Chapter 13 Spring into Fitness

Aptly named.

This is the week I NEED to spring into Fitness. Seriously. I just put up a post at The Life and Times of the Contessa that clearly indicates how important fitness is going to be moving forward.

Cheryl Richards puts a "Take Action Challenge" out there that's very interesting.

She asks that you find 5 obstacles to being a healthier person one day at a time and then to discover 5 solutions.

So here goes:

Obstacles:

1. Poor time management
2. Tired
3. Boredom
4. Fear
5. health

Solutions:

1. I will schedule my fitness into my calendar each day
2. I will go to sleep slightly earlier and wake up at the same time each day
3. Add different fitness activities to keep me interested
4. I will monitor myself and if I don't see a difference in 3 months of serious work, I will see a doctor again
5. If I maintain a balanced and healthy lifestyle I will not need to be so worried about this.

So these are my goals for this week. I am adding fitness for the main purpose of stress release. secondly, for weight loss and third for health and meditation.

Conclusion Chapter 12

This was a wonderful chapter for me but it's a technique that is slow in coming. It's working but I need to start on something smaller and work my way up.

I have a small financial burden that I need to clear up. With Tax day around the corner, I shut everything out of my mind. I didn't think about it for 2 week, then I discovered the solution. In the car while I was driving. And it will clear up everything with some left over.

I do still love this technique - I just need to start small and work my way up.

Chapter 12 - Giving your mind a rest

I absolutely LOVE this chapter.

It deals with wisdom and congnitive thinking.

We use Cognitive thinking all day in our jobs, putting together things, figuring out solutions etc.

She used a wonderful example of trying to find hte solution to a problem but keep hitting a brick wall. Or why suddenly you get the solution in the shower, or swimming in the ocean, or the middle of the night.

Why is it people who have been on vacation, by the end, are so relaxed and ful of brilliant ideas?

Because we allow the cognitive part of our brains to rest. This allows the wisdom we have to come forth.

The take action challenge is pretty interesting. It is asking for you to choose a problem that is giving you a hard time solving and suggesting that you not think about it for a specified amount of time. Be finite with the time and day. If your brain strays there during the time you aren' t thimking about it, prepare a mantra that you will use to remind your self nont to think about it until your time/date.

Mine is my issues at work with my incompetent leadership. Looking for a short-term and long term solution.

I have given myself until sunday at 3PM to come up with a solution based on wisdom.

I will not think about it again until that time and if I do, I will say to myself - this will be adressed on Sunday, don't worry about it now.

I love this plan. So much less stress!

Chapter 11 Checking Under the Hood

Somehow I got behind again....

This Chapter deals with developing oneself in order to fulfill ones goals.

The take Action Challenge for this week was to discover ways that you might need to develop in order to fullfill your goals.

1. the first item was to identify someone who is succesful at the thing that you want to accomplish.

I chose Susan my Weight watcher leader. Not only has she lost a lot of weight and kept it off for 20+ years, but she gives back by being not just any leader, but the number 1 leader in the state in certain areas.

2. She is inspirational, she is brutally honest, but the results from her are astounding. I haven't been there in 2 weeks which is not common for me, but the losses are happening and I am hearing her in my mind.

3. The quality I need to develop here is brutal honesty. I can fudge the measurements better than anyone. If I am brutally honest with myself then I stand a much better chance at being successful.

4. risk Taking - I have to be willing to take the risks that I am not comfortable with in terms of weight loss. I plan to take risks by managing my food and drink at the restaurant this week.

5. Resources for assistance, my meetings with Susan and supplemental meetings and the website.

Update on Chapter 10

Wow this is a tough week for this.

But in order to maintain my promise to myself, I am not thinking of people who don't like or appreciate me as a failure on my part. Instead I am choosing to view this as a shortcoming on their part. They can't see how exceptional I am and I am not to blame for that. I cannot control other people and it's a time waster to try.

I actually tend to try to do nice and friendly things for these people having still made the decisions and what not above. So I don't know if I just don't believe it or what.

I stopped myself before sending that comment to the persons webpage. I think that was a big step for me.

It's a tough lesson and I don't know that I am learning it all that well but I am trying.

Chapter 10 Stop Juggling and Start Livinig

Ironically, this exercise came up this week.

My post in The Life and Times of the Contessa, titled "90 Miles an hour with my hair on fire" so aptly applies to this particular chapter.

Maybe my subconscious had something to do with it....

This week suggested that most of us juggle and keep a lot of balls in the air at one time. Just imagine Michelle Pfeifer in "One Fine Day".... She describes has life as having all these balls in the air and everything is working JUST FINE, thank you very much, and she couldn't possibly accept help and most especially NOT from George Clooney.

So you get the idea.

Cheryl Richardson suggests that we select one of the following list of balls and drop it:

Trying to please everyone

Trying to have everyone like you

Trying to be the star at the expense of your own life

Trying to do everything perfectly

Trying to do everything

Your reliance on adrenaline

So this week, I chose "Trying to have everyone like you."

Why ? you may ask. Why THAT item. Especially when those who know me know that I have a problem with every single one these balls.

Well it's like domino's. If I take care of "Trying to have everyone like me", I will also be able to better control "Trying to please everyone", "Trying to do everything" and "Trying to be the star at the expense of your own life".

So The next item I have to deal with is also explaining the way it plays into my life. Well, as explained many ways and times in the Life and times of, I am a people pleaser which is generally fueled with needing to be liked.

It's kind of weird that I feel this way because, in general, I am well liked. I have always had no trouble making and keeping friends. I have friends form evey phase of my life from Pre-K to my most current activities. So why is this so important to me when it comes so naturally?

The question should really be, for those that do not like me, why do I care? It has more to do my self esteem than anything else, why can I win over 9 out of 10 people and not the 10th? What's wrong with me that I don't win over the 10th?

So this week, I am going to try focusing on the good friends and people I do have in my life and worrying less about the ones that aren't.

I don't need to find the negative reasons why this person shouldn't be in my life, but I do find that I should look at the negatives as to why we aren't compatable as a reason.

I will give you an example. There is a person I know. Lovely, intelligent, caring, a wonderful and special person, we have so much in common but there's one habit I can't abide by. It bothers me that it was their decision not to continue the friendship, but I would have done the same thing in my own time and in fact, have.

And I see it as a personal failing.

So I am now choosing to look at this situation, not as a failing but more as a success to know who and what kind of people I want in own inner circle.

Chapter 9 The power of Focus

My challenge this week is to determine whether I am focused or do I need to improve that.

The suggested exercise is one I have actaully been doing relatively ongoing. Each week I am to pick one project and devote a specific, scheduled amount of time to it. without mulitasking.

Now for those of you who like those meme's - the question that's on most of them that makes me laugh is "Do you juggle" and my answer is always - every single day. My job is all about the multitasking.

I can't dramatically alter that, though on my major project that is starting to ramp up I am no longer multitasking on those calls. I am fully plugged in and engaged as my portion is coming up quickly.

So what I have decided to do is a two pronged approach. I will be unplugging for the project loosely referred to as SSBP each week to do a certain amount of work on it as well as the project called GRIID. On a personal note, I will be unplugging and putting my full attention on my 30 minute exercize each day. Nothing will be interefering with that. It is now scheduled on my work calendar as an appointment so no one can overbook.