accomplished in the past year.

In addition to this , I need to pick my top 5 from this list and another 3 that show growth over the past year.

I have been using The Life and Times of The Contessa, as a journal since July 2006. So this actually works out to be more of a continuation from last year. No need to create a new habit, its already there!

As for the 25 accomplishments, that will be the work in progress this week. It will be in next weeks post but it also hold its own distinction on the side of the Blog list itself.

Look for it. We'll hold a review next Tuesday and see what we've learned and where we are going on week 2.

Au Revoir!

Welcome and Mission Statement

Welcome to Life Makeovers of the Contessa.

For those of you who are new, I am the Contessa. I have a Blog called "The Life and Times of the Contessa".

This Blog is going to be very specific. It will chronicle and follow me as I work my way through "Life Makeovers" by Cheryl Richardson.

This book has 52 weeks worth of exercises designed at improving and inspiring your life. Therefore each week, on a Monday, I will be putting up a post on the previous weeks exercize and a plan for the coming week.

If anyone wishes to join me on this journey ( and it's going to be a fun one!!! I've scanned this book before and it has some neat things in it. ) I would love company. The book is designed to be used by a group as well as an individual.

So go to Barnes and Noble or Amazon, pick up the book and join me on the journey!